Nentir Vale Map - Pete Fenlon Style

Hi Everyone,


Some 20 years ago, I both played and wrote a few books for Iron Crown Enterprises, four of which were for their Middle-earth Role Playing game. I was admittedly taken with the maps that Pete Fenlon did, and when I had a chance to write for them to actually see some of my own ideas done with his hand had me nerding out big-time.


Fast forward to the present, after having returned to my home town after a decade and a half, my old RPG group has come back together, and oddly enough we are playing 4th edition D&D and enjoying ourselves immensely. Working with the stock maps was fine, but I looked into Campaign Cartographer 3 as a way of enhancing the game. When I went to buy CC3 imagine my surprise to see the Annual 2008 containing symbols in Pete Fenlon's style. This was too good to pass up, and it would give me a way to cut my teeth on the program.


Anyway, here's how my first attempt has turned out. This is a smaller picture:



I have a much much larger version here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/Agatheron/DnDMinis/Maps/NentirValeDetailed-1.jpg

This includes most of what is present (I think) in the various Nentir Vale resources that are out there. I've designed the map so that I can remove any or all the labels so that I'm not revealing too much to my playing group.

Anyway, the nice thing about this map is that I can keep expanding it. My plan is eventually to work my way south and east, and perhaps even cover areas like Moonstair, Sarthel and the Dragondown coast.

Feedback would be very much appreciated.

Heh - good luck with the area to the south; the maps in Trollhaunt Warrens and the map in Conquest of Nerath don't match up too easily. The river in Trollhaunt flows East-West, for example, while in CoN it goes West-East...

That's all CC3 right, no photoshop? It's a great map, must have taken you many hours

The little mapmaking I do these days is either photoshop or Hexographer/Dungeonographer. Since I work/study in architecture, I tend to veer away from CAD in my free time...but I may have to give CC3 another look!

Very nice! I could have used that a few years back when I was running 4e.

Do you mind if I ask which products you worked on for ICE? I am originally from VA, and their products were very prevalent locally growing up. I had a sizeable original RM and MERP collection at one point.

I wrote six books in total. For Middle-earth Role Playing I wrote Ghosts of the Southern Anduin, Hazards of the Harad Wood, Rogues of the Borderlands, and was a primary co-author for Gorgoroth. I also wrote Disaster on Adanis III for a Space Master and Islands of the Oracle for Shadow World. I visited the ICE offices in Charlottesville way back in 1990, but considering that I live in Calgary in western Canada, that was quite a trek.
[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]: it was done almost entirely in cc3. I used photoshop elements only to crop the map and to save it in a format that wouldn't take up as much bandwidth. Other than that, what you see is all CC3 making good use of sheet effects.

Nicely done, sir! I really like the fact that it's the same location, but not just the same exact map with a new paint job on top.

I wish I had a smidgen of your CC talent. Keep it up!

Thanks... Although I'm not sure if it talent or just dumb first timers luck. I did learn a thing or two about mapping years ago, but I think I am still a little rusty. The real test will come when I use city designer to create tactical-regional maps for when my crew does Reavers of Harkenwold. I know that in the "Battle" segment of that adventure, having a slightly wider scope of the town of Albridge to give them a sense of being able to plan out a battle will actually give them a greater sense of ownership. A good map will help that immeasurably.

Agatheron said:

I wrote six books in total. For Middle-earth Role Playing I wrote Ghosts of the Southern Anduin, Hazards of the Harad Wood, Rogues of the Borderlands, and was a primary co-author for Gorgoroth. I also wrote Disaster on Adanis III for a Space Master and Islands of the Oracle for Shadow World. I visited the ICE offices in Charlottesville way back in 1990, but considering that I live in Calgary in western Canada, that was quite a trek.

Click to expand...

I had those MERP items BITD. I only recall using Ghosts, but I also recall enjoying it and getting good use of the book, so Thank You!

It's been more than two decades since I wrote those. Glad to know that someone enjoyed them At the time, I was ICE's youngest writer. I can't say that anymore

As for going off map, I'm wondering if I should move towards Mithralfast/Dragondown coast, or if I should move south towards Sarthel/Therund/Moonstair. I'm not sure if I will simply expand the map, or if I should take a clip of the lower part of the map, and then start a new one and stitch it together at a later point.

Any thoughts?

Well, there's less detail available elsewhere, so you might start by making a smaller (bigger scale) map from what you have, and then extend that in every direction you want to?