Four Phases of a Map

I was looking for some generic dungeon maps in my stash of hundreds I've already drawn, but couldn't find anything I wanted. Yes, I was being picky, but none of the maps inspired me. So time for a new batch. 

I kept the map to minimal detail. I didn't want room details. I wanted a dungeon map where I just add numbers. Write the description and not be constrained by drawn room details. This way the map is usable for any of my projects. 

Ingredients for my map.

• sheet of graph paper
• no.2 pencil
• hi-polymer white eraser
• micron pen 5
• micron pen .005
• and a Steelers game where they lost, stupid Steelers

I skipped one of the steps. Where I simply outlined the shape of the dungeon. This step involved creating interesting border to define the walls. This was done in pencil.

Phase two I inked all the stones with a Micron 5 pen. Then erased the pencil marks with a hi-polymer eraser. I love those erasers because they do the best job of eliminating the pencil marks without staining the paper.

In the third phase I took a Micron .005 pen and highlighted the grid a bit. I think it adds to the look. A thing I stole from Glynn Seal's maps.

The last phase is adding the shadowing in the stone to help define the layout of the dungeon. I used a pencil. Then used my Micron .005 pen to add bits of rubble detail. It adds a nice touch to the look.

Now my dungeon is ready for words. 

Thanks for reading. 

Adventuring Themes: Sloppy Seconds

I've had a slow month as far as productivity is concerned. But I'm hitting the book store in a little bit and working on an adventure, using the traditional grid map I drew a while ago. 

Sometimes I use a theme for writing an adventure, this one would be sloppy seconds. Meaning, the party is hitting the dungeon soon after another adventuring party went through. Lots of evidence of mayhem. And I do take some license and narrate what occurred before the party arrived within the room descriptions.

I like to switch up the adventures sometimes with circumstances like this. How many times does the adventuring party hit a dungeon that is fresh off the vine? Aren't there more adventurers traveling around looking for a hole in the ground to loot? In my campaign, this is absolutely happening. If the party leaves behind loot thinking they'll come back for the rest later, they may find it cleaned out when they return.

That's what I'm working on today. How about you? What are you working on?

When the Romans Murdered the World

Here's my map for tomorrow night's game.  It takes place when Rome was in its infancy, beating up on its scrappy little neighbors, the Etruscans.  Those are the folks the Romans got the idea for gladiator games.  Romans were always good at that.  Beating up people  and taking their ideas.

What I've done is mix in the Dragon Age mythos.  Stir.  Stir.  Stir.  My players will play Etruscan soldiers as the City of Veii burns.  The end of the war.  They have lost.  And now they must make an Odyssey-like trek home.

To win the war and to become a world power the Romans willingly bred blood mages, created abominations and punctured the veil.  The land is a wasteland.  What hasn't been burnt down is covered in a never seen before winter in this region.  Resources are dwindling.  Enemies are abundant. 

For the next couple of weeks I'll take over the reigns of our gaming night to fill in for the holidays.  I'm looking forward to GMing.  Been a while.  

So we'll grab our 3d6s and keep an eye on the dragon die.  

...and the other eye in the fade.

Evolution of The Sinking Village Map and Some of My Mapping Techniques

I didn't take a picture of the outline of the map.  This was the first picture I took after thinking of doing a map progression series.  I asked my patrons for some map ideas, they gave me a lot.  The one that stuck out the most was a village sinking into the sea.  Love that.  So I sketched out a preliminary map, liked it, and began mapping.  

I started shading with some of the trees and buildings.  I want to find another technique on how to draw buildings from this perspective.  

Just a note on why I am using a newsprint magazine beneath.  I use the magazine to give myself a 'soft' surface to color on.  The reason I do this is it help to blend the colors and soften the harsh lines of the pencils.  Some of the outer shades I do on a hard surface to get it to pop.  

 

This shows part of how I try to add texture or shading to my map.  I use two colors not far off from one another.  For the trees I randomly color the area, leaving blank spaces for the second color and then blend in the two colors at the edges.  For the water, I use a lighter blue where it touches something or where it's shallow.  

You can see the finished color of the water.  The main color is too purple for my tastes.  I will claim doing this outside in the fading light as my reason, but I often do this with blues.  I need to find a better blue, a more blue color to go with the light blue edge/shallow water color.

Like the trees and water, when I am coloring in the grass or mud areas I try to give it a texture using a two color system.  But with the muddy area I kept it one color and allow the rock features to define the lake shore and give it texture. Plus, it is mud.  

All the photos before this were taken with my phone camera.  This picture is scanned into my computer.  In the northwest corner, there are a pair of round buildings.  I figured they were dovecotes.  And to give the map a little different color, I surrounded the dovecotes with a yellowish color.  Maybe it's hay.  Maybe it's dead grass from the pigeon poo.  

Here is what the final map.  I import my scanned map into a program called Xara.  I bevel the edge to give it depth and a frame.  Then I add the numbers and names.  I take two sets of numbers, turn one set white and bevel the edge to expand it.  ThenI nest the black numbers into the white set, it allows the eye to easily read the numbers and words.  Even when I use a weird font (I believe the one I used for this one is called BLOBS).  

Then I have to get writing.  Wrap my head around what kind of adventure I imagine could be found in The Sinking Village.  

Maps in the Making

Here are some raw maps I drew up over the weekend.  I needed to get more maps done for some of the things I'm working on.  Here are a few of the underground layers I penciled.

Isometeric Mapping...Always Take Lots of Asprin Before Attempting

The other day I wrote about my Adventure Creation last Tuesday.  A short adventure created using a few random tables.  I put out a call for a title and had Ivy pick one she liked.  She liked the Hobgoblin Bottle Run, but kept saying The Hoblin Goblin Bottle Run.  I am keeping Ivy's version, but thank you to +Jens D. for the title inspiration.

I drew a side view map.  It was okay.  A little boring.  It is a vertical adventure with the chapel, basement, well and tunnel.  I thought I would give the isometric map a shop.  This was my first real attempt at one.  I had blood coming out of my left eye by the time I finished.

A clunky attempt, but I'll take it.  Right now I'm not capable of making a better one.  But I like that I decided on this style.  It is a better representation of the adventure.  I'll try to clean it up some, add the map text and see if I can make those lines go away. 

Wanna know something else cool?  +Jim Magnusson is on board to do a couple of pictures for the adventure!  He's working on one for a hobgoblin and one with stirges!

When Fireballs Go Bad

This is one of a few maps I made a little while ago.  For some reason the title for this one screams, When Fireballs Go Bad.  Or good depending on which end of it you were on.  Toying with some ideas for this one. 

Mapping Contest

Hey, +Inkwell Ideas and +Joe Wetzel is having a mapping contest.  The theme for this one is it must include at least two buildings.  They can be located in a city, village, ruin or cavern if you like.  Joe extended the contest until November 6th.  The winners get a set of +matt jackson's Moleskin Maps.  You should have a copy of those already.  And a set of DungeonMorph Dice.

I got busy and did a map, Hamlet of Hounds Head.

Join in the mapping contest, its fun to do and hell, if you win, the prizes are fantastic. 

Random Map Ruin

This map was inspired by +matt jackson.  I've always liked his ruin maps and it's something I've never been very good at drawing.  Matt allowed me to use one of his maps in issue 6 of The Manor, for an adventure, Witched of the Black Moon, I think it was called.  I went hunting for it and decided to give a ruin another go.

This is the original map by Matt.  I stole as much as I possible could from it.  I like the clear, simple defined walls.  And then Matt, like the other great map makers, create depth by adding a different level of exploration, it this case some underground caves.  I tried to steal that as well, but my attempt is a bit clumsy.  But I'll keep practicing. 

I may do a series where I draw a few maps in another map makers style, just as an exercise and I hope by the end of it I will have learned a few things from each to make my own maps better.

My New Favorite Person in the OSR is....

I received this in the mail yesterday, a handmade leather cover with a Moleskin graphpaper book inside.  The magnificent bastard who sent me this was none other than +Mark Hassman.  This made my day...hell my week.

This what the book looks like inside.  It's a 3" x 5.5" book with quarter inch graph paper.  What I love about this bad boy is, there is a slot in my vehicle that it pits perfectly into.  Today I put a pencil holder in one of the cup holders and put some pencils pens and markers in there so I have my own portable map making office.  While at lunch today I was able to doodle a map.

I absolutely loved doing that at lunch.  Gave me something to focus on besides all the crap I need to do at work.  Thank you a ton Mark.  The gift is very much appreciated and I hope to return the favor very soon.

Random Map Mon...errr Sunday

I've been slacking with my map making duties.  Or at least not posting what I've been making.  I've been attempting a few more blending techniques.  Not sure how I feel about them.  This one was drawn while watching two episodes of Persons of Interest.  My current Netflix addiction.  

I put this one in Paint.net overlaid the hex grid.  I haven't decided on the scale.  I go back and forth on making the hexes 2 miles or leaving the hexes off and making it a much small location, putting a few houses in the green.  If I keep it on the smaller scale I can use it for a micro-adventure.  

Earlier this month I was hyper productive and this past week I've been stalled and my creativity taking a huge shit.  I'm hoping to find something to develop this week. 

Looking forward to Wednesday's game, but also thinking about getting a second game going on-line.  I'll have to see who might be interested and what they want to roll with.

Book Store Doodles and Not So Ancient Gaming Artifacts

I was at Barnes today at the bookstore.  I was working on something and dicked around a bit too long and my battery went dead mid-sentence.  I don't care how many damn time it warns me, I'm always shocked when it goes dead.  And of course I rarely remember to save.  I sorta special that way.  So after cursing beneath my breath because I did not want to teach the two little kids behind me new words, I grabbed my ultra-cool graph paper book I use to doodle in, maps, ideas, adventures or maybe just a room.  Today I just did simple graph maps.

I don't draw any details, just make lines and rooms.  Than I shade one block outside the map.  Mainly because I can't crosshatch like +Dyson Logos or +matt jackson.  I fuck it up everytime.  And I did not have the patience or elbow room to draw the artistic rubble that +MonkeyBlood Design does.  Mine is a poor imitation at best.  So I get out my 1st grader mindset and get to coloring.  So I colored and almost always kept within the lines.

But while I was looking through the book I came across two sheets of paper from Con on the Cob from two and half years ago.  Not the archeological find  +trey causey had earlier in the week, but significant enough.

This is from the adventure run by Dylan Hartwell, he wrote the blog, Digital Orc.  Great guy.  We got to know each other over the net and worked together, Dylan provided me with some fantastic creepy art for my Knowledge Illuminated adventure and an adventure in issue 6 of The Manor.  Dylan is no longer blogging, but I believe he is still gaming.  I need to go back and look at his adventures.  He was killing it for a while.

Map Comparisons: What Do You Think?

I was messing around with one of my more recent maps.  The one pictured below.

One of my typical maps.  But then I ran it through Paint.net program using Distort then Dents.

I like how it blends in the gray mist area with the cliff and how the water and trees get dispersed.  It looks a little more realistic to me in a way.  I don't know, just thought it looked cool. 

Random Map Monday 11

Most of the time I draw a map first and then the idea forms in my head.  This was one of the few times I had the idea first then drew the map.  I rarely can accomplish the latter.  I am better at bending ideas around a map than trying to draw a map that fits an idea I have.  Anyways, this idea, that became Malice House, was formed years ago when I was helping +Rob Conley with one of his Points of Light (excellent product, if you don't have a copy I suggest getting one).  There was an entry about a hag.  I did a post (Editing Gaming Products, Part 2) on it over four years ago.  Holy crap, that's an eternity in blogging time.  When I reread the Monster Manual and found the sentence about tracking down evil men to put them into some larva state then used as a currency...that right there is gold.

I've always wanted to do something that used this premise.  To get the party involved with some sort of transaction.  Malice House became that.  At first I tried to draw the larva (or pods I call them in the adventure) like  some sort of gooey substance was suspending them from the ground.  Drawing failure.  I love drawing my maps, but I am also very aware of my limitations.  Scratch the webbing idea.  So I went for the gooey pool of bile instead.  Much easier to draw and still gross and still creepy. 

Here's what the map looked like after I add my do-dads and silhouettes.  I like how it turned out.  For some reason this one evokes that something is going on.  The gouges in the map are from the notecards I bought.  There is always some sort of 'artifact' when I use and color them in.  I decided to find is charming...that's a line from somewhere I forget, but it is appropriate. 

If you are interested in picking up a copy of Malice House you can go to my Patreon page and download it for free.  I also created NPCs I mention in the adventure.  I think I could make Brother Yosef's temple a micro-adventure on its own.  I might just need to do that.

Exclusive Product for Mythoard

I'm not sure what the timeline was, but I believe it must have been two months ago when +Jarrod Shaw approached me about getting involved with a project.  At the time it didn't have a name.  Later it became known as Mythoard.  I've always loved the idea of Loot Crate, but never subscribed to it because I've got limited space and what little space I do have is reserved for gaming stuff.  And I don't need Mutant Ninja Turtle sunglasses.  Jarrod purposed a subscription based service where you get a box of random gaming stuff.  Hell yeah. 

It took me .043 seconds to agree to participate. 

Jarrod asked for copies of The Manor.  I agreed.  Later (which means last night), I thought about it and figured a good chunk of folks that are going to participate probably have a copy of some of my Manors.  While +Boric Glanduum can never have enough copies I didn't really want to have people opening the box and see something they already had, so I told Jarrod I wanted to do something new for Mythoard. An exclusive.

I'm working on an exclusive product that will only be available through Mythoard.  I'm not sure what the name will be yet.  I'm re-purposing some maps I used in my campaign world and rewriting much of the material.  Only the Monday night group has played in it.  I touched up the village map of Bad Water.  You can see the before and after pictures below.

Original map of Bad Water.

New version.

This new style of detailing my map came from a discussion with +Rob Conley, +Joshua Macy and +Chris C. when I asked them to critique another map of mine.  I enhanced the lettering and numbering with a white background beneath them to make it easier to read...I hope. 

Village of Bad Water will be fully detailed.  But that's all I'm going to tell you about it.  You'll have to get a subscription to Mythoard to know about the rest.  This is the first box and it is limited to 100 subscribers so get in on this on quick because they are going quickly.  Jarrod is doing a limited release within the USA to get the logistics tweaked.  I can't imagine all the juggling he would need to do for this.

I'm excited to be a part of the first box.  If you haven't, check out the Mythoard site, it's only $20 for the box and who knows what the heck you'll find inside.  I really have no idea myself.  And that's what makes it fun. 

The Manor #8 Tease

I'm tight lipped and no hints...except the one above.  Not going to say a thing.  Nothing.  Not a peep.

Micro-Adventure #2: The Skeleton Crew

I posted my second adventure on Paetron tonight, The Skeleton Crew.  It's a roadside adventure that players can happen upon or a short trek while waiting for a larger adventure to unfold.  I've sorta kinda connected the two adventures by giving the necromancer the name of Noctum.  But it's hardly necessary to connect them.

I need to give thanks to Telecanter.  He's the silhouette dude.  A lot of these silhouettes I'm using are from his collection.  I've been collecting them since he started and always wanted to do something with them.  I think they add a fun element visual element to the map.  You could probably run the adventure without the text and wing it from the map alone.

Next time I'll get into what inspired me to do these.  It goes back to the Time of the Mullets.

Off to Origins tomorrow.  I think I woo hooed in my mind a little.

Edit: Another Random Map Saturday

I put the wrong map up.  This is the map I mean to put up. 
 
A map I finished a few days ago.  I planned on using it for a micro-adventure, but that hasn't happened yet.  I'm also going through my maps and trying to pick one that might be good for the one-page dungeon contest.  No luck yet.  Until then, I'll keep making goofy maps and hope to find one I can use for the contest. 

Manor #6 Map

I've been working on the 6th issue of the Manor.  So far I have a pair of great contributions from +matt jackson and +Ken H.  I'm working on the last section of the issue and that will include a micro adventure.  The map above is something I drew for it, an abandon cabin along a lake.  Whose to say what the players will find inside.  Or outside. 

In the meantime I'm plugging slowly along on the magic items.  You guys are going to make it tough.  I've only begun and found a few I like a lot.

Random Map Time

Another map in my series of index card maps.  This map was drawn on a slightly larger index card, the 8" x 5".  I wanted to draw a scene that was more wasteland, desert or just rocky terrain.  My maps are usually very green so I needed a change.  When I drew this I thought of a winding road through the rough terrain and around the mesas much like what you would find in the Badlands.

Other than the terrain I had no idea 'what was going on' in this map.  Other than a section of winding road through an unforgiving land.  Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.