The October issue of the Annual 2024 delivers a wonderfully whimsical and simple dungeon style by community mapper CC Charon, where colorful sticky notes represent dungeon rooms. Corridors drawn on the background paper connect them, and they are populated by handdrawn traps and monsters. 120 hand-drawn bitmap symbols, 18 drawing tools, 7 bitmaps styles and a 3-page mapping guide combine in the Sticky Notes Dungeon style to allow you paste together charming dungeon designs within minutes.
The October issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
We have reached the final article in the series about making mapping tiles. In previous articles (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4) we discussed how to design such tiles, how to print or export them for use in other software, and how to make raster symbols in CC3+ from them so we could use the tiles for assembling maps quickly.
But, as we pointed out in the earlier articles, exporting static bitmap images have some limitations. For example, if you rotate them, you change the direction of shadows and patterns in the fill. One could just call it an acceptable tradeoff and move on, but there is a better way, and that is to turn these tiles into advanced symbols in CC3+. By making symbols that contain the actual entities in the tiles instead of static images, directions of fills and effects are calculated when the tiles are used, not when you originally make them, and it also allow you to actually change the content after placing them. In short, if you are going to make maps using the tiles inside CC3+, this is the best approach, so let us dig into how to achieve this.
The September issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 is available, providing a large world map showcasing Mike Schley’s monthly symbols and giving background ideas and story seeds.
For those of you who haven’t seen them, we do a live mapping session on YouTube most weeks, showcasing a certain style or set of tools in CC3+. Here are the most recent Live Mapping videos, as archived on YouTube:
Hello fellow map-makers! We have a wonderful new collection of user-contributed maps for you, all shared with the community in August. Thanks everybody for showing of your awesome work on the ProFantasy forum and/or the Facebook group!
Kevin Goebel used the Spectrum Overland style to map the Gold Coast of his fantasy world. It’s just one of several versions of the map in the same group post, which show up various kinds of information. Continue reading »
Following the Mapping Guide, I started first by creating the water, and then adding some elevation symbols around the banks and in the outer corners. I quickly decided that I would tie in this map to the OSR Dungeon map I had done earlier in the 2015 Annual series and sticking with the black and white theme, I added a section of ruins. Once I got in my main road of the hamlet, I used the Random Street tool to line the road with some houses. I then removed a few and inserted some of the symbol houses that come with the set to mix up the housing look of the hamlet. Some bushes, some trees and some accessories and 15 minutes later and this map was done.
Despite my love of color and texture blending, I oddly love this style more than I’d like to admit. I am going to quickly work up copies of many of my villages in my homebrew world, making printing up maps for my players so much easier and cost effective.
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.
Since towns, cities and villages are hardly enough to visualize the cultural splendor of a Mesoamerican civilizations, we expand the collection with a variety of temples, shrines and other structures.
To download the latest free symbols 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 (January to August 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
In the September issue of the Annual 2024 we take a look at, use and reference all the different free monthly overland symbols that have been released over the last two and a half years. There are 20 different sets now, and we thought it was high time to take a look at them as a complete package, how to they interact and also to give a way to look them up and find them more easily.
This Annual issue includes a large and detailed world map, that uses all the different monthly symbols, showcasing them per set. The accompanying mapping guide explains the sets and adds a little bit of background ideas and story seeds for the world shown, while a pdf reference guide serves as a look up.
The September issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
Previously in this series, we have developed a set of tiles which we can use to build a space station of any size. Sure, more variation would have been nice, but the four tiles we made are actually enough for any size space station, as long as we accept that it has to be shaped like a rectangle. The previous articles should have given you the information needed to make more tiles though, such as making an inner corner to complete the set and allow for a more complex shape.
Last time, we did look at how to export and print the tiles. Printed tiles could be assembled on the fly at the gaming table, while the exported images are great for combining in just about any program, like an image editor, a Virtual TableTop, or even CC3+ itself. And this is what we will be focusing on in this article, how to use the tiles in CC3+. There are two options here, either we can import the images we exported as symbols and use those, or, instead of exporting our tiles in the first place, we could create symbols directly from the tiles themselves. This latter option gives us some interesting options we will look at in the next installment, but today, we’ll look at creating bitmap symbols.
Mike Schley continues on his trip around the world and through the ages with the latest set of free monthly symbols. This time we stop in Mesoamerica with symbols depicting the iconic temples and plazas of those cultures. Marvel at their cities and towns and gape at the beauty of their architecture.
To download the latest free symbols 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 (January to August 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Previously in this series, we have developed a set of tiles which we can use to build a space station of any size. Sure, more variation would have been nice, but the four tiles we made are actually enough for any size space station, as long as we accept that it has to be shaped like a rectangle. The previous articles should have given you the information needed to make more tiles though, such as making an inner corner to complete the set and allow for a more complex shape.
