For my current 13th Age rpg campaign (a short break from our Ashen Stars game) I recently created several battle maps, because while the game does not use a grid movement, it profits from a good visualization of the combatant’s positions relative to each other. Looking back I realize that I used a variety of different ways to actually bring the maps to the table, as time and resources dictated. I thought it might be useful to look at the different methods.

For the first session, I had a generous time frame and needed to have some professional posters done anyway, so I went for the most luxurious way: I had the two battle maps for the game printed at a poster printing service (Posterjack.com). Click on the image on the right, to see a close up view. The paper quality is great, the colors brilliant and of course everything is in one piece. The scale can be a bit off, if you go for the cheapest poster size/format option, but this map was not meant to be printed at exact miniature scale anyway. The downside: it’s a bit more expensive of course (€10 per 80cm by 60cm poster) and takes time get printed and sent back.

For the second session I was much more pressed for time, and I also didn’t want to spend that kind of money again. So I went to my trusty home inkjet printer (a Canon Pixma iP4800) and printed the next battle map on nine pages of A4, trimmed and glued them together. You can see the result on the left.

The colors are more muted, and you can see where the pages have been glued together, but it still looks very nice. Of course it uses up a good bit of ink and still requires some time to assemble (I can do these in 10 minutes now though). Generally, this is my go to method, which I have used over the whole Deadlands Reloaded campaign that I finished last year.

Still, I had a couple more encounters planned for the evening and didn’t want to print even more stuff. So I came up with a new way to use the map at the table. I would display it on the TV screen for all the players to see and have a Noteboard on the table with a quick sketch of the same map. The TV display would provide the flavor and atmosphere for the map, while the Noteboard would allow for the tactical positioning. Click on the image on the right to see the set up.

I used Chromecast and my Android phone to quickly cast images to the screen. This turned out quite well, better than expected on my rather modestly-sized TV set, and I used it for the final two encounters of the adventure. I’m sure I’ll revisit this method in upcoming sessions. While it’s not quite as nice as having the minis on the color map, it definitely saves on money and time.

Note that the Noteboard area is a bit smaller than your A1 poster map, but with 13th Age you don’t mind really. There is no counting of squares or hexes nor any measuring of distance that would need an accurate and consistent scale.

I’ve recently started a new fantasy campaign, using the 13th Age rules and setting. Due to some (unsurprising) insider connections, I was able to acquire a playtest copy of the upcoming “Battle Scenes” collection for the game. It contains a host of fighting encounters for different levels and surroundings. It’s a great resource, especially if you are stuck for inspiration or just need to pull a battle out of your hat.

What it doesn’t have yet, due to its stage of production, are detailed battle maps. The encounters are only sketched out in draft form. But I do have the right tool at hand for this job, don’t I? So I sat down and created a couple of battle maps for a set of connected encounters (a rafting expedition through orc-infested wilderness, isn’t that great?). I used Dungeon Designer 3 and Symbol Set 2, and it looks like the maps may end up as part of the published Battles Scenes in the end.

A neat idea crossed my mind as I was starting the second map: Why not make it combine with the first for one huge battle map? While it wouldn’t be used like that in Battle Scenes, it might come in handy for other occasions. You surely wouldn’t want to use a gorgeous prop like this once and then throw it away?

I printed the maps at an online poster printing service, and while doing it at a “correct” 1″ to 5′ scale would have been a little too expensive, the scaled down, very affordable version at 80cm by 60cm per map was big enough to easily accommodate 13th’s Age loose movement and positioning system. The map certainly gave the game session some great visual “oomph” as the PCs were floating down the whitewater river, fending off orcs on all sides.

You can download print-ready versions of the maps by clicking the images above.

This is another bit of synergy between the sister companies Profantasy Software and Pelgrane Press. Pelgrane’s Kickstarter project for the “Dracula Dossier” was a huge success, and for the many locations detailed in the campaign, they needed a unified map-style that different cartographers could use.

Realizing that the same would be useful to ProFantasy’s user base, we set about creating a floorplan style which could also be published as an issue of the Cartographer’s Annual. The style had to adhere to a few guidelines from the Dracula Dossier art direction: A clear and straightforward look, that fits the game’s modern setting, legibility at a variety of different scales and in various environments (books, pdfs, web), and of course matching the book’s layout and color design.

You can see the first map in the new “Dracula Dossier” style on the right (click the image to see a larger scale version). It details the underground remains of “Carfax Abbey”, Dracula’s estate during his stay in England. You can read a preview of the site’s description here.

The Dracula Dossier annual style will be available later this year, closer to the release of this exciting campaign for Night’s Black Agents.

We are very happy to announce that Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley is now also available for CC3+. Mike’s gorgeous collection of dungeon, floorplan and outdoor symbols can be used with or without Dungeon Designer 3 and allows you to create wonderful maps, like the one shown here (created by community member Damon di Denti).

If you already own SS4, go to your registration page and click the download button for Symbol Set 4. Download and run the “Setup for CC3+” to install SS4 in CC3+. If you don’t own SS4 yet, you can buy it here.

We’ve been working hard on making the add-ons compatible with CC3+. It’s not straightforward, as not only maps and templates need to be updated, but interactions with our polished, updated code and the legacy code in add-on functions can cause new bugs in legacy to rear their ugly heads. It does mean that add-on code gets a polish, too. So, we are please to announce that a much faster, CC3+ compatible Dungeon Designer 3 with all-new icons is now ready.

You’ll first need to update your CC3+ to the latest version (3.66). You’ll find the update among your downloads for CC3+ on the registration page. Or if you haven’t installed CC3+ yet – perhaps you were waiting for it to work with DD3 – download the latest full setup for CC3+.

Then you can download the DD3 compatibility update for CC3+ from your registration page and install it. It will add all Dungeon Designer functionality to CC3+. Enjoy!

In addition to preparing CC3+ for DD3, the Update 1 fixes some additional bugs that came up during the early adopter phase and adds some additional resources. Here is the list:

CC3+ Version 3.66

• added CC3 Overland Hex style
• added Text drawing tools to Mike Schley Overland style
• added “Open Autosave File” option to the File menu
• includes preparation for DD3 integration
• updated tutorial maps with current effect settings
• Insert File fixed to recognise @ path
• Symbol Manager display fixed to show all Symbols
• Control points fixed to work in CC3+
• Templates fixed to correctly swap fill style resolutions
• restored drawing dialogs to the Draw Menu: Path, Polygon, Circle, Arc, Lines, Offset
• fixed some DPI scaling issues in the Symbol Manager

Joachim de Ravenbel has posted some awe-inspiring new maps on the community forum, showing off a technique to draw top-down dungeons in a perspective view.

And now he’s completed the first part of a tutorial that shows you how to do it. Check out his pdf tutorial here.

It’s easy to overlook the small things, with the big release of CC3+ last week, but we should not forget it’s a new month and a new Annual issue is available: The Tutorial Pack – Day and Night. If you are a subscriber, you can download it from your registration page.

This tutorial takes an in-depth look at creating differently lighted environments, for example if you want to show a combat encounter area in both daytime and nighttime conditions.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2015 yet, you can do so here.

Note on CC3+: For now this Annual issue is done for CC3, as the CD3 and DD3 add-ons are not updated for use in CC3+ yet. Starting next month, we’ll make the Annual issues available in both CC3 and CC3+ versions.

It’s 2015 and we start out with the 9th iteration of the Annual. TJ Vandel created this beautiful style that captures inked old-school dungeon maps with cross-hatching for filling in the walls.

If you have subscribed already, the download of the January issue is available from your registration page. If not, you can subscribe to the new Annual subscription from here.

Pelgrane Press, ProFantasy Software‘s sister company makes tabletop RPGs, and as such has a burning need for cartographic resources, so of course we take advantage of the connection. We’ve collaborated on a number of projects in a number of styles – styles we’ve then bought to our users. The latest such colloboration will be The Dracula Dossier – a Kickstarted project featuring spies versus the greatest vampire of the them all, for which Ralf will be creating maps. Back it here.

So, here are some of the other projects we’ve worked on together.

The Modern Journeys Style

Created by Pär Lindström and designed for the the Pelgrane Trail of Cthulhu adventure collection Mythos Expedition the style lets you depict the itinerary and visited locations for journeys or expeditions as would be found in horror or pulp adventures.

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“>13th Age Style

The September issue of the Annual 2012 contains a new overland style based on the gorgeous world map of the upcoming role-playing game 13th Age by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet. The style was developed by Lee Moyer.

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“>1930s Street Maps

The December Annual 2011 brings you a companion style to April’s 1930s floorplans: city maps in the same Baedeker travel guide style for your modern horror and pulp-style games. Pelgrane Press used this in Arkham Detective Tales Extended Edition.“>

“>The 13th Age in CC3+

Ralf Schemmann recreated the 13th Age map in the Mike Schley overland style included with the forthcoming cc3+.

Shadows of Eldolan

Pär Lindström created a city map and floorplans for the 13th Age city adventure Shadows of Eldolan using CC3, City Designer 3 and the Symbol Set 4: Dungeons of Schley style. He did some post work on the city map in Photoshop

It’s been a while since we posted a round up of user maps, mostly because we are very busy with CC3+ and had the summer’s convention schedule to take care of. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been great maps posted to the forum – quite to the contrary as you can see below.

You can always rely on Grimur to take everyone’s breath away with his gorgeous maps, like this one using the Herwin Wielink overland style.

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