Some of you may now that I’ve got this side project going called 4e Home Encounters, with Gamefiend from the At-Will Blog, Mark Meredith from the Dice Monkey Blog and Tim Hely working on the cartography (he’s producing the battle maps, not this particular map). I wanted to show you the world map and make it available for download, because I know that not everyone who reads this blog is familiar with that project (where I also posted the map).
The World of Elderyn
This map was inspired by a gorgeous map I saw at the cartographer’s guild website. My map is in no way better or equal to that one, I guarantee it. That map stands as my favorite fantasy map I’ve ever seen online, I’m just crazy about it. My map is merely an attempt at shamelessly replicating it.
I’m making mine available for you as a jpeg and as a tiled pdf, so you can have it as a poster map if you want for your campaign (in case you desperately need an adequate world map). The map is unfinished, so there are plenty of empty areas. I hope you take it and run with it, adding your own towns, cities, and rivers to it. The pdf will tell you what fonts I used. The mountains and trees are a photoshop brush I found somewhere a while ago.
FYI, this map is my personal homebrew world, and has been floating around my head for several years, at least since the early part of the decade. That’s why project cartographer Tim Hely didn’t create it, because I’ve had it in various forms for years.
www. Newbie DM .com 
Bartoneus
November 6, 2010
I love the execution of the map, and I think you’ve done a very impressive job of emulating the map you reference, but I still have a huge issue with the amorphous clump of mountains below the word Runegard. I’d love to see the mountains clustered into more clear lines/ridges of mountains (much like they are on the map you linked to), but it is your game world so I completely understand doing what you want with it!
However, it is very impressive looking, so good job!
Brian
November 7, 2010
Very nice, I like the “ink drawing on old parchment” look. I’d be interested to know what program you’re using to make the map? Please don’t say Photoshop because that would just make me sad about my Photoshop skills….
newbiedm
November 7, 2010
Sorry. Photoshop it is. 🙂
Greg
November 21, 2010
The map looks nice, but it has a similar problem with a lot of maps I see: scale. At 750 mi per inch your continent is about 5 or 6 times the size of the United States, the mountainous area alone would stretch uninterrupted from NY to Florida and all the way West to the Rockies. Based on the level of detail and distances between your towns and cities (I have to guess that these are not all Beijing sized cities but mediaeval fantasy sized cities and towns), and that travel times are days between cities rather than weeks or months, that this map should be about the size of maybe Spain and Portugal (350/400 miles across +-).
I understand the desire to have the grand scale feeling of a world, nobody wants to feel like they are playing in a tine corner of a vast world. The truth is though that nearly all of the great adventures of lore felt like enormous distances but were actually under a 1000mi. The Odyssey: a trip around the Eastern Mediterranean. Jason and the Argonauts: From Greece to the East end of the Black Sea. The whole of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit would fit into the Dry Marshes…
The map does look good, as does the map you link too. Note the scale he is using, his map is about the size of the UK and Ireland.
Acheron
November 30, 2010
Hey man, thanks a lot! very good map I will try to mimic the technics to create my owm map, i have being getting very good with some paint collages but i think photoshop definetly will be an upgrade, thanks a lot for the map, the fonts and the references, very appreciated!!!