How do you map your homebrew?

[VirgilCaine]

I'm facing the idea of mapping my homebrew world am pretty daunted by it.

I'm certainly not going to map every city but coming up with a whole subcontinent of maps, names for cities, city and town clusters. I've got name generators, and geographic data for the number of cities and such, but it seems like a whole lot of work.

Anyone have any tips?

 

[Infernal Teddy]

I personally just scribble along on a big sheet of paper for the continents, and then just make detail maps when I need them / want them, but I'm starting to convert my material to CC2 ... if I ever understand the damn thing...

 

[Crothian]

General maps ov the area we are starting in and then map as I need them. I steal city maps and other places from books as much as possible

 

[VirgilCaine]

I personally just scribble along on a big sheet of paper for the continents, and then just make detail maps when I need them / want them, but I'm starting to convert my material to CC2 ... if I ever understand the damn thing...

I have continents, I don't have any details. Just country borders and landforms, nothing of smaller scale.

 

[Agamon]

I personally just scribble along on a big sheet of paper for the continents, and then just make detail maps when I need them / want them, but I'm starting to convert my material to CC2 ... if I ever understand the damn thing...

Be sure to take the time to do the entire tutorial. After that it's easy peasy.

I do what the others do. Get an idea of the continent, then the base country, then the local area. The bigger maps don't need to be detailed. Other detailed maps can be made as needed. CC2 Pro is highly recomended to make nice maps. There's a steep learnming curve, but as I stated above, if you follow the tutorial inthe manual, it does a great job showing you the ropes.

 

[Junkmaster357]

What you guys don't go down to the mineral content of the soil and the earthworm population density? Thermographic variations on rooftops? Exact number of sand grains in the desert, including those caught in the wind?




Me neither. Paint Shop, here I come!


Though my technique is to do a large scale map, and then to go to a regional scale (i.e. the desert of sandy sand wind, the forest of pulpy wood trees of dark scary doom, insert random name here). If it's a major city, I like to divide it into districts. Cheapside, industrial district, where the rich live, etc. People with lots of gold do not live next to a smithy. I never really bother with laying out streets because it will most likely never be needed unless the party is going to play most of the game there.

 

[painandgreed]

I'm just using actual maps of Europe and the rest of the real world and imposing my fantasy world upon it.

 

[gizmo33]

I started with hand-drawn maps, got tired of copying them when they wore out, and coverted them to paintbrush. I wrote a VB program to help manage them, measure distances, zoom in, create composite images from different files, etc. That's what I've been using since (a database of bitmaps and a VB program).

I'd really like to find something professional. I looked at Campaign Cartographer a few years ago. What I really want is something that is less about graphics and more about distances, features and stuff. My wish list would be:

1. set up a coordinate system
2. works with XML or other file format to import campaign information (location of towns etc.) and place them on map
3. create DM and player versions of map from single file
4. create different "resolution" of map - a local map that shows the villages and details, a larger-scale maps with features that have been tagged for that resolution.
5. layer in existing bitmap image to copy from

I'm wondering if anyone with experience in CC, Fractal Mapper, etc. can offer some info with respect to my list above. I'm pretty sure Fractal Mapper does #5.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

By hand.

 

[the Jester]

I love mapping, so I draw whatever maps I need on 18x24 or larger paper (for large-scale things with heavy detail, such as cities) or smaller pages (such as for maps of dungeons or large areas with just outlines needed).