Part III: The Warlock’s Castle and the Crater of Ghorm

Before I come to the next two symbols I need to explain a bit about the background story of RdW, especially about why its name is ‘Call of the Warlock’:

In the beginning of the world of Tanaris the eight gods didn’t interfere into the things of the humans, elves etc., but one day the god Thongmor started playing around in the world and the other gods had to react. As they didn’t want to counter Thongmor’s action personally, they created the Warlock. This is a person with godlike abilities, immortal and invulnerable, his task was to fight against Thongmor. Over the years, with changing Warlocks and with the beginning of the war of the gods, the initial task of the Warlock was forgotten and now he is an independent entity.

But as the gods didn’t want to create another god, they gave him one ‘weakness’. They created the Swordmasters, a group of people with outstanding abilities in swordfighting, who always know where the Warlock is, they always hear the ‘call of the Warlock’. If one of them fights the Warlock and defeats him in a duel (this is the only situation where a warlock can die), the winning Swordmaster will become the next Warlock.

The Swordmaster is a Player Class, which means a player can become Warlock. Unfortunately the requirements for playing a Swordmaster are so hard (while creating a character you have to role dice epic…), no one in my group ever played one.

The home of the Warlock is the castle ‘Sign of the times’, which is settled on a mountain range overarching the ‘black lake of buried hopes’ (in the night you can hear the screams of the dead souls of all the Swordmasters who lost their fight against the Warlock). The feature with this castle, mountains and lakes is, that the warlock can teleport this ensemble anywhere he likes. When the map is done, I will see where exactly I will place it:
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Welcome to the December round up of user maps that caught our eye. As usual this is based as much on random chance as anything else. If you want to see more, join the Facebook community group or sign up in our forum!

Christina Trani (Lorelei) produced a set of wonderful building floorplans based on a single symbol in a city map: The Blue House.

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November doesn’t let up… our users are still producing many, many new and wonderful maps. Here’s just a very short collection of examples. If you want to see more, join the Facebook community group or sign up in our forum!

Linda Böckstiegel continues to produces wonderful dungeon and floorplan maps, but the Tomb of the Troll Gods is an special highlight. Quite literally, check our her awesome lighting work!
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Here is another set of awesome user-created maps that caught our eyes this last month. As always, selected by the elaborate and top secret processes of ProFantasy’s evaluation method (summed up as “Hey, that’s cool!”). Share your own on the Profantasy community forum or the Facebook user group.

The border outpost of Tarkas is Texas Jake‘s first village/town/city map created with CC3+ and it looks wonderful, not least to the great background texture that he created himself.

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We were sent this wonderful little pirate treasure map via Facebook by CC3+ user Marilyn Velez, together with the following delightful story – fit for Halloween. This was just so nice a gesture, we had to share it with the community:

‘Tis The Great Isle of The Northern Seas, otherwise known as Missing Bone Island. Legend says, if you stare long enough at its reflection, a great beast with ripping jaws, and no eyes, stares back at ya, and you’re never heard from again, much like Davy Jones’ Locker, except this beast drew pirates to their death, but if lucky, a great treasure is to be had. Yes. That’s right, a treasure, indeed, but not just any treasure. The treasure of the worlds’ most notorious pirate, Bearded Jack, and if lucky, you’ll even find yourself some Grog and Clap of Thunder to drink along the way, but don’t go gettin three sheets to the wind on me now, and if you see him, blow the man down! Keelhaul and cleave him to the brisket! Oh, what’s that? why you ask?

However, the tales didn’t cease there matey. They say Bearded Jack not only killed his men, but impaled them by the Olde Salt Point so that their haunting stares would cause great fright, and cease anyone from entering or nearing the shores. They claim he scattered his treasure throughout the island, burying it deep beneath, where no one would find it; not even the best of hunters. However, as the years passed, sailors say coins resurfaced containing the stain of Bearded Jack, some, even had his face. Till this day, they claim all who gape long enough into his eyes are visited by his spirit.

Thank you, Marilyn!

P.S.: Do you have maps you want to share and perhaps see featured on the blog? Come over to the Campaign Cartographer Facebook community, or the ProFantasy community forum, and you’ll find a superbly friendly user community.

Here is this month’s collection of maps that have caught our eyes. They are taken from the CC3+ Facebook community and the ProFantasy forum, and as usual are just a quasi-random selection from the multitude of maps that have been posted. Enjoy!

Camp Cedarcrest by Jason Place is a wonderful example of mapping a real-world place in Campaign Cartographer and thereby giving it that little fantastical spin.

Another camp, but this time a fully fictitious one, the Forest Camp map by Jonathan Garrison serves as a beautiful location or battle map for that night attack on the heroes’ resting spot.

Linda Böckstiegel created this awesome map of an everburning ruin. I don’t even know what resources she used, but the Dungeon Walls Annual issue must have been one!

Jensen’s campaign map “Die Kronlande” is a blast from the past for me, since it is based on a very old German rpg.

ScottA has produced another beautiful map with his Huntsman’s Green village map. Great use of City Designer 3!

Here is another collection of maps that have caught our eyes during the past month. They are taken from the CC3+ Facebook community and the ProFantasy forum, and as usual are just a quasi-random selection from the multitude of maps that have been posted. Enjoy!

A Small Castle by Linda Böckstiegel is a perfect little adventure environment somehwere out on the border. Mapped with a combinatin of City Designer 3 and Dungeon Designer 3 it also uses a variety of community assets for the symbols and textures (from the Vintyri colelction).

Edward Mark Dakin created the timeless desert city of Fahraj using City Designer 3.

The Inn of the Welcome Wench, a map from the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure, was recreated by Hans Anders Bergström in this beautiful version.

David Roush showcases the Ancient Realms style from the Annual Vol 9 beautifully in this little regional map. Who doesn’t want to explore the Enchanted Forest?

The little lakeside village of Plissken (any snakes here?) is a first map created by forum user Amadeus. Great use of Mike Schley’s overland style to create a local map!

Here is another collection of maps that have caught our eyes since the last “Maps of the Month” post. They are taken from the CC3+ Facebook community and the ProFantasy forum, and as usual are just a quasi-random selection from the multitude of maps that have been posted. Enjoy!

Western Rhaema by Andrew Hunter is a wonderful example of a “first map in CC3+. Andrew used the Mike Schley Inks symbols for a beautiful black and white style for his “Songreaver’s Tale” books.

With the Mymercia Maximus Colony Joshua Plunkett creates an unlikely merget of his hobbies of map-making and ant-collection. The map itself is also a merging of two styles: Vertical dungeons with Mike Schley’s Ink and Par Lindstrom’s B&W Dungeon.

Vindell’s Tower by Luke Ó Scolaidhe is a great example of that is possible with Perspectives 3.

The Isles of Vecta (or Wict) by Pete F depicts a far-future, post-apocalyptic version of England’s Isle of Wight.

The City of Sanctuary by Sue Daniel is a work in progress for the Community Atlas Project, but it already shows off wonderfully how to use sheet effects to depict height differences in a city map.

Here is another collection of maps that have caught our eyes since the last “Maps of the Month” post. They are taken from the CC3+ Facebook community and the ProFantasy forum, and as usual are just a quasi-random selection from the multitude of maps that have been posted. Enjoy!

A small town in a far-away land…
was created by Lorelei (Christina Trani) using City Designer 3 symbols, tools and textures as well as some of her own tree symbols.

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We used to collect all the user-maps posted on the Profantasy community forum in one post to show them in the blog, but frankly we have to admit the community’s output has become too large for us to keep up. Especially since the inception of the Community Atlas Project and the setup of the CC3+ Facebook User Group the number and quality of maps has skyrocketed.

So instead of trying to keep up with the flood of quality material, we’ll pick out a few highlights each month that caught our eyes and post them here. This does not mean these are the best maps out there or any other maps are worse! We might easily have missed some and we also try to pick out unusual stuff and maps by new users. So take this just as a start, pointing you to the places where more of these awesome maps may be found, and as an invitation to participate by sharing your own work.

The Emerald Crown Forest

ScottA created this maps for the Community Atlas project, using Herwin Wielink’s overland style straight out of CC3+.

Interstate Hotel Horror

For the monthly Cartographer’s Guild contest, Quenten Walker mapped a pub from his hometown on Flinder’s Island and used Pär Lindström’s Horror House style from 2016’s Annual to flesh out the rooms.

The Wound

Josh Plunkett leveraged Perspectives 3 and the Temples of Bones Annual by TJ Vandel for this awesome isometric dungeon map.

The Dungeon

Jason Payne posted this impressively detailed dungeon map to the CC3+ Facebook group.

The City of Curton

Tony Crawford came up with this incredible city build from from Mike Schley’s overland structure symbols.