The Cartographer’s Annual subscription for 2024 is now available, and you can subscribe at a reduced cost. If you are a current subscriber, be sure to check your email, as you should have received your re-subscription offer that way. Otherwise, visit the Annual 2024 web page for the early subscription discount.

We have the first three issues lined up, starting with a reimagined version of the Fantasy Realms style by Allyn Bowker from 2009. We add lots of symbols and combine the tools with textures by Mike Schley, resulting in a very different look, that is still excellent for displaying local to regional maps of any Fantasy setting.

Next in line is a new parchment overland style combining symbols by Robert Altbauer and new textures. And then in March Sue Daniel provides a great new style for city sewers. If you want some input into that, check out her style development thread on the ProFantasy forum.

As always, subscribing to the Annual will give you access to all twelve monthly issues as they are released, plus a bonus issue at the end of the year. If you want to see an example of all the great content you will receive, check out the Annual 2023.

Subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 now.

Every year we make one of the Cartographer’s Annual issues available for free to give everyone a taste of the great mapping inside.

This year we decided on the City Under Siege map pack from November, which details a large isometric city map, and includes both additional tools for Symbol Set 6 and a description of the city with lots of adventure ideas.

This Annual issue can now be downloaded individually from the Annual page and is included in the Free Annual Sampler.

To make up to all our loyal subscribers, we add a bonus issue to the year’s roster. This year we offer additional Wilderness map tiles and a template to make quick and easy use of the materials from this bonus issue and the December Annual.

The Bonus issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

You can subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 now at a 15% early subscriber discount.

The December 2023 Annual issue presents a set of templates, tools, and instructions to create a basically unlimited set of tiling wilderness maps that you can print or export for use in virtual tabletop environments. The issue also comes with a set of pre-constructed tiles that you can use out of the box. The accompanying 6-page mapping guide details the process of creating many more tiles like these using the Forest Trail style by Sue Daniel.

The December issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

P.S.: The re-susbcription offer for next year’s Annual will be sent out mid-December.

The November 2023 Annual issue brings you a large city map in Mike Schley’s Isometric Cities style. Inspired by the recent free “Breached Walls” symbols for the style and many beautiful maps created by the user community, we’ve taken size and detail to the next level with this map. To make it even more useful as a gaming resource, the map comes with a 13-page guide describing many locations and presenting adventure hooks keyed to them.

The November issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

The October issue of the Annual 2023 expands the Monkey Frog Overland (July 2023) style with a large set of structure symbols and new terrain fills. 95 detailed bitmap symbols from huts and campfires to castles and walled cities allow you to properly populate your Monkey Frog style overland maps, and a set of new terrain fills gives you more options for the natural landscape.

The October issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

(Download the FCW file)
Hello mappers! This month’s All the Annuals has Naomi VanDoren’s annual on display. It’s the perfect annual for those last minute maps. You know those sessions I speak of Game Masters… It’s game night, you’ve been doing your “adulting” all week and didn’t have time to prep for your game. The game, that your wonderful players derailed and ended up somewhere you never thought they would. Well, have I got an annual for you. I actually made this map up in the middle of session. Yes, in the middle of a game session. We often take a mid-game break – you know drink refills, a smoke if anyone partakes, bathroom breaks, returning texts, checking on the kids, whatever. Well, while my players were off doing those things and preparing their next move… I was silently clicking away at my keyboard and came up with this perfect, on the fly, tavern.

With this annual, considering my time constraints, I didn’t so anything off the beaten path. Stuck right with the basics and dropped this map in my VTT in no time and we were back at it, encounter ensues. Good times, great annual.😊

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.

The September issue of the Annual 2023 extends April’s “E Prybylski Watercolor” style with another 50 symbols for non-human settlements, more mountains and other artwork.

Add giant elven tree cities, dwarven mountain strongholds, orc camps and cozy halfling cottages to your map, populate your oceans with monsters and hazards, and have a cat (yes, a cat) shove ships off the edge of the world. The accompanying mapping guide takes a look at the new symbols, and details additional methods to decorate your maps.

The September issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

Last up this bunch, 1800s Floorplan. Oh, boy I loved this one. What fun it was looking for inspiration for this map. I ended up using a floorplan for a model home from a Sears and Roebuck Co. Catalog from the early 1900s. These homes could be ordered via mail catalog and Sears would ship the homeowner all the materials needed to build this home, seriously everything, was sent by train to be constructed by the homeowner. These catalogs are a huge favorite resource of mine for floorplans of all kinds.

I used an image of the floorplans and traced them with the Annual’s tools making a few minor adjustments of my own to the floorplan. Everything I needed to reconstruct the catalog image was at my fingertips. What an easy annual. I then inserted a file of an image of the actual house for this floorplan. I processed the image in PS, gave it a little more a sepia hue to it to give it a more authentic look. I think this is the PERFECT map for a Cthulhu game, don’t you? . I also did felt the need to change the name of the catalog company, as well as the model home name and number for copyright purposes.

[Download the FCW file]

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.

In the August issue of the Annual 2023 we return back to some (visually) simpler maps in black and white. Draw ruins, floorplans and dungeons with faux-inked lines and easy to use black and white symbols.

Related to and compatible with 2020’s Inked Dungeons, the Inked Ruins style allows you to build surface ruins and outdoor areas that can be easily printed and comfortably read even at relatively small output sizes.

The August issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page.

If you haven’t subscribed to the Cartographer’s Annual 2023 yet, you can do so here.

Christina continues her series on the 2016 Annuals…

Temple of Bones was the next up for 2016’s Annual. Oh, Temple of Bones. This was a challenge for me, as I often find Perspectives to be. I honestly don’t have much to say about this map. I’m not sure how I feel about it aesthetically, but what I will say, as I say whenever I succeed in a challenge mapping with Perspectives, I am proud I was able to put out a decent map, at least. 😊

[Download the FCW file]

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.