Last month, 
I talked about how to draw railroad tracks for your maps. In that article, we looked at how to draw the basic tracks and sleepers, and adding appropriate effects to make them look nice. But we can’t stop with just straight track segments, can we? Of course not, we’ll be needing to make ourselves some nice curves. Fortunately, CC3+ has the tools needed to be able to take our railroads to the next step.
Trains and Rails are useful for all kinds of mapping. From the humble carts on a track used in mines, to daring train heists in the Wild West, through subways and all the way to modern high-speed bullet trains. They can be used for battle maps to play out interesting encounters, as scenery in your mine maps and part of the infrastructure of your city.
In this first part I’ll be having a look at creating the basic tracks.
(I’ll also be looking at this in tomorrow’s live stream, so join the stream or watch the archived video later if you wish a video version of this)
We are very happy that with Jimmy Medina (aka DM Geezer Jim) we have a new contributor to the Cartographer’s Annual for the second month in a row. We loved the multi-structure floorplans extending over several levels that he shared with the community, and asked him to create a floorplan of a whole city block.
The resulting map pack “City Block” makes up the May Annual issue and shows eight different buildings interconnecting via their cellars, ground levels, upper stories and roof tops using the Dungeons of Schley style. It also contains a 10-page mapping guide, including descriptions and adventure ideas for the buildings.
The May 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.
Saddle up, pardners! The horses are rested and ready for the next expeditions, thanks to a neat set of stable furnishing in this month’s free symbol catalog by Mike Schley. 20 new symbols showing horses, saddles and tack, hay piles and other stable staples (sorry!) make up this set.
Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of Symbol Set 4 to showcase the symbols in proper surroundings. If you don’t have SS4 installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley is available for purchase here.
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 year two up to and including April 2023 is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Remy Monsen ran a mapping competition during the month of August, and some amazing building floorplans were created by the community.
The challenge was to create floorplans for a set of buildings chosen from one town map (see on the right) of the community atlas project, with the finished maps (hopefully) becoming part of the atlas and complementing its wonderful collection of free content.
It’s time now to vote for the winners, so head over to the community forum to chose your favourite in two categories.
According to our End User License Agreement, you need our permission to publish floorplan-scale maps consisting predominantly of our artwork commercially (when the maps are a product of their own and not part of an adventure or such). This is mostly to protect our artwork rights and to keep the floorplan-market from getting flooded by cheap, extremely simple maps. Recently Matthew Verdini approached us to get such a permission, and seeing the quality of his maps, we were more than happy to grant that permission. See for yourself!
We also asked him to say a few words about himself and his work, so here he goes:
First off, I will admit to being a fan of the Profantasy line of products since they first debuted in the 90s. I remember seeing their ads in Dragon magazine and thinking how cool the software looked. I eventually mustered up some funds and got myself to the nearest gaming shop I could find so that I could buy a copy of Campaign Cartographer to use in my home brew world building.
The product was a far cry from the work that can be done today, but there was nothing like it at the time. As a student, I would slowly pick up additional products as I could while trying to build my worlds.
Graduating college and getting a graphic design job eventually afforded me the ability to buy all their products as I continued building worlds, cities and dungeons for my adventures. All my games were in person for a long while, therefore there was a great amount of time spent printing out pages and taping them together. However, now I play entirely online, allowing me to easily utilize the maps as needed.
The amount of time I put into my maps grew as I relied on them more and more in the digital landscape. Admittedly my work is not done strictly within the confines of the software or only using the assets they provide. The artist and designer in me adds some of my own tweaks to the assets as well as post production adjustments like lighting, textures and so on. In the end though, the heavy lifting has been done with Profantasy’s products.
When the pandemic hit, I began to explore some side businesses and ultimately opened up an Etsy shop for geek clothing and accessories, with a strong bend towards roleplaying. As I continued to grow the shop, I thought it might be interesting to explore a line of assets for Gamemasters. With that, I recently took my first step into attempting to sell premade maps.
Since my interest in cartography began with Profantasy, I thought it would only make sense that the work I share be part of that.
You can find Matthew’s maps in his Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MasonandMansfield.
Are you still looking for that treasure in the half-sunken temple on the shoreline? Getting bored by always the same seaweed slushing around your legs? Don’t worry, Sue Daniel has more maritime excitement for you with the second part of the Marine Dungeons style.
New ways to enhance your floors with metallic inlays, connecting walls, new flora and fauna for your shore and sea floor … more than 140 symbols, a dozen new textures and many drawing tools are included in the Marine Dungeon 2 style expansion pack.
The December issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.
Note: The re-subcription offer for the Annual 2022 will become available in mid-December, when we also make one of this year’s Annual issues available for free and release a bonus issue (Darklands City part 2).
The July issue of the Cartographer’s Annual is now available. Dive under the waves and explore the ocean shores with Sue Daniel’s vibrant Marine Dungeon style.
Swim alongside bull sharks and sea turtles to find the treasure and horrors hidden beneath the sand of the ocean floor. More than 130 new symbols and 18 textures can be combined with the artwork of Dungeon Designer 3 to give your floorplans and battle maps a whole new – watery – dimension.
The July issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2021 yet, you can do so here.
In our weekly live mapping series on YouTube I’ve been revisiting the first styles that I created for the Cartographer’s Annual back in 2007. Sue Daniel took it upon herself to create new maps with these styles as examples and his the next great result.
Fantasy Tavern
The third Annual was a detailed multi-floor map of a roadside inn, which added a few tools and fills to Dungeon Designer 3 in the form of the “Fantasy Tavern” style. What Sue first proposed as a “Stable” in that style quickly grew into this wonderful Renaissance Longhouse.
(Download the FCW File)
(Download the FCW File)
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.
