[Region 1][Map 13] Groam - By Torq

[Torq]

I donthave a legend. There is only one big city, Arkender. The rest are towns. The ones with black dotted lines surrounding the red dots are fortifications. Skulls are places that used to be settlements whose status is now largely unknown to the people of west Groam.

Torq

[Torq]

Groam, a brief history Part 2

Thought I better add this, as Groam seems to be getting some focus from the creative writing types, to be used or dicarded..

"....But communications broke down. With the grey watch controlling most other roads Eastwards, they seemed less and less inclined to take orders from Silvervein. Rumours reached even Arkender of atrocities committed by the Watch and strange religious practices practised by it.

Many took the plague to be the vengeance of the gods against the moral decay of the people of Groam. Doomsday cults began to prosper throughout the region, including some strange cults that focused on illness as a form of divinity. These were found in all the major centres.

Quaran was established as a healing centre on the North-East corner of the Redmarch. It had a small but well managed agricultural economy destined to produce not only food crops but curative plants of every kind. But the plague kept coming and the Grey Watch were heard of less and less, although refugees and travellers from those areas occasionally gave testimony to seeing writers in drab grey armour bearing plain grey standards still patrolling the upland roads and manning the isolated granite watchtowers that dotted the land.

More walls followed as the plague moved inexorably West, each previous wall falling gradually into ruin. Other than the plague itself the single factor that has shaped Western Groam the most is the huge flight of the healthy Westwards. Entire towns became ghost towns over night as the migration from East to West continue towards the shores of Lake Festus. Silvervein itself was eventually abandoned and Arkender became the de facto capital.

Arkender itself quadrupled in size over the course of one year. The city could not cope with influx of people, most of them now destitute, that descended upon it. Huge slum towns have sprung up, poverty is rife, as are the health issues that flow from it. Crime is rampant and the city is now almost completely lawless, run by criminal gangs who are contracted by the Council which now sits at Arkender. In an attempt to deal with the over population and the replenish the much depleted army, Groams’ leaders have introduced compulsory military service for all males over the age of 16.

In recent years the Grey Watch are long-forgotten, the subject of late-night tavern talk and gossip. The plague’s ravages seem to have slowed, and with it the volumes of the migrations. There are rumours from the East that the cities, deserted by the healthy have become occupied by the “unclean”. Vast armies of the sick are said to occupy Silvervein united by their barbarous religious beliefs and fervent desire to make a new life for themselves.

Rumours speak of the furnaces of the tin mines burning again and the sounds of diabolical machinery echoing from those pits.

Visitors to the last wall claim it is being re-fortified, but from the East this time. Over the new cities, they say, a strange grey banner flies, not plain but the black imprint of a mailed fist."


Torq

[Midgardsormr]

I donthave a legend. There is only one big city, Arkender. The rest are towns. The ones with black dotted lines surrounding the red dots are fortifications. Skulls are places that used to be settlements whose status is now largely unknown to the people of west Groam.

Torq

What about the yellow towns?

[Torq]

What about the yellow towns?

Yes, sorry, that was to denote size. Yellow towns were supposed to be small towns/big villages as opposed to the more established larger towns in red.

Torq

[Avulsion]

There are so many possibilities with the storyline you've created. Excellent work.

As for the map, it is delicious to look at. The only changes I would suggest are to include a scale, and the yellow/green font is difficult to read in the mountainous/forested areas. Perhaps use a white font border instead of grey for those words? Also, make sure all the words are closer to right side up than upside down. For example, "The New Wall" is more upside down. Several of your names might be turned slightly more horizontal, IMO.

Sorry if I sound picky...