Dneiper Bank-Kamenskoye-Kiyev-Ltava-Vassia

A collection of provinces in central Ukraine along the Dneiper... which created some problems.  I went looking for some record of the original course of the river, since during early Soviet Russia there were several dams built that flooded the valley, displacing thousands of people and drowning villages.  Unfortunately, I could not find such a map.  Apparently, no surveys were done that exist online; even 19th century atlases tend to ignore Russia, apparently as a place where geographers do not go.  Seriously, no map plate at all appears in these.  It goes to show what kind of unearthly place was the czarate before all when sour... and adds to the lesson on what happens when you continually treat a whole people awfully for century after century.

So, made do as best I could, laying the river out as rationally as I could and filling in the basin with slough-lands as I described before.  Some of the cities on the bank of the largest Dneiper reservoir (the 5th largest by area in the world) were moved inward, to fit up against the river.  The effect creates a messy, but somewhat unique landscape.  Unique is always good.

A brief word about Kamenskoye, in the bottom right.  This is the modern Dnepropetrovsk region, or oblast.  Dnipro, formerly Dnepropetrovsk, is a huge city, but it didn't exist until 1776, when it was founded by Catherine the Great as Yekaterinoslav.  None of the settlements in this region are founded prior to 1550... so my population calculations make it a large, uninhabited steppeland, dangerously exposed and thus occupied only by Cossacks.  The settlements are therefore encampments, with few permanent buildings, while little other infrastructure exists at all.  I'll be mapping more of the area soon, but expect it to be largely empty steppe, as the small corner on the map above shows. 

Kiyev-Vassia, southeast of Kiyev

These more obscure parts of the world, where there's not a single familiar name anywhere on the map, though we're drawing out an area much larger than Rhode Island.  We're still in present-day undisputed Ukraine, but in the 17th century the southern part, distinguished by the thick borderline, is the land of Vassia, occupied by the Ottoman Empire.  Thus there is a mix between Turkish names for the larger settlements and Ukrainian for the villages.

Kiyev is the last European region we'll see for awhile; hereafter, the region being mapped is a mixture of Turkic and Mongol influences, particularly as we move through the Zaporozhian hetlands, which are essentially all Cossack.

Dneiper Bank-Kiyev-Ltava-Polissya

There, finished the corner.  Moving southeast now, towards the Black Sea.

The "swamp" areas are more appropriately large sloughs or fens, where the ground is generally too wet to plant (not today, of course; measures have been taken), and where flooding makes dwelling impractical.  This last is particularly true of the large areas adjacent to the Dneiper, the large blue line left of centre.  Incidentally, this land is still too soft for tanks, especially in late winter-spring, which is why the present Russian push is through Kopol and Kherson to the south.  The country isn't great there for heavy mech, but it's better.

Kiyev became the centre it is because the Dneiper provided one good crossing point, which is excellent for east-west trade... particularly by water.  Below Kiyev, the old Dneiper, prior to the building of many dams, was filled with treacherous drops and water courses impractical for large barges, but above Kiyev, the Dneiper is a dream.  Plus, there are numerous other large rivers that flow into it, so that the whole area above Kiyev is excellent for water-trade; this made Kiyev a powerful collection point for everything coming south in the western heart of Russia, a natural centre for wealth and thus culture and religion.  So it remained until the Mongols destroyed everything in the 13th century, and Kiyev's defensive weaknesses became evident.

Kiyev, southwest of Kiyev

 

Took a little time to fold this in together; this spans three map sheets, overlaid together, to achieve this one image.  Seems it's been two years since I was last here, which staggers me.  I didn't think it had been so long; but I did take a long break twice.  Anyway, I am mapping the Dneiper Bank now (swamp and steppe).  I'll post that area tomorrow.

Czernowitz & Kiyev map sheets

I'll create a PDF of these two large map sheets together, plus the Ruthenia map, and put it on Patreon, but for now, here are each of these that I've nearly finished in the last couple of days.

The first, the "Czernowitz" map, has just has a few holes at the top, that'll be filled when I pass this way again.  You can recognise the maps worked on this last week, across the top six rows of hexes.

Here's "Kiyev," though the city of Kiyev is not actually on the map; this map includes much of the one above, but turned 60-degrees to the left:

That only needed the upper corner done, with it's heavily infrastructured area south and west of Kiyev.  I'll post a close-up of this area after I finish mapping Kiyev itself, which hasn't been done yet.

Kiyev-Zytomierz, west of Kiyev

Turns out, I am going to catch the city of Kiyev on this pass around before turning southeast.  This is a very tricky part of the map.  Passing the 30th parallel east, the direction of the map turns 30-degrees in the upper right corner shown; then another 30-degrees with the next three hexes.  Plus, this small corner, being at the top of the map, ends up being copied onto three different map sheets.  I'm working on sheet two right now so I can fill out the blank hexes above, then I'll be on sheet 3 to fill out the blank hexes there... and then I'll be on my way again, probably at a faster pace, because after Kiyev the population drops considerably and stays that way right to the Sea of Azov.  Then I cut through eastern Crimea, maybe or maybe not touch upon Kubanistan (the mainland opposite Crimea) then right across the Black sea to Anatolia.  That's when things begin to get interesting again, with mountains.

Podolia-Zytomierz, from Shepetovka to Zytomierz

Completing the undone parts from the last post, adding the section around Zytomierz and then partially doing further work to the east.  I have time, you understand; I've been let go from my job, so I'll be looking for another sometime soon.  Until then, we must put our efforts somewhere.

Podolia-Rowno-Ternopol, north of Ternopol

Some completed content and some nearly finished, spanning two map sheets (thus the double-labelling in places).

Lwow-Rowno-Ternopol, east of Lwow

This finishes Lwow County.  Steadily the land flattens as we map east; the density of people diminishes, though it'll build up again soon as we near Kiyev.  I'm certain we're going to miss that city by a hair as we map our way by it, just as we turn southeast towards the Black Sea.

The largest city is Krzemieniec (modern Kremenets), which was a fortification against cossacks. The city also suffered battles and violence when Bohdan Khmelnytsky rallied the cossacks in 1648. Driven by grievences and religious oppression of the cossacks and peasants by the Polish nobility, Khmelnytsky allied with the Crimean Tatars, won several key battles, and incited widespread revolts, leading to violent clashes and significant upheaval, especially targeting Polish and Jewish communities seen as representatives of the ruling class. The uprising is ongoing in 1650 (it won't end historically until 1657) so the whole area is in a state of turmoil... if player characters arrived in this, they'd soon be dragged into it.

Lwow-Volhynia, north of Lwow

 This rural, agricultural landscape features villages that are generally modest, centering on small wooden churches and local markets.  Most are Eastern Orthodox Ruthenians and with some Roman Catholics.  Some religious tension existed, even though there was an attempt to bridge Catholic and Orthodox traditions through the "Uniate Church."  There might be sporadic raids from Cossacks or Tatars, but these were few.

Lwow itself is one of the few cities granted Magdeburg rights, which gives it legal and financial independence from the Polish crown. This self-governing status allowed Lwów's council to enact local laws and control its own taxation, making it both a powerful entity and somewhat unique for the time. The city’s charter allowed it to enforce guild regulations tightly, creating a well-organized structure for artisans and tradespeople who adhered to strict standards in everything from brewing to leatherworking. The Armenian community, which had its own legal system within the city, governed itself through the Armenian Court, a local institution permitted by the crown—a rare legal exception within the Commonwealth.

Lwow is also known for its multi-tiered fortifications, which include not only city walls but bastions and fortified gates, such as the famous Krakow Gate, designed to within any battery. These defenses have proven critical as Lwow held out against multiple sieges. The city has been celebrated for its resilience during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, notably repelling a Cossack-Tatar siege in 1648. This successful defense has cemented Lwow's reputation as a bulwark of the Commonwealth's eastern frontier and earned it the personal gratitude of King Jan II Casimir—who has exempted the city paying taxes until the year 1653.  The image below shows the gate as it was, before its dismantling in the 19th century.

Galicia-Lwow, west of Lwow

 

Galicia, between Przeworsk & Przemysl

 

Actually finished this weeks ago, but with one thing or another, it hasn't been posted until now.  This represents nearly the end of Polish Galicia, at last, which has been a large and populous province.  The next one over, Lwow, is not much easier to work on, but I don't mind.  The early process of producing this map is featured in the following three videos on youtube, here, here and here.

Przemysl is one of the oldest cities in Poland, with it's history dating back to at least the 8th century; the name is thought to derive from the slavic personal name, which means someone thoughtful or strategic.  As it happens, the city is in a strategic location, on the border of Galicia, along the major trade route that connects Germany with Kiyev.

Przeworsk is a smaller town, founded in the Middle Ages, with a name that means "to lead" or "to guide."  This, I could determine, may have something to do with it being a leading settlement, but I couldn't find anything more precise than that.  There appears to be no connection with these two cities having the same first four letters in their names, in this specific place, though przem- relates to strategy, while przew- relates to leadership or guidance.  It kind of bugs me that there are no other large cities in Poland that have these first four letters, but it seems utterly a coincidence.

Like Krakow, Przemysl is at the navigable head of the San River, which meets with the Vistula just above the top of this map.  Both rivers together provide a geographical framework for the south of Poland, as they reach from the Baltic Sea to cover a wide area on the northern slopes of the Carpathians.  The Vistula IS Poland, for all intents and purposes, as it makes the country's primary trade network in the game's time period and allows for comparatively fast travel and communication in the western realm.  For that reason, Galicia is one of the more advanced parts of medieval-Renaissance Poland, unlike the more agrarian regions to the east and northeast.

Galicia, around Rzeszow

Oops, cut off the 'G.'

This finishes off the Nyatria sheet for awhile, moving onto the Ruthenia sheet.  Those who have achieved the $10 tier can see the combined Nyatria and Ruthenia sheets together in a pdf on my patreon.

This piece above straddles both sheets, so it was a little longer duplicating a two-hex wide band in the middle from one map to the other.  The overlay is what covered up the 'G' in Galicia.  This is still more of that province, which seems to go on and on; the next piece I'm doing includes a small corner of the province of Zerrwen, which surrounds the big city of Lublin — a sort of northern extension of the Galician rural farmland model, though of course slightly more northern.  We're just skirting the southern tip of it here, the least populated part of the province.

The Rzeszow here is randomly presented as one of those cities that was brutalised by recent events brought about by the Thirty Years War, which takes place between 1618 and 1648; for my present-day players, it's 1654.  The map is timed to 1650.  I know the long time readers know this already, but maybe there's one reader for whom this is the first of my maps that they've seen.

Anyway, Rzeszow should bounce back quickly to become an important commercial centre like Debica, but for the present, much of its civil building lay in ruins.  Thus the type-3 hex it sits in.

Galicia, around Debica

 
Further east now, still heavily populated but beginning to disperse into country towns and villages, rather than commercial and manufacturing centres.  These are still satellite lands of Krakow, as all of Galicia, a large region compared to many of those I've worked on in east-central Europe, this is the powerhouse of the whole Polish state of the era.  Krakow was, for a time, the capital of Poland, in tandem with the other capital in Lithuania, Vilnius, or Wilno.  But the capital was moved to reduce the power of the intellectual class, to isolate the Polish throne from "facts" and "realistic expectations" and so on ... and that went very, very well.

For all of Poland's enemies.

There's much more Galicia to do, until drifting out of this corner of Poland and back into modern Ukraine, around Lwow.  All through the path ahead, I'll be cutting through the region's agricultural heart, right up to where I reach Kiyev.  I imagine that for most readers, a lot of what I'm doing now is a complete mystery to them, a part of Poland they've never looked at in depth.

For example, Nowy Sacz, which was done a few maps ago, is the navigational head of the Dunajec river, just as Krakow is the head of the Vistula.  "Poland" is defined by its rivers, which extend the importance of the Baltic Sea deep, deep into the far reaches of the country, in a great circle from Galicia here to Silesia.  The reason why Poland demanded an open port after WWI is because giving that port to Germany would have been like locking a collar around the entire economic welfare of the whole country.  A German-controlled Danzig would have become spectacularly wealthy on the labour of Poland, and would have funded a war twice the size of the one the Nazis were able to fight.  NO ONE in Europe, in 1919, would have permitted that; they'd have gone to war with Germany again rather than permit that.  So the Germans had to do without it, until they seized it in 1939 ... whereupon it did them no good, because Danzig's trade was throttled anyway by the British Navy keeping the Germans bound to the Baltic and North Atlantic.

It's this trade that made Poland such an appetising prize for the Russians, Austrians and Prussians in the 18th century.  It was the Austrians who gobbled up south and East Galicia in 1772, and then Krakow and Zerrwen in 1795.  True enough, it meant making the Prussians rich, as they controlled Gdansk, but the food production of Galicia and Lwow was prodigious, sufficient to allow Austria to double its population through the 19th century (among other factors). Galicia became known as the "granary of Europe," with its fertile lands producing abundant crops. The region's agricultural prosperity attracted settlers from other parts of the Austrian Empire, particularly from regions facing economic hardships or overpopulation.

Galicia & Wislanie, around Krakow

And so, I build this pile of humanity atop the stack that has been Slovakia, wholly into Poland now.  Feels good to have this density done, as everything after this for a long time is progressively easier to map.  It's all flat, there are less people ... I'll be gaining speed therefore as I go east.

Krakow is a large, important city because it straddles trade in two directions.  To begin with, it's on the headwater of the Vistula river, which flows to the Baltic sea, so that goods throughout south Poland converge here to be transshipped onto barges.  This also makes it a link between the Danube and the Baltic, as it's the shortest distance between the former river and goods coming down from the Baltic, such as furs, timber, fish and, in some degree, Asiatic goods coming all the way from China.  Finally, west to east, it's the fairest way on the north side of the curve created by the Carpathian mountains, linking northern Germany with Kiyev.  In my game, it's a city of 75,000 people, highly educated and at the time, in the midst of a Golden Age.

The region became an area of religious tolerance, replete with scholars and intellectuals like Brozek, Modrzewski and Zacjusz.  It was a time when many Jews settled into the region; Auschwitz-Birkenau is 33 miles east of Krakow, not shown on this map.  The soil was better at the time, though brown and loamy, and because of the decline of the region in the 18th century, had long lacked the fertility it had then.  It is most likely being much restored now.

The next map continues the outward pattern of infrastructure spreading outwards from Krakow.  I'm at the top of the sheet here, but as I have enough room I'm not going to make the adjoining sheet above until I come back this way, many months from now.  Remember when this sheet was empty, not that long ago?

Nyatria & Galicia, around Zsolna

The end of Nyatria and I think all of Slovakia now.  For awhile now, I've been progressing east to west with each group of three posts, but now I've climbed up the previously constructed map to where I'm even with it.  Here, I'll demonstrate; here's the upper left corner of the whole map as it's been rendered so far:

The reader can see that it's even now.  I've fixed the error I made with this post and extended the intended line up to include Busko at the top of the map sheet, "Nyatria-18e", which is named after the general area and that the upper right corner is 18 degrees E of Greenwich (an anachronism, but let's be realistic).

As I've explained before, the distance around the world EW is greater than the distance NS, so I've been mapping outwards six 20-mile hexes from the edge; atop the done map, however, I'll just do three 20-mile hexes.  I'll go north from the map finished here, to do the group of six hexes (3 high, 2 wide), then proceed east along the edge of the map shown.  Thus it'll be dense population to Lwow, then it'll drop off towards near Kiyev.  I haven't looked yet to see if I'll be doing Kiyev on this pass.  I kind of like not knowing.

I suppose for most this all seems sort of repetitive.  Certainly the mix of hexes extending along the finger that the Hungarian Kingdom makes east to west, plainly visible on the double-map here seems like a long scattering of similarly patterned hexes.  Let me say that I know that it's just infeasible that this much information could ever really be made use of for a D&D world; it's tremendously out of reason to run every one of these towns in a lifetime of gaming.

Therefore, we can guess that much of my motivation here isn't D&D.  I am pretty nerdy, after all.  I find myself mapping Poland and I think, "wow, not that long ago I was mapping Bulgaria.  This is so kewl to be this far north and actually mapping Krakow!  Goofy, but it's like travelling across Europe at walking speed, which feeds my inner quest for knowledge at any cost.  Some things I do "for D&D" are purely selfish.  I admit it.

I'll skip a description of this area above.  It's much the same as the last two I wrote for Upper Hungary.  The sight of the completed map, overlaid upon the uncompleted areas, I think, is enough.

At some point, I'm going to have to solve the problem of laying two adjacent maps one over the other.  The "Arpathian Mountains," for example, indicates that pretty clearly.  I've figured out how to do it, but damn, it's a lot of work.

Galicia & Upper Hungary, around the Tatras

The Tatras are really marvelous; they lift up right out of the plain, surrounded by a flat land.  They were formed millions of years ago as a sharp, staggering wrinkle caused by the collision of the African plate with the European ... with their sharp lifted peaks formed by the glacial period.  Go have a look.  Yet as spectacular as they are, they're just 26 miles long and 7 miles wide.  We could fit six of these ranges into the area of Long Island.

They're an untouched wilderness in the period, primarily inhabited by shepherds and hunters.  The forests today have all been cut out, but they'd still be there in the 17th century, all around the lower slopes.  The upper pastures were tended by a group called the Goral people.

The more populated regions to the north are peaceful and deeply hierarchical, with the peasants being largely serfs, often on the edge of starving.  The Polish nobility of the time ravaged their own land and peoples without restraint, supported by the Catholic Church.  It's a hard place to live, but a player party could likely walk through the region with little trouble, so long as they were generous with bribes, should they be questioned.  Two silver pieces per soldier is a good bribe, all given to the leader of course.

Upper Hungary & Galicia, west of Bartfa

There, I've jumped northeast, so that now we're north of Iglo and Spis Castle.  We've touched on Poland with this recent post and way, way back in November of 2022.  This a relative respite in population density; still have to get around Krakow to the northwest of here, where it's going to get dense again, though not quite like Nyatria.  In fact, there's not a single "settlement" in this region just mapped.

The frontier on this side of Hungary was not much better than the border with the Turks; Upper Hungary was a fortified arm between the Turks and Poland, which was also aggressive. This region was frequently plagued by military conflicts, raids and skirmishes between various factions. These conflicts were more than nationalistic, they also involved local militias, mercenaries, and opportunistic bandits. These clashes often resulted in destruction of villages, displacement of populations, and economic hardship and famine for affected communities. It's a good part of the world for players to help disaffected, struggling peoples against a wide range of enemies.

Major centres depend on the trade route that passes through Eperjes and Iglo, that connects Vienna with Kiyev.  Another interesting point is that, because the peoples here had to huddle together against these troubles (and the 30 Years War besides), the region became one of religious tolerance, with Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants and Jews co-existing in relative peace.  The violent factions are made of other causes.

Nyatria, around Nyatria

This is more of the heart of the hard-put Hungarian Kingdom in the 17th century, the source of wealth that sustained the "wall" against the Turks that protected Europe.  For me, thankfully this is the last of intense infrastructure mapping; I adore the way these towns overwhelm the gaze, but it's tons of extra work where mapmaking is concerned.  I yearn for a large, flat, uninhabited landscape ... though when I get there, it'll probably be two hundred lakes that I'll hate.

Nyatria, also Nitra, is an important ecclesiastical centre, but in my game not a trade hub.  Obviously, there's a market there, as the city has more than 10,000 people, but the balance of importance is towards maintenance of the Catholic church and the bureaucracy.  Primarily, all these type-1 hexes are structured towards an intense cottage industry culture, churning out great amounts of foodstuffs, textiles, ceramics and wooden articles of every kind.  And arms and armour, too, for use along the frontier, not for sale.  Military garrisons proliferate throughout the region.

I'm coming up on the corner to turn steadily east, so to make the map round out, I'll be making sections that are just 2/3rds as large as these being lately done.  That will get us up into Poland, whereupon the maps will march out towards Kiyev.

Nyatria, around Zolyom

Depicted is a part of central west Slovakia, south of modern day Banska Bistrica, where about 25 years ago my in-laws went for two years to teach English as a second language.  As we're getting a little further north, the winters here are moderately cold, but the land is beautiful and the highland pastures verdant and rich with livestock.  I still need to identify the line of peaks at the top of the map; part of the Carpathians, but not the Tatras ... those are still further north.

The area is renowned for its rich deposits of gold, silver and copper, so that many hexes here are mining these metals, not just the mine hexes coloured a soft purple at the map's top.  Beszercebanya, or Banska Bistrica, was also known as "Neusohl" at the time, which means "new sand," obviously a mining reference.  "Banska" also relates to mining, while "Bystrica" means clear stream.  Beszercebanya is the Hungarian name for the town, and means "our mine."  No oppression there.

Continuing west from here.