[RPG Newswire] The Cartographic Arts

Via MonkeyBlood Design

It seems that maps have been getting a fair amount of press lately. Given that, I thought I'd devote a post to maps, the people who make them, and how you can make your own.

That said, I have missed large swatches of cartographers and useful map sites simply because I don't know about them. If you have experience with other mapping resources, please comment or drop me a line and let me know the best links I missed. If I get enough responses, I'll post a follow-up or a consolidated full update to handle the additions.

If you need a map for a project, don't hesitate to send an inquiry for a rate sheet to anyone linked here, especially when we get down into the list of Patreon campaigns. The worst they'll say is "No", and you may get a great map out of it, or possibly start growing a great business relationship.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Real-World Maps
The Map of Native American Tribes You've Never Seen Before from NPR gives us a map of the indigenous tribes of North America before the European boats showed up. This seems to be a popular subject, since I also saw Another Native American Tribe Map shared on G+ by T to the E to the O.

The Roads Around Late-18th-Century London, Mapped in Close-Up Detail as published on Slate shows us a view of the world particularly interesting to travelers. If you're thinking of a different kind of map, consider a strip map, showing only the relevant details for a particular route. This approach reminds me of script sides in the theater world, where you only have your lines and the cues before and after. If all the merchant caravan knows is roads, then this style of map may be all they work with.

My Mobile Mapping Kit

I recently finished assembling and buying things for my mobile mapping kit, and I thought I'd share. Between this kit, the Noteboard I just picked up, and the RPGs on Cards projects that are stewing in my head, I can jam a few games unobtrusively in coat pockets and pull them out as the mood strikes me.

I have become a Stealth Mobile Tabletop Game POWERHOUSE.

Editor's Note: We apologize for the outburst. The marketing department has just been sacked.

Since I'm mainly mapping on 3x5 inch cards, I started with a card case. Something funky.

I have an affinity for peace signs, as does my daughter.
Besides, I picked it up for a buck on sale at Staples.

The Shrine of the Rat God

Because +Tim Shorts asked for it, I decided to pull a map from my gaming roots. I think this was my first "I actually took some time and did a decent job with it" map, probably from late 1987. I used a mechanical pencil and drew it on the first page of a graph paper notebook purchased during my freshman year in college. Yes, that's the very same notebook that contains the maps seen in Meanwhile, In The Game Box... from 2 years ago, and the map of the Tomb of Tor-Kantor from Gone Mapping. Don't Wait Up. back in July.

Microadventure: The Necromancer's Lab

I've been working on microadventures lately. It looks like my target word count is right around 200 words, which fits on one side of a 3x5 card. I want something that I can throw in a backpack and pull out for a one-session adventure if the party takes a hard left and charges for the edge of the map.

Here's the question: Will that brief 200 word description give enough detail to run an adventure?

Hopefully you can help answer that question. Here's a sample:

Creating Things

I haven't created a map yet this week, but I plan to this weekend. Work has been flat out with a data migration that got pushed from yesterday to sometime next week. It's taking a while to conclusively figure out why some money is being left on the migration room floor, and there's plenty of work yet to be done. So yeah, it's been a little busy in WombatWorkLand lately. Whee!

If only incubating ideas were this simple.

In the meanwhile, I've been floating an idea for a game product past a few friends. It's gotten generally positive feedback so far, so I'm moving on to hacking design issues and getting a prototype together. Getting everything to fit in a way that makes sense will probably be a challenge, but that's why we iterate through the design process.

Yes, I'm vaguebooking about this, but I want to have something a little more solid before I share it with a wider audience. That said, if you want to be involved with the process, drop me a line and I'll add you to the my Idea Incubation circle on G+.

I don't know how quickly things will happen, as there's a time investment I need to make, but hopefully I can get something together to demo in September. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

The Glacial Forge

I had a few minutes listening to a conference call at work today, so I sketched out another quick map. It's a true 5-minute effort, so no bells and whistles. I call it the Glacial Forge.

The Glacial Forge

Drawn with a cheap "Gel Mini" pen from Staples - I picked up a box of a dozen for a buck - on the back of a meeting agenda. I scanned it in through the copy center at work and cropped it in Paint. Unlovely, but functional.

The Water Shrine

I cleaned off my desk this morning, and now I have some space to work. To celebrate, I broke out my kit and made a map. I'm still working freehand, so the lines aren't as sure as they could be, but overall I'm happy with it.

The Water Shrine map, created 23 July 2014.

I used a Sakura Micron 05 to draw the walls, and I went over them twice to give them a little more thickness. I used a Micron 01 for the room contents and fill.