Shall we take another look at what maps the Profantasy users shared last month? Of course we shall, what kind of stupid question is that? So without further ado, here are the user maps of November.
Kalnaren‘s series of maps for the Rise of the Runelords adventure path are a glorious place to start. They’ve been drawn with the Jon Roberts Dungeon style and complimented with a selection of DD3 symbols.
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We’ve got another round up for user maps from the Profantasy community forum. Take a look and wonder at the creativity of our prolific users!
Let’s star with jedius wonderfully atmospheric map of the Wildbyrne Outpost at night. He makes great use of CC3+’s lighting effects and light sources.
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Normally it is a little quieter in our community during the summer months, with us being at GenCon and many people on vacation or enjoying the outdoors. But this year, many amazing and beautiful new maps were posted on the ProFantasy forum. Let’s take a look at this summer’s crop – almost 30 maps in total!
Grimur used the Dungeons of Schley symbol set to draw this beautiful tavern floorplan. There’s a little bit of Photoshop post-processing involved, but nothing that could not be done in CC3+ either.
And his city map of Martell matches this style beautifully.
Finally, he used the latest Annual style by Pär Lindström for this quick local map. The paper folds add just that extra touch of awesome.
I’ve got two months of beautiful user maps to cover, since due to holidays I wasn’t able to collect them for May. So without further ado, let’s get going:
My personal highlight of this month’s collection (and the other maps are very good too I should add) is probably Mappy’s The Manticore’s Tale tavern, drawn in Mike Schley’s dungeon style. it’s just wonderfully executed.
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It’s time for another look at last month’s maps on the community forum. Let’s see what the CC3 users have come up!
Look at these beautiful floorplans created with Symbol Set 4 (Mike Schley Dungeons) by SlaveOne. Check out the forum thread for even more of them. I’m especially in love with the “Lucky Hobitz Futs” tavern.
Suntzu is using CC3+ to draw maps of Harn, look at his beautiful versions of the whole of Harn and the Melderyn isle.
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Another month has passed and the community forum has been busy. Let’s take a look with what our users came up last month.
Steve Travis continues his line of maps for the German DSA adventure “The Wolf of Winhall” with a map of the eponymous town.
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We’ve been pretty busy with the CC3+ release, but so have been our users and so it’s time to showcase the user maps from the ProFantasy community forum again. We are especially delighted that we can already include some gorgeous maps created with CC3+, some of them first time efforts with our software!
For example, this is FerCanale‘s first map, the nicely frigid-looking White Wolves Island.
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CC3+ is only a few days out and we already have the first user tutorial on the community forum. Malmo3000 modified the new Mike Schley Overland style to create his Skalderand map depicted on the right, and explains his process in this tutorial. Here’s what he has to say:
I recently started drawing with CC3/CC3+. Despite other comments I've read in multiple forums the learning curve wasn't a big deal for me as beginner. In my opinion the most challenging part is to find a way of mapping and thus creating a "own" style that suits you the best. As some of you noticed already in my thread called "Skalderand [CC3+]" I've found my personal "style" of mapping. So I wrote a little step-to-step tutorial for myself to produce multiple maps within CC3+ with a consistent look. In here I use mostly basic stuff and nothing fancy so with the help of the manual you shouldn't have any trouble of following. I really hope this will help other beginners to CC3+ when coming up with their personal style.
Download Malmo3000’s Campaign Cartographer 3+ Tutorial
[Cross-posted from the author’s blog. Benjamin contacted us about writing an article on using CC3 and creating a map for his book “Dragon Choir”. We are more than happy to share it here for your enjoyment.]
A Special Kind of Art
Maps are a special kind of art. Their beauty is often passed over for their function, but every map possesses a rare kind of potential, something magical.
Whoa there! Magical?
You must think I’m just a typical fantasy writer, banging on about magic again. Well that might be part of it, but let me explain the rest.
Jingle Bells
Ever since I was a kid, looking at a map would send jingling bells up my spine. From mud maps on a scrap of paper to detailed foldouts in National Geographic, I couldn’t resist them. My desk drawer was stuffed with piles of hand-sketched maps, documenting secret hideouts, traps and treasure. I even had a map of my hometown sticky-taped to my wall with annotations showing the locations of my friends’ houses.
My favourite fantasy books all began with a map and followed with a story that delivered the promise hidden in the landscape. Dungeons and Dragons lured me in to play the magic upon the map, and with the digital age came an evolving boon of sci-fi and fantasy computer games. Even today, at the bleeding edge of gaming, the most immersive and well-loved games revolve around a map. The map is our foundation; it is the lynchpin that connects us to the magic of possibility.
Mental Stretch
No matter how large or detailed the map, I examine the edges and wonder what exists outside its jurisdiction. Maps trigger a mental stretching that teases out the possible from the known. There is always more to a map than what you see; change the scale, change the perspective, and change your world.
Sticks and Sand
I contend that maps are a link to our deepest psychological urges of curiosity and territory. They are an embodiment of demarcation, inherently political in how they are depicted and interpreted. Once our primal drive involved patrolling the clan patch and scent marking trees as we went (I know some people who still do), wondering what lay on the other side of a river or ravine. We evolved from sticks drawing lines in the sand, to quill and ink, charting ever further across oceans to exotic lands, always pushing the boundaries of existing maps (often to the detriment of those in discovered territories). Today the great unknowns of nautical and geographic exploration expand further still with astronomical pioneers.
Maps are Magic
The humble map is the device that mentally transports us and inserts us in a physical terrain tinted with cultural heritage, lined with political borders and soaked in context. Maps weave a world and compress it into an image.
That, for me, is something magical.
Political Correctness and Cartography
For my debut novel, Dragon Choir, I wanted to create a map that spoke with the politics of the fictional mapmaker. My map establishes the bigoted perspective of a colonising power. Maps throughout history have been tools of propaganda, yet I have noticed that the majority of maps for fantasy fiction are devoid of political or cultural imprints. Fantasy maps can add extra punch to a narrative if they have a contextual point of view. Why be politically neutral if the plot of your book is politically contentious? Political borders are as fluid as the opinion of the powers that commission the maps.
Below is the map I created using ProFantasy software, Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3). Why did I use this software? The simple answer is that it is the best mapmaking software on the market. The ProFantasy website and community is jam full of support and ideas. The CAD software is powerful and upgradable, allowing an amateur cartographer like me to produce a professional looking map like this.
When the days stretch and the land bakes, the dragons will again scour the sky. A city of bones and a city of gold plot against each other while the rebellion gathers strength. A young man is caught in a tempest of intrigue that will forge a new era of freedom, or forever scar the land. He must discover the secret of the Dragon Choir to save his father and end the stranglehold of an unforgiven nation.
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.
