Mapping Competition - The Eternal Barrow of the Black Prince
Shessar
🖼️ 34 images Mapmaker
I didn't think that I would have time to work on a map for Lorelei's competition but have managed to get a bit done on it. Here it is so far...
Comments
One suggestion?
The shadow at the entrance seems paler and sharper than the glow inside. If those two things were brought closer together in nature it would look even better.
DaltonSpence, I'll gladly do a write-up on how I do this. It really is simple, much like my cliffs tutorial but stacked several sheets deep.
Shessar - I like the lighting. Maybe just a tad brighter so you can see everything?
The worn path's quite reasonable for a royal burial mound, or one which would have been visited regularly in the past, as some were repeatedly in the real world. It's even possible the barrow might be reused for each fresh Black Prince's interment, and cleared of its previous occupant. "Eternal" can suggest such a possibility. Again, actual burial mounds were repeatedly reused in some cases.
As for a story behind it...you'll have to ask Lorelei for that, she's the one who created a map with an area called the Eternal Barrows. I'm just making a map of a barrow for the competition.
My inspiration for the map and it's entry....
Most of the barrows around here (Dorset) have been damaged too badly to still have entrances.
Speaking of having to crawl into a lot of the long barrows, I would like a brief discussion of form vs function as it concerns maps for gaming.
In my above map I received comments about not being able to make out the details. Part of that is because I was/am still working on placement and brightness of the lights (this is a WIP thread after all). It is also in part because of the size of the symbols in the map which I made to scale while leaving enough space around them for there to be player figures for combat. The extra space around them results in smaller, less visible symbols.
In this map, I've kept the scale but reduced the area around the symbols. It leaves little space for combat but makes the symbols more visible on the screen.
Which is preferred by other DMs? Form, that is, fine details that are visible and easily discerned on a screen, or function, which are maps that are scaled to figure use?
I know that I often print to scale for figure use, so prefer a functional map rather than a visually pleasing one. The above comments make me believe that my viewpoint may be less common.
I don't usually post links to offsite but here is a you tube video of the interior. Very cool!
I didn't know they had actual rooms inside them for real. I've always thought that because they didn't have doors (the local ones) they were just mounds of earth used to bury important people of the day.
@Quenten - yes, everything is Atlas compatible. Do you have a place in mind for it? I'll happily submit it for inclusion if so. I'll confess to being rather distracted the next few days so won't have time to search for a good place for it. Plus, I'm sure you are much more familiar with Artemisia than I am.
@Monsen - The treasure is there. You just have to fight the black prince for it...errr... I mean you just have to zoom in near the skeletons to see it.