Maps from my Homebrew DnD Game
This is my first post to the Guild.
I have been a lurking member for some time now and I figured it was time that I gave something back, so I figured I would post some maps that I have done for my Homebrew DnD game world.
These are for a campaign that I have been running now for a little over 20 years, so as you can imagine I have accrued quite a few maps.
I originally started out using Campaign Cartographer for Windows 3.x back when it first came out in 1994 or thereabouts. Since then, I have upgraded to CC3, though I don't use it all that much anymore.
I predominately use Photoshop CS3 - and though I will gladly take things from other maps here and there - I typically do most of it free hand. I used to use a lightpad - but my arthritis is such that I cant hold the pen for very long anymore, so now I pretty much just do it all by mouse.
I hope you enjoy these, and I am very open to comments and criticisms. I am a big fan of this community and hope that I can be a valuable part of it someday.
This first map is a regional focused on the continental land masses that all border the Andryn Ocean. It aint much of a map, but I promise I have some more dynamic stuff that I will post soon.
Welcome to the guild Katerek.
What you posted up is looking quite nice. Not a big fan of the font, though. It looks a bit Wild West. All the rivers seem to be in order.
Interested to see where you are going to take this. Have some rep by the way for coming out of the shadows and posting your work
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
I really like the shapes of the landmasses, very interesting. Welcome and continued fun.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Gandwarf -
Thank you! My rivers should be in order, as an armchair science nerd, I am fairly fluent in tectonic and continental geotrends. I have been a large fan of yours for some time now and have greatly enjoyed watching your cities thread. I hope to post a few cites myself soon.
Ascension -
Thank you for noticing! I have really taken alot of time with this map and the shape of the continental masses is something I have labored a great deal over.
In fact, that inspires me to post another.
This is really just a 'zoomed out' view of the previous map. It has no labels or vegetative representation - strictly elevation. It represents one entire hemisphere. I originally drew it by hand on pen and paper - going over it several times until I had the shapes and coastal lines just right. Then I scanned it in to the PC and 'traced' it in CC2. From there I exported it back to a high resolution file and recolored and redrew the coasts a bit in Photoshop. Subsequent modifications were done in photoshop.
Most of the games I run on my world take place on the continent of Ruarc in the North Western Portion of the Eastern Hemisphere.
Over the years I have done several versions of a campaign map for this continent; most of which were just modifications of cut and pastes from the prior hemisphere map I posted.
Recently, I decided to actually play around a bit, and push my software a bit and this map is what is currently emerging. It is by all means a work in progress - in fact, it has been a WIP for a year or two now. I tend to have several mapping projects going at once, so I have no idea when I will 'finish' this.
Eventually I intend to do a border, compass rose, labels, etc. But for now this is what I have.
It was originally pulled from the hemisphere master and then further manipulated in photoshop. I have also added forests to it. Currently, I have been working on fine tuning the coastlines. Of all my maps thus far, this is the one I would love to have the most commentary on. This is a greatly reduced size of course. My final product I hope to have printed out as a huge poster map.
As mentioned previously, most of the play in my game takes place on a single continent. As such I often see need for many additional maps.
One of the things I used to do back when I could still draw by hand was to use tracing paper overlays for my maps to denote various things like political boundaries and whatnot. With Photoshop this has translated to the use of layers and different print views.
These two maps represent my attempts at that.
One a regional map that denotes the major regions of the eastern most portions of the continent of Ruarc. These regions were relevant in the early DnD 3.0 era of my game - I used them to denote what 'regional feats' a PC could qualify for. I have pretty much gotten away from the regional feats, but now they serve to break up my Glossography Books so that I don't have a single huge .docx file on my pc.
The second map you see below doesn't deviate much in cartography style - it is primarily just political boundary map. I will be posting more interesting maps momentarily. Many of them however, are political maps of specific countries, so this is basically presented as a reference point for anyone so inclined.
As always - C&C are welcome and appreciated!
This map features the country that is the focus of my current campaign - Isengrim.
This is the first time I ever tried to really spruce up a map. The only thing here that isn't mine is the compass rose - I lifted that from somewhere else - but I am not sure where. My intention is to replace it anyway, I have never been happy with how I implemented it. Everything else is done in Photoshop.
This next map is one I did for a now defunct sea based game I ran a few years back. Its focus is oceanic. This particular region lies just off the coast of Isengrim (see previous post) and is a notoriously nasty body of water.
My goal here was to show more detail in the areas of depth and coastal shapes as well as islandic masses.
This next map is one I recently did as a player's handout. One of the meta plots that I have going on in the current campaign is that of a cooling planet and encroaching ice age. Recently, the players had to travel north across the mountains and deal with the indigenous population. This map is representative of one that they were given by their liaison.
These are all really great. A personal style.
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