ralf | December 30, 2024 | Annual
The Cartographer’s Annual subscription for 2025 is now available, and you can subscribe at a reduced cost. If you are a current subscriber, be sure to check your email, as you should have received your re-subscription offer that way. Otherwise, visit the Annual 2025 web page for the early subscription discount.
We have the first three issues lined up, starting with a revisited Ancients Realms style by TJ Vandel from 2009 with new symbols, new fills, new effects and new and updated drawing tools.
Next in line is an issue that combines FT3+ exports with new templates in CC3+ for new parchment overland maps. And then in March Sue Daniel provides a great overland style tentatively named “Bird’s Eye Overland”. If you want to provide some input and feedback for that, check out her style development thread on the ProFantasy forum.
As always, subscribing to the Annual will give you access to all twelve monthly issues as they are released, plus a bonus issue at the end of the year. If you want to see an example of all the great content you will receive, check out the Annual 2024.
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ralf | December 21, 2024 | Annual, free resource, Random Dungeon Generator
As usual, we close the year with the Annual’s bonus issue and make one issue available for free (which this year is actually the bonus issue). The bonus issue adds the Random Dungeon generator for the DD3 Dungeon style that comes with Dungeon Designer 3. The Random Dungeon command was introduced as a free download, but only included the style components for the Jon Roberts Dungeon style.
This Annual issue expands the options and also contains instruction on how to implement it for any other dungeon style, so you can use your favorite style for it.
The Bonus issue can now be downloaded by all subscribers from their registration page, and it is also freely available from the Annual page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
Resubscription to the 2025 Annual will become available next week.
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ralf | December 1, 2024 | Annual, CCCharon, overland maps
The December issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 is now available and brings you a wonderful new overland style by C.C. Charon. It is inspired by pencil sketches like you might find in a cartographer’s notebook and includes more than one hundred stylish black & white symbols which combine with easy to use drawing tools for quick and simple pencil sketch maps. Two examples maps show you the beauty that the style creates and the 5-page mapping guide takes you through the whole process of using it yourself.
The December issue can now be downloaded by all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
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ralf | November 1, 2024 | Annual, city design, Modern
The November issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 is now available. This month we have a new town or local area map style for you, Satellite Streets. It takes the idea of a satellite/aerial view of a real-world area, like you would see on a modern web-based map application and gives you the tools to create your own fictional one, using City Designer 3 tools. The style is ideal for villages or small towns in modern settings. Real-world maps can easily be used by importing them as a background. The 4-page mapping guide takes you through creating a Satellite Streets map in a few easy steps.
The November issue can now be downloaded by all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
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ralf | October 1, 2024 | Annual, CCCharon, dungeon, handdrawn
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.
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ralf | September 2, 2024 | Annual, Mike Schley, monthly content, overlaand, overland
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.
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ralf | August 1, 2024 | Annual, overland maps, Sarah Wroot
The August issue of the Annual 2024 brings you a revamped and refreshed overland mapping style by Sarah Wroot, one of the earliest fantasy cartographers who contributed to Campaign Cartographer.
Sarah’s style “Sarah Wroot Revisited” takes beautiful hand-crafted line symbols and combines them with watercolor style backgrounds to create a wonderful artistic result. It combines easily with the hand-drawn style from Symbol Set 1 – Fantasy Overland (also created by Sarah Wroot) for a much wider variety of symbols.
The August 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.
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ralf | July 1, 2024 | city mapping, Quenten Walker, Random City Generator, Watabou
In the July Annual issue community veteran Quenten Walker revisits the Watabou Cities tool pack and style. The style referenced the Watabou online random village, town and city generator and leveraged it to create city maps in CC3+. Since its inception, the Watabou map generator has been changed and developed further. Quenten has taken it on himself to revise the style to take the changes into account and expand it to offer more tools and options.
The new style does not only contain a new bitmap fill selection, more drawing tools and more detailed instructions, it also leverages improved options of the Watabou Cities Generator to make creating cities, town, and villages randomly even easier in CC3+.
The July 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.
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ralf | June 2, 2024 | Annual, CCCharon, city mapping
Let’s welcome a new contributor to the Cartographer’s Annual: C.C. Charon has been sharing wonderful maps on the Profantasy forum for a while, and we were especially intrigued by his “Sumerian City” maps. Now you can create cities in the same wonderful style, as the June Annual adds his creation as the new “Ancient Cities” drawing style to CC3+.
New symbols, bnew drawing tools and a fresh application of bitmap fills in conjunction with detailed sheet effects make up this new style. Two big example maps and a four-page mapping guide give you plenty of guidance to create your own maps in C.C. Charon’s style.
The June 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.
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ralf | May 2, 2024 | Annual, stairs, tools
The May issue of the Annual 2024 is now available and presents a tool pack for drawing extendable and variable stairs on dungeons and floorplans. No longer limited by symbols of fixed length and direction, the included drawing tools greatly expand your options.
More than a hundred new drawing tools add functionality to popular dungeons styles (DD3 Dungeon, Jon Roberts Dungeon and Dungeons of Schley), but can also be added and used in any other dungeon style. The accompanying mapping guides teaches you how to use and edit the tools, as well a how to set up your own.
The May 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.
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