W is for Waterfront

or wharf... or whatever.

I'd like to give a big shoutout to Dyson Logos and Dante for posting about my A to Z mapstravaganza on various sites yesterday. Apparently the Reddit RPG forum got ahold of it and my traffic spiked to the point that I got a month's worth of traffic in a single day!

Today's map depicts a seedy fantasy waterfront, complete with vikingesque longship in honor of the Swedish invasion my site underwent yesterday. I love the potential weirdness that can take place in dockside neighborhoods. The combination of ships coming in from exotic locales, and ships headed out carrying folks with places to go, folks with people to flee and folks just looking for adventure makes for a crab pot of excitement just waiting to boil over.

Speaking of crab pots, I once worked up an in-game dockside bar called Peggy's. It was run by a dwarf with a peg leg. He had lost his leg in a battle with a giant crab, but managed to take one of the crab's claws in vengeance. He felt fine about it until he learned that crabs grow their claws back. Now ol' Peggy makes regular pilgrimages to re-take his nemisis' claw. The walls of his bar are festooned with the fruits of his labor.

At some point, I would also like to create a seaside bar run by catfolk. It would be called the Crusty Starfish. If you own a cat, I'm sure you get it.

Oh, also, now my 20% gray pen is starting to fade, so I only used it for small bits of shading. I did the shady sides of the rooftops after the fact in Photoshop. Do I go to the art store again or try to get through these last three maps?

Get a printable version here.