Sand, Sand and, oh what the hell, Sand

Oh no, the real world is a boring place for D&D.

I've been steadily working my way around the outside of the Arabian Peninsula, down from the irrigated lands around Mecca and into Yemen, the highlands of Sheba, the scattered lands of Hadramaut and southern Oman, the Portuguese colony of Sur and the somewhat lusher lands along the south shore of the Gulf of Oman. And I have this to say.

I am sick to fucking death of deserts.

Ah, but I don't get to pick. I'm on a quest to map what's there, and being the purist I am I won't just inject a big fertile area in the middle of Arabia to reduce the boredom. There are lots of fertile areas in the world. There need to be vast, featureless, empty deserts also.

The world is a very, very big place. I keep getting reminded of that.

I estimate that I've done about 10% of the world's land area to date. That's about four and a half year's work. So, by the time I'm 90, I'll be done.

'tis to laugh.

Frankly, I don't really care how long it takes me. I enjoy doing it.

Which helps with the fact that I'm right now mapping out an area which my party will probably never visit. They hate deserts (after having spent months in the Kara Kum, Turan and eastern Persia), and aren't likely to wander around the fringes of the Rub' al Khali.

But I'm working on it anyway, partly because I like it, and partly because I need to define the edges of the Peninsula so I can compute shipping distances between India (which I have only a circle on a map) and Egypt, as well as other regions along the Red Sea. Up until now I've been guessing at that distance...and I do like to be precise.

So I'll add a piece of Hadramaut just for the hell of it. I honestly doubt most people would be able to identify this coast on a map.



Yes, I know, there are a number of labels missing, what are the flats, mountains, rivers, so on...at some point I'll muck about doing that, but usually I just refer to an atlas.

If you want more information about what's shown, I suggest reading a book. As opposed to someone's cheap adventure design.