Free Map Monday!

     Here is a small map that I drew on a rainy day quite some time ago for use in a game that I still haven't gotten around to running.  Originally, it was a black and white map on graph paper.  I've since taken the time to color it, and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  It's got some standard cavern things, stalagmites, an underground stream, a waterfall, a fountain with an eerie green obelisk, and of course some giant mushrooms. :-)  

     Fell free to take it, re-share it, use it as is, or change it however you see fit.  Stock it with monsters, treasure, and nefarious traps, or stock it with unicorns, rainbows, and spun sugar.  Whatever you fee like.  So break out your favorite roleplaying game rules, whether it'sTunnels and Trolls, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Far Away Land or anything else you're in to.  If anyone does use it to create an adventure, please feel free to link to your creation in the comments area, I'd love to see your work.

If you enjoy this map, feel free to check out the rest of my blog for more stuff:  

    

Campaign map

While looking for a different file, I came across this map for a campaign that I never ran.  I had completely forgotten about it, but now I'm thinking that I may need to recycle this for my next DCC game.

Another map made with Hex Kit (and some further thoughts)

I started playing around with layers in Hex Kit, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.  I really love the art style used in the application.  It sort of reminds me of the board icons from the Avalon Hill version of Titan.  I'm a real sucker for hand drawn things.  So far, the beta of Hex Kit seems pretty darned stable.  A couple of minor bugs such as duplicate icons being placed in adjacent hexes, but that may be something that I'm doing wrong.  It seems to be able to handle maps up to 999 x999 hexes, which is way bigger than I would ever use, so it should cover the needs of most people.  In any case, based on what I'm seeing so far, the release version is going to be awesome.

A quick map made with the beta version of Hex Kit

I'm looking forward to playing with this more over the weekend, but so far, I'm really liking it.

Sword & Sorcery World Map (W.I.P)

This blog has been pretty quiet lately, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been doing things. ;-) I've been wanting to run a Sword & Sorcery style game for quite some time now.  One of my biggest impediments though has been that I haven't had a map.  I did this one in Campaign Cartographer back in 2015, but I just wasn't quite happy with it.  So here is another attempt.  This map was hand drawn and then colored using GIMP, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  It has only some generic sea an place names on it so far, and while the cities are there, they have yet to be named.  Now of course the next big question would be what system do I use for the game?  Savage Worlds seems to be my best bet for ease and flexibility, but a strong case could be made for Barbarians of Lemuria, being that it's, well, a Sword & Sorcery Game.  I'v also toyed with the idea of Trying Fate Core/Accelerated because of its incredible flexibility, but I haven't come across many folks who have used it for S&S.  Decisions, decisions, and yet one more reason to delay running a game. :-)

Off the cuff map

My friends Willie and Laura are moving out of the country, so four of us got together to hang out one more time before they leave,.  Part of that hanging out involved an impromptu basic D&D game.  Above is the map that I whipped up for the Skull Tower of Mygnos, complete with illustrations, some of which were done by the five year old twins of my friend Tim.  I think the owl monster and the skull to the right of the walled tower gardens are my favorites.

Free Map: Colorful Caves

     Here is a small map that I drew on a rainy day several months back for use in a game that I still haven't gotten around to running.  Originally, it was a black and white map on graph paper.  I've since taken the time to color it, and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  It's got some standard cavern things, stalagmites, an underground stream, a waterfall, a fountain with an eerie green obelisk, and of course some giant mushrooms. :-)  
     Fell free to take it, use it as is, or change it however you see fit.  Stock it with monsters, treasure, and nefarious traps, or stock it with unicorns, rainbows, and spun sugar.  Whatever you fee like.  So break out your favorite roleplaying game rules, whether it'sTunnels and Trolls, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Far Away Land or anything else you're in to.  If anyone does use it to create ann adventure, please feel free to link to your creation in the comments area, I'd love to see your work.

If you enjoy this may, feel free to check out the rest of my blog for more stuff:  

Free Map Friday (on Saturday)

I had this set to post, but forgot to actually schedule it, so Free Map Friday is now Slightly Delayed Free Map Saturday.  I was going through my old papers and came across this outdoor map for one of my Castles & Crusades campaign from many years ago.  Sadly, it's not nearly as entertaining as the player made dungeon maps from the same campaign. :-)

The map isn't complete, as my intent was to add cities and adventure sites as we went.  I've done some maps recently with Campaign Cartographer, and while it produces very nice results, I'm still a fan of hand drawn maps.

Updated Sungor Map

Here is a revised version of my post apocalyptic Sword and Sorcery world done in Campaign Cartographer.  I've filled in more of the blank areas.  A few islands have been left empty though for future development...

Savagery and Sorcery

So for quite some time, I've been playing around with the idea of running a game that I call The Savage Sorcerers of Sungor.  It was intended as a Savage Worlds fantasy setting.  The idea was to have a game world that was inspired by Thundarr the Barbarian, the Den and Taarna segments of the film Heavy Metal, and Gamma World.  This was then all to be done up to look like a Frank Frazetta painting.  Now this all sounds and looks good in my head, but of course things have been holding me back.  I kept telling myself that I didn't have time and was too busy to work on the world, and maybe partly that was true, but the real issue that was holding me back (beyond laziness) was that I didn't have a map.  I could see places in my head, but they had no spatial relationship to one another.  I knew what things were, but I had no idea where they were.  I needed a map, and started digging through my folders to find one.  I had worked on a map a few years ago that I really liked and thought that is might just do, so I cleaned it up in GIMP and I was pretty happy with the results.

I like this map a lot.  I could do a lot of things with this map, but this map isn't Sungor.  Something just wasn't right, and honestly I couldn't say what.  It just didn't feel right for the game that I wanted.  So things languished again as I had no map.
I've been meaning to play around with Campaign Cartographer for some time, and owing to having lots of unplanned free time over Christmas while I fought off some sort of virus, I got the chance.  I loaded the map above into Campaign Cartographer and traced it, adding some land to the west along with a few more islands, and then I set to work adding in the terrain.  What I wound up with was this:

Now this is more of what I imagined Sungor looking like.  It has the Smoldering Sea where the ancient and terrible city of Sungor lies.  It has the Great Bog, where the mighty hero Yaard was birthed.  It has the Western Wastelands, home to all manner of mutant horrors.  It has the trackless Jungle of Hroon with its lost cities and giant serpents.  It has the vast Crater of Uul, wherein lies the sinister city of the Wizard Lizards.  In short, this was the map that I was looking for.  Well, maybe a bit more brown, but I'm still learning the tool.  So, does this mean that I'll run the game?  Maybe, but even if I don't, I've got a map to start from and something to start working on adventures to amuse myself.
I did a bit of adjustment to the background color to make some of the terrain features easier to see.  I'm still not sure which version I like better, but this one certainly prints better.

Free Maps - Hero System

I haven't done a Free Map Friday in a long time, so I'm way past due.  Here is a set of maps that I did about 9 years ago for a Fantasy hero game.  It's a lost tomb and includes the overall map along with scale combat maps for use with miniatures.

The whole tomb complex

Combat Map 1: The Chasm

The chasm ledge was crumbling and there was some sort of cyborg tentacle creature down in the water that kept trying o drag the PCs to their doom.

Combat Map 2: The Flooded Hallway

There were hidden pits in the flooded hallway, mostly a nuisance, except for heavily armored PCs. :-)

Combat Map 3: The Flooded Chamber

There were skeletons under the water near the columns waiting to rise as the PCs past them.

Combat Map 4: The Antechamber of the Statue

I seem to recall that the statue was a trap...

Combat Map 5: The Crypt

And there was something nasty in that sarcophagus.

Free Map - My Old Tunnels & Trolls Campaign Map

Here we have the map for a Tunnels & Trolls game that I ran back in the 90s.  Petty cliched stuff and quickly drawn, but I recall the game still being a lot of fun.  Once the 8th edition arrives, I may have to dust this off. :-)

Free Map - GURPS Manor House

It's another free map Friday!

Here is another map that I did for a GURPS fantasy game that I ran a long time ago.  It was intended as a haunted manor house, but I suppose that it could double as an inn, or some sort odd bed and breakfast for a modern game.

Of course there is a secret room in the basement, since what fun would it be without one.  Sometimes it makes me a little sad how much hexes have fallen out of fashion.  Squares are certainly easier to draw on, but hexes really recall the wargaming roots of the hobby to me.

Friday Free Map - Outdoors

This is a map I drew of the outdoor area near the spooky forest known as The Wyrmwald.  It's got a village, a couple of caves, a spider lair, and a mysterious tower.

Free Map - Outdoor in Color

Here is a map that I did for a Castles & Crusades game that I ran several years ago.  I didn't get around to including most of the place names, but I did manage to color some of it in with colored pencil.  It has sort of a Mediterranean Sea feel to it.

Free Map - Ruined Forest Temple

Here is a map I did of a ruined forest temple.  I seem to recall that there were killer monkeys in here somewhere...

There is a walled garden in the back and plenty of water to hide all sorts of nasty aquatic things.

Free Map - Flooded Tower

Here is a map that I did for a game a number of years ago.  It's a partially flooded tower in a swamp with an earthen embankment separating the swamp from the drier areas.  Two huge statues guard the gap in the embankment, and a seemingly safe cobblestone path leads to the tower.  There was a basement to the tower as well and a lot of frogs if I recall.  Really big frogs...

Free Map - GURPS Tower

Here is a map of a tower that I used for a GURPS adventure a long time ago.  It's got a groovy throne on the second floor that's just waiting to be occupied by a lich or something.  The pool in the sub-basement could hold all sorts of horrors, and that nest on the roof is awfully big...

Using Boardgames in your Roleplaying Games

The story of how the board for Avalon Hill's game Outdoor Survival was used in the early days of Dunegons & Dragons to run outdoor adventures has been well documented.  Looking at the board it makes perfect sense as it has most of the terrain that one might expect to encounter along with convenient markers that can be used for castles, villages, and encounters.  Overall I think that it's  good use of a nice game board from what I think was an otherwise dull game.  Supposedly Outdoor Survival was one of Avalon Hill's better selling games because it tended to be sold in gift shops at national parks.  In any case it's a lovely board, and it got me thinking of boards from other games that could be used in some manner for my roleplaying games. 

Board from Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival

First up is the board from the Odyssey 2 game Quest for the Rings.  While Quest for the Rings wasn't technically a boardgame, parts of it were played on a board, so I'm including it here.  This board while very attractive doesn't possess the same functionality of the Outdoor Survival board as it has no hexes, and the grid the overlays the board is fairly large, but the board itself could be used as a ready made GM's campaign map.  I mean, who wouldn't want to visit places like The mountains of Myrgard or The Dragon's Bog?

Quest for the Rings Board

Another of my favorites comes from another Avalon Hill game, Wizards Quest.  My dad and I used to play this when I was younger, and while it's really not much more than fantasy Risk, I've always been fond of the board.  This one has better region delineation than Quest for the Rings, but it's not as good as the nicely ordered hexes from Outdoor Survival.  Still, in a pinch it could be used in actual play to track character movements between cities or adventure sights.  In the end though, I think that this board is still better suited for use as a GM's campaign map for a small scale campaign.

Wizard's Quest Board

Moving back to hexes, I think that the map boards from Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz would be well suited for small scale outdoor adventures in areas covering a few dozen miles.  The Panzerblitz boards also have the advantage of being able to be positioned in a variety of ways, thus increasing variety.

Panzerblitz Boards

There are of course a ton of boards from other games that could be used as well, like Dragon Pass, and SPI's Sword and Sorcery.  Does anyone have any favorite boardgames that they have been inspired to somehow incorporated into their roleplaying games?

The Joy of Player Made Maps

Player mapping in RPGs seems to have become a lost art.  Many people would argue that player mapping slows things down and often isn't fun for the player who is "stuck" mapping.  I'm going to argue those points one way or the other, but when going through my files, I did come across what I think is a fairly entertaining set of player made maps.  Here we have two examples of maps made by my players during a dungeon crawl many years ago.  I particularly like the Tim Woodsman on the second picture.

And no, that isn't a typo above. ;-)