Let's Talk About Hickory Branch

If you look at the second map down on post 110, it says "DANGER" about where the Moathouse is. North of that it says "BEWARE EVIL" and then "EVIL LIVES HERE" out to the northeast, all along an "Unused Trace Road" also labeled the "High Road" over in the Gnarley. This road does not appear on our map. What were these things in the original ToEE Module?

My new list of suggested names:

Beware Evil Mod
Evil Lives Here Mod
Unused Trace Road Mod
High Road Mod
Live Evil Mod
Live Evildom Mod (couldn't resist)
OMG Now Sally's Gone Mod (another play on words)
The Road Less Taken
Live Long Evil Gnol
Somebody Slap Him!

 

Beware evil is the Temple, evil lives here is just a spot in the forest and Nulb is out of place. It should be just to the north of the temple. My poorly educated guess's.

 

Ted said

My bad. Spike is using T1-4 (published in 1985); I am using T1 (published 1979/1981). For some reason, I thought T1-4 was 2e, but that wasn't released until 1989. Probably b/c T1 said T2 would be released soon, which ended up being 4-6 years. In any case, for some reason I can find all my older 1E stuff, but not T1-4.

In case I wasn't clear, I originally had no access to the b&w maps, so I made the best guess I could with vague text and maps not showing the Greyhawk hexes. While I think I made a pretty good estimate, I do prefer using the actual maps (and never said I didn't, which is why I took Spike's "advice" as insulting). Note that the bottom 2/3 b&w map does *not* show the hex immediately se of the hex containing Hommlet. The larger scale Greyhawk maps (to my eye) make it look like the Welkwood is se.

The Nulb location is irrelevant to this discussion, I was just pointing out that the official materials disagree on it's placement (6 miles v. 30 miles), as well as Hommlet's distance from Verbobonc (30 leagues v. 30 miles). I'm pretty sure some part of the Welkwood is se of Hommlet within those margins of error.

I'm not saying Hommlet *isn't* near the Gnarley Forest, I'm just saying it appears to be near the Welkwood *also*.

--thearioch

 

Is that what is said in a module? Both are too far south to be in the same location as the Temple on our map. Evil Lives Here is about as far north as the Deklo Grove, making Beware Evil a bit further south than that. On the ToEE map in the game, BE would be in the hills north of the moathouse and ELH would be about halfway between the moathouse and the Temple. Is the Temple in the wrong place on our map?

I ask this because these locations are close to Homlett and seem good for mod ideas. I'm guessing that they are not identified in the modules. I do not own any copies of any of them. I think I have a Greyhawk book somewhere, but I'm not even sure of that.

 

You mean like a post on the road? (but drawed on the map)
Thast would work...maybe hommlet it's a small village, but Verboknock surely should have a post along the road...players would see it, so when they got the option, they would know they're going "out of the map"

For Hickory stick we could do the something similar, simply painting ruins in the map. And perhaps we could have a characteristic feature (like a monolith or a statue for example) so players would see it -small- in the map, and then when they're actually there, they see that feature and say "aaah, so this is it!"

@Gaear

that map looks awesome! An improvement indeed :yes:
Now, going nitpicky, watch out the volume of certain things, like a rocky floor, that may have shadows in the wrong side.
Now, following what i've said before, it could be possible to have some feature charcteristic from HB? Dunno, maybe a sector filled with statues? A small ziggurat? A ruined, crumbling tower? A bleeding tree?

 

Well, thinking on it, there is no other ruin in the game, right?
A small icon looking like ruins would suffice, i think

I thought that you couldn't add a map icon i you didn't had spot to check...it would be of course the best solution, and it's already done in KotB, i dunno why can't be done in ToEE.

Still, i don't think that it could be a problem if they're at the beginning of the game.
You'll see a "<----- Verbotonk" road post, and you'll simply know where you're going, not exactly the place you're are.

Oh, i didn't see any problem -looks again the pic, and spots one- except the columns, which cast a shadow thru the south, and yet they have shadow in the north. You can cheat that, by placing a small, close campfire on the east (where it's the light) or invert the columns horizontally, to have the shadows on the left.

But that map looks really awesome, much more better than what i could do from scratch. Now i feel inspired, i'll check some maps that i thougth they were cool, and see what i could do (the small bone-filled cave under the moathouse it's a wonder, and practically unused for example)

Which program are you using btw?
If you're using photoshop, i could give you some tips, tho VPs tutorials are absolutely cool (i've learned a bunch from them), sometimes it uses tools too complicated and technical for normal humans, and you can have the same -or similar- effect using a way more simplier option (replacing colors, and adding shadows-lightings for example)

 

Sorry if i sound dense... :blush:

That's ok, i do the same :grin:
But it helps a lot when somebody says "go to x, click y, there you'll find the tool".
In any case, it seems you're doing it way too good - besides i don't know that program-.

I was just being nitpicky; the map of the ruined shacks it's flawless, can't wait to see what you're going to do in the end

Exactly that, you got it.
The small map graphics (what i've called icons) shouldn't be no problem, about to put them in the map...again, it's been done in KotB, why can't be done here? Maybe one of the related .mes files gives a clue?

Pfah, those doesn't look like ruins
*opens ToEE and looks again, just in case*
...nope, not at all. I mean, true ruins.
But, if you have an idea, then better (btw, i think that KotB map icons are way better than those of ToEE, but they have a different style)

 

I thougth so

It will not work properly...it will count as a huge button for the burnt house, and surely, someone will click it and will get to the burnt house instead of HB.
Besides, the graphics (inteface and skins at least) are defined by the corresponding .mes file, not the tga.
This means, if you make a huge tga with the two locations, and take the rest of the tga to make it invisible, the game will take that as a "skin" and simply resize it to the small map icon (you'll probably get two barely spotten pixels), you'll need to find the .mes file, and change the size in pixels measures (that's how portraits can be "embiggened")

Mi ideas:

1)-The temple ruined house it's a useless map, since it doesn't have anything, and it's not even safe to rest. If it doesn't have a world map button it won't matter neither, since you'll be a ble to acces thru the temple if you still want to go there...could it be posible to use it for HB?
Also, if you're desperate to have those map icons, you could do the same with the temple broken tower, since it can be accesed too from the temple (and it's not that long to walk from there) for Verbonic.
The burnt farmhouse should stay, or it would become just an exit map.

2)-Since Hommlet has the teleporting posts, then you could leave the center button (straigth to the post), and use the other two for Veroboconi and HB

3)-Use the buttons to te less visited maps, or those closer to cities; for example the Deklo grove, which you will visit once or twice as much. A door icon on the north of Hommlet could lead there (and even a small map as transition, to show that there's some distance). The Imeryds run, not visited too much, and also it's quite close to Nulb, so another straight passage would suffice (again, maybe a transition map). Both transition maps could be taken from random encounters, so you'll be saving some time.

4)-As i've said before, just painted on the world map, and players would need to go there by clicking the location on the list, as usual.