Arrowfield [WIP]

[Frenchie the DM]

Hello everyone! I've recently became a Dungeon Master, and while the roleplay part is going well - I'd like to improve my mapmaking skills for Roll20. I've currently made a "prototype" map for a main city of my campaign called Arrowfield: a city situated on a tributary.
I would like to preface that I am not particularly attached to almost anything about this map, and anything may be changed - all advice is heartily welcomed.

Attachment 72428

I understand the small size issue, and when I redo the map it will be at 300ppi. Technically, I tried a fusion of pen-tooling individual buildings and applying district "patterns" over those buildings. How do they work? I don't have the time to manually create realistic buildings, but would like to progress to it. I'm not fond of the background texture (is there any advice for finding more subtle textures?) or the road system. I understood the concept of a developing city but would love it if it could be elaborated upon. How does the elevation mapping at Crow Hill, Bowyer Castle, and the Theatre District work? I personally feel, right now that it's a bit too subtle. I'd also like to go more into detailed mapping after I expand the image.

And there's a catch, or rather, an explanation.

This is not the city I'm actually building currently, it's the city a decade in the past. Over that decade, an aboleth (underwater murky before-the-Gods aberration / mini-Cthulu) shifted into reality in a subterranean lake in Crow Hill. This slowly poisoned the water supply, rapidly dried up and collapsed the mines, and has brought a blight to all downstream crops. Also, annually, there is a free-for-all among the feudal lords of the country of Arrowfield (akin to the Purge) as they vie for power and adventurers attempt to claim a noble title, this presents a stable annual risk to Arrowhail. That is why I decided to restrain Arrowfield primarily to the tributary's peninsula.

Now, with that in mind, how does the city change - is my question. It's really what would be the most interesting. An expansion or renovation of the slums into previous mansions? A shift of major goods of to the Easterly river? Et cetera, et cetera.

So, in sum, my questions are:
How do the technical aspects (pen-tooled, pattern overlaid buildings / background texture / elevation mapping) work?
How would magical-pollution and annual periods of war affect the already developed city?
And, now that I think about it, would you do the map in overall grittier fashion with this development?

Attached is the .psd, if you would like to fiddle with it!
Thank you for your time.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

The pen tool is pretty simple. Select it and then each click will drop a new anchor point on your document. Clicking again on the first anchor point you dropped will close the chape. Then, you can edit the stroke and fill. You can select the "open selector" (I don't know if that's actually what it's called), which is the white pointer arrow low down on your toolbar, which will select your shape again if you're chosen another tool or layer.

Pattern overlays aren't too complicated either. You can double click the layer and use a layer style. Click pattern overlay, then choose the pattern that you want to use and it will fill everything in the layer with that pattern. This is non-destructive, and also allows you to adjust the opacity and the size of the pattern as it is displayed. You can also Control+click the layer icon, then use the edit menu and select edit fill and choose your pattern. This however will "erase" the color that your shapes on that layer currently are. Note, that if you draw with the pen tool your Photoshop might be drawing vectors as opposed to just adding pixels, which I like because I was brought up in Illustrator first. If that's the case, in order to edit them you will need to rasterize a layer, which can be done by right clicking on it in the layer menu.

Elevation you can do in a number of ways. You recently looked at my map Cinzienne, where elevation was simply painted on using low opacity brushes on black (shadowed side) and white (sunned side). It's easy to start but tough to make look really good, in my opinion (I don't think I succeeded on my map yet). You can also do it in a more automated way, making it look "faux-satellite," and I suggest taking a look at Ascension's Atlas tutorial if you'd like to try something like that.

As for the other stuff, I don't know much about magical pollution

Hope some of that helps. Happy mapping!

[Frenchie the DM]

Thank you. I'm a vector / Illustrator boy myself too so the raster stuff is definitely vexing me a bit. I'll definitely try out the shadow/shine attempt at mapping, which I actually think may work better for the more cliff-style elevations of my city.

I didn't think to use pattern overlay from the Blending Styles as a nondestructive editing mode!

[Frenchie the DM]

Okay I applied you're style of shade/shine elevations, although on a bit more heavy-handed scale, and starting mapping out how I want rivers to go. Going for a more desaturated, grungy feel, that can easily be resaturated (so that there's an easy before-after map for when they complete the dungeon to cleanse the pollution.)

Tried my hand at using a grunge brush w/ angle jitter and color jitter to do some grass coloring but that just didn't work out as well as I'd like.

 

[Frenchie the DM]

Got an update, not a big one though: just testing a walls and docks. The docks are vexing me, I think I'll just go for a more geometric and less... uh... crazy layout.
Ran the first session yesterday - went well, realized my players are sociopaths. So I reworked my design to be more grungy and provide for some interesting hijinks.
Putting map in spoiler because BIG.

 

[Sushipopsicle]

[QUOTE=Frenchie the DM;268030]

Ran the first session yesterday - went well, realized my players are sociopaths. So I reworked my design to be more grungy and provide for some interesting hijinks

.

Haha, welcome to every game I've ever DM'd. It's really responsible of you to take their playstyle into account when adjusting ascetics like the map.

I like your pattern system for the buildings, it's turning out nicely. I agree with Larb though about the white on Crow's Hill. (Unless you're trying to make that a shadow effect? Still would lose it.)

The annual battles make me assume that the city would slowly divide itself with inner walls, so if one area gets "breached" the rest of the city can still be defended. This would also work on a social level to keep the "rif-raf" out of the few remaining "Nice Neighborhoods." That's just my thoughts.

[Frenchie the DM]

Trying out some pen-tooling the buildings, just a stroke. The colored buildings are special ones: the orange is a Theatre, Green is a chapel/cathedral, and pink is the castle. The circular shape and surrounding buildings are the guild district.

 

[Frenchie the DM]

Finished out some pen-tooling for the Uptown district, and penned the Guilds district. How does the pattern overlay work?

 

[Larb]

It's an interesting city but I think the overall texture is a bit harsh. It makes the outline of the guild district buildings harder to make out. Maybe made a bit subtler so it doesn't dominate the image so much. Also I think your land/hill contours might have a bit too much white in them. Might be worth changing it to light brown instead.

[Frenchie the DM]

It's an interesting city but I think the overall texture is a bit harsh. It makes the outline of the guild district buildings harder to make out. Maybe made a bit subtler so it doesn't dominate the image so much. Also I think your land/hill contours might have a bit too much white in them. Might be worth changing it to light brown instead.

I approached this first with an oil painting filter, which made the rivers look quite nice, but overall detrimented the texture. I applied a basic Gaussian blur: 1px radii. For now, I removed the contours, and will approach them again when I'm going through finishing. Thank you!

The annual battles make me assume that the city would slowly divide itself with inner walls

I tried this, and I think it will help me "solidify" (maybe not the right word) workflow of the buildings.

Here's the NEARLY COMPLETE first district: Uptown. Also new walls.

 

The new array of central walls protect an area called the Bullseye, a central nexus for trade and communications. (Also the location of possibly Aboleth mind-control devices, hoards, and various merriment.)

Now, I've marked out the specific districts:

 

Yellow is Uptown: A district defined by the Lone Man's Theatre and it's prime land-importance. It is also the holding ground against ground assaults.
Navy Blue is the Guilds District: A conglomerate of crafting and financial interests, most likely controlled by scheming entrepreneurs and filled with opportunities for buying ships, airships, and/or funding the downfall of the city.
Pink is Cliffside: An aristocratic riverfront array of properties - hidden lust, blood feuds, and plenty of hor d'ouerves.
Purple is the Lord's Land: Land dedicated to Bowyer Castle and the Riverwatch Citadel - power centers of the fief and city.
Green is Bull's Center: Centered around the Bullseye, along with the Cathedral of Saint Baptise.
Red is the Slums: Perhaps when the mind-control is lifted, a religious revolutionary emerges in the dirty back alleys of the city.
Teal is the Docks: Maybe a cult of necromancers was paying off the sailors a pretty penny to keep up shipments of the tainted waters - once it's gone, they'll be looking for skulls to crack!

Thoughts on the entire worldbuilding aspect and implementation are much appreciated, and thank you all for your input so far!