Maps from the Past: Grade School Project

Among the many remnants of my past recovered from my family's storage unit awhile back was this map of an island that I did for some long-forgotten grade school project. It has a grade on the back (it's good), but I had no idea this map even existed until I pulled it out of a musty old folder. I have no idea what the assignment was, but judging by the thoroughness, I suspect I took to cartography with gusto.

The map is clearly contemporary, with airports and railroads. All of the major features are named. Yet the islands are nameless... Spooky... It might be fun to set a modern adventure in this little world, or re-skin it for Eberron or something similar. Also, my childhood spelling was clearly not as good as I remember it being.

Game Maps and Notes From My First Adventure EVAR!

In my continued rummagings through my very first DM binder of 20 years ago, I came across the maps and notes I drew up for the very first adventure I ever ran.

The girl I was dating at the time (read getting caught making out on people's couches like the uber-jerk I was at that time in high school) had an interest in D&D I think largely due to her dad. The basement of their house was AWESOME. Wall to wall shelves of dad's fantasy paperbacks and game books.

Well, she and some of our other friends wanted to get a game up, but we had no DM... of course, I said I'd do it. What's the big deal? I thought. I had previously played and run a lot of HeroQuest and Dragon Quest games. I really liked THOSE. how hard could it be!?

SketchUp for Gamers

The landing at Fenwatch from my last campaign

I've been seeing an increase in the use of SketchUp lately for game mapping. The most common technique seems to involve importing a hand-drawn dungeon map and pushing/pulling it out into three dimensions. You can check out an excellent example of this by mapper, Kevin Campbell here.

Now, I am a huge fan of SketchUp. I deal with it regularly in my day job as a museum exhibit developer. I even teach an annual introductory seminar on it for my former grad school program. So, I like to think of myself as being relatively skilled with the software. Yet in my several attempts to adapt the program for game mapping purposes, I always wind up faltering and leaving a half-produced model waiting to be finished. Why is that?

Hey Geoff... why you no finish Wayshepherd's Guild?

Using SketchUp well takes time. 

I think the name SketchUp is a bit of a misnomer, because if you use the program like a sketch pad, simply drawing in your maps, your model can quickly become cumbersome to work with. The program should really be called "ModelUp", because, as I tell my students, it works best if you "group early and group often". To translate for mapping, each bit of the map should be "sketched" as its own unique group or component. Every doorway, pit trap and blood-soaked altar should be set up as a discrete building block and then plugged into the model. The downside to this technique is that it adds steps, which adds time to the process. If you are in a hurry to get a map done for next week's game, you might want to run with pen and paper. Heck, even at work, we use pencils and sketch pads as much as any software, especially when pressed for time.

Because I'm running an active game, and leaning towards the Lazy DM model for most of my planning, cracking open a SketchUp file for my location-based encounters just hasn't been practical of late. If I were focused on mapping for maps' sake, or making something for publication, it might be a different story, but when in a hurry, it's best to stick with quad ruled paper and pencil.

That being said, SketchUp can offer some definite advantages in certain circumstances such as:

• Dungeons with overlapping levels. The ability to view models from all angles is a powerful visual tool when dealing with twisting ramps, balconies and other vertically layered environments.
• Recurring locations. Recurring environments in your game, especially those that might be modified over time can really benefit from the SketchUp treatment. If you set things up well, it can be quick and easy to expand the kitchen on the party's keep, or add battle damage to the mage's tower. If set up poorly, however, such changes could be a nightmare.
• Established Settings. This is a bit of a Catch-22. SketchUp can get more efficient as you use it, but it can take a while before it is efficient enough to be worth using for a game. Why is this? Well, again, if you are building your models well, you will start to accumulate a library of components that can be quickly plugged into other models as needed. If you don't need to create a creepy statue for your 2nd or 3rd creepy statue dungeon, you can save a lot of time if you slogged through the work in the 1st one.

So, perhaps the best way to start using SketchUp for a game is to build game-like things for fun... without session prep deadlines, or real requirements. Once you have your system down and a library built up, then take the plunge to work it into actual game mapping.

Of course, all of this rumination on SketchUp has both given me an idea and gotten me tempted to try my hand at game mapping in it again. I think that I will take a stab at creating an online version of my intro to SketchUp seminar, but with a focus on creating things for use in RPGs. I don't have a schedule for it, so it will likely be slow to roll out. Nevertheless, I think it could be helpful for those game mappers who want a leg up to use SketchUp well.

In the mean time, if you are currently using SketchUp for fantasy mapping purposes, you can find some furniture and other dungeon/castle elements (along with a couple unrelated projects) for use in your models in my SketchUp warehouse here.

It's like some sort of kobold-filled Ikea

Make-its of Days Past: Maps, Falrhea and Ravenwood

Hey hey, map junkies! I've got a couple more maps to share with you from my very first DM's notebook. The first is a very similar, yet slightly different left-justified regional map akin to the one I posted a couple weeks ago! 

I'm not sure how this map relates to the previous region, but I suspect they are part of the same game world. I haven't found a whole lot of notes pertaining to either of these maps. I think high school me was more fond of the drawing aspect of world-building, and likely kept a lot of the relevant story in my brain rather than putting it on paper. Over the course of time, the contextual details, which informed these maps has long-since faded.

That being said, present me really likes the detail past high school me put into the coastline, and is honestly impressed at the decent place names my younger self came up with.

Despite my decent naming skills, "Falrhea" sounds like vertigo-induced dysentery

The second map is of the city of Raven Wood and its surroundings. I dig the smattering of dots and random shapes used to flesh out the population centers. Though I'm not sure high school me really understood how rivers flow. One seems to dead-end in a corn field.

While losing the contextual details behind these places after 20 years in a musty closet is a little sad, these maps also present a sort of blank slate from which to form new stories! I may see if I can't work some of these into the Westerlands at some point.

If you like these ongoing posts of maps from my gaming past, stay tuned. There are still more in my binder and I plan to keep sharing them here. 

On a separate note, in case you missed it, I updated my final Halloween costume post with a couple of better pics taken by my friend, Dan.

Make-it of Days Past: Map, Amak Tor and Surroundings

I am on the road this week, so you are getting the travel edition of ROFL Initiative. I rolled for random encounters during my trip today and got one delayed flight, which lead to several extra hours tacked on to my travel time.

Anyway, mapmaster, Dyson Logos has been encouraging everyone on G+ to post mapping creations from their pasts. So I have. Here is another map from my very first game world, that I created back in high school. This map doesn't have quite the polish of the one I posted last week. My river placement and coloring are much sloppier.

One thing that is interesting about this map is that the place names really show the influence that David Eddings was having on my high school self. The heavy use of "K"s in the place names on this map indicates that this is bad country. 

In other news, if you have ever wondered what it takes to start up a video game company, I recommend you check out my buddy Charles' blog. He's been producing games for the likes of Microsoft and Sony for over a decade, but set out on his own recently to start his own company. His blog is tracking the earliest stirrings of his newly full time company. If you're interested in reading about what it takes to get into games AS IT HAPPENS, I highly recommend you check out his shizzle... and his blog.

I've got more maps, more costume updates and a recap/how-to for running an encounter centered on a feast or celebration all in the works, so stay tuned!

Mapping Habits: Cartographic Zoolander

Current Game

High School Game

As I was poring over the recovered maps, notes and drawings from my recently rediscovered high school gaming binder, I noticed something interesting. The map of my current game world bears an uncanny resemblence to the nearly 20 year-old world map from my very first game! Both maps feature:

• A western ocean 
• A main coastling running north-south
• Clusters of islands off the coast 
• A verdant central landmass  
• A large mountain range that wraps from the north around along the eastern edge of the map 
• A desert on the eastern slope of the main mountain range
• A smaller coastal mountain range

As I thought about this situation further, I started to also notice uncanny similarities in other major fantasy settings. While these settings may not have all of the features mentioned above, they all include a prominent western ocean, and often several of the other features. Take a look at the following maps and tell me there isn't a striking family resemblence!

Tolkien's Middle Earth

The Sword Coast from The Forgotten Realms

The Kingdoms of the West from the Belgariad

Terry Brooks' Shannara

Robert Jordan's world from the Wheel of Time

Brian Jacques' Mossflower

IT'S THE SAME FACE!

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS! Why!? Why do so many of the characteristics in these maps overlap? What compels all of these various authors, myself included to assign similar spatial structures to their worlds? I have a couple possible theories...

Layers of Places Past: Creating Ruins with Purpose

The BIGGEST Henge in the WORLD!

This is yet another post for CampaignMastery's Location blog carnival! Hope you enjoy!

Today, I am going to elaborate on an excellent suggestion from Realmwright on my previous post. I am going to talk a bit about why ruined locations show up where they do, and how their past might inform their present desolation.

The fantasy genre in general, and fantasy games in particular, spend a lot of time focusing on places from the past. Authors like Tolkien and Terry Brooks build their worlds around elaborate histories of rise and ruin. Characters in videogame and tabletop RPGs spend much of their time poking through lost catacombs and ruined castles. The thing is, all that was old was new at one time, and when it was, these ancient places likely served a purpose.

I have a love-hate relationship with many dungeon maps, especially those which follow an old-school aesthetic. Maps are a lot of fun to look at in general, to imagine what a place or space really looks like based on its top-down representation, and old school dungeon maps have an elegant simplicity about them. The problem is, they often seem to be a tangle of rooms and corridors built for no discernible reason!

Now, where the heck is the bathroom?

Sure, the person who dreamed up the dungeon, always says there's a purpose. The map above is clearly a temple of the ancient Blue Oyster Cult. The architecture of Blue Oys is often characterized by its meandering lines and maddening lack of doors in places where they should exist. Archaeologists believe the structure was designed to amplify the sound of the cowbells used in the cult's mysterious rituals.

Seriously, though, who builds like this!? And "insane wizards" is an answer that you can get away with exactly once in your game! I'm looking at you, Undermountain!

This kind of random dungeon layout, while interesting to look at in a circuit board kind of way, really drives me nuts. If you haven't read it yet, Bartoneus, over at Critical Hits has created one of my absolute favorite blog series, called The Architect DM, which is all about creating fantasy designs with a purpose and is a useful way to counter the random dungeon sprawl. I highly recommend you read it, bookmark it, and reference it often when creating your own locations.

When I approach the design of a ruined structure, I always try to start before it was a ruin. I ask myself the following questions:

Make-it Monday: Map, Elven Museum

This post is yet another entry in this month's Campaign Mastery location blog carnival.

Hey hey, map fans! Look at what we have here! Some of you who started following during April's Mapstravaganza mentioned that you wanted some more. Well, I broke out the ol' Prismacolor markers this weekend and drew you up something nice!

This map represents an ancient, ruined elven museum that I ran my players through in my game. I really dug the idea of running a Night at the Museum-style adventure, and when playing in a setting where magic is a reality, it doesn't take a lot to apply it to the "exhibits come alive" trope. Read on to learn a little more about how things were set up in my game, or get a blank copy of the map here.

Make-it Monday: A to Z Compilation Books

One of the big reasons for using maps as my A to Z theme was to build a collection of stock locations for use in my game. For this week's Make-it Monday, I decided to compile all of my hand drawn originals, along with printouts of the parchment-textured finals into two artist portfolios. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a portfolio at my local art store with enough pages to include everything in one volume. Still, I am pleased with how things turned out.

The old label maker comes in handy once again

Here's the interior layout turned to a couple of my favorites from the challenge.

Tucked away snug on my RPG shelf.

I don't know that I've ever shown this, but this is my RPG bookshelf all within arms reach of my GM spot.
The plastic bins on the bottom two shelves are all packed with minis.

There are a few leftover pages in each portfolio, so I may work up a title page and table of contents for each. It's really not necessary, but it would look cool.

Z is for Ziggurat

This is it! The final map of my April A to Z mapstravaganza and my third successful completion of the A to Z challenge. The ziggurat, a mighty monument with a lot of steps that take a lot of effort to climb. What lies in the chamber at the top? Steps down... perhaps to adventure!

Big thanks to everyone who joined me on this A to Z challenge! I found many new blogs to follow and it looks like I attracted many new readers. I will probably take a break from posting... perhaps doing a wrap-up on Friday.

For those of you who joined for the challenge, the mapstravaganza represented an escalation of my New Year's resolution, which was to make a thing a week. I intend to continue with my make a thing a week challenge. The things I come up with get posted every Monday as part of my ongoing Make-it Monday series. Some will be maps. Some will be drawings. Some will be crafts. Some I haven't thought of yet.

Okay, get your printable ziggurat here.

I'm going to stop typing now.

Geoff

Y is for Yeti's Cave

High in the frozen mountains, perhaps near the icy chasm, a yeti has made its lair in a secluded cave. The cave floor is littered with the leavings of the yeti's hunts. Perhaps the beast has discarded some unknown treasures from unwary travelers it has slain. Or if your in the market for a nearly complete dire elk skeleton...

Just one more day left in the A to Z Challenge!

Get a printable version of the yeti's cave here.

X is for Xill's Nest

One of the beauties of D&D is there are tons of things that make use of obscure letters like X! The Xill is a race of 4-armed lizard-like beings that live on the ethereal plane. They are evil raiders who wait in ambush for creatures on the material plane to pass by. They then cross over the planar boundary, subdue their prey and drag them back to the ethereal plane. Xill reproduce by implanting their eggs in their victims (Alien or wasp-style) When the eggs hatch, the Xill larvae devour their host from the inside.

The Xill nest takes advantage of their ethereal nature. It is located on the ethereal plane next to a material road where prey is plentiful. The brood chamber and that of the Xill leader have no doors. This allows ethereal Xill to pass while trapping material beings within.

With that, we are done with the final full week of the challenge. Just two more posts to go!
Get a printable version of the Xill's nest here.

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.

V is for Village Square

It all starts here. The ubiquitous village has been the jumping off point for countless D&D games. My campaign started in a tavern in a village much like this one. Cliche? about as much as you can get, but it wasn't for my players who had never played before that.

Just four more days left!

Get a printable version here.

U is for Undercity

Beneath every city lies a world of secrets where things discarded by accident or intention go to find new purpose. In the sewers, theives and the destitute can find refuge from judgment and prying eyes.

U is also for "Uh oh, out of ink." My 50% gray marker I bought specifically for the A to Z challenge ran out of ink partway into shading this drawing. I had to continue with the 80% gray marker and then adjust the curves in Photoshop. It's kind of cool that I managed to draw a pen dry in less than a month, but it does mean I'll be stopping at the art store before moving on to V.

Get a printable version here.

T is for Thunder Vale

Thunder Vale is a valley high in the Cloud Peak Mountains, named for the booming echoes made by two waterfalls pouring over a cliff at its southern end. The stronghold featured yesterday is located atop the cliff in Thunder Vale. In my game world, the stronghold and vale were given to my players to serve as their base of operations. When they found it, the stronghold was in partial ruins, and a group of refugees had settled nearby fleeing a plague (of the zombifying sort) that was sweeping the land. The players have begun to fix up the keep and many of the refugees have chosen to stay, beginning to establish agriculture and herding within the vale.

Get a printable version here.

S is for Stronghold

Welcome to A to Z week four! I went waaaaaay overboard on the first map of the week and ended up doing four maps. One for each level of a simple stronghold, from the basement to the top of the guard towers. This map is unfurnished due to the sheer amount of time it took me just to finish the structure.

R is for Rookery

We have reached the end of week 3 of the A to Z challenge, and I'm still hanging in there. For this week's finale, I give you the rookery for the Royal Turimori Griffoners! Just one more full week and a couple extra days! I may deviate from my original list for the next couple maps... not completely sure yet.

Q is for Queen's Court

A to Z Day Q. Though Q is a tough letter to use in Scrabble, I've never had a hard time with it in the A to Z. The queen sits in the grand hall of the Thunder Throne. Don't cross her royal magesty, or you just might get a lighting bolt in the teeth.

Get a printable version here.

P is for Potion Shop

A to Z day P! Ah, the friendly, neighborhood potion shop. A must stop for any adventurer on the go. Stock potions are kept in the main shop. Top shelf brews in the back room. The basement, however, is off limits unless you are of a particular disposition.

I felt a bit conflicted about mapping such a small space. I've been trying to keep all my interior maps at the same scale, but couldn't bring myself to draw a ridiculously huge potion shop. Also, it's really tough to indicate potion bottles when drawn from above.

P is also for pageviews. Yesterday my pageviews for April passed the total views I had during April 2012! Hooray for expanding audiences!

Get a printable version here.