This was a fun project. Knowing I have an Isometric version of this tomb in an upcoming annual to map out, led me to do a little research on just exactly how or what I was going to map. I wanted to find something simple, as I am not very familiar with the isometric/perspectives maps ProFantasy offers, although I do own them, I just haven’t found myself using them, which makes this project even better! Anyway, I found my way to a fantastic site, https://www.osirisnet.net/3d-tours/e_3d-tours.htm which led me to tomb QV66, otherwise known as the tomb of Queen Nefertari, one of the most beautiful tombs found to date. Continue reading »
Well THIS was a challenge. As usual, mapping outside of dungeon mapping gives me a little anxiety, but I dug in a think the end result wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and I rather like it. I opted to do the 3d perspective of a castle, as this, I think is the most challenging map to create in this series. We are all pretty used to mapping top-down, so that didn’t seem like it would be useful to as many people as another 3d map in this style would.
(Download the FCW file of the castle.) (See the more info on the Annual “Beaumaris Castle” here.) Continue reading »
This is a great Annual! One of my favorites in the bunch for obvious reasons….it is I, Lorelei, mapper of dungeons and floor plans. For some inspiration for this set of maps, and for many of my floor plans, I searched through my vast files of references online and found one of my favorites…old copies of The Architechural Review. Scanning through the pages of a volume from 1916 I found several floorplans of boarding houses and used them as the basis for Edgar and Shirley Pembroke’s Boarding House….a Cthulhu inspired floor plan.
Download the CC3+ file here. Note that you need the Annual 2019 installed to view it properly.
Download the CC3+ file here. Note that you need the Annual 2019 installed to view it properly.
Mapping with the Sci-Fi Base Annual
Mapping the floorplan of a Sci-Fi Base. Now, THIS was my jam. I finished the exterior map in less than 1.5 hours and then the interior in about 45 minutes or so. I flew through it. Why? Because THIS is what I LOVE about mapping….my mind was flying in 7000 different story arc directions as I was creating this pair of maps 😊
Now….I’d like to first start by saying I just started playing in a Starfinder campaign – although I REALLY wanted to play a Star Trek campaign, I got voted out – but space themed for sure since I can’t get anyone to jump on my Cthulhu bandwagon in my gaming group, but that’s a story for another time (Oooh I sure hope ProFantasy asks me to map the Annual with the Cthulhu city in it..now THAT’S a super fun city map pack). Anyway, I was pretty excited to map this base out.
I started with once again, following the Mapping Guide, since although I’ve had Cosmographer for years, I’ve hardly had a reason to use it, so I felt I needed some guidance with starting out here. Setting up this base was super easy following Ralf’s guide…along the way, as usual, tweaking a few things like adding an RGB Matrix effect to the Whole Drawing just to give everything a little greenish grey look….it IS an alien planet. I also added a sheet SYMBOLS IN DOME – for those symbols I wanted to show under each dome and a LIGHT sheet for the light effect I created for the spotlights.
Other than those simple modifications, and using some symbols in an unorthodox way, I pretty much stuck to the Mapping Guide. I decided to include the Hyperlinks in this map, since the Guide included it, although I usually do not use this for my own maps, though it IS a pretty useful too and quite easy to do.
I’ve said this once and I’ll probably say it like 9 more times before this year of Annuals is up, but read through the provided guides….it can take a bit more time than you planned on putting into a map, but reading through how the creator of the style or program put together their maps is hitting the jackpot of mapping knowledge in my book.
Have some fun experimenting with this Annual. I really had to refrain from using any of the other Cosmographer symbols I have (and for those that KNOW me, know that was VERY difficult, lol) because I really wanted to show this Annual as a standalone, as you do not need Cosmographer to get all these great assets. Now go… create your own Sci-Fi Base and share them on the ProFantasy forums!
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 June issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2020 is now available. Explore five detailed battle maps by Master Mapper Christina Trani, showing the ground floor, upper floor and cellars of the Inn at Whisper Wood, alongside the crossroads it is located at, and the cave its cellar is connected to.
The accompanying 6-page mapping guide teaches how to use grids of any style and size on these or other battle maps, how to print them to scale even on a small home printer, and how to export them to use in a virtual tabletop environment.
If you have already subscribed to the Annual 2020, you can download the June issue from your registration page. If not, you can subscribe here.
Download the CC3+ file here. Note that you need the Annual 2019 installed to view it properly.
Mapping with the Isometric Town Annual
Now THIS was a challenge as I find city/town maps a personal struggle. Here is where the Mapping Guide comes in handy. Often, with an Annual, I am guilty of just diving in and figuring things out on my own as I go, occasionally referring to the mapping guide, but not usually. This time, since I do struggle in this area of mapping, I stuck with the Mapping Guide provided, as far as the steps in creating this little town and followed them along.
Also, quite useful when mapping with a style you aren’t very comfortable with is deconstructing the multitude of maps that are often provided along with each Annual. In this instance I was able to copy a few of Sue’s Effects from her Corvallen map and Ralf’s Menzberg map, in particular Sue’s brilliant use of the RGB Matrix. This effect is worth a dive into as it can produce some great color results on your sheet effects.
Some of my own favorite effects to use are the RGB Matrix, the Hue/Sat and a big favorite of mine, Texturize. The last one I often put on the entire map. On this one I used a common texture that everyone should have concrete. The textures I use can be found in the CC3+>Filters>Images file, though you can use just about any fill with some kind of texture. I love the look I can get on a map with just the right settings and the fill to texturize. Try it!!
I also was unable to recreate Sue’s lovely parchment….well, I probably could if I really sat for a while, but I wanted to map in a way that the average mapper would, not someone with some sort of artistic skills on the manual side, rather than digital, so instead I created a legend on the bottom of my map – I think it’s a fine substitute if one is unable to recreate, copy and paste the scroll or just doesn’t want the look of scrolled parchment on their map – either way it’s just another variation. I do, of course, use my dear friend’s lovely parchment fill she provided for this Annual. Text/Labels are pretty standard here, with no special flair, and naming wasn’t anything special either….with the exception that I DID get the name of the town from Sue’s beautiful willow trees provided with this Annual. I LOVE willow trees, on a personal note, and these are just so pretty, so Willow Field it became. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful for your own mapping needs!
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 this series, Christina Trani will explore all the different drawing styles available in the Cartographer’s Annuals, starting with Volume 13 (2019).
Download the CC3+ file here. Note that you need the Annual 2019 installed to view it properly.
Mapping with The Worlds of Wonder Annual
As a digital cartographer, I am not overly fond of overland mapping. I prefer the confines of a floorplan, a dungeon, or I’ll expand my horizons to lovely, little villages. But, occasionally, I am encouraged to map in an overland style. My latest was done in the Worlds of Wonder Annual style. I love it.
Now, since overland mapping gives me anxiety….all the details that geologically accurate minded cartographers have apoplexy over when not done correctly can give me hives, so most often I just “wing it” and to heck with geology – it IS a fantasy world, so why not?
This time ‘round I decided to grab a continent from Fractal Terrains, since my coastlines, in my opinion, are the pits. After generating a landmass I was happy with I exported it to CC3, deleted all the fluff and left myself with a landmass that I copy and pasted into a new map started in the WoW (not Worlds of Warcraft, lol) style. I then began mapping out where my mountains would go….this I did by referring to my original FT map, which shows all the wonderful elevations that I normally have NO idea where to place. I did the same for rivers, to avoid the stress I’d normally have trying to figure out “where they looked best” or “where they should go”. If you don’t have Fractal Terrains, and ARE stressing about your map being geologically accurate, there are a multitude of references out there…but I really recommend just making this fantastical world your own and do what pleases you.
Once my mountains are placed, along with a mountain fill behind them and lakes and rivers, I begin placing my forests. Now, this map has more forests then I normally would place, but that has everything to do with the name… Larothell, The Republic of Songs. So I got the name from one the many online generators I have bookmarked. I use them often as a DM of a homebrew campaign having to constantly come up with original names to people and places, often on the fly. So, the name came up, and I immediately though of elves, glorious elves with a magical world of melody, perhaps that fuels their magic? I don’t know, but I just went with it…and with elves, come forests. I also enjoy mixing shades of greens in my forests, so for this map I mixed the two green trees that came with the annual, but I certainly recommend playing around with the colors and creating your own custom palette.
Of course, naming my cities and towns was easy once I had a theme to my fantasy realm. When labelling cities, towns, key locations, etc. I like to play with different fonts. I have an assortment of hundreds upon hundreds of fonts. Searching some of the free font sites is a great resource – just be sure to note any restrictions on commercial uses as noted by the creators. Along with fonts I am a fan of playing with color of the font and outlines – preferring to having a contrast, usually the map title and the cite labels.
Always remember, stepping out of your comfort zone can produce some amazing work that might even surprise yourself! Go experiment and have fun!
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.
By Christina (Lorelei) Trani
Mapping with ProFantasy’s Campaign Cartographer 3+ has brought my home games to life – especially from my humble beginnings. When I first played tabletop roleplaying games our fledgling Game Master strictly used theater of the mind. Some of us, such as myself, needed the visuals for combat, so we graduated to some graph paper, we were luckily required to purchase for math class, some colored pencils (if we were even luckier), a ruler and one set of dice between us. I, being the only female in the group, and the most artistic of the lot, usually was tasked with drawing out our GM’s map vision. This went on for a few months … enter the Satanic Panic of the 80’s, combine that with Italian – very Roman Catholic- immigrant parents and my days of D&D were done.
About 10 years or so ago, one of my old middle school D&D friends and I started playing again. This time I was our Dungeon Master and quickly took up my old habit of making up the maps. I did this by hand for years until 2015 when I found ProFantasy’s Campaign Cartographer 3+ and started printing out my maps on poster. I first set myself up with a guide for Dungeon Designer depending on what size map I had intended on printing out as several of the vendors I use print in different sizes (such as Staples, Office Max/Depot, and VistaPrint). For poster sizes 11”x17” set at 55’x85′, 16”x20” set 80’x100′, 18”x24” set 90’x120′ (this is the most common poster print), 24”x36” set 120’x180′ and the largest map I’ve printed to date 36”x48” set at 180’x240′. My players have loved the colored maps, the assets and add-ons CC3+ give my players visuals they’ve only seen on virtual tabletop gaming not ACTUAL tabletop. It was a game changer.
Always looking to surprise and delight my players with an encounter, I took my mapping to the next step. I decided to start applying my many mediocre crafting talents to use and combine them with my maps. My first foray into craft mapping was a simple as getting some rocks and stones from outside my apartment, cleaning them off and laying them down over some rocks I had placed on an Outdoor Forest Encounter map. My adventuring team loved that they had something to actually hide their minis behind. As a Dungeon Master, I was THRILLED! I started to find some of our encounters were a bit boring as the players weren’t using the terrain on the maps to their best advantage. With this small added addition, it seemed to click, and we were off!
Next project…. Clay. For sculpting amateurs out there like myself, and little to no investment, you can purchase some air-drying clay. This is used to create “mounds” of terrain to place on maps. With some modpodge, acrylic paints and some model landscape turf, and even a few rocks and twigs from outside, I was able to create some fantastic terrain elements to add to my maps. Depending on the kind of investment you’d like to make you can then begin to add in some trees. These can be made by purchasing premade model terrain trees, creating your own with wire and terrain foliage, or even better, this time of year, with all the trees and bushes in full bloom, you can trim off some branches and bushes, insert them into the clay before drying and have an instant forest element!
Papier-Mâché is another great way to add some cliff terrain to an already awesome map. You can see my original map. It really was just fine the way it is, but this encounter I had planned was a key part of their main story arc, so I wanted to make it special. This section of the cave I knew would be layered cliffs of ice…so how could I achieve this? Yes, back to grade school art class and papier-mâché ice cliffs! I started here with a piece of foam board to use as a base, after sealing that, I began to layer the papier-mâché, making sure to make it jagged, like ice would be. After drying, I painted it with white and shimmering white paints, added some silver and iridescent glitters, some tufts of cotton balls for snow and some broken glass and mirror fragments purchased at a local craft store as a finishing touch.
My latest crafting project has been my favorite, to date. I knew my players would eventually be taking a boat trip, and I had a pretty cool encounter planned for when that happened. I found a free .fcw file of a three-deck caravel and did what I do with free. fcw’s…. made it my own. I used the bones of the ship and changed the fill styles, changed the symbols to a photorealistic version and printed out the map of the three decks on a large poster. My intent was to play the encounter on the poster, but again I started thinking about how I can enhance the encounter. I was looking at the boat and realized the mast was the exact size of a dowel I had picked up at a local craft store clearance not long ago. So, I began to cut out the ship from the poster, then traced and glued it onto a thin poster board. Cut a 1” wide dowel into three individual 4” masts and paint them to look like wood. I also painted the underside of each deck to look like aged wood planks. Then each mast was glued onto the floor of the deck and put a piece of sticky tack on the top of each mast, to attach to the deck above and still be easily separated for more in depth exploration of the deck. I placed the ship on a map of water I had created, and poster printed, added some undersea monster minis in the water, and turned this boat into one of the most exciting and fun encounters to date!
All these crafting ideas can be done on a variety of budgets. There are so many items around your home that can be incorporated into terrain, just use your imagination and a little ingenuity. Just look around and use what you find in your own home, craft closet, workshop, or gardens and enhance your CC3+ maps to this next level of fun!
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 Master Mapper award has been on hiatus for a few years, but certainly not because of a lack of awesome cartographers out there! It’s our fault due to being busy with other things and not being able to make our mind up who among so many great Campaign Cartographer users we should single out. Well, we are certainly going to change that and start out by awarding the honor to not one, but two deserving mappers! For that we are going back a bit in time …
Master Mapper 2017: Joe Sweeney
Awarding Joe Sweeney the Master Mapper title for one specific year is like saying “D&D was the most popular role-playing game this year” – it’s true, but it doesn’t say much! Joe has been a great asset to the community for years, creating templates, maps, free resources and videos.
As Joe has been supporting the CC user community for ages and we felt it was high-time we properly recognized that contribution.
So we just picked a recent year and declared him Master Mapper of 2017 for:
- Helping oh so many mapper with his highly instructive video tutorials.
- Designing templates for highly re-usable dungeon and starship stiles.
- Drawing beautiful maps.
- Hosting and contributing to a tiled texture collection for anyone to use.
- And running a whole Master Mapping Class website.
We can’t thank Joe enough for the support he has provided to the Campaign Cartographer community over the years. You are a true Master Mapper in all meanings of the word!
Master Mapper 2018: Christina Trani
When looking at all the beautiful maps submitted to the community in 2018 we at first felt overwhelmed at all the material. How could we decide on a Master Mapper from among all those great cartographers? But one did indeed stand out when we looked a little closer. There are so many consistently beautiful maps created by Christina Trani (Lorelei on the forum), it became clear to us she is indeed the Master Mapper of 2018.
The Master Mapper award for 2018 goes to Christina for:
- Creating a large number of amazingly beautiful maps.
- Pushing the boundaries of what can be done in Campaign Cartographer, expanding the horizon of all its users.
- Being active in the Facebook user group and the community forum.
- And for supporting and contributing to the Community Atlas project.
Thank you Christina for being such a great part of the Profantasy user community. Please continue amazing us with your beautiful maps and pushing the boundaries of CC3+. Continue being a Master Mapper!
If you want to check out which user have been awarded the title of Master Mapper in the past, check out the Master Mapper page which lists them all.
We are excited to introduce a new contributor to the Annual this month. Community member Christina Trani recently created a series of battle maps for Pelgrane Press’ encounter book “Fire & Faith”. We were delighted with the map work she did with CC3+, so we asked her to create a whole new series of maps for the Annual.
The Curse of the Lich King map pack is the result. Enjoy four gorgeously detailed maps in both DM and player versions. Let the Regional Map lead you to the Lich’s Tower, then navigate the Maze to find the undead’s Vault and, – if everything goes according to plan – destroy its unholy phylactery. Check out the issue’s details on the Annual 2018 web page.
Also see a preview of the Annual’s April issue and it’s star charts style.
You can now subscribe to the Annual 2018 here. Once you have subscribed, the March issue will immediately become available for download on your registration page.
