Maps - Jon Roberts' Map thread

AdmundfortGeographer · Jul 2, 2011

These are terrific. I'm glad these are being shared.

torstan · Aug 15, 2011

Thanks! I'm glad you like them.

This month sees the release of a map from the back pages of this month's Kobold Quarterly: The Watchfire Keep

This accompanies my adventure in the magazine "Who Watches the Watchfires" set in Open Design's world of Midgard - A capture the flag style adventure.

My plan was to create a simple, well defended Keep that could be used for a castle assault, or for adventurers to hold against the dark forces. The double gate on the entrance, crenellated walls and single wall over the steep cliff offer a selection of approaches and challenges to an invading force.

The map pack of the keep (available here on RPGNow and on Paizo) contains versions that allow you to use this in any type of game:

Multipage pdf for printing at home for tabletop use, in both international A4 and US letter format, in colour and printer friendly greyscale
High resolution jpgs with and without grid for use in VTTs or for poster printing
Maptool campaign file with vision and light implemented for quick use in OGL, Pathfinder or 4E games.

This could be a watchfire that provides a critical warning for an unsuspecting city or the starting keep for your players when they get their first castle. At $2.99 it'll be the cheapest first home purchase they'll ever consider.

Fold-n-Go Castle Kit #1

I can't help but mention a spin off product I worked on that came out today. Inspired by the Watchfire Keep, I teemed up with Brian Bartlow of Lone Tree Games and I challenged him to create a glueless modular castle kit that would be able to recreate the Watchfire Keep in glorious 3D. I'd say he succeeded!

The kit is a pdf pack of textured parts that can be cut out and folded together to create modular sections of a castle. With walls, towers, staircases, gate, houses and a working portcullis you have everything you could possibly want for your inaugural fort.

The kit is available on RPGNow and Paizo.

You can read more about both of these on my blog. Enjoy!

torstan · Sep 15, 2011

Just a quick one here. Here's a WIP of the map I'm putting together for Blackstar Studios.

And here's a little gif walkthrough of the process used in that map:

More about it over on the blog.

torstan · Jan 4, 2012

Piracy is in the air this year. Open Design is now well underway with Journeys to the West – an anthology of adventurers set in the exotic unexplored western ocean – and Paizo is set fair on a course for the swashbuckling adventure path Skull and Shackles. But what good is a pirate (or, ahem, privateer) without a trusty ship?

Well, to resolve that particular problem, this month I’ve put together a ship that any peg legged terror of the ocean waves can be proud of. After some feedback on my previous ship pack, this one comes in a number of formats. The pack contains 2 overview of the full ship, one with the ship underway with sails billowing and the other with the ship resting at the harbour quay. In addition, the pack contains fully detailed maps of all three interior deck levels, with captain’s table, storage and crew hammocks.

In addition to the fully rendered maps, the set includes pngs of the ship if you want to fight mobile ship battles inside maptool, or have the ship moored on new and unexplored shores (just drop the ship onto any other map as a background object). This should allow you to use this ship map as the base for your players to explore any new and exotic places – or as the home of a recurring pirate threat. All the accoutrements of the ship come as separate objects too – from the ballista and gangplank down to the crates and barrels below decks, and right up to the full rigging of the ship as a separate object (to allow you to show/hide the sails for deck combat, or for high stakes sword fights a-top the mizen mast.

The map pack weighs in at a hefty 122Mb of art and contains:

Three distinct maps – overall ship in sail, overall ship moored and the three levels of inner deck. Each map is provided with all bells and whistles (grid and objects), without grid, and without grid and without any objects (no ballista, tables, chairs, crates, doors and so on). The jpgs are sized at 100px per grid for poster printing or use in vtts.
Multipage pdf packs for printing out for your home game table, both in light greyscale and full colour
A bare sea map (4000px by 4000px jpg) for use in any nautical encounter, or to use as a base for creating any ship based encounter
A large chunk of pngs with transparent backgrounds – crates, barrels, hammocks, doors, table, chairs, ballista, furled and open sails, full ship in sail and with furled sails, and a separate png for the ship’s wake.
Maptool files for the three maps, with all objects placed separately (yes, you can rotate all the ballista to take aim at an escaping smuggler), with vision blocking implemented.
All of that comes in at $4.99 and should give your players, or your recurring pirate scourge, a comprehensive base of operations whatever strange seas they might explore.

You can check out the full pack on RPGNow and Paizo.

RangerWickett · Jan 6, 2012

Really splendid work. If you feel the urge to release a steam-powered ship pack, do let me know. *grin*

Actually, ZEITGEIST has a strong naval component. Do you mind if I share information about your map pack on an upcoming blog post about the adventures? I'm sure some groups would appreciate extra options in their campaigns.

torstan · Jan 6, 2012

I'd be more than happy for you to share it around! I was mulling submitting a Enworld news submission about it, but I'm not sure the front page is taking that kind of stuff anymore? And a steam powered ship is certainly a good idea, especially as there are a fe settings that can take a little sea going steampunk at the moment. Good thought!

torstan · Jan 23, 2012

Ancient Temple map bundle

A couple of weeks ago I posted the world map for Lannithir, for the Illfrost adventure arc for Illusionary Press. The first adventure for the world of Illfrost is out now and I created the tactical battlemaps for it:

The adventure takes place in and around an ancient temple on a remote island that has been occupied by a present day threat. But ancient temples always hide some darker peril, and this one is no different. The maps had to hark back to the older magic woven through the fabric of the temple itself, so I added some swirling spiral patterns through the walls and floors. As players explore, they’ll see bits and pieces of the design, but only the GM sees the full picture.

A hidden staircase behing the temple chamber leads down into the dungeons where the true secrets of the temple lie in wait for intrepid, or unlucky, adventurers.

I’ve also partnered with Illusionary Press to provide these maps as map packs. You can get your hands on the full res (100px per grid) maps, along with multipage pdfs for home printing, and maptool files with vision and light implemented – over on my map store or over at Illusionary Press. The maps are available individually (click the images above to go to the product page for each) or as a discounted bundle for all three.

Iconic Maps · May 31, 2014

Hi there Jon, nice to see another familiar face from the Cartographers Guild here. Sadly it seems that many of the images on this thread are now broken (not sure if you were aware of that or not).

Cheers,
-Tad (aka Arsheesh)