Roll for initiative.

March 19, 2014 12:48 PM

The Only Fantasy World Map You'll Ever Need.
posted by fings (100 comments total)

Mammoth tribes are indeed so metal.
posted by teh_boy at 12:55 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Nifty. I failed geometry sophmore year in high school because instead of taking notes or paying attention I just drew maps like this in my notebook and mouthed of to the teacher.
posted by vrakatar at 12:57 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Volcano gods never catch a break.
posted by Kattullus at 1:01 PM on March 19, 2014

I think it's missing a couple of locations:


Sultanate of Sexy Androgynous Cynical Philosopher-Spies

The Borough of New Thievington

Vaguely Slavic Mud-Flats

Land O' Chest Wounds
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:01 PM on March 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

I failed geometry sophmore year in high school because instead of taking notes or paying attention I just drew maps like this in my notebook and mouthed of to the teacher.


Were you sitting beside me in class?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:02 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Where's the Floating Kingdom of Sufficiently Advanced Technology Indistinguishable from Magic?

Also the map seems to cut off at the south end before getting to Peaks Of SAN Loss.
posted by griphus at 1:07 PM on March 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

Also if anyone has a prog-rock band, you have basically all the song and album titles you'll ever need on here.
posted by griphus at 1:09 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Let's all pour one out for the Proud Warrior Race Guys we have gamed with and nervously admired the sword collection of.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:09 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

This really does have EVERYTHING.

The Borough of New Thievington

That'd be the Big Crimey Crapsack.

Where's the Floating Kingdom of Sufficiently Advanced Technology Indistinguishable from Magic?

That's "So Not Atlantis," obviously.

Sultanate of Sexy Androgynous Cynical Philosopher-Spies

What, Astrolabes & Alchemy isn't good enough for you?
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:10 PM on March 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

Vaguely Slavic Mud-Flats
That would be located somewhere between "Hills for Hillfolk" and "Clockwork Tsars"
posted by fings at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

That empty plain between Tiger-Headed Opium Nightmare, the Mountains of Madness and Ancient Sumerian Awful seems like a bad place to be.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

An excellent companion to this map is Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which treats fantasy novels as travelogues through a package tour. It's kind of like TV Tropes for fantasy novels, but years prior and far wittier.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:12 PM on March 19, 2014 [17 favorites]

Somehow, I would expect "Incest & Intrigue" to be a country, not just a city.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2014

That empty plain between Tiger-Headed Opium Nightmare, the Mountains of Madness and Ancient Sumerian Awful seems like a bad place to be.


The call that "The Empty Quarter".
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

It looks like Greece to me.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:13 PM on March 19, 2014

jason_steakums: I believe the map marker there reads "You Are Screwed."
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:14 PM on March 19, 2014

They probably have great parties there, though.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:15 PM on March 19, 2014

For those for whom this resonates, is it part of the joke that it seems to comport with a distorted map of Europe, the Middle East, Africa (conflated with South America) and Asia?
posted by staccato signals of constant information at 1:16 PM on March 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

That empty plain between Tiger-Headed Opium Nightmare, the Mountains of Madness and Ancient Sumerian Awful seems like a bad place to be.

At the center of of that plain is a tourist attraction called 'The Four Corners'. Of course, if you can see the fourth corner you are no longer a tourist and are now a resident of total mind-blasting insanity.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:16 PM on March 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

This is a remarkably good analogue for Discworld, as I'm sure Pratchett would be first to admit, although this map is missing Fourecks. The analogue Australians probably show up in cyberpunk modules instead.

Also the map seems to cut off at the south end before getting to Peaks Of SAN Loss.

And everybody knows Innsmouth is just off Rt. 127A.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:18 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Anyone know the way to Ankh-Morpoorsimulacrum?
posted by griphus at 1:19 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Clockwork Tsars

This is FANTASY, not steampunk, sheesh.
posted by GuyZero at 1:19 PM on March 19, 2014

Dammit.
posted by griphus at 1:19 PM on March 19, 2014

For those for whom this resonates, is it part of the joke that it seems to comport with a distorted map of Europe, the Middle East, Africa (conflated with South America) and Asia?

Yes.
posted by Gygesringtone at 1:20 PM on March 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

This is FANTASY, not steampunk, sheesh.

Definitely part of the joke, there is always that DM who tries to shoehorn in other genres with the flimsiest fantasy trappings to justify them.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:22 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

It's also a pretty accurate satire of every fantasy world map every published, like sticking the elves in the west like Tolkien did and throwing in certain fantasy highlights, like Big Crimey Crapsack, which is clearly supposed to be Lankhmar. Hills for the Hillfolk is for hobbits/halflings, Ravenholm is the D&D setting of Ravenloft with vampires & Transylvanian castles, etc, at al.
posted by GuyZero at 1:23 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's missing hippiefaeriedruid forest. Of course maybe the GM is too into 'grim and edgy' for that.
posted by Zalzidrax at 1:24 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I won't pretend to understand why this "only fantasy map" has Japan listed as "Ninja Country", but my son had these 'Kamandi, The Last Boy' comics when he was a boy. He thought that was an actual world map until he was in prep school.
posted by Malory Archer at 1:25 PM on March 19, 2014 [36 favorites]

Also, canned settings like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms try to sprinkle in a little of everything so that the DM can do whatever he wants and still run the players off somewhere else later on if he gets a new module he likes more.
posted by GuyZero at 1:25 PM on March 19, 2014

...there is always that DM who tries to shoehorn in other genres with the flimsiest fantasy trappings to justify them.

Whoa whoa whoa, are you implying that I've been writing my D&D sessions and then find-replacing all instances of "electricity" with "magic" and all instances of "power supply" with "magic power supply" and "breaker switch" with "magical breaker switch" and "robots" with "automatons"?

because get the hell out of my DM notes
posted by griphus at 1:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [32 favorites]

my son had these 'Kamandi, The Last Boy' comics when he was a boy.

Oh god that map is awesome.
posted by GuyZero at 1:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

This is FANTASY, not steampunk, sheesh.

Steampunk IS fantasy!
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:30 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I won't pretend to understand why this "only fantasy map" has Japan listed as "Ninja Country"

The early 90's publication of TSR's Oriental Adventures supplement for AD&D.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

I won't pretend to understand why this "only fantasy map" has Japan listed as "Ninja Country"

Because eurocentrism.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:31 PM on March 19, 2014

Steampunk IS fantasy!

Pretty sure it was how 1870's England actually looked there, Pope.
posted by GuyZero at 1:31 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Huh! Explain that to a stockbroker with a spear wound! He thought they were "tigermen of the menacing Manhattan murderlands" or something!
posted by Malory Archer at 1:31 PM on March 19, 2014

I'm saving that Kamandi map forever.
posted by curious nu at 1:32 PM on March 19, 2014

The early 90's publication of TSR's Oriental Adventures supplement for AD&D.

I remember a friend of mine getting that supplement for 3.5 and thinking "I... don't think we're supposed to be using that word anymore."
posted by griphus at 1:33 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Volcano gods never catch a break.

If they want people to give them a break, they need to stop being such dicks.
posted by fings at 1:34 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Despite some questionable choices on that Kamandi map, KANGA RAT MURDER SOCIETY is the best name for any society ever and if there isn't a punk band in Australia with that name, somebody's slacking.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:35 PM on March 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

Guys buying that house in Monstertown has turned out to be a huge mistake.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:35 PM on March 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

I won't pretend to understand why this "only fantasy map" has Japan listed as "Ninja Country"...

You have a fantasy world that DOESN'T have a Ninja Country?
posted by Edgewise at 1:36 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

They forgot Fourecks (XXXX)!
posted by leotrotsky at 1:39 PM on March 19, 2014

Guys buying that house in Monstertown has turned out to be a huge mistake.

Yeah a lot of people seem to be under the presumption that Monstertown must have been named in the spirit of some sort of Greenland/Iceland switcheroo thing but it turns out not so much

there are actually just a whole lot of monsters there
posted by threeants at 1:40 PM on March 19, 2014 [17 favorites]

Vaguely Slavic Mud-Flats

You mean Elbonia?
posted by bicyclefish at 1:41 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

This has been online two days and no one has animated it Game of Thrones style, yet? I need to see Fancy Magic Town pop up and then have the camera fly through Hills for the Hillfolk hoping this is the episode that finally shows us Monstertown.
posted by Gary at 1:42 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Land O' Chest Wounds

Wound-Upon-Chest
posted by HeroZero at 1:42 PM on March 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

I used to live in Ninja Country. It was alright- you just have to remember to serpentine when you're going to the shops or to get some yakitori, and to avoid the beer vending machines with feet.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:44 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I would like an Office/Parks and Rec-style webcomic about the Big Crimey Crapsack Chamber of Commerce, please.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:46 PM on March 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

So does the Crawling City actually crawl from place to place? Or do they just have an overabundance of tentacular horrors from beyond space-time? (As if one could have too many)

Or do they just have a really bad roach problem?
posted by Hactar at 1:46 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

For those for whom this resonates, is it part of the joke that it seems to comport with a distorted map of Europe, the Middle East, Africa (conflated with South America) and Asia?

I won't pretend to understand why this "only fantasy map" has Japan listed as "Ninja Country"

Poorly disguised, stereotype-laden real-world geography is one of the conventions which this map is satirizing.
posted by my favorite orange at 1:47 PM on March 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Hactar: "So does the Crawling City actually crawl from place to place?"

That's more of an SF map.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:49 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

UNITED STATES OF LIONS, oh yes the Kamandi map wins the thread.

Though I enjoyed the digs at poncey knights. I hate those guys, always poncing.
posted by emjaybee at 1:52 PM on March 19, 2014

Also the map doesn't show the Big Crimey Crapsack emigrant community neighborhood in Norseheim: Little Big Crimey Crapsack.
posted by griphus at 1:54 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

That Chick Tract About Dungeons & Dragons Is Getting Made Into a Movie
posted by homunculus at 1:59 PM on March 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

I read David Eddings' Belgariad about 7 times when I was growing up, so I can actually perfectly assign each kingdom to this map.
posted by codacorolla at 2:00 PM on March 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

Needs an Underdark.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:00 PM on March 19, 2014

That Chick Tract About Dungeons & Dragons Is Getting Made Into a Movie

oh god what yes thank you
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:01 PM on March 19, 2014

Needs an Underdark.

There's a transparent overlay in a sort of translucent purple with the giant words "UNDERDARK" covering the whole thing.
posted by GuyZero at 2:06 PM on March 19, 2014

Summer 2014: You're Not Going to Want to Be Elfstar Any More.
posted by Iridic at 2:06 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

That Chick Tract About Dungeons & Dragons Is Getting Made Into a Movie



As the proud owner of a large collection of Chick Tracts, I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. HAIL SATAN!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:07 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of the accurately-labeled Inner Sea map for Pathfinder.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:09 PM on March 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

Seems to be missing the standard area of Basically Rural Pre-Industrial England Minus The Plague And Drudgery.
posted by ZsigE at 2:13 PM on March 19, 2014

Volcano gods never catch a break.

If they want people to give them a break, they need to stop being such dicks.

They're gods of tumescing geological protuberances ejecting hot liquid from within. What do people expect?
posted by weston at 2:17 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Basically Rural Pre-Industrial England Minus The Plague And Drudgery.

Poncy Knights. Because who actually deals with the little people in a fantasy campaign? There are 4 nobles and a quarter-million serfs? Let's talk about those four nobles some more.
posted by GuyZero at 2:24 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm saving that Kamandi map forever.

KANGA RAT MURDER SOCIETY
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

About that Chick tract movie, my favorite thing is they actually licensed the rights from Jack Chick, and are playing it straight and letting the viewer revel in the insanity of it.

From the article: In addition he warns us the "the Necronomicon and the Cthulhu mythos are quite real" which is why those dangers are exposed in Dark Dungeons the movie.

So I guess it crosses over with this one? Or this one?
posted by JHarris at 2:28 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

GuyZero: "Because who actually deals with the little people in a fantasy campaign? There are 4 nobles and a quarter-million serfs? Let's talk about those four nobles some more."

Well, in fairness, "village full of people scraping out an existence of subsistence-level farming, none of whom has ever traveled more than five miles from their birthplace," while more representative of most of the populace, is perhaps less laden with interesting story hooks.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:32 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

BRAVE WARRIOR

WILL THOUST UNDERTAKE THIS DANGEROUS MISSION AND CLEAR MY TAVERN BASEMENT OF RATS?

Y/N
posted by griphus at 2:34 PM on March 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

Y/N
That reminds me of something else making the rounds: The Ballad of a WiFi Hero.
posted by fings at 2:42 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Ok, holy crap, I had no idea rats were so widespread.
posted by GuyZero at 2:50 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

This thread just proves once again that Jack Kirby was the best at everything.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:56 PM on March 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

"village full of people scraping out an existence of subsistence-level farming, none of whom has ever traveled more than five miles from their birthplace," while more representative of most of the populace, is perhaps less laden with interesting story hooks.

It was actually the basis for numerous story hooks in both Warhammer FRP (well at least the 80's version) and Call Of Cthulhu. Because that's the kind of place where unspeakable secrets live.
posted by GuyZero at 3:03 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

There's still a bunch more they could add here that would still be completely believable as fantasy locations:


-Torturevania

-The Werewolf Palatinate

-The Sssensual Ssslithering Isles

-The Manly Mahogany Empire

-Hotlantis

-Scotland
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:13 PM on March 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

It was actually the basis for numerous story hooks in both Warhammer FRP (well at least the 80's version) and Call Of Cthulhu. Because that's the kind of place where unspeakable secrets live.

Skaven ain't gonna terrorize themselves.
posted by history_denier at 3:21 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

A land where men in dresses speak in that outlandish accent, play "bagpipes" and throw around telephone poles? Pfft, tell me another one.

There's no "true" Scotland.
posted by JHarris at 3:22 PM on March 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

Add an island floating in the sky between Desertpunk and Alien Egyptians and you're done.
posted by oulipian at 3:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd also add "Dwarven Kingdoms of Infinite Gold (and Tunnels Straight to Hell)" as well as "Theocracy of Hubris"
posted by bl1nk at 3:28 PM on March 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Do villagers actually engage in subsistence farming for a living when rats and level 1 kobolds roam the land like gold pinatas? Seems like you could put those farming tools to better use.
posted by jason_steakums at 3:37 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

And that's ignoring the question of how all these rats got all this gold in the first place.
posted by jason_steakums at 3:38 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Generally I ascribe monster treasure to the previous set(s) of adventurers. It's the protagonist's perogative.
posted by GuyZero at 3:41 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Watch the first half of "Seven Samurai" for my imagined level of ferocity for villagers in most fantasy worlds.
posted by history_denier at 3:44 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

"Because who actually deals with the little people in a fantasy campaign? There are 4 nobles and a quarter-million serfs? Let's talk about those four nobles some more."

Given GRRM's penchant for subverting fantasy tropes, I sometimes wonder if ASOIAF's end game will be the smallfolk rebelling, executing all the contenders for the Iron Thone, and instituting a constitutional republic.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:50 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Ah, the Teckla's turn in the Great Cycle.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:18 PM on March 19, 2014

Skaven ain't gonna terrorize themselves.

Are you kidding me? Between the rat slaves, leading from the rear, and the "side-effects" of their warpstone creations... when AREN'T they terrorizing themselves?
posted by m@f at 4:23 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

bl1nk: "I'd also add "Dwarven Kingdoms of Infinite Gold (and Tunnels Straight to Hell)" as well as "Theocracy of Hubris""

Stupid Kingpriest.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Possible expansion modules:

• Pleasant Enough Forest Full of Mushroom People
• Well-kept Wasteland of Perfectly Civilized Landwurms
• Purple Lobsterpeople Pouring Forth From Dimensional Rift
• Treetop Village of Druids Who Have A Telepathic Approximation of the Internet
• Icefields of the Wandering Walrus Wizards
• Uncontacted Tribe of People Straight From the Late Twentieth Century
• Centaurs That Ride Horses To Hilarious Effect
• Dwarf Mountain Metropolis and Squabbling Suburban Foothills
• Perfectly Safe Good Place To Rest Ancient Burying Ground
• Vaguely Described Adjacent Continent
• Semi-Automous Bastion of Indecisively Separatist Half-Elves
• Toronto

posted by oulipian at 4:29 PM on March 19, 2014 [26 favorites]

oulipian, you forgot to put "Roll d12" before your list.
posted by JHarris at 4:35 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Do villagers actually engage in subsistence farming for a living when rats and level 1 kobolds roam the land like gold pinatas? Seems like you could put those farming tools to better use.

If rats were as reliable a source of income as they are in video (but not pen and paper) RPGs, they would be systematically hunted to extinction, for the only natural force greater than rodent fecundity is human greed.
posted by JHarris at 4:37 PM on March 19, 2014

Vaguely Slavic Mud-Flats


but enough about Crimea
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:47 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

WILL THOUST UNDERTAKE THIS DANGEROUS MISSION AND CLEAR MY TAVERN BASEMENT OF RATS?

Y/N

> N

BUT THOU MUST!

Oh god I am so old
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:50 PM on March 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

Place Where The Trees Are All Full Of Those Little Green Bastards With The Blowguns
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:06 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

> Needs an Underdark.

And an Overdark, an Interdark, an Infradark and possibly an Überdark (though the latter has gotten all gentrified and is pretty well-lit, relatively speaking).

Nowadays, you can wear a +1 fedora and mutton-chops and drink Pabst Blue Rhizome and nobody will roll for initiative.

But if you wield a scimitar you'd better have either one or three of the damn things unless you want to get curb-stomped.
posted by sourcequench at 5:34 PM on March 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

I know it's probably not 'period', but is there an equivalent that covers "Totally not Nazi Germany, you guys"?

My friend and I used to use "Leutonia" as a running joke regarding this sort of thing after the NES port of "Rocket Ranger" replaced not only all references to Nazis with the fictional aliens, but the entire country of Germany.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:15 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm saving that Kamandi map forever.

KANGA RAT MURDER SOCIETY

If anyone other than me wants an original copy to frame and hang on the wall, it is apparently issue 32.
posted by rifflesby at 7:26 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Where's the country where the Carrot-borne Cavalry come from
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:55 PM on March 19, 2014

If anyone other than me wants an original copy to frame and hang on the wall, it is apparently issue 32.

Yoink.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:43 AM on March 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Because that's the kind of place where unspeakable secrets live.

My RPG group just finished a Pathfinder module that was your basic small-town-that-at-first-seems-merely-eccentric-hides-unspeakable-secret story, the same sort that Stephen King has done several times in his career. It was a lot of fun.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:27 AM on March 20, 2014

If you do go to Monstertown, I recommend avoiding any humanitarian restaurants.
posted by fings at 3:41 PM on March 20, 2014

KANGA RAT MURDER SOCIETY is also totally accurate.
From a certain point of view.
posted by Mezentian at 10:24 PM on March 21, 2014