Kingdom of Karameikos - Traladara 1020 AC, 3.2 miles per hex
by Francesco DefferrariYes, Karameikos is the starting point of Mystara and so it's one of the more developed areas of the game world, yet canon products focused only on the cities/major towns and on the area of Threshold... If you look at the map (like the great one by Thorf) you can see that there are huge areas (The cruth mountains and lowlands, the Radlebb woods, the area between Westron road and Sulescu, the area north of Eastron road, the Wulfholde hills, the far east) of which we know almost nothing about...
In fan production there is some development of these areas, like the wonderful work of Giampaolo Agosta, Simone Neri, Patrick Sullivan, Håvard and many others but still I needed a better picture of the adventures PCs could find outside the beloved Threshold area...
So I took the great 3.2 miles/hexes map of Karameikos by Giampaolo and started putting in it more villages, humanoid camps and tribes, ruins and borders using mostly fan sources.
Some notes about it: It's for my campaign, so it's set in 1020 AC.. the Black Eagle is long gone and I have moved some of the humanoid tribes that lived there. I've drawn borders of the dominions as they are IMC: the king granted Krakatos to the Torenescu, Koriszegy is now part of the Viscounty of Luln-Koriszegy, Verge and Rugalov are now baronies, Sulescu a County and Feadil, Chossum and Red Arrow Alfheim elves were granted lands in the west. Also Hutaaka is not lost anymore and the humans left it settling south in a new town of Ronkan...
What I'll do now and why I need your help:
- I'm not gone through all the fan material yet, so I could have missed something, please point out any location or people/creatures that could go on the map.
- To people that worked on the 2300 BC campaign, where ancient taymoran ruins should be?
- What ancient secrets the Cruth lowlands hide? ( I also think a lot of hill giants should be there)
- The Vorloi-Dmitrov peninsula is all settled or there is something in the middle of it keeping humans at bay?
- What dangers have kept the Dymrak plain a wild land? (I'd go with vampires and blue dragons
- Besides humanoids, what creatures inhabit the Wulfholde hills? (sasquatchs? rock baboons? tabis? others?)
- Have during the centuries vampires and werecreatures formed their own civilized communities in the wild? where?
- I need so many names and backstories for so many villages not shown before in previous maps..
and many more questions I'll get to.. I'll soon try to examine every single area starting from the west... but let's start tossing some ideas around...
(Again many many thanks to Giampaolo who made the original map and all the others who created locations and details!)
Thanks! I'm still going through the fan material, in the meantime I've updated the map with many village names taken from the noble families you, Simone and Jennifer Guerra mentioned.
I didn't use all the families mentioned by Simone in the Cruth river area because I'd like to leave it more wild...
I also put Yuschiev feud from Dark Knight of Karameikos novel near Krakatos, IIRC it's supposed to be there...
I did use the Beast of Radlebb idea in the map but I can't find Sisak, where it should be?
I put however Nightseekers and White Deaths humanoid tribes in the area because they were forced to move after the defeat of the Black Eagle (that IMC happened with a full out war long before WotI)....
Could the Beast of Radlebb be a wereboar leader and the area hide a wereboars community?
Also, I'm thinking about other creatures/races that could inhabit Karameikos in the wilder area... so I went quickly through the B1-10 modules to look for the creatures that made an appearance, especially organized and intelligent creatures that could have villages/communities (besides "regular" humanoids). Let's start with these three:
Berserkers: They appear often... In my earlier D&D days I knew little of nordic lore so I imagined them as a mysterious and ancient race and they well could be... what northern reaches berserkers would do in Karameikos, anyway? So they could be descendant of taymorans who went underground or an offshot of some neathar or oltec tribe... maybe related to early antalians.. or to the oltec tribes later replaced by neathars in most of Brun... what do you think?
Harpies: They too appear often, communities of them should be quite common in Karameikos.
Chameleon men: This was a surprise.. they appear in B8, whose placement is dubious but could be north of Treshold as proposed by Simone Neri here. I imagined in my ancient history of Mystara that once chameleon men lived in large parts of Brun and Davania, so small tribes of them could still live in the KW and Karameikos...
Anyway I too think that some minotaurs should be around in Karameikos and Thyatis, at least to honor the greek theme of the area...
Other intelligent creatures that appear in the B series modules:
Gargoyles: several, maybe they were common as tomb guardians for taymorans and/or hutaakans, and maybe some of them have outlived their duty and form some sort of community somewhere...
Also Winged warriors (b8) could have a similar origin...
Troglodytes: they appear often, maybe they do inhabit not only the Blight swamp but also the under earth in Karameikos, especially in the Black Peaks and Cruth mountains I suppose.
Dopplegangers and Polymars: these shapeshifter could be up to something, maybe spies of the fairy folk or something else...
Rock Men: Appear in B8, they could live in several places in the mountains and even have some sort of alliance with dwarves and gnomes... I see them as earth elementals who chose to live in Mystara in remote times...
Decapus: These creatures appears in B3 so they could be common in the area of Haven... they could be related to octopuses and as ancient as them (400 million years) and maybe they had a great civilization in the remote past of Mystara...
For now I've placed a "minotaur inhabited area" north of Xitaqa, as several others for the creatures I've mentioned so far...
I think it's still a long shot from being finished but I'll start compiling some information about the places I put in it, hopefully this will become eventually a full
Guide to Karameikos wilderness
Cruth Mountains (from the Darokian border to Magos river)
Darokin and Five Shires Gaz mention orcs in the Cruth mountains and so this piece of them in Karameikos could be inhabited by orcs too (see Blackstone orcs below), but probably this would be an ideal area for giants too.. I couldn't find much canon or fan infos about this area, it's 15 x 20 miles big, more or less, so it could contain many surprises...
Black Peaks mountains (from Magos to Achelos river)
Blackstone orcs were described by Giampaolo here: They are miners and seem quite "civilized" to me so they could have some trade with the people living in the area (giants, humans, elves and others, see below).
Mt. Achelos or Tybor was described by Patrick Sullivan here: ("At the foot of Mt. Tybor (Mt. Achelos) is a large cave complex which is partially unexplored" and "there is currently a Traladaran leader who calls himself Achelos. He claims to be of the lineage of the Royal Family, and, from his secret base (in the caves at the foot of Mt. Achelos) he directs the effort to kick out the Thyatians from this part of Traladara. It is up to the DM to decide whether this is the real Achelos Chardastes, travelling forward in time to help his dynasty, or if the true Chardastes will return to bring a peaceful coexistence between the Thyatians and Traladarans".)
Patrick also mentions several races of Giants living in these mountains.
Cuchulainisle was created by Kevin Wyton here: and I think this area was the intended location, but I could be wrong..
Mt. Dread is mentioned here and here
Quasqueton is the complex from B1 placed here in canon source, but its history doesn't fit very well in Karameikos, because the module was written long before the setting (human barbarians are mentioned, they could be the Vandar tribes of Giampaolo's timeline here).
In the module several humanoids appear (orcs, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, gnolls) so such small tribes could live in the mountains. Gnomes are mentioned too, maybe mining expeditions from Highforge. Troglodytes are the main inhabitants of the caves: they appear often in many more B modules, so I guess they could have a strong presence in Karameikos mountains. Berserkers appear as magical statues that will fight to the death. As I already explained in another post above at the beginning of my D&D years in my ignorance of nordic lore I figured they must be some sort of ancient, mysterious race so I placed a "Berserkers vale" in the mountain
Last but not least, I would have a lot of red dragons in these mountains Other kinds of dragons that could live here are rubies and golds, and if used IYC, ambers, amethysts, coppers, silvers.
Fairy folks of many kinds could also live in the mountains, and I would not rule out some beholders
Northern Cruth Lowlands From the border to Achelos river
That's a very big area of forested hills crossed by Cruth, Magos, Gustos and Achelos river. Nowadays the main inhabitans are orcs, ogres and hill giants. Fairy folks and werecreatures also live in the hills in small numbers, as humans and demihumans, mostly passing by. The latter are usually hunters or adventurers from the towns in the Riverfork area, merchants or chaotic clerics who have dealing with humanoids, bandits or traladaran freedom fighters.
All these people have indeed conflicting motivations and outlooks, but there is an unwritten rule in the area that dictates not to provoke others without very good reasons. Obviously outside adventurers usually do not know about it, so their bones dot the landscape and they don't enjoy a good local reputation.. even the average law-abiding human is more likely to warn the ogres of their approach than do the opposite...
The hills have significant populations of wyverns, feywings, owlbears, harpies, and hippogriff, while manticores, rocs and griffons are more common in the mountains. There are some clans of minotaurs, troglodytes, and rock baboons too. (Some snow apes should live in the mountains).
Normal animals include cougars, giant snakes, wolves and bears, but they are rarely or never aggressive.
It's rumored that various kinds of fairy folks and a circle of druids live in the hills, including satyrs and centaurs, and some hags.
Dragons are a very elusive presence in the area, if they live here at all. No one has spotted anything more that a distant shape among the clouds in the last decades...
Jagged Claw Orcs (see here). Described by Giampaolo as noble, I'd give them good relations with werecreatures, druids and fairy folks, given that they do workship Terra... Maybe the new Prince is also trying to estabilish peaceful trading relations with the Five Shires and the humans of the Riverfork area...
Greyslayers Orcs seem to be a nasty bunch that use poisoned weapons and have feuds with their neighbours.. but I bet that even after the fall of the Black Eagle they still enjoy aiding and abetting from unscrupolous human traders and chaotic clerics...
Rotting Snakes Orcs are probably busy raiding the Riverfork Area... but I guess that neither party wants a full-scale war so maybe their raids are more about stealing and pillaging than killing.. they could even have some cooperation with traladaran freedom fighters to strike at the King's men...
Cruth Ogres are mentioned by Giampaolo as being only 400 and not particularly bright or aggressive, but given the amount of territory they control I divided them in four main tribes and I'd estimate their number to some thousands (that is still a very low population density), making them one of the most powerful humanoid group in the nation. Still, I like very much the description of the shaman Magdub and I suppose he too could have some sort of agreement with druids, fairy folks and werecreatures to mantain the peace...
The Ruins and Achelos: On Magos, Gustos and Achelos rivers there are three unnamed ruins. One is the old city of Magos, an ancient taymoran settlement later inhabited by the taymora descended and nosferatus ruled Tal people, and later by hutakaans and traldars. In more recent centuries the city was one of the biggest community of the kingdom of Achelos, destroyed by thyatians in 900 AC.
Now local rumors say that is inhabited by undeads, and the same story goes also for the ruins of Gustos and Achelos. The latter is also rumored to be the mythical last resting place of King Achelos II, whose tomb would be full of treasures and magic but well protected by magical guardians, and still hidden under the city. Needless to say, the ruins of Achelos are also a notorious adventurers' graveyard.
The last unnamed ruin in the north of Achelos river has its own, very ancient story: an oltec city in the times of Blackmoor, it's now the seat of The Sons of Night (an organization that appeared in Dungeon Magazine 024, of which we'll speak again
Changed position to Sielo and Ilyakana, corrected Haradraith, removed Fire Rock and added many minor rivers from agathokles' map and invented some others myself. Added all the missing villages names (I hope), that I'm going to describe soon...
About the Riverfork area the map by agathokles is still much more detailed and has some differences from mine, for example I have two major ruins on Achelos river but I haven't decided yet which one should be the old Achelos city, I'd prefer the one nearest to Gorica while agathokles used the position of the one toward Koskatep...
Anyway you can find all the great work done by agathokles in the area in this Silnithiniv, trolls, lizardmen, black dragons and troglodytes. Again, agathokles has done a great work on this area too.
IMC around 1005 AC the Black Eagle was defeated and killed and Halag became a strong barony and later duchy under a traladaran lord, and now in 1020 AC the troglodytes and nearby rock giants have peaceful relations with the humans of Halag (and Luln, see below). As in agathokles' writings, Lizardmen are still ruled by the black dragons and not always peaceful... The trolls and the Rashak's Reavers gnolls are the greatest menace in the area, but the latter were defeated along the Black Eagle and only recently are rebuilding their strenght.
Halag: I don't recall if there was an official baron in mystaran products after the Black Eagle.. anyway IMC Halag is now a powerful duchy with a politic of tolerance toward different races.. the duchy is now inhabited by halflings, elves, werecreatures, bugbears and other humanoids, rock giants, some dragons, fey creatures and elves, mostly Redarrow from Alfheim. All the minor villages beside Halag had other (thyatian) names under the Black Eagle but has now been restored to their original traladaran names, usually related to the traladaran noble family that ruled them.
More on the individual villages later...
Luln: IMC the PCs killed Koriszegy long ago, and later the NPC who was nominated by King Stefan the new baron of Koriszegy married Sasha Markovitch of Luln, so now the area is an united county almost undead free... almost...
As you can see in the map there are some big differences with today's Karameikos. The woods are quite larger, there aren't humanoids but there are more giants, feys and other creatures (like harpies) and the land is not at all unified.
Lizardmen have a small kingdom in the Blight Swamp.
The rest of the west is dominated by vampires followers of Thanatos who have enslaved the local human, giants and fey population.
Faeries and dragons live in the rest of the Great Radlebb forest.
Hutaakans and centaurs have their own territories.
Vyalia elves and faeries dominate most of the Eastern woods (not yet Dimrak woods).
There is a Giants kingdom in the northern mountains (not yet Altan tepes).
The rest of the land is inhabited by the Tals, humans and descendants of taymorans.. but when a city is underlined in red that means that is under the rule of nosferatus followers of Nyx, if it's underlined in purple that means that is under the rule of vampires followers of Thanatos.. obviously this division bring an almost constant state of warfare between neighbour cities...
and more to come...
Despite that, a new update to the main map of Karameikos at 3.2 miles per hex, changed the position of Bywater and added Krondsfield, the town from the First Quest Boxed set, as suggested in these threads: here and here