I was going to start off as a level one adventurer with a group of people I just met, but after looking at the terrain, a level one shopkeeper selling tools to the adventurers is more my speed. This is a great map! You can really see the difference in the size of the hills, mountains, etc...Is the tomb all the way to the top of the peak in the upper left hand corner? Again...Awesome!
I agree about the white highlighting on the text. My biggest problem, to be honest with you, is the rivers - I think they're ok but they could be better.
It wasn't all that difficult to do - just a bit non-standard. The mountains, as I'm sure you guessed, ordinarily appear quite small, I just saw that Jonathan Roberts' artwork was good enough to be zoomed in with. I used varicolour black for the highest ones, and with a watery background on the lower ones got that nice little glowing lake effect where the holes in the mountains are :-)
Improved (I hope) the rivers a bit. Made Englouti bigger, and the lower rivers a bit bigger. Highlighted the text in red to reflect that this is actually a horror scenario.
I'm wondering about the names, since I'm French and they are obviously designed to sound French. What do they mean? I don't know how fluent in French you are, and I don't know if the hesitations I have are designed on purpose or not. Please pardon me if you really know what your are doing, I'm not trying to be criticizing, I'm just proposing some help, should you accept it. - Englouti, especially for a city, makes me think of "sunken", and "swallowed" only come to mind much latter, after reading the other names. - Sans-Sauvage also strikes me as odd. Should it be Sans-Sauvages ("without savages", you usually use the plural here, since if the place was inhabited by primitives, there would probably be several of them) ? Or Sang-Sauvage ("wild blood"), which might make more sense compared to the other names - Although Lemaitre is quite fine, you might want to spell it Lemaître, or Lemaistre, the last one looking a little bit more ancient, and more high-born. - The use of a verb, especially in an infinitive form, is not that common for a place. But it's hard to propose something else without more information on why this name was chosen. One name that come to mind would be Rougemord : the same pronunciation as Rougemort ("red death") might make a nice confusion, and be the source of discussion between locals about the correct spelling.
By the way, after this beautiful map and your plug, I had a look at your other adventures, and decided to buy the key to Marina. I think it will fit nicely in my starting Arabian night campaign (although I will have to convert the creatures to the game system I'm using). I still have some problems visualizing the whole layout, but I think it will become clearer after a second reading.
My version definately needs work. I'm not even sure it looks okay. I found that some of the other overland symbols look good with this. Like crops, HW battle site 1, and HW crystal site 1. I would have never thought of enlarging symbols to make mountain ranges.
rdevelyn, this is a very good idea ! Thanks for sharing !
I thought I uploaded my vague try at this, so here it is.
I'm wondering about the names, since I'm French and they are obviously designed to sound French. What do they mean? I don't know how fluent in French you are, and I don't know if the hesitations I have are designed on purpose or not. Please pardon me if you really know what your are doing, I'm not trying to be criticizing, I'm just proposing some help, should you accept it. - Englouti, especially for a city, makes me think of "sunken", and "swallowed" only come to mind much latter, after reading the other names. - Sans-Sauvage also strikes me as odd. Should it be Sans-Sauvages ("without savages", you usually use the plural here, since if the place was inhabited by primitives, there would probably be several of them) ? Or Sang-Sauvage ("wild blood"), which might make more sense compared to the other names - Although Lemaitre is quite fine, you might want to spell it Lemaître, or Lemaistre, the last one looking a little bit more ancient, and more high-born. - The use of a verb, especially in an infinitive form, is not that common for a place. But it's hard to propose something else without more information on why this name was chosen. One name that come to mind would be Rougemord : the same pronunciation as Rougemort ("red death") might make a nice confusion, and be the source of discussion between locals about the correct spelling.
By the way, after this beautiful map and your plug, I had a look at your other adventures, and decided to buy the key to Marina. I think it will fit nicely in my starting Arabian night campaign (although I will have to convert the creatures to the game system I'm using). I still have some problems visualizing the whole layout, but I think it will become clearer after a second reading.
Hi there,
Thanks for the feedback - I think my names might need a bit of work here!
Englouti is meant to mean "wolfed down". The original place was destroyed by vampires and werewolves and the new town built on top.
Chateau Rouge-Mordre is mean to mean "red bite". It's the old chateau where the vampires lived, though they're long gone now.
Sans-Sauvage was meant (!) to be Without-Salvation - but that's because I was so sure of my french I didn't even look it up! I guess it should be Sans-Salut.
Lemaitre comes from an old Doctor Who story called The Reign of Terror (all my adventures have subtle Doctor Who connections). I think I may well go for Lemaistre, though - an old cavalier who died destroying the vampires of Rouge-Mordre (RougeMord?)
I've called the mountains Dent-Blanc - white teeth?
Since the adventure will be called The Reign of Terror, expect to see Robespierre in there somewhere, though I'll probably not use Napoleon (though I probably *will* use Marie Antoinette :-) )
On another note - thank you for purchasing Key to Marina. I put quite a lot of effort into the maps for that one since it is a very 3-D dungeon, but I know it's not that easy to envisage even then. I think that's why people generally steer away from 3-D dungeons, but I think that's a shame as underground locations shouldn't just be a collection of planes.
Journey to Cathreay is more in the Arabian Nights feel, mind you - there's even a pastiche on Ali-Baba in there.
And thank you to everyone else for their comments.
If you have similar projects - why not post them up on here. It would be really good to see what other people can make with this, and I would love to know (thank you Jim) about what other symbols work well in this way.
Posted By: rdevelyn Englouti is meant to mean "wolfed down". The original place was destroyed by vampires and werewolves and the new town built on top.
Chateau Rouge-Mordre is mean to mean "red bite". It's the old chateau where the vampires lived, though they're long gone now.
Sans-Sauvage was meant (!) to be Without-Salvation - but that's because I was so sure of my french I didn't even look it up! I guess it should be Sans-Salut.
Lemaitre comes from an old Doctor Who story called The Reign of Terror (all my adventures have subtle Doctor Who connections). I think I may well go for Lemaistre, though - an old cavalier who died destroying the vampires of Rouge-Mordre (RougeMord?)
I've called the mountains Dent-Blanc - white teeth?
Englouti is a fine translation for wolfed down. The only issue is it's other meaning. Other possibilities would be "Dévorée", or "Engouffrée" (which also means fallen into a chasm...). Anyway, I would not like to inhabit such a town!
Sans-Salut is fine too. I would use it if salvation is used in a mystical way (salvation of the soul). If it's used in a more prosaic way (getting help), Sans-Salut is fine too, but I might prefer Sans-Secours.
For the mountain, la dent Blanche (for an single peak), or les dents Blanches (for a mountain range) (no hyphen in both cases, but the rule is quite complex, I did not know it 10 minutes ago... we should say "les dents Blanches", but "le massif des Dents-Blanches"...). But the only important part is to use blanche instead of blanc.
If in "red bite", bite is to be used as a noun, not a verb, le château de Rouge-Morsure (don't forget the ^ in château) might be more interesting. If the name is quite old, the several short parts of the name will probably have merged, but if it's more recent, they will probably be separate. So it could be Mord-Rouge, Rouge-Mord, Rouge-Morsure, Rougemord, Mordrouge, or even more deformed variants, such as Morrouge. There are real places in France called Morsang, which one might believe come from Mord-Sang (bite blood), but unfortunately, it is not linked to vampires at all, and comes from a totally different group of names, just meaning surrounded by walls. How disappointing!
Posted By: rdevelyn Since the adventure will be called The Reign of Terror, expect to see Robespierre in there somewhere, though I'll probably not use Napoleon (though I probably *will* use Marie Antoinette :-) )
It is fun how Napoleon is usually considered as a villain, an evil mastermind throughout the world, but a hero and a genius in France.
Posted By: rdevelynOn another note - thank you for purchasing Key to Marina. I put quite a lot of effort into the maps for that one since it is a very 3-D dungeon, but I know it's not that easy to envisage even then. I think that's why people generally steer away from 3-D dungeons, but I think that's a shame as underground locations shouldn't just be a collection of planes.
Journey to Cathreay is more in the Arabian Nights feel, mind you - there's even a pastiche on Ali-Baba in there.
I plan to do it, but probably for later in the campaign. I hope it is full of nice looking maps
And I agree that a really 3D dungeon is more interesting, but more difficult to use! I hope my players will not be lost (well, at least not too much).
Thanks for your replies and comments - I will definitely be following your advice.
No disrespect to Napoleon, BTW :-) I don't know if you are a Doctor Who fan but in The Reign of Terror (show in the early 60s), they describe Napoleon's arrival as a military dictatorship. The events cover Robespierre's time, and the Doctor and co actually find themselves on the side of the royalists (if I can call them that), though Barbara points out how the revolution achieved great things too and many people sacrificed their lives for it's cause. It's a bit of a pedestrian story, but all in all pretty good for an old historical Doctor Who.
I put a lot of effort into the maps for Key to Marina - the only cross-section map I've ever drawn. Not sure if I pulled it off. Journey to Cathreay isn't particularly map rich - just a few encounter locations, IIRC.
I'm not in any way a map expert - the one here only looks good because of other people's artwork. I just assembled it.
All the best
Richard
P.S. One other french question - I named the house of vampires that used to live in the chateau House Artere. Does that makes sense? (excuse the lack of accents, I will put that right in the final product)
These are fabulous. Both rdevelyn and JimP's are inspirational. I remember seeing someone doing the same thing with the new city icons to create a town that I was totally impressed with.
I love seeing folks thinking outside the box and finding new ways to use the tools at hand. Major kudos!
For a noble family, the "de" is mandatory, in that case it would be la maison d'Artère ("de" followed by a vowel becomes "d'"). I think this d' is well known in english, especially for d'Artagnan, the fourth of the three musketeers. Artère in itself if fine, maybe just a little bit too obvious. I was also thinking about de Carotide or maybe d'Aorte. And if you speak of the family head, don't forget a title, comte (count) is very fine for an old family that live a little bit remote from the places of power.
Gracias. Thanks. The crops are standard CC3 overland symbols. The trees are from the CA51 annual. All rdevelyn's idea. I decided to see if I could figure it out. Most things like this, I cannot figure out how to do it.
Posted By: GatharFor a noble family, the "de" is mandatory, in that case it would be la maison d'Artère ("de" followed by a vowel becomes "d'"). I think this d' is well known in english, especially for d'Artagnan, the fourth of the three musketeers. Artère in itself if fine, maybe just a little bit too obvious. I was also thinking about de Carotide or maybe d'Aorte. And if you speak of the family head, don't forget a title, comte (count) is very fine for an old family that live a little bit remote from the places of power.
Well... not much like a cavern, but its a start. Dark Blue area into the next room, must be light in there. A broken table and a corpse, a small feather in the front.
This one's a bit more zoomed in, uses Herwin Wielink's material from Issue 64 of the annuals with a few misty and snowy overlays I got from elsewhere, I'm not entirely sure it works quite so well, and I need to do a little bit of work on that clumsy cave on the top right.
Not sure if the scale's working with this one - the mix of the building's and the mountains and hills.
Comments
Any comments?
Richard
Richard
Might I suggest a white (or other light color) outline around the text to improve legibility? Otherwise... wow.
~Dogtag
I agree about the white highlighting on the text. My biggest problem, to be honest with you, is the rivers - I think they're ok but they could be better.
The tomb is somewhere off to the top left - I'm still writing the adventure (little plug: http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/f/fourDollarDungeons)
It wasn't all that difficult to do - just a bit non-standard. The mountains, as I'm sure you guessed, ordinarily appear quite small, I just saw that Jonathan Roberts' artwork was good enough to be zoomed in with. I used varicolour black for the highest ones, and with a watery background on the lower ones got that nice little glowing lake effect where the holes in the mountains are :-)
Richard
I asked a question about my topography over at CG. If anyone wants to chime in about that post over here. I'm listening!
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=30025
Improved (I hope) the rivers a bit. Made Englouti bigger, and the lower rivers a bit bigger. Highlighted the text in red to reflect that this is actually a horror scenario.
Richard
edit:
Ah, my visualizing skills need work. Thanks for the idea.
I'm wondering about the names, since I'm French and they are obviously designed to sound French. What do they mean? I don't know how fluent in French you are, and I don't know if the hesitations I have are designed on purpose or not. Please pardon me if you really know what your are doing, I'm not trying to be criticizing, I'm just proposing some help, should you accept it.
- Englouti, especially for a city, makes me think of "sunken", and "swallowed" only come to mind much latter, after reading the other names.
- Sans-Sauvage also strikes me as odd. Should it be Sans-Sauvages ("without savages", you usually use the plural here, since if the place was inhabited by primitives, there would probably be several of them) ? Or Sang-Sauvage ("wild blood"), which might make more sense compared to the other names
- Although Lemaitre is quite fine, you might want to spell it Lemaître, or Lemaistre, the last one looking a little bit more ancient, and more high-born.
- The use of a verb, especially in an infinitive form, is not that common for a place. But it's hard to propose something else without more information on why this name was chosen. One name that come to mind would be Rougemord : the same pronunciation as Rougemort ("red death") might make a nice confusion, and be the source of discussion between locals about the correct spelling.
By the way, after this beautiful map and your plug, I had a look at your other adventures, and decided to buy the key to Marina. I think it will fit nicely in my starting Arabian night campaign (although I will have to convert the creatures to the game system I'm using). I still have some problems visualizing the whole layout, but I think it will become clearer after a second reading.
rdevelyn, this is a very good idea ! Thanks for sharing !
I thought I uploaded my vague try at this, so here it is.
Thanks for the feedback - I think my names might need a bit of work here!
Englouti is meant to mean "wolfed down". The original place was destroyed by vampires and werewolves and the new town built on top.
Chateau Rouge-Mordre is mean to mean "red bite". It's the old chateau where the vampires lived, though they're long gone now.
Sans-Sauvage was meant (!) to be Without-Salvation - but that's because I was so sure of my french I didn't even look it up! I guess it should be Sans-Salut.
Lemaitre comes from an old Doctor Who story called The Reign of Terror (all my adventures have subtle Doctor Who connections). I think I may well go for Lemaistre, though - an old cavalier who died destroying the vampires of Rouge-Mordre (RougeMord?)
I've called the mountains Dent-Blanc - white teeth?
Since the adventure will be called The Reign of Terror, expect to see Robespierre in there somewhere, though I'll probably not use Napoleon (though I probably *will* use Marie Antoinette :-) )
On another note - thank you for purchasing Key to Marina. I put quite a lot of effort into the maps for that one since it is a very 3-D dungeon, but I know it's not that easy to envisage even then. I think that's why people generally steer away from 3-D dungeons, but I think that's a shame as underground locations shouldn't just be a collection of planes.
Journey to Cathreay is more in the Arabian Nights feel, mind you - there's even a pastiche on Ali-Baba in there.
Please let me know what you think of one or either of them. I also have a facebook page here (https://www.facebook.com/FourDollarDungeons).
All the best
Richard
If you have similar projects - why not post them up on here. It would be really good to see what other people can make with this, and I would love to know (thank you Jim) about what other symbols work well in this way.
Cheers
Richard
The map needs some trees now, I think.
Richard
Sans-Salut is fine too. I would use it if salvation is used in a mystical way (salvation of the soul). If it's used in a more prosaic way (getting help), Sans-Salut is fine too, but I might prefer Sans-Secours.
For the mountain, la dent Blanche (for an single peak), or les dents Blanches (for a mountain range) (no hyphen in both cases, but the rule is quite complex, I did not know it 10 minutes ago... we should say "les dents Blanches", but "le massif des Dents-Blanches"...). But the only important part is to use blanche instead of blanc.
If in "red bite", bite is to be used as a noun, not a verb, le château de Rouge-Morsure (don't forget the ^ in château) might be more interesting. If the name is quite old, the several short parts of the name will probably have merged, but if it's more recent, they will probably be separate. So it could be Mord-Rouge, Rouge-Mord, Rouge-Morsure, Rougemord, Mordrouge, or even more deformed variants, such as Morrouge. There are real places in France called Morsang, which one might believe come from Mord-Sang (bite blood), but unfortunately, it is not linked to vampires at all, and comes from a totally different group of names, just meaning surrounded by walls. How disappointing!
It is fun how Napoleon is usually considered as a villain, an evil mastermind throughout the world, but a hero and a genius in France. I plan to do it, but probably for later in the campaign. I hope it is full of nice looking maps
And I agree that a really 3D dungeon is more interesting, but more difficult to use! I hope my players will not be lost (well, at least not too much).
No disrespect to Napoleon, BTW :-) I don't know if you are a Doctor Who fan but in The Reign of Terror (show in the early 60s), they describe Napoleon's arrival as a military dictatorship. The events cover Robespierre's time, and the Doctor and co actually find themselves on the side of the royalists (if I can call them that), though Barbara points out how the revolution achieved great things too and many people sacrificed their lives for it's cause. It's a bit of a pedestrian story, but all in all pretty good for an old historical Doctor Who.
I put a lot of effort into the maps for Key to Marina - the only cross-section map I've ever drawn. Not sure if I pulled it off. Journey to Cathreay isn't particularly map rich - just a few encounter locations, IIRC.
I'm not in any way a map expert - the one here only looks good because of other people's artwork. I just assembled it.
All the best
Richard
P.S. One other french question - I named the house of vampires that used to live in the chateau House Artere. Does that makes sense? (excuse the lack of accents, I will put that right in the final product)
I love seeing folks thinking outside the box and finding new ways to use the tools at hand. Major kudos!
Artère in itself if fine, maybe just a little bit too obvious. I was also thinking about de Carotide or maybe d'Aorte. And if you speak of the family head, don't forget a title, comte (count) is very fine for an old family that live a little bit remote from the places of power.
Richard
Added trees and changed a few names, as recommended by Gathar.
This really *is* the final version now :-)
Richard
Richard
Probably needs more detail on the floor and walls though.
Richard
Not sure if the scale's working with this one - the mix of the building's and the mountains and hills.
Thought I would share anyway.
Richard