CA179_WesternLandsThe November issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2021 includes the “Pete Fenlon Revisited” style pack, where we extensively re-worked the 2008 map style based on the iconic maps of ICE’s maps for the Middle-earth roleplaying game.

With the permission of Pete Fenlon, the author and artist of those maps, we produced a vector style pack in the second year of the Cartographer’s Annual. Since then CC3+ has been released and many new features and tools were added to Campaign Cartographer. To make use of these, we re-worked the templates and drawing tools and also took the opportunity to add more bitmap fills and symbols to the style.

More than 50 drawing tools and over 150 symbols now allow you to create overland maps in Pete Fenlon’s wonderful style much more quickly and easily. The 6-page mapping guide has also been re-written to account for all the new stuff.

The November issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.

Paper OutpostThe October issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2021 contains the “Colonial Outpost” map pack, a large collection of pre-drawn buildings for science fiction gaming scenery. It depicts a colonial outpost or settlement with prefabricated houses, a variety of add-ons like a satellite dish, walls, and other little scenery pieces.

The sets are included as pdfs for immediate printing, but you can also modify and adjust the existing CC3+ drawings, as well as create your own designs with the accompanying drawing style. Dioramas 3 is not required to make use of the sets, but will be very useful, if you want to draw your own buildings. Cosmographer 3 can be useful for further flash out the scenery with additional symbols and textures.

The October issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.

CA177 Aramalina - Rivers Meet DistrictThe September issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2021 is now available. Dive into city building with a great new style by Sue Daniel. The style is designed to match her Darklands overland style in tone and colors, and is named Darklands City accordingly.

The grim and gritty style contains many ruins and dilapitated buildings, and with its more than 200 new symbols and many bitmaps fills in Sue’s detailed signature style offers a gorgeous set for city mapping.

The live mapping session on ProFantasy’s YouTube channel on September 2nd 2021 (6pm UTC+2) will demo this city drawing style.

The Septmeber issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.

The August issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2021 is now available for download. Follow a detailed tutorial on using repeating textures in CC3+.

The 10-page tutorial focuses specifically on the repeating patterns that can become very apparent and distracting in large bitmap fills, and how to mitigate and remove them as far as possible.

The live mapping session on ProFantasy’s YouTube channel on August 19th 2021 (6pm GMT+2) will focus on and expand this tutorial.

The August issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.

This was different for me and I must say I am honestly happy with it being that I am vaguely familiar with marine maps, though I’ve come to rely mostly on gps these days.
2017 ProFantasy Marine Maps Annual
(Download the FCW map)
For this map I decided to do a section of the coast near my home, though I modified it some for artistic flair and license. Here on Long Island the shore and all it has to offer are popular to the residents of this 118 mile long island with it’s outer barrier island known as Fire Island. The inlets into the Great South Bay provide great currents of fresh sea water into the bay, along with copious marine life. A popular fishing spot in the bay is The Drink, where depths can get up to 40 feet deep, providing wonderful depths for sea life. There is also a lot of boating traffic, so buoys marking the channels are scattered throughout the bay.

Being that there are several wrecks off the coast of Long Island, I thought this a good place to map. This place has a rich early American history, such as Bellport, one of the earliest fishing villages on the island founded by Captain Thomas Bell in 1664, who incidentally, found himself there by way of shipwreck 😊. There are also several WW1 and WWII shipwrecks in this area, though I’ve mapped none on this particular map.

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.

Gosh, I really love this annual. This style is my own personal preference for player handouts. I love parchment – everything about it just screams medieval fantasy and makes me happy. Also, l LOVE the bitmap fill for the ocean/sea. I mean LOVE it. I’ve used it in countless maps in my personal homebrew campaign and for commissioned works. It gives me that pop of color I need without breaking the ink bank, and that old world fantasy look my players love in my handouts.
2017 ProFantasy Parchment Maps Annual
(Download the FCW file; Check out the Annual issue)

Once again, as most of my overland maps, I just start…..first land, then mountains/rivers, forests, structures, flavor and text. No need for my usual color manipulation, as everything about this parchment is perfect. So easy and so simply pretty. That ocean….the text and it’s effects….the parchment…..oh yes, this is one of my favorites, for sure.

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.

CA175 Undersea PortalThe July issue of the Cartographer’s Annual is now available. Dive under the waves and explore the ocean shores with Sue Daniel’s vibrant Marine Dungeon style.

Swim alongside bull sharks and sea turtles to find the treasure and horrors hidden beneath the sand of the ocean floor. More than 130 new symbols and 18 textures can be combined with the artwork of Dungeon Designer 3 to give your floorplans and battle maps a whole new – watery – dimension.

The July issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.

For this Annual, since I noticed a few of my fellow cartographers have put out maps in the more commonly known Mercator Globe template in recent days, so I decided to do a standard map, such as Ralf does in the Mapping Guide. In fact, I followed along and made no special adjustments to this map. It’s a great style, especially if you add some frame embellishments like I’ve seen some mappers do on the forums by adding some of their own textures and fills.

(Download the FCW file)

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.

In our weekly live mapping series on YouTube I’ve been revisiting the first styles that I created for the Cartographer’s Annual back in 2007. Sue Daniel took it upon herself to create new maps with these styles as examples and his the next great result.

Fantasy Tavern

The third Annual was a detailed multi-floor map of a roadside inn, which added a few tools and fills to Dungeon Designer 3 in the form of the “Fantasy Tavern” style. What Sue first proposed as a “Stable” in that style quickly grew into this wonderful Renaissance Longhouse.

(Download the FCW File)

(Download the FCW File)

Need a quick city? Dislike (like myself) laying out a city grid and dotting it with houses? Well the Random Cities Annual is for you. This annual is available for anyone who has City Designer 3. The Random City command allows you some creative license with the houses you place, though in this example, I did not make any adjustments and just used the basic CD3 Bitmap B set.
2017 ProFantasy Random Cities Annual
(Download the FCW-File)

After starting a map in either the Bitmap A or B styles (I chose B) you choose Random City from the City menu or just enter on the command line CITY – this brings up the City Wizard and make any adjustments to the settings you’d like, hitting next at each option. For this map, the only changes I made, were to mute the colors by adding a RGB Matrix to several sheets with different settings (I got those settings by just playing around with the adjustments one .1 at a time till it was the right shade). A quick city name at the bottom and done. A map such as this can easily be done last minute before a gaming session – this one took me 15 minutes.

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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