concept for a new BP-BGT Worldmap style mod

[Lightbringer]

@IstfemerWow that's a lot of inconsistency! Sometimes I'm glad I usually don't notice these things.

[DavidW]

Just belatedly picking up on @Istfemer's placement suggestions: a couple of minor comments. (You may have already caught both.)

1) I think there is reasonable (not decisive) grounds to think that the Umar Hills region is on the south side of the Small Teeth, not the north. Firstly, it has quite a bit of Sythillisian action: first the deserters in the ogre-murders quest, then the war party that turns up in the paladin stronghold quest. Yes, they could have come through the mountains, but it's more natural to assume this is going on on the south side of the Small Teeth, given how much Sythillisian action is supposed to be happening around there. And secondly, the (admittedly wildly inconsistent and way-too-short) in-game travel times place the area much closer to Trademeet (8 hours) than to Athkatla (20 hours).

2) The journal entries for Cernd's quest place the druid grove south of Trademeet. That seems to suggest it's in the northern edge of the Wealdath.

[Istfemer]

@DavidW Your comments are very much appreciated.

I'll post my (still incomplete) list of detailed notes on area placements first and then address your two points in a separate post.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Istfemer

[Istfemer]

When specific directions were given in dialog.tlk regarding certain areas, I tried to strictly follow them where possible. In a few cases it wasn't possible though for one or other reason. I deemed an error margin of up to 40 degrees (in select extreme cases) acceptable. That is, where dialog.tlk says an area is South of some reference point, I might've put that area SE of that point on this map instead. There's only one exception to this: Neera's Clearing in ToB, which I'll explain in detail later.

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ORIGINAL BG1:TOTSC AREAS

Spoiler

Ice Island
I moved this island to a slightly more appropriate location, further NNW into the Trackless Sea.

Balduran's Isle
According to lore, this island is nowhere near the Sword Coast but somewhere in a remote archipelago in the Trackless Sea off-map, far to the west of Ruathym and quite a way WNW of Evermeet. I reckon it is approximately 5 times farther from Baldur's Gate than Brynnlaw is from Athkatla. I put Balduran's Isle in the sea NW of Ruathym. It'd be nice to put Balduran's Isle into a special box to properly represent the island's remoteness.

BG:SOD AREAS

Spoiler

Boareskyr Bridge
This area's worldmap icon doesn't match the scale of this map all that well. The gap between Bridgefort and the bridge itself is too big. It should be 2/3rds shorter or so. Some icon editing is required here (btw, is it OK to do that?) Anyway, I did my best to mask the current disparity.

ORIGINAL BG2:SOA AREAS

Spoiler

Brynnlaw & The Asylum
These two areas are supposed to be on the same island, which is actually called Arlathan/Grimgates in Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2. Well, technically speaking, Spellhold is located on a separate islet, but it's *very* close to the parent island so there's unmistakable continuity in there. Arlathan's exact location was never given, but from what I could gather it's supposed to be an island rather close to the mainland. The lower island of the mainland-ward northeastern Nelanthers works best in this role, but I went with the middle island instead because I couldn't fit both area icons on the lower island in such a way that they both looked good & weren't too close. As I said before, I'm convinced that Brynnlaw's worldmap icon is too large for that area's actual in-game size and has misleading geographical features so should be split in two.

Underwater City, Underdark & Underdark Exit
Underwater City was moved to the spot N of the northern cape of Tethyr Peninsula. Underwater City is now much closer to the route most sailships would likely take to reach Athkatla from Brynnlaw or Velen. Underdark (Ust Natha) is now SE of Underwater City (*below the sea*) and isn't at the very westernmost edge of Old Shanatar anymore. Underdark Exit (Elven War Camp) was shifted to a somewhat more remote location. It is now located on the Tethyr Peninsula, NW of Nacnarldar -- the sole (?wild?) elven settlement on the peninsula according to Volo's Guide to BG2. Furthermore, Underdark Exit is now WSW of Underdark (Ust Natha) and now roughly matches the direction of CHARNAME's escape from Underdark.

Small Teeth Pass
That's one troublesome area! I put Small Teeth Pass on the northeastern coast of Tethyr Peninsula, at its base; southwest of Amn's Murann. I actually wanted to rename this area Tarseth Bay Trail, but K4thos dissuaded me from renaming it. Let it be a pass through a patch of rough land on a sandy, rocky coast; a pass from the Tethyr Peninsula region of Tethyr into the Small Teeth region of Amn. It's a shame vanilla SoA (EE or no EE) lacks seaside wilderness areas. I wrote in this thread earlier about the many problems with Small Teeth Pass, especially with its non-indicative icon, so I won't mention them in this post again.

Trademeet & Druid Grove
I put Trademeet exactly where the sources place it: at the crossroads of the Tethir Road & Trade Way.
As for Druid Grove, I had a nice spot reserved for it in the Ommlur Hills of Small Teeth, but then I discovered that Druid Grove's location is in Tethyr after all and not in Amn. It's supposed to border the Wealdath. I put Druid Grove into an equally nice spot SE of Trademeet. To be sure, in-game references to Druid Grove state that it is south of Trademeet. Therefore, Druid Grove's present position is a compromise -- as good as I can manage with this map.

Umar Hills & Temple Ruins
I put Umar Hills (Imnesvale) in a valley amidst the northeastern slopes of Small Teeth Mountains (in "the furthest reaches of the Umar Hills"). I chose the northern Umar Hills and not the southern primarily because the village's name hints that it ought to be someplace close to one of these: Imnestream, Imnescar or Imnescourse, which are all located north of the Small Teeth. I put Temple Ruins west of Imnesvale ("The Temple of Amaunator shines like a beacon of radiance in the hills of Umar"). Which way to Temple Ruins from Imnesvale is surprisingly difficult to determine from available sources. Dialog.tlk is very confused on this point. Westerly; northwesterly; northerly... even easterly directions were given for Temple Ruins. Present position of Temple Ruins is thus also a compromise of sorts.

de'Arnise Hold
I put de'Arnise Hold exactly where the sources place it: in the northern Zehoarastria, quite close to Athkatla itself.

Windspear Hills
There is zero information on Windspear Hills in the lorebooks. There is a single clue to this area's position in dialog.tlk: Irenicus' captive dryads state that Windspear Hills are northeast of Trademeet. I placed Windspear Hills in the northeastern reaches of the "East" Tejarn Hills, ENE of Trademeet -- it's a wild, secluded place. Windspear Hills are still roughly northeast of Trademeet on this map, but they definitely aren't anywhere close to that town nor should they be in my opinion.

North Forest
It's supposed to be part of the Wealdath and it is. I simply moved this area a bit further into the forest.

The Forest of Tethir & Suldanessellar
I put Suldanessellar exactly where the sources place it: in the southeastern part of the Wealdath, actually not that far from the forest's southern edge. The Forest of Tethir area featured in-game is supposed to be somewhere very close to Suldanessellar, *below* and possibly slightly west of it. That's where I put it.

EE BG2:SOA AREAS

Spoiler

Abandoned Amphitheater
It is said to be a remnant of a settlement called Borrokin. I put Abandoned Amphitheater inside or at least very close to the borders of Meiritin, the ancient halfling kingdom east/southeast of Lake Esmel in central Amn. As far as I know, the exact borders of Meiritin were never made explicit. This placement was primarily chosen due to a similarity in names (of Borrokin with Meiritin and especially with Gullikin), implying a halfling origin for Borrokin.

Heretic Temple
The temple's place is undoubtedly in the southeastern Cloudpeaks, east of Lake Weng and that's where I put it. I will probably move it further NW -- deeper into the mountains --- as per a suggestion in this thread.

Resurrection Gorge
Placed it NW of Imnescar, between the rivers Specie & Imnestream, at the northern edge of Small Teeth Mountains. It's a wild region, perfect for such an area.

Helmite Camp
It's supposed to be located somewhere along the Trade Way and maybe just a bit to the west of it. It's in the path of a caravan headed for Trademeet. On its own, Helmite Camp's placement on the BG2:EE map does make sense if one assumes that the caravan travels North-to-South. But with Trademeet placed so far away to the east on that map it can't help but look ridiculous. I put Helmite Camp S of Trademeet and just south of the Wealdath in Tethyr because I didn't want to crowd the region south of the Small Teeth in Amn. Let's assume that the caravan travels South-to-North, from Tethyr to Trademeet and not from Amn to Trademeet. As far as I know, the game is very vague about the caravan's direction of travel.

Wild Forest & Hidden Refuge
These two areas are implied to be located very close to each other. Placing both in the Wealdath somewhere southeast of Mosstone felt kind of wrong, as I had already placed Helmite Camp nearby. Therefore, I placed both in the northeastern part of the forest close to its northern edge, thereby filling a big empty spot on this map.

to be continued...

Edited December 29, 2019 by Istfemer

[K4thos]

Quote

Some icon editing is required here (btw, is it OK to do that?)

sure, if you're an artist or find one, feel free to improve icons. Don't forget about red animation on icons, though (not used by EE, but I don't see why mod like this couldn't be released for old engine too)

btw. SoD icons suffer from obvious colorloss and transparency problems that Beamdog never addressed. Example:

SoD icons have been made with partial transparency applied in some spots (or at least that's by assumption based on the above image), but the outcome file has been saved into BAM v1 format (which is limited to 256 colors for all icons and doesn't support transparency at all), instead of BAM v2, so now they look straight out broken. If I remember correctly, when I imported the icons into EET icons file, I did some fixes on SoD icons to get rid of those blank spots but they still look kinda bad.

Edited August 14, 2019 by K4thos

[Isewein]

I just came upon this and thought it would make for a great basis for a readjustment of the world map to better fit Faerun geography.

[Istfemer]

On 12/25/2019 at 10:58 PM, Isewein said:

I just came upon this and thought it would make for a great basis for a readjustment of the world map to better fit Faerun geography.

Nice looking map! Although it's a bit weird to see the Trade Way road cross the Wealdath so far away from the coast. Mosstone has become a true backwater -- the town now sits right in the middle of nowhere.