Maps of Age of Sigmar

[Menkeroth]

Guten Abend, fellow brothers and sisters. I was thinking much of the maps in AoS, and here are five cents on the subject. Also, I would like to read your thoughts as well

First, I adore the new style of drawing that first appeared in the "Mighty battles in an age of an unending war". It's really great, you could not get more high fantasy than this! And it certainly rocks. It reminds me of DnD, not surprisingly, especially about planes like Ravenloft or Dark Sun, and of MtG as well. GW returned to its roots and this is the rare case when it was right.

Second, they catch that feel of the highly magical universe. You can really believe it's something interesting and unusual, something that confers the fantasy vibe as it should, because we have lots of what mimics our planet or history and this is boring. Fantasy was invented by Tolkien for another purpose - to go see other planes and worlds. And AoS maps certainly do this well.

Third, it makes you ask questions and use your imagination. Geographical borders and nations are typical and easy to grasp, but what is soul prison or mortuary factory? Why is the lake green?  Why are the Maw Gates literally in the maw of a gigantic worm? This is the most fantastical you can get, and then you want to think it all over and create something of yours, something new and no less unique. This drives your imagination ever forward.

What do you say then? And ja, here are some of my favorite maps of all time

 

 

[HorticulusTGA]

That's an interesting topic, but also the subject of some of the worst "flame wars" AOS had known at his debut...

But anyway ; I'll say we absolutely need both style of map ; the bigger, more original, less defined style for the larger realm, and the more detailed and high fantasy looking ones for more precise locations.

Exemple : the map of (parts of) Chamon in the Kharadron Overlords Battletome is awesome, with lake of liquid metal and floating continent, but also grounded, with normal mountain ranges and seas. It is relatable, on a setting scale. And then we have the map of Anvrok ; it's also great, but to show the magic and details of a particular place.

IMO, the maps just need of minimum of inspiration and quality, in perspective for exemple (the infamous" Cyssandra's Keep" map, that you seems to really like, is quite problematic  in this regard, and this one should be one of the most frequently mentioned "bad map" of AOS because of this "lack of quality" - and not because it is high fantasy and ultra magical, just because the same concept, but drawn differently, would have been better).

(P.-S. ; the artwork with different color tanks is not a map, it just shows the level of commerce attained in each Realms by the sky-ports....)

[MOMUS]

Although I prefer the geographical style of map I can see the need for the more fantastical images used for the AoS landmarks. I can also see why the criticism of the AoS art has been so harsh, the direction has clearly changed but perhaps not for the better in all areas.

I don't see some notable artists work anymore, instead we get model-identical-art and none of the artists whose work does shine are credited in the books which is a real shameful practice by GW.

[HorticulusTGA]

3 minutes ago, MOMUS said:

I don't see some notable artists work anymore, instead we get model-identical-art and none of the artists whose work does shine are credited in the books which is a real shameful practice by GW.

That's very true (for the fluff writers and rules designers too ! Even if they work in team, they all should have their names in the credit...)

BTW does someone remember the name of GW's map artist ?

[Menkeroth]

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

That's an interesting topic, but also the subject of some of the worst "flame wars" AOS had known at his debut...

 

True, but this will last until all the "old guard" have gone, so what can we do.

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

But anyway ; I'll say we absolutely need both style of map ; the bigger, more original, less defined style for the larger realm, and the more detailed and high fantasy looking ones for more precise locations.

 

The first ones too can be much more fantasy as they should, because the ones that already are, are boring and dull at best. And create an illusion the realms have borders which is not true. 

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

Exemple : the map of (parts of) Chamon in the Kharadron Overlords Battletome is awesome, with lake of liquid metal and floating continent, but also grounded, with normal mountain ranges and seas

which is the shame because it ruins the high fantasy atmosphere real quick.

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

It is relatable, on a setting scale

In fact no, it's self-delusion and simply not true.

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

And then we have the map of Anvrok ; it's also great, but to show the magic and details of a particular place.

And the whole of Chamon is described like that, one of the major reasons Tzeentch always tends to pay it much more attention than the other Realms.

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

just because the same concept, but drawn differently, would have been better).

for example? I agree this map is not the best but not bad too either.

8 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

(P.-S. ; the artwork with different color tanks is not a map, it just shows the level of commerce attained in each Realms by the sky-ports....)

I know, just couldn't have shared it with others as this chart is awesome. 

4 hours ago, MOMUS said:

I can also see why the criticism of the AoS art has been so harsh, the direction has clearly changed but perhaps not for the better in all areas.

Well, most of them still remain the same artists that have been there for ages, like Clint Langley, Adrian Smith, John Blanche (of course!) and so on, so we can be safe here.

[stratigo]

AoS is planescape. It's not even really hiding it. I mean, it's even got a series of gates, and at the center of a cosmological wheel it has a giant fortress with gates to everwhere.

 

 

[Greyshadow]

Hmmm, this was a tough one. I do like both - I think the grounded in reality type by a whisker. I find it easier to imagine the war strategies, supply lines and logistics  which I use to craft stories. The exotic maps are probably better for campaign players as opposed to the campaign master. A good question though!

[RuneBrush]

I actually think both map styles work for AoS.  The very artistic ones are great for shaping the overall feel of a realm and defining this area is next to this area, the style lends itself to the concept that the realms are vast and can potentially change.  It's what I can imagine travellers would use whilst trying to traverse locations, a Kharadron adventurer would have rolls of these tucked into their ship.

The more traditional map style is good for actually mapping out a small area, so cities and small regions with a much higher accuracy of buildings size and location, things that feasibly wouldn't change very much (I'm excluding Tzeentch cities which likely change as you blink).

[Killax]

Voted liking both, like with Magic the Gathering there is a very simple reason to not try and recreate any historical setting like WFB (including historical map influences), the reason being the creative freedom we can now work with. As everything can be magical and epic there is no reason to not include anything in particular. For whatever reason though there are still some who can't see AoS for the epic fantasy style setting that it is or simply dislike epic fantasy style settings (and thus maps). 

In the end though I have no real map preforance. For miniature army scaled games I also do not see it a mandatory inclusion. For DnD or other skirmish like games (that for example are set in a city) things become more different. It's not like I'm going to re-create a massive country map in actual tables for example. For cities, houses or smaller villages this becomes a whole different matter.

For the narrative setting I like as much as the game system wants to do. So I again don't have a preforance for either but will say that if a game is set in a very magical narrative the game should emulate magical effects extremely well and put a ton of focus on it. To me the current game system doesn't match up all too well with it's epic fantasy narrative.

[Moonlightwolf]

I prefer the more fantastical maps but I absolutely see the need for both. To me the really fantastical stuff is great for inspiration and to show the possibilities of the setting. Just trying to imagine a tribe living along something like the great green torque fills me with inspiration. Still with an enclosed setting for a narrative or skirmish game it's definitely more useful to have a detailed map so I'd say there's room for both styles.

[Nacnudllah]

16 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

BTW does someone remember the name of GW's map artist ?

Many of the maps are by Marina Ortez.

The wildly cinematic maps of AoS are actually cleaving pretty close to a principle in Story-based RPGS of "Draw maps, but leave blanks".  They provide us with cool artistic maps, but leave some intriguing looking features unlabeled and/or unexplained, and have even left larger "blanks" by virtue of having nigh-infinite Realms in which we can draw our own entire maps if we wish it.  In story-gaming, it's all about spurring the imagination without bridling it, and I'm guessing that's what they're going for.

[Menkeroth]

What is especially interesting is that, without surprise, traditional geographical maps of parts of Aqshy and Ghyran from the SCE tome are absolutely uninspiring and not interesting, but GW already has proved it can do both types amazingly. Look at this - geographical locations but awesome and inspiring. 

 

[MacDuff]

Personally I'd like them to contextualize fantastical regional maps like the one above into wide geographic ones. Since the edges of the realms are ever expanding, there's always room for more.

[Menkeroth]

Actually it would be really great, along with more local maps with local objects like in an RPG. But we haven't had anything for AoS in this regard for ages

[Nubgan]

I love the style of maps linked here, but they certainly don't give you any feel on the scale (which I guess is good for story telling). Are we flat earthers now and can we drive our ships off the edge? Currently they all look like they have physical boundaries and you can't traverse a globe back to your location on the maps we have seen. Would love to see a big map with them all on or even have a hint of the overall scale they are thinking or see whether everything is just on the back of a giant squig somewhere in space.

[Ashendant]

Actually, we at the Lexicanum, could use some help with uploading these maps if possible.

[Menkeroth]

2 hours ago, Nubgan said:

Are we flat earthers now and can we drive our ships off the edge?

It is stated sometimes that the realms are indefinite in size and expand constantly, so there are no real boundaries. We can see only particular regions where some events take place, and sometimes large maps of a more greater region, but still it's a tiny piece of a whole picture, and since the worlds are indefinite it's all we need.

[Menkeroth]

2 hours ago, Ashendant said:

Actually, we at the Lexicanum, could use some help with uploading these maps if possible.

Specify your needs, please.

[Ashendant]

4 hours ago, Menkeroth said:

Specify your needs, please.

Well we need someone with the Maps as an IMG file to upload them on the Lexi with the Age of Sigmar maps category. I can do this as I found a place with all of the maps, but there's already plenty I have to edit already, so it's kinda in the backburner for me as I upload it if I need to update an article related to it.

[Menkeroth]

Then give me the exact link and I will do what I can.

[Ashendant]

Facebook page with loads of maps

 

Upload it here

[Cèsar de Quart]

Thanks for the contribution. I'm thankful for the maps, but the worlds still feel a bit generic. The names are generally unimaginative and the general idea of some of these realms is hard to swallow sometimes. Those floating crystal islands on Chamon, for instance... they have fortresses and towns, apparently. What do they eat? How did people get there?

The semblance of verosimilitude is lost sometimes for the sake of high fantasy concept. I think sometimes Phil Kelly and the rest have lost sight of how important "grounded" is. Not in colour or concept or even landscape, just as basic underlining idea. Wanna make ruins floating on the sky? Great, but you better have a good damn explanation about how and why they're there. A city on a flaming lava plateau? Good, ok, but how are they eating again? Hammerhal has this solved with its portal to Ghyran, but... what about any other place on Aqshy? I thought the center of each Realm is the Earth-most place on it, and the further you get the weirder it gets. But so far most of what we've seen of Aqshy is lava, ash and wasteland. Why fight over Aqshy then, if the single most important commodity for which people have fought over the millennia (food) simply can't be grown there in large quantities?

Sure, maybe there's a magic FIRE RED ROOT or a variety of FLAMEWHEAT that grows in abudance there... but I haven't heard of it, and I haven't seen any art depicting it.

I say this, not to ill-speak of AoS for the sake of it, not at all. I'm sure these matters will be (or have already been) solved in time, but I find it jarring that they weren't the first thing they considered. Coming from the vivid maps depicting the Old World, these ones just look... bland. Look at the maps of Aqshy and Chamon: Brimstone Peninsula, Flamescar Plateau, Irrigation Keep (what? really?), Warflame Peaks. Delta Prong. Arable Hearthlands? What? Who calls these places like that? What do the natives call them? Look at Shyish: Nihilus Reach. Penultima. Kraniad Isle. Who the frak gave these places their names? Skeletor? Allright, this one may be true... 

One can imagine Imperial prospectors charting an inhabitated sector, giving them run-of-the-mill names or archive-like generic toponymia and move on (Sector Nihilus, Sector Primus, etc). But... what's Aqshy's excuse? The Polychromatic Sea, seriously? Imagine a sailor saying this once every day and the name won't survive one year like that.

I may be a bit too hard on them, but I do like good worldbuilding, and one key aspect of this is toponymia, because that's the one thing all humans do: name things. Names tell a story, and they have a story themselves. GW doesn't seem to care that much (for now). There are some good ideas (I really like the Veins of Grimnir, very evocative, very storied; you can tell several things about this place before seeing it just by its name), but it seems these maps were rushed. Or maybe the team doesn't care. 

Either way, I'd like them to get better at this, so that I can suspend my disbelief every once in a while. Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, I'd like to be corrected.

Anyway, sorry about the wall of text.

[MacDuff]

Here in the USA it seems we're not very good at naming towns. For example: Accident, Big Arm, Chicken, Coupon, Cut and Shoot, Embarrass, Experiment, Fertile, Frankenstein, Hazard, Hell, Hippo, Intercourse, Kickapoo, Marrowbone, Mock City, Money, Mosquitoville, Ninety Six, Nothing, Oatmeal, Okay, Paw Paw, Pee Pee, and the list goes on. All real names.

[Kirjava13]

And all of them magnificent monuments to the character of the US, in the same way as Brown Willy and Scratchy Bottom are for the British.

[Cèsar de Quart]

11 hours ago, MacDuff said:

Here in the USA it seems we're not very good at naming towns. For example: Accident, Big Arm, Chicken, Coupon, Cut and Shoot, Embarrass, Experiment, Fertile, Frankenstein, Hazard, Hell, Hippo, Intercourse, Kickapoo, Marrowbone, Mock City, Money, Mosquitoville, Ninety Six, Nothing, Oatmeal, Okay, Paw Paw, Pee Pee, and the list goes on. All real names.

My point exactly. American toponymy has a specific character, just like any other culture's. Naming in these Mortal Realms seems inconsistent and generic. I'd like to see in-universe maps and charts, more than just eagle-sight maps that don't seem to have been drawn or made by anyone. Omniscient narration and design in fantasy can be good, but it can also substract from the immersion.