Map of Shyish

[Menkeroth]

I hate repeating anything already said, but... You should always try to have maximum amount of information before forming the opinion, not after. I hope you will understand that... in time, maybe. Now just read the Grand Alliance book (for Death, of course). It's not that hard, I can assure you. Read also Balance of Power (not to mention the Everchosen book, since they repeat the known info here and there, and there is info on how Archaon fought Nagash as well as in the Mighty Battles). When we have our book for the Soulblight, it will be much better. There were no all books from the start in FB, you know. Or maybe not.

Like the map. It can remain mostly blank. And just point out where territories on the same plane are in relation to each other and such.

All the realms are vast. Vast. Beyond imagination. What kind of map do you expect? Like the Earth globe? Dozens, if not hundreds of small maps, like now? One huge map across the whole 300 pages book? AoS is D&D made by GW manifest, how they perceive it. D&D, MtG and Moorcock. This is one of the reasons it's pointless to have a one map. Surely you can comprehend this as well as the time comes.

 

[Kol Saresk]

And yet D&D has made maps before and not just for campaign books, so the example kind of defeats itself. Amd as I've said before, it is something I would like to be done, not something I expect them to do.

Also, my opinion has yet to be formed. Currently I am on the quest for information. Hence this thread.

 

[Sception]

Personally, I prefer a top-down approach myself as well. Hard to get invested in the fate of any one region when you've never heard of it before the battle, you know you'll never hear of it again afterwords, and there are an infinity more such disposable regions regardless.

But it is a taste thing, and there have been plenty of successful settings with a more bottom-up design process. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Menkeroth]

And yet D&D has made maps before and not just for campaign books, so the example kind of defeats itself. Amd as I've said before, it is something I would like to be done, not something I expect them to do.

Because their worlds are often much smaller and therefore could be registered in this sense. Of course, it does not excuse GW in this regard, but still.

Also, my opinion has yet to be formed. Currently I am on the quest for information. Hence this thread.

Then read what I've proposed you to.

Personally, I prefer a top-down approach myself as well. Hard to get invested in the fate of any one region when you've never heard of it before the battle, you know you'll never hear of it again afterwords, and there are an infinity more such disposable regions regardless.

But it is a taste thing, and there have been plenty of successful settings with a more bottom-up design process. We'll see how it goes.

Well, regarding the existing lore AoS is quite developed now, and it goes fast. It has lots of links to the Old World and itself, linking many regions and characters in different books, so your view is a bit outdated but I like this anyway how people form their opinions forgetting that FB was not fully developed from the start and gone a very long way having taken lots of years to become fully made.

 

[Irisado]

The point is that GW could have developed it before they released Age of Sigmar, as that would have generated greater appeal for the game in my opinion. Developing the world ad hoc is not the way to draw people into the game, especially not those who really liked the map and the narrative of the Old World.

 

[Menkeroth]

They certainly could, without a doubt. Maybe, if it all were from the scratch, they could have done so, but with the help of already dead Old World they had some base anyway, which is being slowly remade completely, but as well I like how they link new and old fluff. In the future, maybe, they will make some maps as a whole, though it's not that probable, but still. I like more that we have indefinite freedom in this regard.

 

[Borgnine]

I thought that maybe GW is still probing the market to see what will be most sucessfull. If they would like to expand on something in the future, something they don't know yet, having the world more open makes all the changes much easier to implement. Won't need so many retcons. For example, they wanted to make Vampire Counts army lists more flexible, so they started to move away from bloodlines - it was subtle, but still happened - and that was a problem for many people. Maybe they want to leave some doors open?

Thinking from another point of view - creating a vast new world full with details, stories and sense takes a LOT of time - and they still need to design and sell minis. This gradual creation of the world makes more sense this way

 

[Menkeroth]

I thought that maybe GW is still probing the market to see what will be most sucessfull. If they would like to expand on something in the future, something they don't know yet, having the world more open makes all the changes much easier to implement. Won't need so many retcons. For example, they wanted to make Vampire Counts army lists more flexible, so they started to move away from bloodlines - it was subtle, but still happened - and that was a problem for many people. Maybe they want to leave some doors open?

Second on this, this is certainly probable. The Silver Tower box shows that they definitely want to explore new horizons.

Thinking from another point of view - creating a vast new world full with details, stories and sense takes a LOT of time - and they still need to design and sell minis. This gradual creation of the world makes more sense this way

a lot? this is to put it mildly but GW has time and resources and with their new directors and such they definitely can do it. We just have to wait for the books of all factions still present and see where they go then.

 

[Irisado]

I agree that it takes some time to come up with a Fantasy world, so I wouldn't have expected a complete world map in terms of everything filled in. A broad version lacking details would have been a start though. After all, the Old World map gained more places and more detailed zoomed in sections over time as the army books developed. I just feel that GW have taken too much of a make it up as they go along approach, and that it's not doing the game any favours.

 

[Menkeroth]

Maybe, but they add more and more regions to the existing realms (mostly only Aqshy and Ghyran yet, sadly, but so is the plot), so they give the overall impression. Not that bad for a start, though I do hope they will bring more attention to the yet unexplored realms instead of or along with the much already covered. In this regard I'm glad they cover Shyish here and there (like those maps and regions in the Fyreslayers, Ghoul Courts and Ironjawz books), they are absolutely inspiring.

 

[Sception]

We've got our first full world map of one of the realms coming out with the summer campaign. Ghyran, not Shyish, but gives us an idea of what to expect when and if Shyish gets some more attention:

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=c226e18c064d932b70eb519e0fb51951&oe=580ECEED

 

[Menkeroth]

So they really decided to do a full map? Well, that's certainly like D&D, but it does limit the world size.

 

[Sception]

I'm not sure it limits world size that much, considering that there's no scale as far as I can tell. Plus, it's as large or larger than the old world, which in more than 20 odd years they still hadn't fully explored when they blew it up, and there's 8 of these realms, not counting underworlds, chaos realms, etc.

 

[Menkeroth]

To be sure, and it's pretty good to see the whole picture anyway, but odd a bit nevertheless.

 

[Sception]

yeah, it's definitely a change of direction, conceptually. The lack of global maps was, from what I can tell, a deliberate design decision, not just something they hadn't gotten around to yet. Then again, there are a lot of deliberate design decisions from early Age of Sigmar that are getting re-thought lately.

 

[Oppenheimer]

Unexpected for sure.

 

[Lord Elpus]

I tend to think of Sysh much like the OLD Ravenloft setting, bits disappear into the mists, other bits appear, so it's somewhat in flux with no clear defined border, that warps according to who's in charge of that particular "kingdom" although Nagash shapes the plane, it's open.

 

[Menkeroth]

Maps of different Shyish regions in different books give some clues, but it's interesting whether GW will try to make the whole one like with Ghyran.

 

[Menkeroth]

And, by the way, Shadows over Hammerhal give detailed information on how ordinary people live and toil everyday, worth reading definitely, and I do hope something suitable will also appear for Death here and there, like already in the Ghouls book and Bloodbound, where they invaded a city of Mannfred and where skeletons were working on everyday routine tasks.

 

[Lord Elpus]

I keep thinking of Shysh as akin to Ravenloft..

 

[Menkeroth]

Partially maybe, after all, Shyish is in fact Ravenloft to some extent.

 

[Azakael]

I could get behind the idea of Shyish being like Ravenloft. After all, Ravenloft *is* my preferred D&D setting... And not just for the undead stuff everyone seems to think it focuses on.

 

[Menkeroth]

Well said, I like it also very much. And judging by the Shish maps in different books like in the Fyreslayers one, for example, it's really inspired by Ravenloft like the whole AoS is inspired by D&D in general.