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.

Spis Castle

Just an update on the previous post.  A poke from Nigel, who more than a year ago corrected me about the right name for Zlin in Moravia, drew my attention to a feature that should have been included on my last map:

Spiš Castle has been added to the above, somewhere approximately where it is, atop a low hill not shown on the map.  It is a heritage site, one of the largest castle complexes in Central Europe, believed to have been built in the early 12th century on the site of an earlier fortification. Over the centuries, it underwent numerous expansions, modifications, and renovations. It served as the political, administrative, economic, and cultural center of the region.  There's plenty of information about it.  The castle suffered a devastating fire in the 18th century and thereafter ceased to be occupied.

So why, if the castle existed in the 17th century, at the time of my game world, is it a ruin?  This is going to sound silly, but it's because when I randomly generated the hex, it wound up being a type-7.  The 20-mile hex that it's a part of has an infrastructure (inf.) of 171, which broke down into two type-1s (Iglo and Locse), a type-2 (Zavadka), a type-4 (Svedlar) and three type-7s.  Each type-1 counts for 64 inf., the type-2 for 32 inf., the type-4 for 8 inf. and each type-7 for 1 inf. each.

The two type-1s are automatically assigned to the settlements, about which I've explained, and the other five hexes were assigned randomly.  If the type-2 or the type-4 were assigned to Spis Castle's hex, I'd be changing the town/village name to "Spis" and the castle would be functional and fully staffed.  But the hex generator selected a type-7 for that hex, which would be farmland and a little thorpe of about 15 people.  If Spis had been designated on the encyclopedia map that forms the basis for my game design, it would now be a type-1 or a type-2 for certain.  But it isn't, because the numbers rolled against it ...

I could countermand the random selection and reverse Svedlar's hex ... but once you start doing that with a generative system, it never stops, and the line just creeps all over.  I prefer to say, "This is a D&D world, there's magic, something happened to Spis castle before it had a chance to burn down in the 18th century.  This makes it an interesting ruin for the players to investigate, along with the abandoned village of Spis (which also would have been there before this became a ruin), next to some tiny collection of farmers that live in the shadow of the wrecked castle.

That works great for me, should I ever want to give reason for players to go here, and it works great for the reader, who can build a low level campaign by starting players in the town of Iglo, just 13 miles west of the ruined castle.

Upper Hungary & Nyatria

Here we have a comparative backwater, though there were overarching conflicts taking place all around the area during the Thirty Years War and the Ottoman encroachment.  I was able to find a reference that much of this area was a big forested area in the time period, surrounding the Cerova Highlands, but that was only one sentence.  There is some trade through the area, and some mining of silver and copper, so obviously a campaign could be built around cleaning out some secret goblin-kobald mine west of Dobsina, discovering they were digging a rich vein of silver and then allowing the party to take steps to continue exploiting it.

Still, life here consists of a mix of rural agriculture, minor commercial activity, a staunch religious tradition (a mix of Catholic and Lutheran), with an outlying threat that wouldn't be likely to materialise.

West, then, into the heart of the modern day Banska Bystrica province.