For this month we have a few very useful symbols for the Symbol Set 6: Isometric Cities (but which could also be used on overland maps). These Isometric Bridges can be extended to variable length to span any width of river, gorge or similar terrain feature.
Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of Symbol Set 6 to showcase the symbols in proper surroundings. If you don’t have SS6 installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. Symbol Set 6 – Isometric Cities is available for purchase here.
To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are the last link in the list. All the content of year two up to and including February 2023 is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
The February issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 is now available for download. We have a new, beautiful town style by Pär Lindström for you, venturing out into the heat of the desert this time. The “Desert Oasis” style contains hand-drawn buildings, ruins, palm trees and gigantic monuments, alongside bitmap textures to build an oasis settlement, an ancient ruin, or similar locations in a desert setting.
The February issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.
In most overland styles, such as the CC3 Mike Schley Overland you’ll find that when you draw a terrain, such as the hills, the edge of your polygon will fade into the land behind it, allowing for a smooth transition between the two. This is of course done by the Edge Fade, Inner effect, and will only be visible as long as effects are enabled.
So, well and fine, but now we want the central part of our hilly area to be mountainous, so we just use the drawing tool and draw us some mountain terrain on top of the hill terrain. But then we notice something, the mountain fill is not fading into the terrain fill beneath it. Now, why would that be? It is on the same sheet as the hill fill (the LAND FEATURES sheet in case of CC3 Mike Schley Overland), and that clearly fades, so what is up here?
The answer to that is simple, effects are per-sheet, not per-entity, so what the Edge Fade, Inner effect is fading the combined outline of all the entities on the sheet, not the outline of each individual entity. In my example case here, the mountain terrain is fully inside the hills terrain, so the outline is here described by the hills terrain alone. If the mountain terrain had been sticking out somewhere, we would have seen that that part of the mountain terrain would have had edge fading applied to it, as would be the case if we delete the hills altogether and just keep our mountains.
Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 16 – is now available as a complete setup, all monthly issues collected into one single package. Subscribers who downloaded all the monthly issues don’t need to do anything, but if you skipped some issues or are a fresh owner of Volume 16, you can install everything in one go now. The setup is available from the registration page as usual. If you didn’t subscribe, waiting for it to become available as one single package, you can now purchase it from the Annual’s page or the store as usual.
Last year saw a bit of focus on battle maps and floorplans, but also ranged to electronic system maps and overland styles. The stars of the show (for me at least) were the battle map styles Creepy Crypts and Forest Trail by Sue Daniel – both so resource and work intensive we had to split them into two parts. But her Winter Village set was also extremely beautiful. It was also great to see Pär Lindström back with the wonderfully illustrative Book of Maps style.
Personally, I was happy to let some of my travel inspirations flow into the Island Chains issue and revisit Jon Roberts‘ awesome overland style. But the Tactical Maps style I developed from a commission for Pelgrane Press was also great fun to create.
For the coming year we are looking to include more new talent again and are actively looking for artists who are interested in creating an Annual issue style for us. See Simon’s call here.
The current Annual 2023 subscription has now started and the January issue is available. So if this retrospective on 2022 did wet your appetite, check it out here.
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The Cartographer’s Annual 2023 has started with the January issue and 13th Age Revisited style, which is is available for subscribers via their registration page.
The latest batch of free monthly content by Mike Schley provides you with a gorgeous set of medieval siege weaponry to spice up your battles.
Resources
Watch or re-watch the recent live mapping videos from our playlist on YouTube.
Remy looks at how you can spice up your maps by paying attention to all the little details that it is easy to gloss over or ignore if you’re in a hurry.
Reminders
CC3+ has been updated to version 3.98 (Update 28) which is available from your registration page.
Fractal Terrains 3+ has been released and is available from among your FT3 downloads on your registration page.
Unsurprisingly December is usually a little quieter in terms of map-making (Christmas, end of the year, etc.) and last month was no exception. But still there were plenty of wonderful map projects going on and results being share by the community. So here are a few semi-random picks:
Jean-Claude Tremblay took last year’s Winter Village style and created this wonderfully season-appropriate settlement. Continue reading »
We’re starting into the new year of free monthly content with another wonderful set by Mike Schley: meticulously drawn siege artillery and tools for those battle maps that show the envinronment of an actual siege battle. Cannons, Trebuchets, ballistae, battering rams, siege towers and more is there for you to put on the map. Including varicolor variations, the symbol catalog contains 23 new symbols.
Note that the example maps included with the free content make use of Symbol Set 4 to showcase the symbols in proper surroundings. If you don’t have SS4 installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley is available for purchase here.
To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are the last link in the list. All the content of year two up to and including December 2022 is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
The January issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2023. We start the year with a refurbished and expanded version of the 13th Age Overland Style by Lee Moyer. Inspired by his Dragon Empire map for the 13th Age role-playing game by Pelgrane Press, it is superbly suited to large scale campaign maps.
It’s symbol and bitmap selection has been expanded and the whole style has been brought up to speed to CC3+s latest effects and tools. The mapping guide has been updated and rewritten to take all of these changes into account.
The January issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2023 yet, you can still do so here at the early subscriber discount (until January 10th).
When working with Campaign Cartographer 3+ you can make good looking maps quite easily. Templates come with the appropriate effects predefined, symbols and tools draw on the appropriate sheet automatically and most styles have a nice selection of symbols and fills to use in your map. With just a little bit of experience with CC3+ and it’s tools, you can quickly and easily throw together that battle map for tonight’s encounter. Sometimes however, it can be worth spending a little more time with the map, looking at the details and taking it from a good map to a great map.
For this month we have a few very useful symbols for the Symbol Set 6: Isometric Cities (but which could also be used on overland maps). These Isometric Bridges can be extended to variable length to span any width of river, gorge or similar terrain feature. 
Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 16 – is now available as a complete setup, all monthly issues collected into one single package. Subscribers who downloaded all the monthly issues don’t need to do anything, but if you skipped some issues or are a fresh owner of Volume 16, you can install everything in one go now. The setup is available from the registration page as usual. If you didn’t subscribe, waiting for it to become available as one single package, you can now purchase it from the 
When working with Campaign Cartographer 3+ you can make good looking maps quite easily. Templates come with the appropriate effects predefined, symbols and tools draw on the appropriate sheet automatically and most styles have a nice selection of symbols and fills to use in your map. With just a little bit of experience with CC3+ and it’s tools, you can quickly and easily throw together that battle map for tonight’s encounter. Sometimes however, it can be worth spending a little more time with the map, looking at the details and taking it from a good map to a great map.
