Sneak Peek At Ghosts of Saltmarsh Maps

Here's a sneak peek at some of the maps to be found in the upcoming D&D Ghosts of Saltmarsh, courtesy of WotC's Twitch stream.

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And Dyson Logos, one of the cartographers for the book, has shared some of his work which will be appearing!

 

[Scott Graves]

At the risk of opening this can of worms again, my point always was, if there is no particular reason for north to be in a particular direction, then, on maps, by and large, north is the top of the page.

Further, I complained that I found it annoying when fantasy cartographers do things like this town map and slap a north to the left compass rose on it, for no reason other than just to be different. It's not like this particular town was already mapped or that it was located in such a location that it needed to be oriented on the south shore. The town was never mapped in the original modules and the 3e map in on of the later books (DMG II?) was a good example of a cartographer doing this just to be different.

It's not like it's a cardinal sin or it makes the supplement unusable or anything like that. It's simply a proud nail sort of pet peeve that apparently I'm a horrible person for having.

Shame on me I guess...

I found a map for an adventure that had north pointing at a 30 degree angle across the map... I have to admit it was annoying.

 

[ddaley]

Yeah, it's a fair complaint. Sorry I hassled you over it.

If it's any consolation, I'm also one of those people who like THAC0 and descending AC. Counterintuitive systems are just my thing, I guess.

I miss THAC0 and the descending AC. I also miss unbalanced classes. I miss how fighters and clerics started out strong. Magic Users struggled at low levels, but eventually became the most powerful class. Each class had more purpose as well. "Ok, we need 2 fighter types, 2 clerics, a thief and a MU..."

 

[Dyson Logos]

I know I'm WAY late to this party, but if given the job to draw a large map that is much wider (East-West) than it is tall (North-South) AND that it must fit on a single page of a portrait-format book AND that it must fill the page, how would you do so while ALSO maintaining a North-is-Top orientation?

(for reference, the space we are assigned is 7" wide by 9.5" tall)

 

[GlassJaw]

I know I'm WAY late to this party, but if given the job to draw a large map that is much wider (East-West) than it is tall (North-South) AND that it must fit on a single page of a portrait-format book AND that it must fill the page, how would you do so while ALSO maintaining a North-is-Top orientation?

Poster map? Pull-out map? Map across 2 pages?

Maps in WotC products are already way too small. I can't image doing what you are suggesting in portrait on a single page. Only other thing I can think of is split the map in half and arrange the halves top-bottom. I don't like solution at all though.

Map across 2 pages is probably the best solution, although the binding will disrupt the map depending on print layout.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Poster map? Pull-out map? Map across 2 pages?

None of those are within the artist's control.

 

[Parmandur]

I know I'm WAY late to this party, but if given the job to draw a large map that is much wider (East-West) than it is tall (North-South) AND that it must fit on a single page of a portrait-format book AND that it must fill the page, how would you do so while ALSO maintaining a North-is-Top orientation?

Man, this revival brings back memories...

 

[jgsugden]

I know I'm WAY late to this party, but if given the job to draw a large map that is much wider (East-West) than it is tall (North-South) AND that it must fit on a single page of a portrait-format book AND that it must fill the page, how would you do so while ALSO maintaining a North-is-Top orientation?

Split it in 2, (East and West) and stack them unless I have the option of doing a pull out so that I can have the oversized (folded) page fold out to create a double wide page with the map.

 

[el-remmen]

I love the maps in Ghosts of Saltmarsh and was psyched to see decent clear maps with limited colors in this product - given how terrible many maps in the contemporary era tend to be - regardless of its cardinal directions. Give me clean and clear grayscale or blue-tone maps over clustered colored maps any day - but the town maps themselves for Saltmarsh and the Styes are good despite using color. The old alchemist's house maps in Sinister Secret are the perfect map for an adventure and would love for them all to be that style.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Poster map? Pull-out map? Map across 2 pages?

Map across 2 pages is probably the best solution, although the binding will disrupt the map depending on print layout.

None of these match the criteria provided - specifically the part : AND that it must fit on a single page of a portrait-format book

The artist/cartographer has to fill a specific size of page (9.5" tall by 7" wide), and has a specific quantity of map to fit in that space. I can't just turn in a map that doesn't fit the space I've been hired to fill.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Split it in 2, (East and West) and stack them unless I have the option of doing a pull out so that I can have the oversized (folded) page fold out to create a double wide page with the map.

Let's try the first idea (since we do not have the option to change the actual fomat of the book - we are assigned a specific page size and map).

Here's the original map (have I mentioned how excited I got when I got to add the "Tower of Zenopus" tag to this map?)

Now, if we turn it sideways, and then shrink it down so it is only 4.75 inches tall (half of the 9.5 inches we have to work with)... we get this:

Not much point in splitting it now... the whole thing fits on half the page. But we haven't filled the page we've been alloted in the layout of the book, leaving a half-page of blank space, AND reducing our pay by half, and not fulfilling the brief assigned and probably getting us fired in the process.