May has been a busy month for many of our community member, in terms of map-making at least. So many great maps to choose from, and I can’t really pick them all. Here are just the ones that stood out to me:
Kevin Goebel used the Marine Dungeon style for this excellent lighthouse and underwater ruin.
For those of you who haven’t seen them, we do a live mapping session on YouTube most weeks, showcasing a certain style or set of tools in CC3+. Here are the latest ones:
Did you love last month’s Far Eastern symbols by Mike Schley, but feared there was not enough variety available? Don’t worry, we have you covered with more of the same style. Sprawling castles, palaces, temples and shrines, as well as ruined town and smaller places, they are all included in the May selection of free symbols.
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 the current year (January to May 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Welcome to the 2015 Annual, mappers! So we wrapped up last annual (2016) with TJ Vandel, and we start 2015 with them 😊
Black and white mapping is not in my wheelhouse, to say the least. I love taking textures and layering them, creating new colors in the color palette. But, with every new adventure we learn new things and experience new options in mapping. Working with this style was pretty simple. It’s great for printing out maps at home, especially if you like to conserve ink, like I do. You can easily do a DM and Player versions in less than an hour.
For this map, I used an online generator of dungeons and simply traced out my rooms and added a little bit of flair (I just can’t resist trying to make things look “pretty”). The mapping guide is simple and even the newest of beginners can work with this style early on in their CC3+ learning journey.
About the author: Lorelei was my very first D&D character I created more years back than i’d like to remember. When I decided to venture into creating maps for my and others rpgs, I thought I owed it to her to name myself Lorelei Cartography, since it was her that led me to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming in the first place. Since then I have been honored to have worked with companies such as WizKids, Pelgrane Press, and ProFantasy.
Campaign Cartographer is not designed to be a tile-based mapper, rather it is designed to be fully free-form where you can shape things as you want. But sometimes, having a set of pre-made tiles available can allow us to throw together a map quickly, or to serve as inspiration.
Last month, we looked at planning the basic structure for our tiles. Planning is always important, especially with something like making tiles, because we need a structured approach if we want them to actually fit nicely together.
In this installment, we’ll get into drawing a few example tiles using the template we created in part 1. Continue reading »
Dear map-makers, it’s time to look back at another month of mapping goodness in the ProFantasy community. Here are some of the wonderful maps our community members shared in April. Enjoy!
Richard deRoiville created this amazingly detailed map of the city of Falkovnia in the Darklands City style.
Continue reading »
For those of you who haven’t seen them, we do a live mapping session on YouTube most weeks, showcasing a certain style or set of tools in CC3+. This is the most recent one, showcasing the Annual 2024 Annual issue:
Merry meet, Mappers! We’re down to the style for 2016, bringing us to the Dark Realms Annual. This set is meant to stand alone, yet it also can be used in combination with two other styles in this year’s annual, Scorching sun and Realms of Legend by TJ Vandel, both of which I’ve given you basic sample maps. This wraps up the overland styles for 2016 available in this amazing annual.
I just love this one, along with the Scorching Sun. The textures are some of my favorites for overland mapping. The little bunches of woods and forests are just…..chef’s kiss adorable for me. As usual with overland mapping, I struggled….these maps tend to take me much longer than my worth in mapping sometimes, but I stick to it, to improve and get over my geographic anxiety of where and why everything goes where it goes. For my own personal use…..my players no nothing about nor do they care about where mountains are, or if the rivers flow rightly….plus I can use magic and supernatural explanations for the aberrations in geography. For a map I am putting out there on the internet for the world to see? For the River Police that once plagued, and may still, a popular cartography web page? Well, that just stresses me out. After getting over my anxiety, I just relaxed and mapped what felt right. I think it looks good, and I sure hope you do, too.
The only thing I did here was make a few adjustments in PS to the png with the contrast. I love how my maps look on my screen in CC3, but once saving them, they often change appearance, especially since I save at such high resolutions, so that my maps are still clear enough for VTT play when I size them down to the usual 20MB limit most VTTs have, sometimes I make some minor adjustments outside of this incredible program.
(Download the FCW source file of the map)
About the author: Lorelei was my very first D&D character I created more years back than i’d like to remember. When I decided to venture into creating maps for my and others rpgs, I thought I owed it to her to name myself Lorelei Cartography, since it was her that led me to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming in the first place. Since then I have been honored to have worked with companies such as WizKids, Pelgrane Press, and ProFantasy.
Do you need more variety in your cultures and settlemens? How about adding some Asian-themed farms, villages, towns and cities to your maps with the latest free monthly symbols by Mike Schley?
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 the current year (January to April 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Campaign Cartographer is not designed to be a tile-based mapper, rather it is designed to be fully free-form where you can shape things as you want. But sometimes, having a set of pre-made tiles available can allow us to throw together a map quickly, or to serve as inspiration.
Most CC3+ styles doesn’t come with such tiles, but creating our own tiles for use in later maps isn’t difficult, although it is a bit time-consuming if we want lots of nice tiles available for our use, but it can also be a nice relaxing activity, and each individual tile can be finished relatively quickly once you have your basic framework ready.
Tiles can be used for multiple purposes, like battle maps, dungeons, space stations and cities. And of course, a tile in CC3+ isn’t fixed and locked once made, you can make a dungeon using tiles, and then still add or remove individual items after placing the tiles.
Tiles can also be printed and used for assembling a quick location on the table for miniature play.
In this article series, I’ll take you through the creation and use of such tiles, and we’ll look at some of the more advanced options available in CC3+ to make the best tiles. Continue reading »
