Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 17 – 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 17, 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 we saw some excellent new artists in the Annual, like E Prybylski, DM Geezer Jim and Monkey Frog Studios, along staples like Pär Lindström and Sue Daniel, as well as occasional contributors like Jon C Munson II. Topic and themes ranged from desert villages (oases) to winter trails and from steampunk streets to classic fantasy overland maps. My personal highlights this year were E Prybylski’s Overland style along with Sue’s Winter Trails.

As for my own work I probably had the most fun building Bairnemouth, the isometric City Under Siege, as I love coming up with a proper story for a map as I’m creating it. But revisiting the 13th Age style was also great, and with the Wilderness Tiles I got to use Sue’s battle map artwork from last year extensively, which I also enjoyed a lot.

For the coming year we are still looking to include more new talent and are actively looking for artists who are interested in creating an Annual issue style for us. Simon’s call here is still relevant.

The current Annual 2024 subscription has now started and the January issue is available. So if this retrospective on 2023 did wet your appetite, check it out here.

Welcome to 2024 and a new year of mapping goodness with the Cartographer’s Annual Vol 18. We are starting the year with a reimagination of an older style: Fantasy Realms by Allyn Bowker.

As the editions of the most popular role-playing game change, so do the artists and the styles used for their maps. Allyn captured the flavor of the current style of 2009, and this reimagination changes the existing look to get closer to the style of 2024, coincidentally created by Mike Schley. We have added many new symbols, changed the used bitmap textures and generally updated the style to take advantage of the CC3Plus’ newer features which weren’t available in 2009.

The January issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can still do so here at the early subscriber discount (until January 10th).

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.