May Entry: Fentor Cross Church

[Redrobes]

Firstly before we start on my entry can I just point out that we're still doing the thumbnails for the challenge entries. Since there are a lot of new members entering this month I shall explain. After we had a lot of entries one month I made a script which logs in, looks at all the challenge entries, grabs the latest work in progress (WIP) image and formats up a web page. The link is usually in a post from me under the main challenge details but I will post it here too :-

May 08 Thumbnails

voila... Now at the time of posting theres a link to each entry but a lot of WIP images missing. The script needs to look for a tag which is the latest WIP image tag that you can put just before your image and it will snag it in the formatting. So as of writing, Sigurd, Melee Guy, terrain monkey, NeonKnight, GM's apprentice, and Redrobes (because I havent finished this post yet !) all need to put a tag in if they have an image to show.

Ill put one in just before my post but it is just ### Latest WIP ###. You need to put a new one in every time you put up a new image. The script snags the last one it finds.


Ok - my entry this month is Fentor Cross Church because if I dont win I still get a useful map for my co-op tile

I have been told that somebody is using Fentor Cross as their story base and it revolves around a church so I figured well thats my next map so might as well be a challenge entry too. I will leave the story for a while but it sounds intriguing with some shape shifters called Thrixs' Oddling Bunglers... (been on the booze too much I think ). Its not exactly a full campaign were talking here but ill take whatever I can get !

So Fentor Cross church is made of stone and is situated a little way from the town. I shall have to mark it up on my tile.

So time to add my wip tag and 74.1kb image...

### Latest WIP ###

[GM's Apprentice]

Nice and useable map. This is one I'd like to see in all it's glory.

(going back to tag my map)

[RPMiller]

I like how you added the Creative Commons licensing to the image.

[Redrobes]

I like how you added the Creative Commons licensing to the image.

All of the maps for the co-op stuff are supposed to be CC so I have been adding this to each map. I think its useful to mark up the map as these images seem to travel and then nobody knows whether they can use them. I went on RPGMapShare a few days ago and saw all of my maps there 'owned' by somebody else. I think I haven't been there so long that my account has expired but I marked those up the same so its still possible to know that you can use them without asking. The text takes up a bit of image memory tho ! When I did the base map which is the grass, walls, tiles and steps it came out at 24Kb so the 50Kb is all in the little bit of details like the text, chains, pews, chests and so on.

For GM's Apprentice, there really isnt any more glory to see for this map. It was designed and built for the 75K limit so I had to limit my use of using more fancy textures. Theres some jpg artifacts around a few bits like the chains and text which would look a lot nicer but its essentially the same. Ta for wip tagging - ill rerun the script now.

[RPMiller]

I went on RPGMapShare a few days ago and saw all of my maps there 'owned' by somebody else.

Steel Rat, that runs that site is very good about Copyright stuff so if you email or PM him, he'll likely make sure that you are given ownership of those images.

[Redrobes]

Steel Rat, that runs that site is very good about Copyright stuff so if you email or PM him, he'll likely make sure that you are given ownership of those images.

It wasn't a knock at him. He's a good chap. Its just that these things tend to happen even with the best of intentions. I have a lot of pencil maps there of old alternative Forgotten Realms towns which I said could be public domain as I see no value to them other than that of interest to other GMs and the others are marked up anyway - mainly because I use tokens which are in themselves CC so I figured that I ought to do the "share alike" bit of the CC agreement. Its probably the content management system he is using where my login has expired and its defaulted the user ownership.

[Redrobes]

Hmmm it seems as though I am going to need a little more to keep up with the current ante.

I thought I would put some shadows in and liven it up a bit. I have also done a roof but this is not part of the challenge entry. It's just that I am going to need it on my map. To make life easier for VTTs I have made the roof as a clear background PNG. I am also including a microscopic html page to put the two together so if you don't have a VTT then you can still look at the result easily. Just put them all into a folder and click on the html file.

Running out of ideas to progress this further though I could make this about 60Kb and it still looks alright so theres room for more if I can think of it.

### Latest WIP ###