Delvinia - My First Digital Map

While I'm trying to get caught up from my vacation, I'd like to show you a little something I did a few months ago in MS Paint.

Original scanned image, mountains still rough.

Delvinia has been my home-grown world since as long as I've been gaming.  It has gone through many incarnations and different shapes.  Mostly it's a standard D&D fantasy world with the standard D&D races, because that's what I was playing when I created it.  No matter what it looked like, there was always one city, Night's Eye, on the map.  There were always the Knights of Delvinia, a free order that belonged only to itself (basically they were unpaid mercenaries who tried to do good).  And there was always a chain of roadside tavern/inns called Crossroads where you could expect the same type of service no matter where you were.

At its inception, Delvinia was just one country of a handfull on the continent.  Eventually it also became the name of the continent and the world.  The newest Delvinia map is more sophisticated than its predecessors and curiously there is no actual country on the map called Delvinia.  And I haven't placed Night's Eye, either.

So I guess I should stop calling it Delvinia... but I like the name.

Major roads and waterways and large cities added.

Political boundaries.

This is another illustration of how just making a map can spark ideas.  As I added place names and rearranged them, a pattern developed.  In the west, Novalia, Estavalia, and Suvalia are all part of the Empire.  I don't have a name for the empire, because I didn't think that deeply on it.  Of course the names of these three countries reflect their locations - North, East, and South.  And they have pretty bland-sounding capitals in Summercrest, Lake Morwyn, and Northaven (one 'h').

Mazharr, with its capitol, Hanan-Er (which translates to "Gracious Guardian" but I forget which language I pulled it from) is your typical Arabian Nights type place.  Think Al-Qadim.  Mazharr is suffering some pressure to join the Empire, but perhaps are being supported in their independence by Arkos, the dwarven mountain kingdom.

The elves needed a homeland, so I gave them Daesha'Val.  Note there are no roads going into that country.  The Empire is at odds with the elves.  They want the fertile, unspoiled land, and of course the elves have other ideas.  Slavers kidnapping elves and selling them to the Empire doesn't help relations, either.

Vovaren, Kesch, and Deurkharen are based on Northern and Eastern European countries.  They will appear backward and quaint to the sophisticated Imperials, but they hold their own.  The slavers mainly come from Kesch and Hlothar.  Wortacha is pronounced "Vor-tock-ah", because it's a Germanic type place.

Hlothar is another dwarven kingdom.  They're somewhat more dour than the Arkosian dwarves.

Molovia is my version of Transylvania, or Ravenloft.  It's a scary place where the people hang garlic and  don't venture out after dark.  At least this is the perception from an Imperical point of view.

Rhokal is a deserted country, which is why it is in brackets.  Kesali, its capitol, is in ruins.  It was the homeland of my roamer-race, the Rhoke-shaone, before they became the wandering clans that they now are.  Not sure what happened there, but it was bad.  Very bad.

And finally, because I wanted some more variety, I threw in the underwater kingdoms of Lorelagua and Bahalagua.  This is where the mer-people, tritons, and sea-elves live.

Beyond these basic notes, I really haven't fleshed out this world.  But it's there if I ever want to revisit it and develop it further.