Scope & Use This is simply to be used as a handout in my home D&D game. It will likely be used entirely digitally, sent to my players phones and hosted on a blog that we use for our own communications. If printed it would be on standard letter size paper off a home laser printer.

Subject The area in question is Serenity Grove, an unusual settlement surrounding a small lake. This area is akin to Shangri-La, a near-paradise where all manner of creatures live in harmony. The grove is a secret place in an intelligent forest and may only be found if the forest decides to show it to you. The inhabitants are a mixture of all sorts of creatures, living simply and harmoniously. The most notable residences are an Elder Demon (Balor), an undead beholder, a Vampire, and, the stewards of serenity grove, a mated Unicorn and Nightmare with their three hybrid offspring.

This doesn't need to look like a village with shops and a location key etc. Each resident has carved themselves a home along or near the shores of the lake and so the artist can have fun imagining what sort of unlikely creatures might find themselves in a paradise and suddenly compelled to throw off their base natures to live peacefully. Alternatively, no attention need be paid other than rough sketches showing hovels, cottages, burrows etc. around the lake.

What is important about this map is the source: one of the players is an Aarakocra (a humanoid bird) monk with an explorer/cartographer background. In a recent fight with a blood golem her wings were torn off and she lost her ability to fly. Upon entering Serenity Grove she received a set of temporary magical wings and so she spent most of the groups brief time at the grove flying overhead. Now, a few days after having left the grove, she is idly sketching an overhead map from her view while flying, and in her sketch the shadowy silhouette of a large dragon is subtly visible under the water in the centre of the lake. This is a world presently without dragons, they are thought of as myths, so I want the map to leave a little breadcrumb foreshadowing future events.

Style The map should be rough, in a medium such as graphite/charcoal/chalk, representing something a skilled cartographer might doodle in an hour or two of downtime. Most of the details are irrelevant, save the shadow of the dragon. The shadow can be subtle, I'm assuming the player who drew the map didn't register what she was seeing and is only able to reproduce it because she specifically has a background that allows her to reproduce maps of areas she has seen with great accuracy. In short: I'm OK if my players don't notice the shadow because it just looks like a natural feature of the lake bottom. It can be a clue that is never unearthed. Ideally it is obvious once pointed out, but otherwise obscure.

The player drawing the map is a proper cartographer so if you want to add any of the elements a cartographer may incorporate (embellishments, compass rose etc.) in a rough form that would be thematically appropriate. Her stylistic influences would be avian and monastic from her race and monk training. Her native tongue is Auran (an air elemental dialect of primordial in fifth edition D&D) that uses the Elven alphabet (gallery of D&D alphabets). She does speak common (english) as well however. The players are aware that the area is called Serenity Grove and is found in a forest known as the Fernwold. Because the area has no reference points to the larger geography you can face North in whatever direction you prefer if you choose to use a compass rose. Again, none of this is required but if it gets your brain juices frothy then feel free to make use of it.

Extra Details (Optional) The specifics below are meant to help you, any that you find helpful please use, any that you find a hindrance please feel encouraged to ignore:

The lake is roughly 5 KM in circumference, with a diameter of ~1.6 KM if you keep it circular but may be amorphous/elliptical/whatever. (That's 3.1 and .95 respectively in miles). Total area of the lake is roughly 80 KM2 or 30 M2, which should probably be about half of the maps total area (but I'm not an artist so I trust your judgement on overall proportion).

The area is a hilly mid-altitude (~1500 ft above sea level) alpine/coniferous forest. It is possible to walk around the shore of the lake but there can be near-shore small cliff faces that can house tiers of residences if you like. This region is most similar to a temperate northern hemisphere at about this time of year (mid-autumn). Again - none of these fine details matter and can be discarded at your discretion, but sometimes it's easier to be creative within a framework of the boring details like this.

Quality & Size At most this will be printed on letter (8.5"x11") paper on a laser printer but primarily will be used on the web. 300 dpi would be max, and as low as 72 is probably fine. Greyscale only.

Copyright I would like permission to post the image on a blog that my group uses, technically someone may stumble onto it somehow but it is not meant for general public consumption, otherwise the rights are yours to do with as you please. Please feel encouraged to sign the piece as well (including a web-address or e-mail if you like), in the unlikely event someone sees it on my blog I would like them to know who is responsible and how to contact them.

Deadline I would like to hand this out to my players sometime in the next month of possible (by Dec 1st 2018).

Payment I am happy to pay since this kind of work is outside of my abilities, I don't have a large budget (unless I want to get thumped by my wife hehe) but I can afford $20 CAD via paypal for a cool piece. Please keep in mind in the game it's a roughly sketched map done in an hour or two - I understand that can sometimes be more time consuming to try and duplicate but hopefully it doesn't take too much time.

Contact I think I'm too new on the boards to receive private messages at the moment so for now please post replies here if you are interested or have questions. I'd love to see samples of your work if have some to show off as well.

Thanks,

Jeremy