Specificity

One of the key problems with the Settlement Campaign idea is that it is so broad. That broadness is also one of the core features that makes it such an appealing idea. However, while there are components common to many Settlement Campaigns, each such endeavor will be unique because of the differences in topography, climate, geology, hydrology, etc. I talked about creating a hyper-snowflake setting and ruleset, but in trying to represent the Settlement Campaign, I tried to reach too broadly, focusing more on universality than the specificity that I want to promote within game design.

So, in service of that specificity, I drew the (most of) the rest of the continent within which the Sea of Shadows is located. It currently lacks a name, but names are complicated beasts and I like to leave those to the end of the process. I do have some names, areas of my world that have been bouncing around in my brain for years but I've not wanted to develop (as I tried to focus on just the Sea of Shadows itself). While Guol, Panumbra, and the Wintry South will continue to occupy the furthest-back burner, it is nice to know where they are on the map, how they relate to each other topographically, and so on. It is also humbling to see that this world which has occupied my thoughts for 5ish years occupies just 40 squares of my sheet of graph paper - despite how much work I have put into this project, I have barely scratched the surface of all there is to accomplish. It is humbling, but it is also somewhat freeing; I am still beginning this endeavor - despite the progress on my game book, I have not come close to any sort of ending.

Additionally, and this was the original goal of the exercise, I now have places for my settlers to settle.