[Download the FCW file and custom symbol]

Oh Mappers, my least favorite map…..Overland. As usual, I get my typical anxiety when mapping an overland map. There’s something about where the mountains, rivers, desserts and grasslands go that get my head in a tizzy. And, as usual, I just dug in and came up with something. Is it great? No. Is it good? Debatable. Is it passable? Yes. Will my players care or notice if a river is somewhere that is typically geographically impossible? Absolutely not. So, with this in mind I give you…..this map 😀

I’ve not anything to say about what I did, or how I did it, because frankly even a beginner can put together an overland map just as well as I can. What I will say that I really like about this annual (although the 2015 year has two, Ancient Realms and Ancient Realms II both by TJ Vandel) is, the first gives you the basics (fills, symbols, tools, location icons, tools, etc. ). It’s lovely style, artistically speaking. Now the second, Ancient Realms II gives you a template to make your own location icons, so for this installment, I made one location icon from a public domain png, following the Mapping Guide, and included it in the map. I found one thing I really liked using this style….i really like the location icons instead of specific symbols. This can be useful when you are providing a larger area map, but still want your players to know where key locations are, then if you want, you can break it down further using the Local Area Maps, which also comes with this Annual.

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.

One nice thing you can do with CC3+ maps is to have multiple views embedded in one map. For example, in the Forest Trail annual style, you can choose if you want to see the treetops, like you would normally see a location in a forest if viewed from above, or if you want to hide the canopies so you can see what actually goes on under the trees, quite important for a battle map.

There are also cases where you want to make a map with private information for the gamemaster, and a public version of the map for the players.

Or maybe you need an overland map with a lot of information, perhaps showing both political information, economical information and climate information, but showing it all at the same time looks pretty messy.

Of course, if you have used CC3+ even just a little bit, you know that I am talking about hiding and showing sheets here. For the overland map, you can have one sheet with a political overlay, one with economic information, and one with a climate overlay, and only show the desired sheet, simple enough. For your GM’s secrets, just put them on a sheet by themselves that you hide when you export the player map.

But, what if your view requires switching on and off multiple sheets? Due to different effects, that political overlay may actually consist of one sheet with political borders, one sheet with the text associated with the information, and maybe another sheet with symbols related to this overlay. Once you have multiple sheets involved, it can get a bit harder to turn on/off the right sheets for any given occasion, which is what we’ll have a short look at today.

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[Download the FCW file]

Hello, I am back with another All the Annuals, 2015 Dracula Dossier. This map just begs to be played in some horror RPG setting, doesn’t it? So I went super simple on this one….no furniture or objects to distract, just the basic floorplan, building outline. This map, in my mind, is strictly so the players of a campaign can find their way around this hospital, which is currently abandoned, in disarray and obviously inhabited by some Great Old One, wreaking havoc on the surrounding village.

Meant to be obtained through an encounter is the old city records repository of one of my Cthulhu City maps (courtesy of the 2017 December Annual), this map was inspired by and copied over the original floorplan of an infamous asylum, in an historic city, across the pond in the UK. I’ve used the public domain prints of the original drawn new plans of the infamous Bethlem, otherwise known as Bedlam, Royal Hospital.

I’ve included in the map a copy of the front view of the hospital from the public domain file, as I think it adds something to the map – making it mirror the plans more exactly, which in turn gives the submersion into the game a little flair. I love giving my players handouts (though since I’ve moved we’ve had to move our game to online so my gifts are now in the form of pdfs and pngs), and printing up a map like this is just a favorite of mine in game play.

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.

(Download the FCW file)

Greetings Mappers! Christina (Lorelei) here with another All the Annuals, version 2015. This month’s annual is the well loved (by Quenten for sure 😊 ) Local Area Maps by our beloved Pär Lindström. This style is perfect for mapping smaller areas for your players or your own needs. Mapping out smaller areas of your home world is a great way to be able to include all the neat areas you’ve invented in your world in a condensed map, making navigating the region much easier for your players.

This palette, fills and symbols of the style is very story-like and whimsical, making it perfect for many different campaign settings. I especially like to play with muting some of the colors when I want a map to seem a bit darker, in nature, not only color, which is why I added a Saturation/Hue to most of the terrain Sheets, taking the green down a notch with some grey, which instantly takes the fairytale nature out of the map, if you’re dark and morose, like me 😊

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.

[Download the FCW file]

Well met, Mappers! We are working our way through the 2015 Annual and this month’s style is City Panoramas, by TJ Vandel. This style is modeled off the 16th century publishers and engravers, Braun and Hogenberg, famous for their “birds-eye view” maps of cities from all around the world. I will admit, I did a bit of a Google deep dive looking at their maps, and they are fantastic, and I highly recommend you all taking a look.

For this map I didn’t do anything special out side of the provided Mapping Guide. I really like this style, and think if you get yourself into an editor and have the skills (of which, I do not 😊 ), anything free will do, you could get this map to have that old, antique look of the original Braun and Hogenberg works.

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.

[Download the FCW file]

Hello Cartographers! It’s another monthly annual for the 2015 Annual and we have a classis … Classic Fantasy, that is. This style, Classic Fantasy, brings us back to the days of the classic fantasy novel map, usually found in the inside cover or the first few pages. I remember spending so much time pouring over the maps of my favorites novels, Wheel of Time, The Dragonlance Series, Lord of the Rings, and studying them working out where all important moments from the books happened. If a book comes without a map, it’s a huge disappointment, and not because I make them, because I love them. 😊

For this month’s map, I just made a simple environs map, depicting an area where there was a historic battle that took place between two long warring realms – the perfect setting for a short story or campaign. By following the Mapping Guide, this map took me no time at all to put together – also a plus for those last minute maps needed for any RPG campaign!

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.

[Download the FCW file]
Hello Mappers! This month’s annual in the 2015 set is Black & White Towns by one of our favorite resident artists, Pär Lindström.

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.

[Download the FCW file]
Well met, Mappers! I come in peace. This month’s issue of the 2015 Annual is SciFi Downport. This issue, by Steph Mclea has drawing tools and symbols that allow you to put together a starport map for you sci-fi rpg campaign needs in no time at all. Truly, this map took me less time than maybe any I’ve ever worked on, and sci-fi is not my typical rpg genre to play or DM in.

It’s spring here in the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York, yet I am currently hunkered down at home during Spring Break (I work in a school now) watching the SECOND snow storm since the beginning of spring blow outside my office window. It’s snowed more this spring that all of winter combined (our last storm on the 2nd day of spring brought me 20” of snow). With that in mind, I’ve been doing a lot of “winter” themed mapping and decided to do this starport on a polar planet, engulfed in snow and ice.

Using the river to divide residences and the “industrial” sector of the port, I simply placed some road where I wanted buildings to be and began dropping the easy symbols in this set. I noticed there is a drawing tool for “monorail” so I decided to create an elevated monorail by adding a sheet and adding a drop shadow to it. I also created a sheet for elevated buildings, such as the terminals and landing pad, and put a drop shadow on those as well.

This issue is super user friendly, and I recommend it for beginners and experts alike for your Sci-Fi tabletop needs.

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.

“To me, every hour of the Day and Night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.” I wonder if Walt Whitman ever thought of battle maps when he was speaking of how perfect both night and day are? Day or Night, what better way to be prepared for battle in your game than with the Day and Night issue of the 2015 Annual?

[Download the FCW files: Day Version and Night Version]

You know, as a DM your players can just go off the rails far, far off the tracks of your diligent, carefully thought out prep material … left turns to right, good turns to bad, up to down, and sometimes day turns to night. No problem! You can easily alter any existing map of yours to accommodate the shifting shadows of night creeping in on your planned daytime encounter.

Now, I won’t even go into explaining how to do this….as I, who has been using this program for YEARS, Master Mapper me, could not figure it out at first. After reaching out to our beloved community, Sue and Remy got back to me right away … kindly pointing out my mistake, and Voila! Day became night on my map and I got set to placing light sources. For more detailed information on how to set up the lighting, I suggest the 2008 Annual with Lighted Dungeons or my go to The Tome of Ultimate Mapping, of which I simply cannot give more praise in helping with some really great beginner, intermediate and expert tips and techniques. Truly, it’s worth the purchase, in my opinion.

So, I used Mike Schley’s Dungeon style and also a few Forlorn Cottage and free monthly content symbols for this map. It’s a generic, simple end street in any village town or city that I like to keep at hand for the unexpected stops in a village or town I hadn’t fully fleshed out yet. Getting caught off guard and by surprise as a DM is not uncommon or unexpected, but having that ability to change the time of day this easily is a great tool for all game masters.

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.

Welcome to the 2015 Annual, mappers! So we wrapped up last annual (2016) with TJ Vandel, and we start 2015 with them 😊

(Download the FCW file)

Black and white mapping is not in my wheelhouse, to say the least. I love taking textures and layering them, creating new colors in the color palette. But, with every new adventure we learn new things and experience new options in mapping. Working with this style was pretty simple. It’s great for printing out maps at home, especially if you like to conserve ink, like I do. You can easily do a DM and Player versions in less than an hour.

For this map, I used an online generator of dungeons and simply traced out my rooms and added a little bit of flair (I just can’t resist trying to make things look “pretty”). The mapping guide is simple and even the newest of beginners can work with this style early on in their CC3+ learning journey.

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.