Where can I find great resources for the creation of a subterranean world?

I am looking to create a map of a world underground, kind of like the Underdark. I will have a city made of crystal there along with other features like caverns and tunnels. I am looking for resources to help me achieve this.

Can anybody recommend any annuals or packs that might have good resources for this? I currently own CC3+, DD3, and CD3, but I am very new to all this and feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the information and everything that is available. I would greatly appreciate your assistance!

Answers

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer

    Maybe the Dungeon Worlds annual can be a good start?

    Won't help you build crystal cities (not sure about resources for that), but it is a nice way of mapping an Underdark-like world.

    Zariell
  • For the crystal city concept, it may depend exactly how you envisage it. For a large-area map such as the Dungeon Worlds Annual will let you create, you could perhaps repurpose some of the standard CC3+ overland map symbols, like glaciers or icebergs (though you may have to get creative about hiding what are intended as water lines for the latter!), and making use of the varicolor options to recolour other features - and also with CD3 house symbols, for instance, if you wanted to map the city itself, or parts of it, in more detail.

    It's definitely worthwhile to take some time to look through all the symbol catalogues you have available, and make a note of any symbols that might work in such map creation, even if that's a long way from what the symbol was originally meant to be! As you can resize any symbol in CC3+, imagine too how it might look if a given symbol were larger or smaller, or a different colour (which you can set and see while you're browsing through each symbol catalogue that includes varicolor symbols).

    ZariellAleD
  • ZariellZariell Newcomer

    Wyvern, that is actually a wonderful idea! I will look into how to recolor symbols...is it possible to do that in the software? Or do I need to do this in something like Photoshop, save under a new name, and put it into my package?

  • There are vari-color symbols.

  • edited July 2021

    As Jim says, you can simply change the main colour of any symbol which is marked as varicolor (look for the little coloured square at the top right of each varicolor symbol available in the symbol catalog views over to the left side of your mapping pane in CC3+). If you change the colour - click on the coloured square above the middle of the line of icons at the top of your map - and then refresh (Ctrl + R), you'll see the colour change in that little square, and also on the symbol itself.

    Symbols that don't have that little coloured square at their top right aren't varicolor.

  • Have you checked the CSUAC symbols in the Resources thread ? I use them quite a bit.

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