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Here's a Campaign Setting product that I think would sell -- at least, I know I'd buy a copy. :)
I love maps. All kinds of maps. And Pathfinder has some great maps, that's for sure. And it's got a great world, too. But it seems to me that most of the maps of Golarion are pretty narrow in their focus. They've got cities and towns, labels for major geographic features like forests and mountain ranges, and places for adventures to happen. So far, so good; that's probably what adventurers care the most about.
But I'd love to see more varied maps of Golarion that convey more information about the world:
I'd like to see the road networks that connect cities and towns together, complete with mileage and normal travel time. How far is Westcrown from Augustana, by road, ship, and overland flight?
I'd like to see environmental maps, showing the differences in climate in different regions (fun fact: most of Cheliax has a Mediterranean climate. How many players know this?).
I'd like to see maps of trade routes and economic products. What are the endpoints to the Isger trade route? What does Andoran export? Where does all of Katapesh's Pesh go? How much merchant shipping goes through the Shackles?
How about an ethnic map? Where are the lines where you could expect to start seeing fewer Varisians and more Ulfens, then less Ulfens and more Kellids?
In short, what I'd love to see is a fairly complete Atlas of Golarion, or at least an Atlas of the Inner Sea: a variety of maps each showing different important features of the same region.
Oh, and one other thing: I'd love to see a real world-style political map, with colored countries to clearly indicate the national borders, and flags on each nation. Maybe that could also include alliances and enmities between countries, too.
Who else thinks this would be a really fun product to use?
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While I'd like to see such an item, I don't really see it being a big seller.
Ran a quick overlay of the main map with some shading on it though. Something like this (but much higher quality) what you're looking for?
The Kingdoms of Kalamar came out with an absolutely gorgeous atlas that was also quite useful. I have no clue how well it sold but I'd buy the Golsrion version of that in a heartbeat. Heck, I'd probably subscribe to the kickstarter for it.
I would love to see a product like this eventually :)
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While I'd like to see such an item, I don't really see it being a big seller.
Ran a quick overlay of the main map with some shading on it though. Something like this (but much higher quality) what you're looking for?
Yes, nice! Though of course Paizo could do it up pretty. And they could put the flags of each country on there, too.
I think a map like that makes certain important things stand out a lot better. For example, you can see how much bigger Cheliax is than all of its neighbors.
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I was also incredibly surprised at the size of Cheliax and Varisia.
It's true. I'd say lots of folks probably realize how big Varisia is, since there are adventures that travel all over it.
But when I think of Cheliax, I think of Egorian and Westcrown, just two big cities. And maybe some Hellknight fortresses here and there. But Cheliax actually has a vast amount of hinterland, too. And as far as I know, there aren't too many published adventures set in rural Cheliax.
maybe if it merges with the Ultimate Exploration/environments book
Shut up and take my money!
I would buy this. Twice.
I would, too (yes, twice) but I have to agree with thistledown: my pair of purchases wouldn't make up for the tens of thousands of players who care nothing about roads, trade routes, ocean currents, prevailing winds, mineral and grain production, and all the other details included in the Atlas of Kalamar.
And for the developers who haven't even committed to a published outline of continents on Golarion, or had time to produce gazetteers of major areas of interest like Southern Garund, Vudra and Arcadia, a book like this would require a huge amount of decision-making up front, making organic development of those areas problematic in some ways. Yeah, it would also provide a starting point and framework for development of those areas, but to a large extent it would lock that starting point in place, years in advance of when that development would otherwise have been done. That reduced flexibility is almost certainly not a good thing.
And that makes me really sad, because I would love to have this book in the near future -- are we there yet? -- but I'm totally convinced I will just have to learn to live with disappointment.
+1. The atlas done for the Dragonlance setting has been an immense resource for me throughout my years as a Dragonlance GM and as designer on Dragons of Spring. I'd love to see something similar happen for Golarion.
I would absolutely, definitely, buy that. I can't count the number of times I've tried to explain to my players the political differences and borders of the areas and factions that surround them. I generally just whip out the map of the inner sea and point at it in vague directions. "This is sorta Cheliax, this is The Shackles-ish area, this is around about the territory of Varisia... I think". It would be incredible to have a proper atlas for it all.
Hey, imagine if Paizo could even print it on an actual globe!
That said, I imagine it would be difficult to market it as something completely seperate from The Inner Sea Guide, and the Inner Sea Map Folio. What would they call it? The Inner Sea Atlas Folio?
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+1. The atlas done for the Dragonlance setting has been an immense resource for me throughout my years as a Dragonlance GM and as designer on Dragons of Spring. I'd love to see something similar happen for Golarion.
I have one too, and I admit it's a beautiful book. Got the Pern one too. I should track down the Middle Earth one to round out the set (All by same illustrator)
+1. The atlas done for the Dragonlance setting has been an immense resource for me throughout my years as a Dragonlance GM and as designer on Dragons of Spring. I'd love to see something similar happen for Golarion.I have one too, and I admit it's a beautiful book. Got the Pern one too. I should track down the Middle Earth one to round out the set (All by same illustrator)
She also did Forgotten Realms and The Land (Thomas Covenant), yeah.
Sadly, Karen Fonstad passed away years ago. :(
I'm surprised people think this wouldn't sell - I'd also buy two and would think it would be reasonably popular.
I suspect the main barrier to its viability would be the high cost of production (given the heavy art/cartography component).
Yeah, I was going to say Karen Fonstad's death was a great loss to us all, may she RIP.
What I was also going to say was: does anyone remember the Forgotten Realms Atlas? Not the paper version, but the electronic version that was developed in conjunction with Profantasy and Campaign Cartographer?
Can you imagine a Campaign Cartographer 3 version of the whole of Golarion, with the free CC3 map viewer as part of it (but the ability to edit the maps with the full version of CC3), all on a DVD?
Oh, man...I think I just peed a little...:)
Add me in. I mostly buy PDFs, but I would buy this in HC in a heartbeat.
I'd buy this as well!
I would buy this
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Add me in for one (or more)!
Can dream, ne...
Carry on!
-- C.
No response from Paizo staff negating the book... maybe they don't see this theme, maybe the book is on the making. ^^
+1 here
While I do want this, it's far far too early to even consider it. We've only seen three of the seven or eight continental areas in any detail!
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Another thing I'd love to see, though realistically I know it wouldn't go ahead because it would only be bought by anally-retentive, map-obsessed people like me, would be a climate map of Golarion.
Something like this:
Koppen Climate Classification - World Map
for Golarion. *sigh*
Remember, I'm the guy who uses weather generation software to work out the weather a year or two in advance in my campaigns. Funnily enough, my players actually *love* the fact that often I'll ditch a random monster encounter (or even a planned one, which doesn't affect the storyline) and replace it with a "Man vs. Nature" scenario.
My son (who is the only other GM in our group) has started doing something similar in his games, and *his* players love it, as well. Sometimes, it's much more fun for the characters to deal with a howling blizzard, or a sudden tropical cyclone, rather than yet another group of wolves or owlbears...:)
I like this map idea, I liked the D&D encyclopedia with all of its maps and back grounds.
I have a suggestion that might go good with it "Racial sub-levels", giving each race their own "take" on the classes. here's an example I did up today (just messing around really, but I like it):
Orc Ranger: Orc ranger class functions the same as the standard ranger class except for the following.
Orc rangers, forge lifelong relationships with their preferred dire weasel companions as they act as spies and runners, scouts and hunters for their tribes.
Hit Die: d8.
Requirements
To take an Orc ranger substitution level, a character must be an Orc or a Half-Orc.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An Orc ranger is proficient with “all” axes, falchions, bows and with any weapon with the word “orc”
in its name. An Orc ranger is restricted to light armor (an Orc ranger can not use any of his class features/abilities while wearing medium and heavy armor), and shields (except tower shields).
Class Features
All the following are class features of the Orc ranger racial substitution levels.
Orc Favored Enemy (Ex): An Orc ranger who takes the 1st-level racial substitution level gains the normal ranger favored enemy bonus on checks and damage rolls, but the skills affected by the bonus are Bluff, Disguise, Intimidate, Spot, and Survival instead of those given for the standard ranger.
An Orc ranger may only select, humanoid (dwarf), humanoid (elf), and humanoid (human) as his favored enemy, he gains a +3 bonus against the chosen creature type instead of the standard +2. Bonuses against such creatures also increase by 3 every time the Orc ranger gains a new favored enemy, instead of the standard +2 increase.
This substitution feature replaces but is otherwise identical to the standard ranger's favored enemy class feature (PH 64).
Dire Weasel Companion (Ex): An Orc ranger who takes the 4th-level racial substitution level gains a dire wolf animal companion. This ability functions like the druid's animal companion ability, treating the Orc ranger's effective druid level as half his ranger level, instead of half his ranger level -3. An Orc ranger cannot select from an alternative list of animal companions; he is restricted to choosing a dire wolf as his animal companion.
This substitution feature replaces the standard ranger's animal companion class feature.
An Orc ranger who takes this substitution level gains Track as a bonus feat and the wild empathy ability (PH 64), just as a standard ranger does.
Orc Ranger Spells: Orc rangers have the same spell selection as the standard rangers.
Combat Style Feat (Ex): At 2nd level, an Orc ranger gains the shield combat style and effectively has the feat Two-Weapon Fighting when he has a shield in his off hand (see rules on page 142, 152, and 202 for damage dealt by shields and Two-weapon fighting), and gains the feat Improved Shield Bash. At 6th level he gains Shield Focus, at 10th level he gains Shield Slam, at 14th level he gains Greater Shield Focus, and at 18th level he gains Shield Master. The Orc ranger gains these feats even if he does not have the normal prerequisites; but if he chooses to take any of these feats prior to when he gains them through this class, he must meet all of their prerequisites.
Does any one have any thoughts; likes, dislikes, love, hate?
This ISWG is basically an atlas.
But.
I still want this.
I love the design space that results from the ISWG existing already and then asking "what can your designers do with even more maps?"
Take my money!
I'd preorder immediately.
I loved the Kingdoms of Kalamar atlas. While an Avistan/Inner Sea/Garamund atlas wouldn't feasibly go as granular (nor would I want it to) it would be fantastic to get more detailed maps, climate, vegetation, trade routes, resources/exports laid out in a single book!
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Glad to see so much support for this idea!
Evil Lincoln: one thing that first made me think about this was looking at the maps in the ISWG and wishing they were a little bit better. For example, the maps of the individual countries in each section don't show any details of their neighbors. I found myself having to flip back to the big Inner Sea map to hunt around for where exactly a country is located. And that was hard too, since the big map's design doesn't highlight the national borders very strongly. It would have been nice to either A) have the neighboring countries labeled on the nation maps (just a name across the border would be enough), or else B) have a little thumbnail of the Inner Sea region by each map, with the country's location highlighted. Or both!
But I'd love to see a collection of maps really take off, to the extent that it could be a full complement to the ISWG. My idea is having a bound book, not a packet of separate maps like the folios.
While I think such a book would be interesting to read/look through, I would put it on my "nice to have" list not my "must buy" list. I find books like this are more fun to read than use.
I loved the Kingdoms of Kalamar Atlas, but I'm not certain that Paizo could pull of quite the same product.
Kalamar, from what I understand was basically a campaign setting born of geography and weather patterns and trade winds, etc. In other words the reason the Kalamar Atlas worked so well is because the stories of the campaign setting grew out of the geography and environment. With Golorian the stories that were wanted to be told created the need for the geography, etc.
If Paizo could pull it off, it'd be great.
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Too bad Karen Wynn Fonstad is no longer around - she did a bang-up job on the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance Atlases (not to mention the Middle Earth one).
Add a great, big, fat, resounding "YES!" from me for a product like this.
Creative Director
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I'd love a product like this, although I remember an older thread where I believe James Jacobs spoke to the difficulty of producing an atlas based on the sales history of previous game world atlas's.
This to a certain extent is true.
But to an even greater extent, the fact that we've spent 6 years detailing the smallest continental area on the planet means that we simply don't have the maps in-house to do the same detail for the rest of the world. Even with what we've done for Tian Xia so far wouldn't really help. Further, the skill set to provide a lot of what folks are asking for (plate tectonics and weather patterns and the like) is not a skill set we have at Paizo, really. We know enough about those topics to fake things as long as we leave them in the background as flavor for the world, but Golarion wasn't created as a thought experiment on how weather and geology might work given a different set of planetary variables.
I would love to see an atlas of Golarion some day as well, but we don't even have an acurate global map yet.
AKA: An atlas is decades away, I suspect, from being a possibility.
Further, the skill set to provide a lot of what folks are asking for (plate tectonics and weather patterns and the like) is not a skill set we have at Paizo, really. We know enough about those topics to fake things as long as we leave them in the background as flavor for the world, but Golarion wasn't created as a thought experiment on how weather and geology might work given a different set of planetary variables.
I know a geologist-turned-game-designer in the Seattle area. If it ever gets to that point, he's your man.
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I'd love a product like this, although I remember an older thread where I believe James Jacobs spoke to the difficulty of producing an atlas based on the sales history of previous game world atlas's.This to a certain extent is true.
But to an even greater extent, the fact that we've spent 6 years detailing the smallest continental area on the planet means that we simply don't have the maps in-house to do the same detail for the rest of the world. Even with what we've done for Tian Xia so far wouldn't really help. Further, the skill set to provide a lot of what folks are asking for (plate tectonics and weather patterns and the like) is not a skill set we have at Paizo, really. We know enough about those topics to fake things as long as we leave them in the background as flavor for the world, but Golarion wasn't created as a thought experiment on how weather and geology might work given a different set of planetary variables.
I would love to see an atlas of Golarion some day as well, but we don't even have an acurate global map yet.
AKA: An atlas is decades away, I suspect, from being a possibility.
I'd be perfectly happy with just an Atlas of the Inner Sea, if the global scope would be a problem.
If I could ask for just a single top-priority map, it would be a clear political map, with color-coded nations, major cities, national symbols, and major roads.
This is what I want in terms of a globe for Golarion. Inflatable, 36" and clear.
Anyone wanting the Earth version can get a one-day deal today for $19.99.
Dire Weasel Companion (Ex): An Orc ranger who takes the 4th-level racial substitution level gains a dire wolf animal companion. This ability functions like the druid's animal companion ability,...
Upon sighting the animal companion, enemies within 60' suffer -2 to attacks, skill checks and saving throws for 1d4 rounds as they are distracted by trying to figure out what kind of animal it actually is.
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I would be very interested in such a product... so far, this is the best I've found...
But I would like more detail... (and official)
That is too bad I have always loved the atlases and I own them all as fr as I know. However I have noticed hat the atlas seems to be a world's death knell as well. Soon after the atlas usually comes word that the setting has been discontinued or will be blown up and radically changed.
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Creative Director
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That is too bad I have always loved the atlases and I own them all as fr as I know. However I have noticed hat the atlas seems to be a world's death knell as well. Soon after the atlas usually comes word that the setting has been discontinued or will be blown up and radically changed.
I suspect this is a coincidence, since the best time to do an atlas is when you've got all the things you'd want to put in an atlas are figured out, which tends to be near the end of a product's life-cycle. It's not that the atlas causes the end, it's that the end (AKA: the completion of the long-term project of developing a shared world) is what enables a product like an atlas to be created.
Perhaps just an atlas of Avistan, then... for now?
I'd prefer a highly-detailed product of just one continent then no atlas at all. Something showing major roads and trade-routes, Resources, hard and soft borders, racial demographics, some heraldry and even some info on how various nations get along (diplomacy, etc).
Of course, even Avistan has lots of undetailed nooks and crannies left.
You could even use this for the basis of a RISK-like boardgame. ;)