We used to collect all the user-maps posted on the Profantasy community forum in one post to show them in the blog, but frankly we have to admit the community’s output has become too large for us to keep up. Especially since the inception of the Community Atlas Project and the setup of the CC3+ Facebook User Group the number and quality of maps has skyrocketed.

So instead of trying to keep up with the flood of quality material, we’ll pick out a few highlights each month that caught our eyes and post them here. This does not mean these are the best maps out there or any other maps are worse! We might easily have missed some and we also try to pick out unusual stuff and maps by new users. So take this just as a start, pointing you to the places where more of these awesome maps may be found, and as an invitation to participate by sharing your own work.

The Emerald Crown Forest

ScottA created this maps for the Community Atlas project, using Herwin Wielink’s overland style straight out of CC3+.

Interstate Hotel Horror

For the monthly Cartographer’s Guild contest, Quenten Walker mapped a pub from his hometown on Flinder’s Island and used Pär Lindström’s Horror House style from 2016’s Annual to flesh out the rooms.

The Wound

Josh Plunkett leveraged Perspectives 3 and the Temples of Bones Annual by TJ Vandel for this awesome isometric dungeon map.

The Dungeon

Jason Payne posted this impressively detailed dungeon map to the CC3+ Facebook group.

The City of Curton

Tony Crawford came up with this incredible city build from from Mike Schley’s overland structure symbols.

It’s time to delve underground, but we want to make sure our dungeon walls are properly build and nicely decorated. Explore a new feature of the Symbols Along command in version 3.80 of CC3+ (see Update 14 here), that allows you to auto-generate walls built from individual symbols.

The February issue “Dungeon Walls” contains 60 new symbols for three different mapping styles, command and symbol settings to make quick and easy use of them, as well as a 4-mapping guide explaining the process. Check out the February style details on the Cartographer’s Annual 2018 website.

You can now subscribe to the Annual 2018 here. Once you have subscribed, the January issue will immediately become available for download on your registration page.

This time I tackle the issue of getting your lines to look the same when you export your map as they look inside CC3+. Why can grid lines sometimes almost disappear in the export? Why is the pattern of dashed lines so different?

All these issues relate to how you scale different things in CC3+. Sometimes the default options are fine, but sometimes they are not what you need for the current map. The intention with this article is to make you aware of these issues, and therefore being better able to both know what to do, but also to make more informed decisions in the first place.

This is tackled in the first Command Spotlight issue, found in the ProFantasy Community Forum.

I just published command of the week number 52, Symbols in Area, over at the forum. This command details one of the new commands with CC3+ update 14. Symbols in Area is quite similar to Symbols Along, and allow you to fill an area with symbols with a lot of flexibility regarding scaling, positioning, angles and randomness. Check it out in the forum.

This is also the 52nd entry in the series. This series started on the first week in 2017, and I have published a command every single week for a complete year now. Should be quite a bit of interesting information for any CC3+ users in that list. I am now going to take a break, so this will be the end of season 1 of the series. I’ll probably do a season 2, but it will be a while into the future. For now, check out the index of commands, perhaps there is an entry you didn’t read, or an entry you may wish to re-read.

Earlier this year Mike Schley kickstarted the first episode of his Schleyscapes series. Aimed at producing an ongoing series of quality gaming maps, in combination with bitmap artwork that could be used in any graphics editor.

As you may know Mike is also the artist behind our own Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley, and the Schleyscapes art naturally matches the art in that symbol set perfectly. Of course we wanted to make that additional material available for our users of the Dungeons of Schley, and Mike was happy to oblige!

And here it is, the Forlorn Cottage extension to “Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley”. And the best part? It is completely free for the owners of SS4 – no additional purchase required. You can download it from your registration page as an extra install if you already have SS4 installed, or just use the full setup when you purchase SS4 fresh from the web store. All the new artwork is included.

The SS4 Forlorn Cottage Extension contains:

• 420 new symbols in the SS4 Dungeons of Schley color style
• 14 new bitmap textures for the same style
• 1 “Forlorn Cottage” example map
• 2 SS4 Forlorn Cottage template wizards (imperial & metric)
• Updated SS4 templates incorporating the new bitmap styles
• Updated SS4 symbol catalogs incorporating the new symbols

You can either start a SS4 Dungeons of Schley map and just use the additional symbols, or use the SS4 Forlorn Cottage template to limit yourself to the new symbols.

CC3+ Manual and Tome of Ultimate Mapping author Remy Monsen has been running his “Command of the Week” column all year over on the ProFantasy forum, and it has become one of the most popular topics. As the year is coming to an end, we thought to highlight some of the commands he has looked at, not least to make you aware of this wonderful resource in the first place. So let’s see what our five top picks of the year, which everybody should check out, would be:

1. As one of the basic tools at your fingertips in CC3+, I would say that Coordinates are also one of the most important.

2. The second is also a basic thing and equally important, as knowing how to use the various Selection methods will make you a much more powerful mapper.

3. Sort Symbols in Map is a little more obscure command, but no other can save you as much time and as many nerves as this one.

4. Using Trace is another command that separates the beginning cartographer from the more experienced user. It can be a little tricky to use, but Remy expertly explains it in his post.

5. Finally, Text along a Curve is a personal favorite of mine. Making nice, flowing text labels along rivers and mountain ranges can make the difference between a “normal” map and an outstanding one.

Check out the full list of commands in the index that Remy keeps with every weekly post on the community forum.

The Cartographer’s Annual 2018 is complete and we have a free bonus issue in store to cap the year. It is a set of beautiful bitmap artwork by community member Sue Daniel that lets you add scroll and parchments backgrounds to your maps.

You can download the free issue directly from the Annual page or, if you have subscribed to the current year, from your registration page.

We’ll shortly offer current Annual subscribers the option to re-subscribe to the Annual 2018. If you want to take advantage of the reduced rate for subscribers, you can still quickly subscribe to the Annual 2017 here.

We close off the 2017 Annual (except perhaps for a little bonus issue) with another style by Pär Lindström. He created this wonderful new city style for the weird and ominous metropolis of Cthulhu City, a setting for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu role-playing game.

Of course we took the opportunity to create a city style for CC3+ from it. Since the style doesn’t use the City Designer way of drawing individual houses and random streets, you can even use it fully without having CD3 available.

The December issue is now available for CC3+ from the registration page for all subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2017 yet, you can do so here.

The Art of World-building author and blogger Randy Ellefson was so kind to write the following guest article for the rpgmaps blog. Enjoy!

Intro

When drawing maps of continents, being realistic is a good idea even when inventing for a fantasy or SF landscape. We’re not freed from plausibility unless we’re purposely throwing out the laws of physics and nature. Most of us are probably creating reasonably Earth-like terrain, but even if not, there are natural forces at work on most planets.

The following tips can not only prevent mistakes but give world builders ideas. Sometimes we’re not sure where to put a forest or desert, or why. Maybe we’re not sure where to even begin. The answer is mountain ranges and a decision on which hemisphere our continent is on. This will determine prevailing winds and, as a result, vegetation. If you don’t understand why, read on.

Mountains and Rain Shadows

Mountains cause moisture-carrying winds to rise. The clouds dump all the rain on one side of the mountain range, causing plants and trees. On the mountain range’s other side, there’s no water left to fall. This causes a “rain shadow,” an area that receives little to no rainfall. Deserts are the usual result.

The below image of the western coast of the United States shows the sudden onset of desert on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, which are also causing the forests to their west. Not only is this not peculiar, but it’s a common and expected result that plays out across the Earth. Not knowing this, we might try to justify such a thing by saying a supernatural or technological event caused it when nature will do it.

A rain shadow can cover a huge area, such as the Great Plains of the United States. This isn’t a desert, but grasslands, but the same effect is responsible. The Rocky Mountains have taken much of the moisture out of the air, just not all of it. Some moisture is also coming up from the Gulf of Mexico to the south, so there’s enough rain to cause grass, just not lush vegetation. Generally, desert-like conditions occur closest to the mountains. As we progress farther from them, desert may give way to grasslands and finally forests.

How do we know which side has the desert or forest? We need to know about prevailing winds to answer that.

Prevailing Winds

On a world that is spinning on its axis, like Earth, there will be winds. Which direction these winds flow depends on latitude (distance from the equator) and which way the planet is rotating. Earth rotates counterclockwise and in this article we’ll assume your world does, too; if not, then reverse every mention of direction made below.

On Earth, the rotation causes winds from the equator (0°) to the tropics (up to 40°) to travel east; on the map below, yellow and brown arrows indicate this. In the temperate zones (40°—66°), winds travel west, as indicated by the blue arrows on the map. In the polar zones, winds are again eastward but are light. On the first map above, this explains why the forest is on the westward side of the mountains: the wind is westerly.

No Deserts near the Equator

The world’s deserts aren’t within 30° of the equator due to an atmospheric phenomenon called Hadley cells (there is one in each hemisphere). This weather pattern means most deserts, especially the large ones like the Sahara, start around 30°.

It also means there’s heavy precipitation from 0°—30° and this is too much rain for deserts to form. There’s one exception to this, at least on Earth: Somalia is located at the equator and is mostly arid. The reason? The elevation is between 5-15,000 feet. This changes what would be a tropical climate into a temperate one, and that’s exactly where rain shadows cause deserts. In this case, the Himalayan Mountains are the likely culprit despite how far away they are.

Putting it Together

How can we use this information? We can follow these steps when planning and creating a continent map:
1. Determine which hemisphere our continent is in, and how far from the equator (or even whether it spans it)
2. Decide which parts of the land mass are in each latitude/climate zone, noting the prevailing wind direction:
a. Between 0°—40°, winds are easterly
b. Between 40°—66°, winds are westerly
3. Add mountain ranges where desired
4. Plan where your deserts and forests are:
a. Between 0°—30°, no deserts except in highlands
b. Between 30°—40° forests to the east of mountains, deserts to the west
c. Between 40°—66°, forests to the west of mountains, deserts to the east
Remember that a desert may give way to grasslands and then forests, farther from the mountains that cause a rain shadow. This can give us a line, from left-to-right (or right-to-left) of forest, mountains, desert, grassland, forest. This depends on mountains running north-to-south, as this is perpendicular to the wind direction and therefore blocks the winds. An east-to-west range may cause this but on a smaller scale.

Also, note that winds are westerly or easterly but not perfectly so. They move slightly toward or away from the equator, as the above image illustrates. We don’t need to be super picky about this, however, partly because the vast majority of people have no idea about any of this. We always have the caveat that no one from our imaginary world is going to show up on Earth and announce to our horror (and the delight of our critics) that there is, in fact, no desert or forest at a specific location despite what our map says.

We may not know where 40° latitude is on our maps, but as long as we’re in the ballpark, we’re okay. The goal is to be plausible, not necessarily right.

Hopefully all of this informs and inspires your work, rather than inhibits you. If you’d like to learn more such details, they can be found in my book, Creating Places (The Art of World Building, #2).

A Quiz

Based on the image below (from my world Llurien), see if you can answer these questions (answers at the article’s end):

Question #1: based on where mountains, forests, and deserts are, which direction are the prevailing winds?
Question #2: how far from the equator is this region?
Question #3: which hemisphere is it? (hint: look at the vegetation icons)
Question #4: If you know the answer to the first three questions, what explains the existence of the deserts on the bottom area of the map?

About the Author

Randy Ellefson has written fantasy fiction since his teens and is an avid world builder, having spent three decades creating Llurien, which has its own website at http://www.llurien.com, where dozens of maps, all made with Campaign Cartographer 3+, can be viewed. He has a Bachelor’s of Music in classical guitar but has always been more of a rocker, having released several albums and earned endorsements from music companies. He’s a professional software developer and runs a consulting firm in the Washington D.C. suburbs. He loves spending time with his son and daughter when not writing, making music, or playing golf.

He’s the author of The Art of World Building book series, podcast, and blog. More details can be found at http://www.artofworldbuilding.com. This article is drawn from information found in Creating Places (The Art of World Building, #2).

Quotes about The Art of World Building Series

NY Bestselling author Piers Anthony: “It is exhaustive, well written, and knowledgeable…I, as a successful science fiction and fantasy writer, have generated many worlds, so this material is familiar, but it would have been easier and probably better had I had a reference like this. It is realistic, recognizing that the average writer may not have the patience to work out all the details before getting into the action…”

Ed Greenwood, inventor of The Forgotten Realms: “With CREATING PLACES, Randy Ellefson has penned a sequel to his CREATING LIFE that walks story creators through worldbuilding along an entertaining road that runs everywhere, making sure nothing is missed. Plentiful examples are provided, and a veteran worldbuilder can find just as much fun and comprehensive reminders in these pages as a novice. Some books are nice to have, and a rare few are “must haves.” Like Ellefson’s preceding book, CREATING PLACES is one of that rare breed: an essential reference work. Unlike most references, this one is fun to read. Not to mention a goad and spark for the imagination!”

Quiz Answers

#1: east
#2: not very because easterly winds are nearer the equator
#3: this image is in the northern hemisphere. If we can see the tree icons (they’re a little small here), rainforest icons are used on the southern half, implying the equator is to the south (it’s just off the bottom edge of the map).
#4: since this is near the equator, there can’t be deserts, except that those areas of the map are above 5,000 feet (called the Marulan Highlands)) and are therefore a temperate climate. This lets the mountains on the right cause a rain shadow.

Are you looking for some house-to-house fighting with orcs or undead? Yearning to kick in that door or burn down a barn that hides an evil cult? Look no further, the November issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2017 has you covered. It contains three highly detailed battle maps that combine building floorplans with outdoor locations.

The maps were produced for Pelgrane Press’ upcoming third installment in the Battle Scenes series and highlight the options you get when combining different map types and styles into a larger whole.

The November issue is now available for CC3+ from the registration page for all subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2017 yet, you can do so here.