Volhynia-Rowno, around Luck

 

This is a pretty big section done at a go; pretty much all that's in the top nine hex rows and east of the river in the upper left hand corner. That includes most of both Volhynia and Rowno. In Earth terms, this is the upper northeast corner of Ukraine, with swamps starting to show up along the northern fringe... the preamble of the Pripyet Marsh, which begins above what's mapped.

The marsh is a guess; I have it on good information that the Russians drained most of this southern marsh early in the 20th century, and efforts were made before that, so GoogleEarth doesn't show marsh where these are. I mostly went on "if it looked empty and might have been a marsh once, we'll call it a marsh in 1650. It's good enough... makes an interesting landscape, nice for players wanting to wander around through close-by wilderness full of temperate marsh-creatures.

My offline party generated a henchman that randomly turned out to be nobility, and after some random rolls, was identified as the deposed Grand Duke of Volhynia, despite being just 19 years of age. The party collected a group of low-level hench and headed off for the region; they spent a session discovering the region, getting a lay of the land, meeting a few sorts who would help against the usurper — and then, somehow, we just never managed to run this side adventure again. There was always something else and everyone at that time thought we'd play forever... so I'm a bit maudlin about it. Nice to have a more detailed map of the area, even though I'll never get to play out that set-up.  At least, not here, and not until another player maybe rolls up a noble.

As of now, I'm about 20 months behind where I mapped to the south of here.

Kamenskoye-Krivassa-Vassia

Ah, broke free from continuously populated quarters of Ukraine.  Open steppe, goes east by southeast with comparatively little occupation, until growing even less populated to the coast of the Caspian.  As I swing around this side from now on, it gets progressively easier.

Kamenskoye is interesting; an isolated river port, few facilities (type-6), a natural backwater accumulating thieves, river pirates, smugglers, adventurer-merchants bound for the Orient and minions of all sorts.  A good jumping off point, a destination to find someone who knows something about an obscure part of the world... and a long and potentially harrowing journey to reach a poorly maintained and unsafe wharf-front.  Sounds ideal.

Technically, the town is under the suzerainty of the Zaporozhian cossacks.  I mentioned these before.  This fiercely aggressive peoples are based in the "Zaporozhian Sich," which are lands following the east bank of the Dneiper.  Their number includes Bohdan Khmelnitsky, whom some will remember is waging a private war against Poland in the time of my game world; as the lands to the south and east of Zaporozhian are, unlike real history, occupied by non-human orcs, haruchai, ogres and trolls, they have larger problems than the Poles... but generally, the sweep of the land is so large that there are ways to be safe, while those on horseback can see a long way.  A party on its own, on horseback, would surely be quickly outnumbered; a party on foot would have much to fear from a small cavalry that might seem to appear from nowhere.

Krivassa-Vassia

The process is steady and patient; the apparent obscurity of another collection of unfamiliar towns and river courses simply impresses on the consciousness how immense the world is, and how many places in it are homes to people who carry no weight in the minds of those who see only grand, sweeping arcs.

Imagine the simple Turkic tax collector who leaves from Constantinople in the mid-17th century, to take a crude cart from an unfamiliar coastal port, along some unknown river to arrive at a desolate steppeland town called "Leksan," only to be told that this represents the height of civilisation for a distance of 30 miles around.  How dismal.

Hercegovina-Montenegro, north of Niksic

 

The karst shown here is a mixture of bare limestone and dolomite rock and scrub growth.  The region is full of sinkholes formed by the collapse of underground caverns.  There are extensive limestone pavements, cracks and deep, narrow fissures called "grikes."  An abundance of springs exist that form streams, many of which disappear through fissures and travel thence through underground channels.  There are many, many caves.

This is the southern reach of the Dinaric Alps, which spawns isolated limestone formations with precipitous cliffs, groups of peaks and plateau-like areas 7000 ft. above sea level.  These contribute to the overall grandeur and scale of the landscape.  The surrounding forests contained scattered hamlets and tiny villages, with only a few significant settlements grouped around.  It's a spectacular arrangement for low-level adventuring, with plenty of space for the occasional chimera or gorgon ... remembering that the southern portion shown was part of Illyria, on the fringe of the ancient Greek world.  So such beasts would be entirely appropriate.

This puts Montenegro behind me, and this is all I'm doing of Hercegovina for now.  Continuing north, there's Serbia to complete and then the eastern part of Bosnia.

Hither Rumelia, around Sofia

Into the heart of Hither Rumelia:

Several people have remarked on the stark break between civilised and uncivilised places ... and there may be some imagination that this is a phenomenon I've incorporated for my 17th century setting.  True enough, my populations are a fifth of the modern equivalents, or less.  But have a look at the above on Google Earth, with a little wider frame:

It can be seen clearly that even in the modern day that there's a sharp line between "civilised" and "wilderness."  Imagine what this must have looked like before the tractor could plow this much field, before the dam that makes the large reservoir bottom centre, before the spreading suburbs of Sofia, when the population density was much higher because there were no roads or even horse carriages for most people.  The old saw is that most peasants never went more than 7 miles from home; imagine these places, where 7 miles puts us behind a mountain 7,000 feet high.

In running as a DM, do make the most of that transition.  Say directly to the players, "As you watch the last house disappear behind the screen of trees, you realise that there isn't another living soul in the woods ahead of you.  From here out, you're on your own."  Stress it.  Make them really think about the lack of support networks and last minute cavalry arrivers.  Make that distinction real ... and with the distinction, that you as DM aren't here to save them, but to run the wilderness AS IS.  "Sorry, guys.  I'm going to have to run this savage land for what it is.  A place no safe person would go."