The monthly symbols by Mike Schley have been very popular and of course we continue this tradition into the new year. From the isometric city symbols we return to artwork for overland maps for a while, with a fiery first collection of volcanic symbols.
20 new symbols depict active and dormant volcanoes both for land-bound mountain ranges and volcanic peaks rising directly out of the sea, as well as lava pools and fiery chasms leading down into the bosom of the earth.
To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are the last link in the list. All the content of the current year (only January 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 17 – is now available as a complete setup, all monthly issues collected into one single package.
Subscribers who downloaded all the monthly issues don’t need to do anything, but if you skipped some issues or are a fresh owner of Volume 17, you can install everything in one go now. The setup is available from the registration page as usual. If you didn’t subscribe, waiting for it to become available as one single package, you can now purchase it from the Annual’s page or the store as usual.
Last year we saw some excellent new artists in the Annual, like E Prybylski, DM Geezer Jim and Monkey Frog Studios, along staples like Pär Lindström and Sue Daniel, as well as occasional contributors like Jon C Munson II. Topic and themes ranged from desert villages (oases) to winter trails and from steampunk streets to classic fantasy overland maps. My personal highlights this year were E Prybylski’s Overland style along with Sue’s Winter Trails.
As for my own work I probably had the most fun building Bairnemouth, the isometric City Under Siege, as I love coming up with a proper story for a map as I’m creating it. But revisiting the 13th Age style was also great, and with the Wilderness Tiles I got to use Sue’s battle map artwork from last year extensively, which I also enjoyed a lot.
For the coming year we are still looking to include more new talent and are actively looking for artists who are interested in creating an Annual issue style for us. Simon’s call here is still relevant.
The current Annual 2024 subscription has now started and the January issue is available. So if this retrospective on 2023 did wet your appetite, check it out here.
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Welcome to 2024 and a new year of mapping goodness with the Cartographer’s Annual Vol 18. We are starting the year with a reimagination of an older style: Fantasy Realms by Allyn Bowker.
As the editions of the most popular role-playing game change, so do the artists and the styles used for their maps. Allyn captured the flavor of the current style of 2009, and this reimagination changes the existing look to get closer to the style of 2024, coincidentally created by Mike Schley. We have added many new symbols, changed the used bitmap textures and generally updated the style to take advantage of the CC3Plus’ newer features which weren’t available in 2009.
The January issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can still do so here at the early subscriber discount (until January 10th).
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A few months ago, I started the Rails & Trains mini-series of articles. In the two prior installments (part 1 – part 2), we looked at how to make the tracks themselves, now it is time to round it out by looking at rail cars.
We’ll have a look at how to draw the insides of a rail car based on a real blueprint, giving us a nice scene for a handout or battle. I am going to base my drawing on a blueprint from the early 19-hundreds. I mainly picked these because it is difficult to find older blueprints online with proper dimensions, and because the trains of that time still had the same basic layouts as earlier trains, making it easy to adapt them to earlier times. Of course, my procedure here works fine with any blueprint, so if you’re mapping for a modern train, just grab the appropriate blueprint and possibly a different drawing style better suited for modern maps, such as SS3.
Both the December issue and bonus issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 are available, bringing you a large selection of modular Wilderness tiles as well as the tools to create more yourself.
With this year’s Annual complete, the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 is now available and you can subscribe at an early adopter discount.
Resources
The latest free monthly symbols by Mike Schley add fire and smoke symbols to the Symbol Set 6 style (or other styles of your choise), turning those ruined battlements into a raging inferno.
Watch or re-watch the recent live mapping videos from our playlist on YouTube.
Check out the community’s Maps of the Month for November, possibly providing more ideas and inspiration for your own mapping projects.
We made the November issue of the Cartographer’s Annual available for free and integrated it into the Free Annual Sampler.
Articles
Remy delves into the practical use of maps within CC3+, such measuring the distance between locations.
Christina showcases the August issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2016 with the “Scorching Sun” style in her latest iteration of the All the Annuals series.
Reminders
CC3+’s current version is 3.98. Check in Help > About and if your version is older, run Update 28 for CC3+ available from your registration page.
Fractal Terrains 3+ has been released and is available from among your FT3 downloads on your registration page.
Before the year runs out let’s take a relaxed look back at all the lovely mapping that the community shared in November. Without further ado, here are the Maps of the Month!
Matt Finch‘s lovely ruin of an abandoned tavern is own highlight of the month (just personal taste). Great work, Matt! Continue reading »
The Cartographer’s Annual subscription for 2024 is now available, and you can subscribe at a reduced cost. If you are a current subscriber, be sure to check your email, as you should have received your re-subscription offer that way. Otherwise, visit the Annual 2024 web page for the early subscription discount.
We have the first three issues lined up, starting with a reimagined version of the Fantasy Realms style by Allyn Bowker from 2009. We add lots of symbols and combine the tools with textures by Mike Schley, resulting in a very different look, that is still excellent for displaying local to regional maps of any Fantasy setting.
Next in line is a new parchment overland style combining symbols by Robert Altbauer and new textures. And then in March Sue Daniel provides a great new style for city sewers. If you want some input into that, check out her style development thread on the ProFantasy forum.
As always, subscribing to the Annual will give you access to all twelve monthly issues as they are released, plus a bonus issue at the end of the year. If you want to see an example of all the great content you will receive, check out the Annual 2023.
(Download the FCW file)
Hello mappers! Welcome to this month’s All the Annuals, Scorching Sun. This overland set is fantastic. I love the color palette with this set. What’s also great about TJ’s fantastic style is that this annual works really well with another annual that came out at the end of 2016 – don’t worry, we’ll get there – giving you so many more symbol options and fills to play with.
For this map, I actually used a font I downloaded from one of the free sites online, as you can see by the middle eastern flair font in the png. Your map, should you download this one, will come with the standard font from the annual, but I wanted to show you in this particular font so you can see it’s super easy to add more font choices to your maps, if you choose.
About the author: Lorelei was my very first D&D character I created more years back than i’d like to remember. When I decided to venture into creating maps for my and others rpgs, I thought I owed it to her to name myself Lorelei Cartography, since it was her that led me to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming in the first place. Since then I have been honored to have worked with companies such as WizKids, Pelgrane Press, and ProFantasy.
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Every year we make one of the Cartographer’s Annual issues available for free to give everyone a taste of the great mapping inside.
This year we decided on the City Under Siege map pack from November, which details a large isometric city map, and includes both additional tools for Symbol Set 6 and a description of the city with lots of adventure ideas.
To make up to all our loyal subscribers, we add a bonus issue to the year’s roster. This year we offer additional Wilderness map tiles and a template to make quick and easy use of the materials from this bonus issue and the December Annual.
The Bonus issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.
Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 17 – is now available as a complete setup, all monthly issues collected into one single package. 
