Jalamere 1

We're going to make use of Rob Conley's excellent How To Make a Fantasy Sandbox checklist and several of Telecanter's equally useful and inspiring posts such as his matching couplet on Simple Sandbox Design (Part I, Part II) and especially his Sandbox Pinch Points article in developing our OD&D/S&W setting of Jalamere. We'll also be referring to Mr. Conley's very handy series of articles on A Fantasy Sandbox in Detail (Starting with Part One) in the course of building our maps and suchlike for Jalamere, at least where his advice and guidance applies.


You see, Jalamere isn't a standard planet. It's intended to be a Fantasy Setting, not a simulation of some world derived from late Seventies science-fiction. We're thinking more along the lines of Tanith Lee's Flat Earth Cycle and Clark Ashton Smith's The Abominations of Yondo. In short, we aim to have a rim or edge that you can fall off of. Literally.


Like so.

It's a beginning. We'll start going down the checklist and making changes and adjustments as we go and then once we have something we're happy with, we'll slap down a better hex-grid with numbering on the thing. Then we begin Keying and Stocking the thing. Should be fun.

"I think like much of old school philosophy the secret to success lies in how we utilize randomness to our advantage but without fetishizing it. So maybe, as long as using some randomness lets me loosen up and actually create a world without needing to know every single detail in advance, that's a good thing. But it also doesn't mean I have to go completely random, with things falling onto the map without rhyme or reason."

Telecanter