Here is the March issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2025. This month we have a treat for you with a wonderful new style by Sue Daniel. She created a top-down landscape style for sprawling, colorful continental maps, along with a mapping guide taking you through her process of map creation.
The February issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2025 yet, you can do so here.
[Download the FCW file and custom symbol]
Oh Mappers, my least favorite map…..Overland. As usual, I get my typical anxiety when mapping an overland map. There’s something about where the mountains, rivers, desserts and grasslands go that get my head in a tizzy. And, as usual, I just dug in and came up with something. Is it great? No. Is it good? Debatable. Is it passable? Yes. Will my players care or notice if a river is somewhere that is typically geographically impossible? Absolutely not. So, with this in mind I give you…..this map 😀
I’ve not anything to say about what I did, or how I did it, because frankly even a beginner can put together an overland map just as well as I can. What I will say that I really like about this annual (although the 2015 year has two, Ancient Realms and Ancient Realms II both by TJ Vandel) is, the first gives you the basics (fills, symbols, tools, location icons, tools, etc. ). It’s lovely style, artistically speaking. Now the second, Ancient Realms II gives you a template to make your own location icons, so for this installment, I made one location icon from a public domain png, following the Mapping Guide, and included it in the map. I found one thing I really liked using this style….i really like the location icons instead of specific symbols. This can be useful when you are providing a larger area map, but still want your players to know where key locations are, then if you want, you can break it down further using the Local Area Maps, which also comes with this 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.
Create sweeping world maps with a couple clicks in Fractal Terrains and then export them to Camapaign Cartographer for detailing! With the February issue we are focussing on Fractal Terrains 3+ for a change, with a mapping guide, settings and colorings to produce parchment-style worlds maps in FT3+ and export them easily to CC3+. The included Fractal Parchments Worlds style is based on last year’s parchment worlds, but focuses on larger world maps and can be used with last year’s Annual as well.
The February issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2025 yet, you can do so here.
We are a bit late with the free December symbols due to Christmas and New Year commitments, but we didn’t want to skip them. So here they are! Mike created a set of map ornaments (borders, corner frames, scale bars and compass roses in two styles each) that complement all the overland mapping we’ve done over the year.
This set finished the current run of overland symbols and we’ll be looking at dungeon and floorplan symbols for the next few months. We are already looking forward to Mike’s work on those.
To download the latest free symbols 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 October 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Welcome to 2025 and another year of mapping goodness with the Cartographer’s Annual – now Vol 19. We are starting the year with an overhaul, revisit and expansion of an older style: Ancient Realms by TJ Vandel.
Already one of the largest annual styles in terms of number of symbols, we’ve expanded the range of symbols available with varicolor versions, overhauled the available bitmap fills and added to the drawing tools of the style. The sheets and their effects were also considerably changed to take advantage of all the work that has been done in that regard since the style was originally published.
The January issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2025 yet, you can still do so here at the early subscriber discount (until January 15th).
The December issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2024 is now available and brings you a wonderful new overland style by C.C. Charon. It is inspired by pencil sketches like you might find in a cartographer’s notebook and includes more than one hundred stylish black & white symbols which combine with easy to use drawing tools for quick and simple pencil sketch maps. Two examples maps show you the beauty that the style creates and the 5-page mapping guide takes you through the whole process of using it yourself.
The December issue can now be downloaded by all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
Do you think cities, towns and villages are not enough to adequately depict the glory and splendour of an alien hive civilization? So do we! So Mike has drawn more structures from temples and workshops to brood halls and ruins and we’ve done a second set of hive settlements from them. We hope you enjoy them.
To download the latest free symbols 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 October 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
Hello Cartographers! It’s another monthly annual for the 2015 Annual and we have a classis … Classic Fantasy, that is. This style, Classic Fantasy, brings us back to the days of the classic fantasy novel map, usually found in the inside cover or the first few pages. I remember spending so much time pouring over the maps of my favorites novels, Wheel of Time, The Dragonlance Series, Lord of the Rings, and studying them working out where all important moments from the books happened. If a book comes without a map, it’s a huge disappointment, and not because I make them, because I love them. 😊
For this month’s map, I just made a simple environs map, depicting an area where there was a historic battle that took place between two long warring realms – the perfect setting for a short story or campaign. By following the Mapping Guide, this map took me no time at all to put together – also a plus for those last minute maps needed for any RPG campaign!
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.
Since towns, cities and villages are hardly enough to visualize the cultural splendor of a Mesoamerican civilizations, we expand the collection with a variety of temples, shrines and other structures.
To download the latest free symbols 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 August 2024 so far) is included in the one download.
You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.
The August issue of the Annual 2024 brings you a revamped and refreshed overland mapping style by Sarah Wroot, one of the earliest fantasy cartographers who contributed to Campaign Cartographer.
Sarah’s style “Sarah Wroot Revisited” takes beautiful hand-crafted line symbols and combines them with watercolor style backgrounds to create a wonderful artistic result. It combines easily with the hand-drawn style from Symbol Set 1 – Fantasy Overland (also created by Sarah Wroot) for a much wider variety of symbols.
The August issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.
