Warhammer maps galore
October 20, 2011 2:38 PM   Subscribe

The Super Huge, Detailed Map of the Warhammer Old World is exactly what it claims to be. 29952 by 22528 pixels in size, it covers all of the Old World area of the Warhammer Fantasy setting. The map was made by Gitzman, who has made lots of other maps of the Warhammer Fantasy world, hosts a WFRPG podcast and has a bunch of other resources to help game masters and players in that setting. He had help from Andreas Blicher, whose site has even more maps of the Old World, and Alfred Nunez jr., who has even more maps, articles and resources for people interested in the Warhammer Fantasy universe.
posted by Kattullus (57 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is cool. I actually like the smaller maps on in the third link, they have more texture than the large one.

Are these used at all for the Warhammer tabletop game, or is this more for a collaborative storytelling/universe thing?
posted by Think_Long at 2:46 PM on October 20, 2011


Is there a place to just get that whole link as a giant .png?
posted by kafziel at 2:47 PM on October 20, 2011


Wow, zoomed all the way that pretty blatantly looks like Europe, the top half of Africa, the Middle East, Scandinavia, the UK (or Iceland), and Asia (those islands are India). I know very little about Warhammer - is it supposed to be an alternate Earth?
posted by 3FLryan at 2:47 PM on October 20, 2011


Disregard: Here it is as a .jpg.
posted by kafziel at 2:47 PM on October 20, 2011


I don't play this game, but I do appreciate the various memes that have sprung from it, so:

MAPS! MAPS FOR THE MAP GOD!
posted by jquinby at 2:48 PM on October 20, 2011 [18 favorites]


Wow, zoomed all the way that pretty blatantly looks like Europe, the top half of Africa, the Middle East, Scandinavia, the UK (or Iceland), and Asia (those islands are India). I know very little about Warhammer - is it supposed to be an alternate Earth?

While a lot of it is very earth-like, it's not supposed to be Earth. (Because it's a planet in the Eye of Terror, and Sigmar is totally a Lost Primarch.)
But fantasy maps tend to look like Europe anyway.
posted by kafziel at 2:51 PM on October 20, 2011 [4 favorites]


I know very little about Warhammer - is it supposed to be an alternate Earth?

Well, me neither, but when you have a large island nation in the northwest called "Albion", with "Bretonnia" across a body of water, and then Marienburg roughly where Germany would be, it's obviously intended to be at least evocative of Europe.
posted by Malor at 2:55 PM on October 20, 2011


(Because it's a planet in the Eye of Terror, and Sigmar is totally a Lost Primarch.)

Silence, heretic.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:56 PM on October 20, 2011 [9 favorites]


Where are the Blood Bowl stadiums?
posted by 256 at 2:59 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Don't forget the Lizardmen who live in tropical rainforests and build pyramids/temples in honor of their ancient, spellcasting space-toad masters.

They are obviously intended to be at least evocative of the Book of Mormon.
posted by m@f at 3:00 PM on October 20, 2011 [8 favorites]


I can't believe I went there. Sigmar forgive me.
posted by m@f at 3:02 PM on October 20, 2011


Gah, I'm just so bored with traditional fantasy. Give me multidimensional continents represented on 3-D maps a la strato chess.
posted by 3FLryan at 3:03 PM on October 20, 2011


jquinby: MAPS! MAPS FOR THE MAP GOD!

Argh! I should've thought of this for the post title. Well played, sir.

3FLryan: Wow, zoomed all the way that pretty blatantly looks like Europe, the top half of Africa, the Middle East, Scandinavia, the UK (or Iceland), and Asia (those islands are India). I know very little about Warhammer - is it supposed to be an alternate Earth?

I seem to remember that Rick Priestley, who had most to do with the design of the world, wanted to make the world non-Britain focused, so Albion is a mysterious island shrouded in mists and sort of off-limits, and the Holy Roman Empire based "Empire" is the main focus, with the French-like Bretonnia a close second.

Gah, I'm just so bored with traditional fantasy.

It's a very old fantasy world, by RPG standards. The first bits of it were published in 1983, I think. It was broke away from a lot of standards at the time, though a lot of its innovations have been absorbed into the mainstream. That said, it has a pretty distinctive flavor.
posted by Kattullus at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2011 [3 favorites]


Because it's a planet in the Eye of Terror, and Sigmar is totally a Lost Primarch.

A while back I was having a chat with Gordon Rennie, who writes both WH and WH40k stuff, about the Warhammer fantasy setting and the Holy Roman Empire and medieval germany, and he started saying stuff about Electric Counts, which turned out to be a typo for elector counts, but would totally fit into the whole WH/WH40K crossover thing.

His big thing these days is the Roman empire, FWIW.
posted by Artw at 3:10 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's a very old fantasy world, by RPG standards. The first bits of it were published in 1983, I think. It was broke away from a lot of standards at the time, though a lot of its innovations have been absorbed into the mainstream. That said, it has a pretty distinctive flavor.

Yeah, I realize it's an oldie and a goodie. But I want something new and shattering, not just "another fantasy map". Maybe I'll have to come up with it myself.
posted by 3FLryan at 3:12 PM on October 20, 2011


It's a very old fantasy world, by RPG standards. The first bits of it were published in 1983, I think. It was broke away from a lot of standards at the time, though a lot of its innovations have been absorbed into the mainstream. That said, it has a pretty distinctive flavor.

I always liked that it was a bit more along the technology curve than most fantasy worlds of the day, so you'd see a bunch of mechanical stuff and firearms. That;s a bit less impressive these days when steampunk inspired proto-dickensian fantasy settings abound.
posted by Artw at 3:12 PM on October 20, 2011


My brother is going to love this. Thanks!
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:13 PM on October 20, 2011


Also IIRC if you go too far north there's a fucking great hole into the warp.
posted by Artw at 3:14 PM on October 20, 2011


The main thing to remember is that despite what the map says, the Old World really only has three regions; This Sucks, This Sucks Even Worse, and This Place is Infected by Chaos.


Problem is, you really can't tell which area is which until after you wander into it and the locals decide to hang you for the crime of being strangers.
posted by happyroach at 3:16 PM on October 20, 2011 [11 favorites]


the Old World really only has three regions; This Sucks, This Sucks Even Worse, and This Place is Infected by Chaos.

Coincidentally those are also the major types of planetary body in WH40K.
posted by Artw at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2011 [3 favorites]


Still, I hear living next door in fantasy War of the Roses land sucks worse.
posted by Artw at 3:20 PM on October 20, 2011


the Old World really only has three regions; This Sucks, This Sucks Even Worse, and This Place is Infected by Chaos.

Coincidentally those are also the major types of planetary body in WH40K.


So, are "infected by Tyranids" and "infected by Necrons" subsets of "infected by Chaos"?
posted by kafziel at 3:25 PM on October 20, 2011


Infections by Xeno filth are probably somewhere between Sucks Even Worse and actual Chaos.
posted by Artw at 3:33 PM on October 20, 2011


Here's a fast loading & smooth zoom.it version of the JPG.
posted by rh at 3:48 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm interested in what software tools and process was used to create/illustrate the map. Is there a special sauce? Or it is the usual suspects suite?
posted by -harlequin- at 3:50 PM on October 20, 2011


Gitzman didn't create a lot of the maps in the third link. I say that with absolute certainty because I was the person who commissioned and published them, back in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was publishing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay through my company Hogshead Publishing.

This map of Marienburg for example, is actually by Ralph Horsley. The original was painted on thick A1 card, much too large for any scanner I could find, so I had to get a photographer to take a massive transparency of it and scan that. In the meanwhile my cleaner decided that the enormous cardboard envelope Ralph had shipped it in was clearly garbage, and put it outside with the trash. With the painting still in it. In the rain. Thank heavens for acrylic paints, is all I can say.

The Warhammer world is based heavily on Europe in the dying days of the Holy Roman Empire, with anachronisms thrown in where they're more interesting than the historical reality, plus magic, monsters and Chaos. Bretonnia is chivalric knights in the style of King Arthur, for example. The world was conceived as the background for Games Workshop's tabletop battle game but within a few years was home to the aforementioned RPG and a line of fiction written by authors including Kim Newman and MFO Charlie Stross, and more lately computer games, comics and an MMO. It's holding up remarkably well.
posted by Hogshead at 4:17 PM on October 20, 2011 [24 favorites]


Bretonnia is chivalric knights in the style of King Arthur, for example.

Wasn't it all starving french peasants for a while?
posted by Artw at 4:21 PM on October 20, 2011


Hogshead: Gitzman didn't create a lot of the maps in the third link.

Sorry, that was my mistake, not Gitzman taking credit. He clearly states that he did not create most of the maps in the third link. Sorry about that.
posted by Kattullus at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2011


Wasn't it all starving french peasants for a while?

Yeah, in the mid-80s it was based on pre-revolutionary France. It got switched to knights on horseback sometime in the early 90s.

Marienburg roughly where Germany would be

Marienburg was based on Rotterdam, Malor, at least in the Hogshead sourcebook, which is why it uses Dutch-style names for its districts.
posted by Hogshead at 4:30 PM on October 20, 2011


/misses the starving french peasants, which made more sense.
posted by Artw at 4:36 PM on October 20, 2011


Well, likewise, but when Games Workshop decreed changes to the background all the licencees had to fall into line. We did manage to negotiate a get-out that the timeline of the RPG was five years behind that of the battle game, which let us explain (sort of) why our Emperor Karl-Franz was old and frail while theirs led his armies into battle wielding the hammer of Sigmar, and similar discrepancies. But we used to get some fantastic proposals from fans who wanted to write sourcebooks based on old parts of the background that had since been written out of the continuity, and we'd have to write back and say, "This is great, but we can't use it. Send us something else!" and they never would.
posted by Hogshead at 4:46 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


The other thing that came to nothing that I vaguely recall was that the Slann were behind everything, giving the seeding of the planet a Lovecraftian air. I think they're gone from WH40K entirely and thoroughly marginalised in WH now.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


So, Could I destroy the entire Empire during the reign of Sigmar if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU, or would they all be eaten by Skaven in the first 15 minutes?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:26 PM on October 20, 2011 [3 favorites]


Skaven? They'd probably get wiped out by the first irate dwarf they ran into.
posted by Kattullus at 5:29 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Or some kind of crazy Halfling lunch-cannon.....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:33 PM on October 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


So, Could I destroy the entire Empire during the reign of Sigmar if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU, or would they all be eaten by Skaven in the first 15 minutes?

They'd be wanting full NBC gear, a skaven plague furnace would take them all out quickly otherwise.
posted by wilful at 5:37 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Could I destroy the entire Empire during the reign of Sigmar if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU

*without even listening* Depends on their A score.
posted by fleacircus at 5:41 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


The whole backstory and world of Warhammer Fantasy is pretty awesome. Of course it's a pastiche of stories and places you've heard of before. That's part of its strength, you can weave in all of the mystery and folklore form our common heritage, it finds a place in our subconscious readily.



Changing the topic completely, I just read the latest White Dwarf about Dreadfleet. That game looks like it sucks absolute dogs balls. I have absolutely no interest in going near it, based on the breathless write-up and battle report in WD.
posted by wilful at 5:46 PM on October 20, 2011


I played the snot out of WHFRP back in 1989..

WHFRP didn't have very strong or interesting maps, and the analog-Europe was handy but never a big draw. However, putting the setting into a HRE was a good move and a strong step away from Forgotten Realms type of extruded fantasy. "Is he a Hans or a Fritz?" was something the players would ask because those were the common names I gave to grunts and leaders.

But anyway, I think the true inspiration for the WHFRP world, and where you'd go to get a feel for it, were the illustrations of John Blanche. And also you could take a long, hard look at the tables you roll on for your initial professions. Rat catcher and pedlar vs. the world!

And maybe the first Enemy Within encounter where the cultists mistake one of your party for another cultists and try to make lots of secret signals to get his attention.

I think my favorite moment of the campaign was when the group arrived too late to stop the summoning in Shadows Over Bogenhafen, and needing a miniature for the demon I picked up the host's black kitten ('Lucifer') and stood him on the map where he snarled and hissed very terrifyingly to scale.
posted by fleacircus at 6:00 PM on October 20, 2011 [7 favorites]


Ah, the Rat-Catcher! I ran a bit of a test game of the new system a couple of months back, and the Rat-Catcher and his vicious little dog not only held off a gang of toughs for a crucial moment, but managed to knock a deadly assassin (by rolling ridiculously well) out a 3rd story window to his death. And managed to wade through a nasty sewer. Good times, good times.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:07 PM on October 20, 2011 [3 favorites]




Dear Google and Games Workshop

Please add this to Google Maps so PCs can get directions, with times for marching, horseback, cart and coach, and options to avoid royal roadblocks and bandit ambushes.

Much love
obiwanwasabi
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:35 PM on October 20, 2011 [6 favorites]


Dear Google and Games Workshop

Please add this to Google Maps so PCs can get directions, with times for marching, horseback, cart and coach, and options to avoid royal roadblocks and bandit ambushes.

Much love
obiwanwasabi


Waaaaghs are like flash-mobs, unpredictable.
posted by wilful at 6:59 PM on October 20, 2011


Looking at this makes me wish Warhammer Online hadn't succumbed to the sad and inevitable fate of MMORPGs that aren't WoW. That was a fun year.
posted by Soulfather at 7:13 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


And managed to wade through a nasty sewer.

It's not WHFRP until you get dunked in filth!
posted by fleacircus at 7:14 PM on October 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


Oh Hogshead, is there any end to your awesomeness?
posted by JHarris at 7:14 PM on October 20, 2011


obiwanwasabi: Please add this to Google Maps so PCs can get directions, with times for marching, horseback, cart and coach, and options to avoid royal roadblocks and bandit ambushes.

There are a bunch of tools, for example a route planner (including travel times). You just have to click the tools thing in the top-right corner. And what fun is it if your PCs can automatically avoid royal roadblocks and bandit ambushes?
posted by Kattullus at 7:24 PM on October 20, 2011


I love the system so much. Three guys with crossbows are a deadly threat. Ten guys with longbows can rewrite the fate of nations. There is no system that doesn't get better with the addition of horrific death and fate points. I haven't played the newest edition yet, but 2nd is where my group goes for all of our low fantasy needs. If you like the feel of WFRP then you should also check out the FFG 40k stuff. Rogue trader is the closest you can get to being gothic Han Solo.
posted by Peztopiary at 7:27 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


My favorite fantasy setting of any RPG of all time.
posted by GavinR at 7:31 PM on October 20, 2011


I still have my character sheet of Kirsten Krank from SHADOWS OVER BOGENHAFEN. Over twenty years on! She was great.

I stopped playing when I went to University and discovered drink, women and community theatre. Now I'm married and most of my friends have children, and suddenly - Warhammer is back! Hurrah!
posted by alasdair at 11:47 PM on October 20, 2011


Rat Catcher -> Pit Fighter -> Judicial Champion -> Assassin.

I loved WFRP - I think I'd use a different system nowadays but the background et al were excellent.
posted by longbaugh at 3:15 AM on October 21, 2011


Bizarrely I'm at a conference today (Playful in London) and the second speaker started off by talking about Altdorf and Bogenhafen and running a timelapse video of the WFRP campaign he's playing in, GMed by Kieron Gillen. Big chunks of the novels and short stories I wrote for the Black Library were set in Altdorf. Having a guy on stage talking about locations that you had a hand in shaping is a very odd experience. Pleasant, but odd.
posted by Hogshead at 6:40 AM on October 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


You know I'm totally going to have to get you to sign my SLA Industries books at some point...
posted by longbaugh at 7:13 AM on October 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


You have to love a setting that starts by the premise that the setting is all but doomed and where the most powerful people are the most warped (heh) ones.

More Ulthuan please.
posted by ersatz at 7:18 AM on October 21, 2011


Offtopic, does anyone have any good resources for Brettonia? I'm asking because I'm just starting to run a WHFRP 3e setting and want to know the canon to start doing some very non-canon things. Or at least threatening them in the background (one of the party's PCs is a Brettonian Knight Errant).

And for a little taster, one of the influential off-stage NPCs if I run this campaign is going to be known as the Sea Green Incorruptible. The colour of rotting algae would be closer. And I also have plans for which Ruinous Power has managed to corrupt The Lady of the Lake (given that the Lady takes young children of both genders and you only ever see her servants as one, it should be obvious).
posted by Francis at 9:03 AM on October 21, 2011


Corrupt Bretonnia is an unofficial sourcebook from 2003 and the website supplements it with some other material. I could swear that there was an updated version somewhere, but I can't find it. The Roundtable of Bretonnia is focused on the miniatures wargame, but has some useful info.
posted by Kattullus at 11:03 AM on October 21, 2011




« Older There's No "We" in Fan   |   How to fail at digital publishing Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments