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Needed: a map

Jarrod

First Post
So here's the story. I'm running a live-action game next weekend in which a small team of players slip out of a besieged city and make their way northwards with a message asking for help. It's a classic plot, and should be a fun game. The PCs will have a map of the area with a likely route laid out on it.

And I can't draw. Seriously. Nope.

What I would _love_ is for a friendly ENWorlder to make a 1-page PDF or image that I can print out (color printer) and include in the game script. This would have to be a volunteer effort, but I will gladly put your name on the map, the script, or wherever else you'd want it. The guidelines for the map itself are general and I've included them below.

From south to north, the PCs hit the following areas/encounters. East and west are undefined :)

In general, there is a single road from Fairhaven (the starting city, see below) that leads northwards (and can branch to go east/west). The PCs can't take it because of the invading army, so they get to slog through the wilderness. Fun.

1: Fairhaven, a port city on a large bay.
2: Surrounding the city is a marshy area. There is a single road/causeway leading north out of the marshes.
3: An area of flat plains for a short distance (~1/2 day's travel).
4. A wooded area (about 1 day's travel).
5. An east-west river of a decent size. The main road has a bridge over the river; there's several fording places.
6. More woods interspersed with fields. (~1 day's travel)
7. A line of hills that get steep enough to prevent easy travel, but aren't quite mountains.
8. More plains stretching off the map.

Please contact me (abernat@zathras.net) if you'd like to help. And if you're in the Southern Wisconsin area and are interested in trying out the game system, drop me a line!
 

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Regarding the placement of the river: Does it matter how far from Fairhaven it's located? Will somewhere between 1-2 days North of the city work?
 

That's fine. The setup is basically a set of encounters that the PCs have to go through, and time is "kinda funny" (as in the system developers didn't really think about it...).

Okay, if you're playing in Behind Enemy Lines and managed to see this thread, stop looking :)


Maybe the above will make more sense with a little more explanation. Here's the encounter summary:

1) Go over the wall of the city.
2) Slog through a swamp, avoiding patrols along the causeway.
3) Random fight in cleared area (hence the plains).
4) In the middle of the woods, hit a mother bear and her cubs going the other way (hence the woods).
5) Cross a river; again, the main bridge is heavily guarded.
6) Night. And it was night.
7) Meet a random traveller on the road (in clear/wooded area)
8) Fight two groups of bandits in the hills.
9) Win! (meet the King's Highway, a well-guarded road).

My thoughts are that there is a good road going north from Fairhaven, but the PCs can't take it because it's heavily patrolled. They're kind of paralleling the road along game trails and such. The map itself will work as a prop -- the guy that's hiring the PCs hands it to them as a map of the local area. It can be pretty rough or very detailed - and yes, I'm covering my butt in case I have to sketch something.

Thanks!
 

For some reason this request sparked my interest. I also had a couple hours to spare so here we go!

Here's a temporary low resolution image. Give it a once over and offer your input. Based on your suggestions I may or may not be able to implement everything.

If you want more place names added let me know.

If we come to an image that’s acceptable by you I’ll upload a higher res image into the PDF file.

Regards,
Paul

http://www.truenorthcartography.com/files/Fairhaven.pdf
 

Umm... wow. That's just perfect. How do you _do_ that?

And the most important question, can you sign (or otherwise label) it? And how do you want to be credited? It's the least (and, unfortunately, most) I can do.
 

Jarrod said:
Umm... wow. That's just perfect. How do you _do_ that?

And the most important question, can you sign (or otherwise label) it? And how do you want to be credited? It's the least (and, unfortunately, most) I can do.

Tell me what names you want where. If you have no names let me know and I'll put some in there. I'll add my moniker on the completed map.

The finished one will be a tad larger in file size which will be unfortunate, but it will not have the graininess that this temporary one does.

No worries about payment. As I said … your request sparked my interest and I had the time. Plus it’s good to get the experience in putting someone else’s vision to a map.

Regards,
Paul
 

Geographical names... that requires creativity :)

EDIT: Actually, I just had a very cool idea. How hard would it be to make two maps with different names? The backplot is that a group from a "parallel world" is invading -- same terrain, _very_ different background. I'd been wondering how to get the point across, but just a map with different names would do it perfectly. Only if it's trivial for you to do, though -- I'm already overstaying my welcome :)

Names (good guy map)/(bad guy map)

Bay: Agea's Rest/Agnar's Blood
City: Fairhaven/Bloodsgate
Marshes: unnamed/The Tangles
Southern forest: Summerwood/Winterwood
River: Red River (for both)
Northern forest: Arduinna's Deep (for both), and if you could a denser/heavier forest than the south.
Hills: Crazycat Range/Wildcat Range

I hope that helps. Now to write the names down in the script.

And I'd like to credit you in the script ("Map by...") if you can give me a tagline to use. Actually, you're definitely getting credited :), just let me know how is best.
 
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Kewl!

And don't worry about time... game's next weekend. Though I do want to wow the people who are checking things over for me.
 

Well Jarrod give it a look and see if it meets your needs.

***WARNING***
File is 3.66 MB

http://www.truenorthcartography.com/files/Fairhaven.pdf

There's one thing conspicuously missing ... and that's a scale bar. I would need to know how far you want a certain distance to be from two precisely known points in order to build the scale bar. If you do not wish to have one added that's fine as well.

If there’s anything grossly out of order please let me know. I have a small amount of time remaining to make some minor tweaks if need be.

Regards,
Paul
 

Into the Woods

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