HYPERBOREA / Khromarium maps

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 2/27/2021 11:36 am

As a very, very lazy DM...

Anyone have some good maps of Khromarium?

I have scoured the forums for maps, just looking for some more detailed ones :-)

Heck, I would even settle for stuff around the docks which is the setting for Rats et al.

Either way...I guess I will see what I can come up.

Thanks in advance.

**Posted by Blackadder23** 2/27/2021 12:35 pm

I don't believe there are any "official" maps of any part of Khromarium, and I haven't noticed any fan-made ones.

I'm also lazy. If I were going to set a campaign in Khromarium, I would probably use the old TSR maps of Lankhmar.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 2/27/2021 1:59 pm

yeah, I'm looking for stuff that I can reuse, too

**Posted by Ghul** 2/27/2021 2:33 pm

I started sketching one last week in broad strokes, pulling from all the historical and fictional inspirations. I'm really gunning for City-State of Khromarium and Mount Vhuurmithadon (which I've tentatively entitled "The Black Crown of the North," but first I need to get the game back in print. I've also got two great adventure modules in my lap -- one by Johnathan Bingham, and one by Ben Ball.

For now, I would advise that you draw inspiration from Commorium, Greyhawk City, Lankhmar, Sanctuary, and Imrryr (through the lens of the "Dreaming City" having fallen and been taken over by savages who centuries later became "civilized").

**Posted by rhialto** 2/27/2021 6:39 pm

I have a fan-made one, which I know I got here: filename is "k map bw 22x34 ZS.pdf". Is that not detailed enough?

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 2/28/2021 11:21 am

Ghul wrote:
I started sketching one last week in broad strokes, pulling from all the historical and fictional inspirations. I'm really gunning for City-State of Khromarium and Mount Vhuurmithadon (which I've tentatively entitled "The Black Crown of the North," but first I need to get the game back in print. I've also got two great adventure modules in my lap -- one by Johnathan Bingham, and one by Ben Ball.

For now, I would advise that you draw inspiration from Commorium, Greyhawk City, Lankhmar, Sanctuary, and Imrryr (through the lens of the "Dreaming City" having fallen and been taken over by savages who centuries later became "civilized").

Thanks mucho.

I think for broad strokes I stealing from the maps you and chainsaw put up on the boards.

As for the details, I'm starting with the Rats and other perils and figuring out where to put the Sleepy Toad, Pleasure Palace, Crooked Tenement, and Garros Manor.

Also...I also need to put in a temple of Aurorus since there was a pc priest of her...that got halberded to bits and the party has visited it a couple of times since they are good terms with them. So far.

Also, what's the rough...size of the city? 12 miles wide? 26 miles?

I think I counted 26 hexes on chainsaw's map (very faint outlines of them :-)

I definitely second getting the game back into print. I have at least 1 player in a campaign looking for a hard copy :-)

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 2/28/2021 11:22 am

rhialto wrote:
I have a fan-made one, which I know I got here: filename is "k map bw 22x34 ZS.pdf". Is that not detailed enough?

I think I have a lower res version of that one they posted.

The city is sort of a semi-circle?

**Posted by Chainsaw** 2/28/2021 3:50 pm

gizmomathboy wrote:
Also, what's the rough...size of the city? 12 miles wide? 26 miles?

I think I counted 26 hexes on chainsaw's map (very faint outlines of them :-)

Man, I have not looked at that map in a few years.

Link: https://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=2957#p2957

Here's how I was thinking about size at the time:

Chainsaw wrote:
When I think of an (8-10) x (10-12) mile city area in real life, I basically get an area from the southern tip of Manhattan to just north of Central Park, around Columbia U., but then the same thing on the East-West access. That's big. If you walk straight south from the top of Central Park to Wall Street briskly, unencumbered and making no stops, it will take you several hours and you will be tired (take a cab!). Everything north of Midtown would basically be the old city, with its gloomy towers, and everything south of Midtown being 1-4 story buildings, all jam-packed together in a twisting labyrinth of streets and alleys. It's a big, big area that I could never fill out even if I tried. Granted, much of it would be only sparsely populated given 30k people, but I think that's good. Leaves plenty of opportunities to add things. Oh yeah, we haven't even started talking about everything underneath the surface either!

**Posted by rhialto** 2/28/2021 6:16 pm

gizmomathboy wrote:
rhialto wrote:
I have a fan-made one, which I know I got here: filename is "k map bw 22x34 ZS.pdf". Is that not detailed enough?

I think I have a lower res version of that one they posted.

The city is sort of a semi-circle?

Yes, that one.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 2/28/2021 9:10 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
gizmomathboy wrote:
Also, what's the rough...size of the city? 12 miles wide? 26 miles?

I think I counted 26 hexes on chainsaw's map (very faint outlines of them :-)
Man, I have not looked at that map in a few years.

Link: https://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=2957#p2957

Thanks mucho for the info.

**Posted by Caveman** 3/01/2021 11:31 am

The Map by Zak Schooley is the semi-circled one. Got low and high res maps.

I placed them here in a page with Chainsaw's map (slight work with Photoshop, but nothing great) is there and Tim Callahan's map Ghul posted in that other section.

Link: (scroll to base of page): Khromarium and Northward: | Flickr

I used Zak's map and stole (I mean borrowed) stuff from many sources, Rat in Wall, Chainsaw's, and his taverns and inns and from above Tim's map. (see map with grey sea added which is named locations also) Plus a few other sources like the Charnel House by Eirvit and some PbPs that mentioned a tavern (cannot remember name of it). Oh, yeah flooded city as Chainsaw's idea, but evil Neil, oh yeah that me drowned the Amazon District.

Still had to changed scale as Zak had 300 feet, and I needed to make 1,200 feet to stretch to 6 miles across, which ruins scale for buildings, hence argh! Building sizes are wrong, etc. and they would be gigantic, but one must presume to zoom in mentally to appreciate the structure of map and forget the error/change in scale.

As it is Jeff that stated 6 miles across for city, that should be official, but I also have started (but not finished) one about 15 miles wide to fit the whole peninsula. I place also, but will take years to do, I in no rush... (placed for show only as it incomplete). I created a city built by the gods for the gods (that is the outer gods). When the Hyperboreans returned, new land had formed to south (because of the crushing ice) and they commenced to build more non-alien structures of Hyperborean design. Later again the tribes took Khromarium and the more southern buildings are of their design, not yet done (on map), but note palisade wall around harbours. Black = old city, grey = Hyperborean and lighter grey = Common men.

Of course stole ideas, Chainsaw should recognise his inner harbour is traced and added... and tried including Tim's main river, etc.

**Posted by Ghul** 3/02/2021 12:04 pm

gizmomathboy wrote:
Also, what's the rough...size of the city? 12 miles wide? 26 miles?

I think I counted 26 hexes on chainsaw's map (very faint outlines of them :-)

I definitely second getting the game back into print. I have at least 1 player in a campaign looking for a hard copy :-)

Much smaller than that, per my current drafts. It is more like 5 miles wide (could be 6) at its widest (north end; wall), 3 miles wide at its narrowest (south cape), but that three miles does not comprise its total geography; meaning, I'm not saying the cape itself is that narrow, due to marshlands and outer farms.

Please bear in mind that as I get deeper into it, these details may be modified, but that's what I'm working with right now.

Last edited by Ghul (3/02/2021 12:05 pm)

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 3/02/2021 12:48 pm

Cool, thanks everyone.

6 miles wide is plenty HUGE.

**Posted by grodog** 3/03/2021 12:09 pm

Ghul wrote:
I started sketching one last week in broad strokes, pulling from all the historical and fictional inspirations. I'm really gunning for City-State of Khromarium and Mount Vhuurmithadon (which I've tentatively entitled "The Black Crown of the North," but first I need to get the game back in print. I've also got two great adventure modules in my lap -- one by Johnathan Bingham, and one by Ben Ball.

That's all great news, Jeff!

Ghul wrote:
For now, I would advise that you draw inspiration from Commorium, Greyhawk City, Lankhmar, Sanctuary, and Imrryr (through the lens of the "Dreaming City" having fallen and been taken over by savages who centuries later became "civilized").

In addition to these, I recommend the following city sourcebooks/maps:
- Gabor Lux's work in his Beyond Fomalhaut zines
- Free City of Haven (plus supplements) by Gamelords
- Tulan, Carse, Towns of the Outlands by Mikdemia Press
- Marienburg and Warharmmer City by Games Workshop
- "Barnacus: City in Peril" in Dragon Magazine #80
- Pavis and Big Rubble (Chaosium)
- Irillian (White Dwarf 42-47)
- Tarracina Port (by Kent Krumvieda

All have good maps that can be lifted and repurposed as segments/portions for a larger city.

You can also build your own tailored city/settlement maps using the tool at https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

Allan.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 5/12/2021 3:44 pm

I decided to put my Khromarium stuff up on github for folks that may or may not care

I have something for the city as a whole but no real idea of what will go where.

Mostly focusing on the areas from Rats in the Walls and Other Perils since one of my campaigns is working out of there.

They finally got the Lamia's Heart (after a "successful breaking and entering that garnered the fake one and pissed off Tull mightily, and the second raid ended up with everyone in the Manor dead, well, the domestics suvived). So I need to build out the Tull angle. They also gave the Brazen Bull folks a huge hit to their membership so I also need to figure out how many resources they have to be vindictive.

Regardless, here's my repo of stuff.

https://github.com/gizmomathboy/my_khromarium

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/15/2021 7:16 pm

One of my campaigns had a chase go into the "Old Graveyards" part of my Khromarium.

So I did the only sane thing to create that necropolis and take a screen shot of Père Lachaise Cemetery and "trace" it out to make a svg of it.

I do have Jim Morrison's tomb marked on the map. I'm not sure what, if anything, I will do with that information.

It's about 2,120 feet by 2,120 feet. I think the area I have in mind for this area would be maybe 3 times as big.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/17/2021 6:55 am

Here's a dropbox link to my_khromarium maps so far.

It includes my preliminary work for the Père Lachaise Cemetery. That is a *HUGE* thing since I'm doing 1" equals 20 feet so it's about 100" square. The blessing and curse of digital. I can work on something that huge...but good luck printing it :-)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6w7ncxet5xgvdme/AAAVcQhMLhR3yizqxUM7UhZLa?dl=0

**Posted by Caveman** 8/18/2021 6:22 am

Well took screenshot of maps, not as good as they slightly blurred.

Added to Flick:

Others' Hyperborea: | Flickr

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/18/2021 7:47 am

Saved it to png, gave it a white background, and upload to dropbox.

Damn..it's almost 10,000 x 10,000 pixels...oof.

But...very thin lines so...it mostly just looks white :-)

I suppose I could make the lines a bit thicker.

**Posted by Caveman** 8/19/2021 4:27 am

Cheers Giz..

I can easily darken lines.

So, what about the other maps, no chance of converting them to png?

Re-added cemetery map to Flickr.