As many of ya know, I have been playing with my "Immersion Project" rules and decided to try using no in game map anymore. I simply printed off some higher quality hand drawn maps (that have no markers on them) and use those instead. Right before I decided to start this part of the project,  I went to Trengal Keep to kill some mobs for my Shadow Puppy quest. Then, I let this character rest for a few days, to help some of the memories of locations fade.
 I logged him in, and lo and behold, I knew where I was, but felt totally lost. I looked at my paper map in my real life hands, and knew I needed to go south. Before this part of the project I made up a semi-random backstory that told me my mother had given me a map, and that I needed to follow it. The maps started in Thestra, near Trengal Keep, and ended HERE:



So when my character "woke up" and looked around, I tried to get my bearings by using the compass. I knew I need to go south, but I made rules forbidding me from using flying mounts (Rikoo can't use them yet) or Riftways (Rikoo sucks at magic and doesn't have an easy time traveling by rift.)
 It surprised me how hard it was to get my bearings felt out. I went on top of a hill to look around:




 And soon enough it was dark (I stared at the map for EVER.) I came across the side of Trengal.



So I made my way around, the LONG way, sometimes going west but always keeping an eye on that big S on the compass. Eventually I could see a road in the distance. At first, it looked like a river.





I came to a sign telling me I was near Three Rivers (all this time I am trying to mark on the map, but I still wasn't totally sure where i WAS.)



So I continued on across a bridge, who's name I forget. (I often will F12 the UI so that there is nothing on the screen.)



I was so happy to see a small town, and to see an even smaller Bed and Breakfast. At this point I had been playing a while, and I had to go pick my wife up. So I left my character in a room, resting. Also, he had been up since sundown the last night, and it was now morning.





Next day (late day) I continued on, and discovered the sign telling me I was going the right way to get to New Taragnor. I was happy, SURELY someone would have a boat there. (The new rules said I could only get from continent to continent with a boat, and since I didn't own one, I would have to charter one.)



Ahhh, New Taragnor! What a beautiful city. HUGE too. I was happy to see it, and although I had been there before, I was still unsure of where to go, so it felt like seeing a new city.



Seems an old friend of mine had made camp there, and found a part time job handing out jobs to poor crafters. I think this was the Vanguard equivalent of DMV worker, being that this "old friend" of mine wasn't very talkative.



I did a little sightseeing, and some of the buildings left me in awe!



Then I stumbled upon a friendly gnome, and he told me he although he did not have a boat, his friend did:






 He was nice enough to go find his friend.





 His boat was awesome, to say the least. I have been on a few, but none like this one.



 We came across some giant gateway, and went into it. I didn't feel anything, but we re-appeared in the middle of some new ocean.





 In this image below you can see the small city on the right. That's what I saw, and decided to be dropped off there.

 

 
 
 And dropped off I was. I paid the man, and we vowed to buy each other an ale sometime.
 So, here I was, in this new city, not even sure where the city was on the map. I would look for some landmarks, and go from there. I know I need to go south again, all the way down, then south once more. I have a ways to go.

 I logged my character out in what looked lik an inn, and will set him off tomorrow. I know Kojan is pretty, but I'm not looking forward to all the swimming I might have to do.

 Beau

Excellent!  Makes me want to turn off my map :)

Hehe Nice story

Brilliant role playing, nice story.

VGsoh is the kind of game you can really enjoy if you want

Now that was awesome....thank you for creating it.   More...more!   I love this kind of stuff and I wish more players did this.  This actually made me almost want to reinstate my Vanguard account!  Almost...but not quite.   Maybe someday.   :)

Epic adventuring and story-telling Beau.  My wife and I play with a very similar ruleset.  Indeed, we get odd looks from time to time, but after 3 months of playing nightly, we've accomplished much (level 24) and have seen many exciting and dangerous places!  One night we were chased from the basement of an abandoned house by some rather frightening individuals!

It's good to see more people taking the initiative to make the game what they want it to be.  If the companies won't give me a "sandbox" -ish game, I'll make one myself.  I have considered not using the map at all (we only use it very occasionally) and doing something like this.  Would you mind linking where you found the maps you have?  Perhaps we could use them ourselves.  What an adventure that would be!

-Aimen Findler

Originally posted by Malivius

Would you mind linking where you found the maps you have?  Perhaps we could use them ourselves.  What an adventure that would be!

 

Disregard the question there.  I did a bit of searching this evening and found them.  Unfortunately the printer is low on ink.  Guess I'll have to wait awhile.  Either way, we're starting over tonight (again) and using the cloth map that comes with the CE.  Only reference points on it are the major cities.  Should be fun!

Originally posted by Malivius

we're starting over tonight (again) and using the cloth map that comes with the CE.  Only reference points on it are the major cities.  Should be fun!

Like new chars?

Oh and btw, excellent story!  Liked it alot...

Now this is the kind of experience I like to have in an MMO! Cheers to the OP! Great storytelling, and I wish you the best of luck on your project.   By the way, which server are all of you on?  I have a 21 Warrior, a 10 Shaman, and a 41 Ranger all on Seradon server, and would love to hook up and adventure with you guys in this roleplay fashion.  It appears that there are a few players like myself that enjoy this type of immersion.!  Send me a PM here and I'll give you my character  names.

Cheers!

Very well done..../clap. I have heard that roleplaying in Vanguard has become a recent interest to some. I cant remember where I read it, but there are a couple guilds that support this. Best of luck.

Yes Khrymson, we've started over (same name as before, the /friend should persist through). 

We've begun life as small-folk this time around and are currenlty exploring the quaint little town of Tursh and the surrounding areas.  Troublesome times they're having for sure.

My wife and I play on Seradon and (as I've stated before) we're playing in a similar style to the OP.  It's a blast and changes the game completely.  Makes it so much more immersive and interesting.

Wow, amazing story. This really made me think of re-opening my sub on Vanguard..