For the Wild West Annual I decided to try something a little different and include a horizon within the map. I’ve done this before on a map I contributed to the Community Atlas, and I loved how it looked that I thought I’d do it again. Once I saw the lovely blue faded bitmap fill used for the water, it reminded me of the tinges of orange you can see in a sunsetting sky and knew I had to use it for this purpose. After some trial and error with glow effects on my Sky sheet and adding another sheet for the sun’s own glow, I got the look of the horizon and of the setting sun I was hoping to achieve and then just began mapping from there.

(Download the FCW file)

The cliff symbols inspired me to create a large river akin to the Colorado River in the U.S., so I just placed them to layout the path of my river and finished the opposite banks off with some hill symbols on a polygon fill on it’s own sheet over the river sheet.

After adding a few of my favorite effects on the Whole Drawing option in the Drawing Sheets and Effects tab, such as adding a Blend Mode (Multiply) and Texturize (I’ve used the Concrete fill in the Filters folder) I added a map key to the side and used a favorite addition I picked up from our very own Shessar on the forums, is to add a symbol within the Map Key for a little extra flair. I’ve added a 50% transparency to Key symbol’s sheet to give the symbol a bit of subtlety.

This is a great style and really inspires me to play a Deadwood themed one-shot. Anyone else?

Lucky mappers! Another free wizard’s tower. As if there isn’t at least one wizard’s tower to be explored in a tabletop rpg campaign, am I right? So, since the February 2017 issue is a conversion of an older CC2 map to CC3+, I figured I’d go one step further and do a super fast conversion for another alternative to a wizard tower for your gaming needs.

(Download the FCW file)

This conversion took me less than 30 minutes. I took Ralf’s map and first added some rock symbols from DD3+ in a grey color off to the side, just to get them in the Symbol Manager (I deleted them afterward). Then I went into the Symbol Manager and replaced all the vegetation symbols with those newly placed various sized rocks. I also hid all sheets but the SYMBOLS, SYMBOLS FLAT and SYMBOLS RUNE sheets, then went to Change Properties and choose Change Color, and selected all symbols. If any were varicolored, it would change them all to whatever color I chose, which was a grey in this map.

I then went to the OUTSIDE sheet and changed the fill styles to more grey hues for each fill Ralf included in his map, as well as added some color changes using the RGB Matrix effect on the BACKGROUND sheet. Hiding all sheets but the WALLS sheet, I selected all polygons and changed the fills style to the grey wall cobblestone fill. I then repeated this process for the FLOORS sheets. For the attic walls and floors, I created their own sheets so I could apply a color effect using the RGB Matrix and the Hue/Sat effects on them to give them a grey color to match the cobbled walls I choose.

Lastly, I used the Tolkien font and replaced all the text by using the Edit Text function. After making a few adjustments with placement, and making a few name changes for the purpose of “recycling” a map and I was finished. I’ve recycled so many .fcw’s that I’ve gotten this technique down to a science. It’s the best way to get individualized maps fast and free for your home gaming 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.

Welcome to 2017! The 2017 ProFantasy Cartographer’s Annual, that is. Welcome to my journey through another year’s annual. I hope you all will enjoy the maps I’ll be making and hope to remind you all who “have all the annuals” and forgot some of the “gem” issues and styles, as we tend to stick to our favorite, or for some new mappers looking for some free examples of past Annuals to help you decide which year (or ALL of them, lol!) you may want to purchase.

(Download the FCW file)

So, this is not my usual style, as I enjoy the flair of color in a map. But I have to say this simple style, the Black and White Fantasy style by Pär Lindström was a pleasant surprise. Following the mapping guide wasn’t necessary for this map for me, so I just mapped along and before I knew it, an hour passed by and I was done. Completely finished. No fuss, no muss.

Something this clean and simple is super easy to print out on your home printer, even if you want to save on ink. So, for the DM’s out there looking for a map that is quick, easy to put together and fast and inexpensive to print before a session, this first issue of the year is it. It’s going to be a great year, mappers, hope you stick around to see what I’ve got in store for you!

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.

Color Key is one of those effects that can be a bit difficult to see an immediate use for. Effects like Glow, Edge Fade, Transparency and so on are very clear already from the name, and it is easy to think of scenarios where those effects would be useful. But what of the Color Key, what can we really use it for? When does it make sense to use it? It’s not quite as clear.

I didn’t really use this effect myself in the beginning, but I’ve been using it more and more over the years as I have found that it can really simplify the work process to get the look I need.

The main idea behind Color Key is that it can be used to remove parts of a sheet, allowing the sheet below to shine through. This can be done to punch hole in things, for example, you can use it to punch a hole in the landmass to see the sea fill below (creating a lake), you can punch a hole in the roof or wall of a building to see the interior, you can use it to remove the parts of the grid you don’t want and so on. But instead of actually deleting anything from the map, the Color Key is just an effect that can be later moved or removed, for example making it much easier to reshape that hole in the wall as opposed to if you had actually edited the wall entity itself.

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So, for my last map of the 2018 Annual, I decided to just create a small map highlighting the use of Sue Daniel’s bonus Domes addition to the 2018 Annual. I, personally, have used these domes in so many of my own maps, including our cooperative project Sanctuary, and I cannot say enough how much I love using them.

(Download the FCW file)

Sue’s done a lovely job on these, giving the mapper a variety of domes to choose from, including transparent domes. For this map, I’ve created a small, walled school of magic by using the varicolored Gothic style houses in CD3 and adding a variety of the domes on the multi-leveled sheets. I started this map, however, in the Asian Town style that comes along with this year’s annual rather than CD3, as I love Sue’s textures and vegetation.

I’ve done nothing special for this map other than, I’ve added a new tool, the Wall Round, for my walls by using the 10’ Wall tool as a template, and then changing the Draw Method to Ellipse/Circle. In Options, in Draw Method, I changed the Eccentricity to 1.00. In Outline Properties I made the outline an Extra Entity, changed it’s Properties to a 2.5 Fixed Width and put the outline on the proper Layer and Sheets I wanted. I then just placed the Wall Round on the corners of my walls and there you have it.

And so, dear reader, another year’s mapping of All the Annuals series has come to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed the variety of maps I’ve been privileged to create for you using the 2018 Annual. It has been, as usual, a welcome challenge stepping out of my dungeon mapping comfort zone, and I hope I’ve inspired some of you to do the same and try out this annual. Happy mapping, Cartographers!

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.

Well, this issue had me worried. First, I had no idea how to go about putting together Geomorphs (it’s not a feature of CC3+ I’ve ever needed to use). And, second, I had NO idea what the deckplan of a ship should look like. So, I went with the trusty Mapping Guide for this one.

(Download the FCW file)
I’ve got to say, I’m pleasantly surprised how much I like this set of maps and how easy it was after I read about Geomorphs. I didn’t really put much thought into this, as I followed the mapping guide, and also cheated a bit and followed along with Ralf’s example map’s tiles.
Once I had my tiles of the ship’s rooms created, I set about creating the ship map. I opened a new map and made the background pretty large in comparison to the ship, as I knew I wanted to include a legend. Then I simply began inserting the deckplans by using Draw>Insert File>*choosing your own tile files*, and then laying them out on the starfield.
(Download the Geomorph tiles)

After I had my rooms arranged, I used the drawing tool for the Mirrored Hull. I really like this tool – all you need to do is draw the outline on one side of the ship for your Hull and it instantly mirrors it on the other side. I then added a few walls and an outer hull so I could have a maintenance tube along the outer wall with some entry hatches.

For a final touch, I decided I wanted a more sci-fi looking font, so I went online to one of the many free font websites out there and found this one with a public domain license, called Edge of the Galaxy. Otherwise, you reader, will get the standard font for this annual.

There you have it. It’s pretty elementary, but for a first starship? I am more than satisfied with my work and I hope those of you that have been hesitant to branch out of the “fantasy” world and into the “sci-fi” realm….go for it. I’m glad I did.

In my latest live stream, I did use the RGB Matrix Process effect quite a lot for changing the colors of fills ans symbols. I this article, I’ll dive a bit more into this effect and describe it in a bit more detail.

The effect itself is just a basic color-replacement effect, but all those text fields with numbers can look quite a bit daunting when you open it up for the first time, but you can use it to make some nice results. You can see some examples in this older blog article where I also touch briefly on this effect, but today I’m going to explain it in a bit more detail.

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This is a lovely style, which compliments the Japanese Temple Annual. The tools and symbols you get between the two give you all you need to create a really nice Asian inspired city, town or village.

(Download the FCW file)

I honestly haven’t much to say about this map. I did get the coastline from a satellite pic in Google that I slightly modified, but other than that, I just mapped along as I felt inspired, starting with my cliffs along the beach. After that, everything just fell into place.

I really love a nice easy style like this. Thanks to Sue Daniel for another fantastic Annual.

I’ve been mapping with the software for about around 5 years, so rather than follow the tutorial, I figure I’d just supply an overland map using the Mike Schley Overland style in my personal style.

[Download the FCW file]

First, after deciding I would do a smaller environs map of a valley, I quickly established I would do a map set in the season of autumn. I had done a commission some time back for Pelgrane Press, Shards of the Broken Sky, and did a small regional map where I had adjusted the hues in the map for place with red, clay colored soil. That map is so simple, yet one of my favorites I’ve ever done, and it’s all because of the palette. So, for this map, I decided I would do the same in picking autumn.

Since this is a smaller regional map, I wanted to do a wide more natural looking river by separating the landmass on either side with it’s own poly. Normally, I would use the Color Key effect for this, but since I’ve made changes to the Hue and added an RGB Matrix to the Land Sheet, the Color Key will not work, as I am yet to figure out so far, as it cannot adjust your color to the effects on the sheet.

As my usual suggestion, chose the varicolored symbols so you can go back later, if you want, and change this map simply by changing the symbol colors, to a different season. When creating my mountainscape of the valley, I soon realized I wanted more muted leaf colors for my palette and began altering the colors by using the Define Color option, where you can then create your own custom colors. After creating a custom color you should then save and attach it to your map. This can be done by going to the Drawing Properties tab or following File>Drawing Properties and click the attach to drawing tab under Custom Palette. Be sure to do this last step or when you close your map and reopen, it will revert back to the default palette for that style.

Once I had my custom palette set, I am able to place my symbols down, starting with mountains first and using the various shades I created for my autumn them = this gives the mountains, in my opinion, the illusion of them being covered with multicolored trees and grasses in lovely greens, oranges, yellows and reds. Then I do the same for forests, using individual trees or the smaller groups of trees in varying colors, landmarks and finally settlements.

Labeling has always been an issue for me….i just can’t ever seem to be happy with how I label my maps (which is why I am so very excited for Sue’s annual with banners coming up in 2021) – but, since I was going for a fall theme, I decided to stick with the same hues for labels, as well.
So, here’s my version of the Overland Tutorial annual, hope you like it and can use it or alter it for you own mapping needs 😊

Ever wanted to have something appear as a being inscribed into the wall or floor instead of appearing on top of it? With a little bit of manipulation and a few effects, we can turn any vector symbol or basic shape into such an inscription.

We can then use this technique to decorate floors in a dungeon, or used with both walls and floors in a perspective drawing, netting us some nice way of adding decorations without overusing symbols.
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