Remy Monsen
Monsen
Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
Remy Monsen here, hailing from the cold shores of the Icy North. Well, something like that anyway, depending on your own location.
Born back in 1976, I am currently 44 years old (and since I am going to forget to update this, I leave it to you to calculate the new value based on my birth year as time goes on). Currently (and always has been) living in the city of Bergen on the west coast of Norway.
I am mostly an IT-guy, and having been that since my young days. I got my first computer when I was about 8, a Commodore 64, and I was immediately in love with what you could do with a computer once you learned how to program on it. Most of my work and studies through the years have been IT-related. Among other things, I was an officer in the Royal Norwegian Navy for 7 years, managing and supporting IT systems. And now I am an Assistant Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, teaching stuff like networking and software development.
I first got interested in the ProFantasy products during the 90's when looking at the ads in Dragon magazine, I was so mesmerized over how good that looked compared to my hand drawn attempts (drawing is NOT my strong suit), and I needed maps for my RPG campaign which I DM'ed. Well, they where too expensive for a penniless high-schooler back then, and my computer was an Amiga 500, while the ProFantasy stuff required a PC, so it wasn't really available for me back then. I do remember getting more and more enticed by it as the ads started to expand, and then showed up in color.
It wasn't until I started my career as a naval officer that I actually got my first computer and the money to buy software. I have to admit, it took me a while to get to properly know CC2. My main use cases was dungeons back then. I was DM'ing in the Forgotten Realms game world, and I had all the overland maps I needed provided by the campaign setting itself. But as many others, I had a bit of an issue getting CC2 to do what I needed, so I often fell back to simpler tile-based mappers, which allowed me to create a decent map in a few minutes. I did get tired of these simple mappers though, they never was able to make what I really wanted. so I kept coming back to CC2 and experiment with it. But it wasn't until the day I sat down and more or less read Allyn's excellent Tome of Ultimate Mapping from cover to cover, working through every single tutorial in there that I really got CC2. After that, I never looked back. Today, I am the maintainer of the Tome, and I hope everyone who owns it finds it as useful as I found it back then. There are still traces of Allyn's original tome in there, but I have rewritten most of it, to ensure it is a relevant resource to modern Campaign Cartographer 3+. Lots of the old tricks from the CC2 days are no longer need. For example, back then, we didn't have effects, so we had to make outlines on the text manually. Back then, that was a highly useful technique for making text readable, today it is only used for very special cases.
I am the maintainer of the Community Atlas Project, a collaborative project where we all build a world together. I encourage everyone to come along and help with the project by submitting maps, you don't have to be a pro. You can read more about the project here.
I also have my own YouTube channel where I post CC3+ tutorials, as well as write blog entries for the ProFantasy Blog.
As for my own mapmaking, most of my maps are made for use in my own campaign. I am a Dungeon Master, and after getting tired with the published worlds out there, I decided it would be much more fun to make my own, so I made the World of Virana, where I run my players through their adventures. I have a wiki for the world, but since my games are face-to-face, I am not good at updating it to often. You'll find a subset of my maps there. I also try to put my maps into the community atlas at the same time if I can find a good spot for them, nothing better than getting the atlas expanded at the same time when I am making a map anyways.
View from my house and view of my city (city pic does not cover the area where I live, I live a bit outside the main city)
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Comments
Wow!
I'm 10 years older than you and done far less.
Thank you very much for sharing, Remy :)
Wow, great view. God knows what you will have done by the time you reach 70 - my age in November this year.
Ah, so I am the oldest here... older than Quenten that is. I'm approaching my mid-70s.
When I was a kid, computers were as large as buildings, and otherwise mostly fictional.
Gee thanks, I don't feel so old now. (I'm only 63.)
Great post and introduction to yourself Remy. An interesting life you've led young man.
Well, I'm 13 years older than Remy! That view from your house is sensational (as I'm sure Quenten's would be as well). I live in suburbia, an outer suburb of Penrith, NSW Australia with my wife and our fostered cat, Bella (she was our son's but when they had their first son she got a bit jealous, nothing bad just misbehaving, and came to live with nan & pop!). The only view I hav is houses or an earthen wall with some flora attached separating us form the freeway!
I've been a regular RPG'er (mostly D&D and more recently Pathfinder) and more than occasional GM for the last 20 years playing with more or less the same group of guys.
I tried a demo version of CC probably in the early 2000's but due to the learning curve back then (it's much reduced now with both the printed and online material and tutorials) gave up and bought Dundjinni. Now I've returned to it and love it, though it frustrates me in equal measure. I've no idea of whether the occasional issues I have are due to the software, the fact I'm running it on a new Mac with OS Catalina via the Crossroads Wine utility, my inexperience or some weird combination of all the above but the annoyances are just that, minor annoyances that I can work around.
I feel like a child compared to all of you. I'm only 39
Finally someone younger than me :)
@jmabbott It would be great if you could make a separate intro for yourself - with a pic of that earthen wall, etc. Also, what else you do. I also like personal photos as well, so i can picture you as a person, not someone from my vivid and uncomplimentary imagination. ?
Hei Remy! Hyggelig å møte deg.
You have been such a great help to my mapping, thank you so much.
P.S. I don't actually speak Norwegian although I know a few words. ;)
Takk. Hyggelig å møte deg også.
Have fun mapping :)
One thing I reacted to immediately when i saw the pictures with the view over the bay (fjord in english is what?): Blue skies and sunny weather... ?
Do people still say that it is raining most days of the year in Bergen (called also the rainiest city)? Do you have noticed any change? In northern Germany the amount of rain is decreasing - so it is getting drier...
My parents and I have visited Bergen a couple of times. They love the fish marked.?
Oh, it is certainly quite wet here. Don't think it has gotten any dryer lately. But we do have our nice days too, although looking out my office window right now does not reveal one of those.
And fjord in English is just fjord.
I just wish the fish market kept it's traditions. Now (the parts of it that sells fish) are mainly a tourist trap, selling overly expensive sandwiches and baguettes with sea food, and the same canned food you can find in the nearby supermarket. Back in the day, you could buy fish straight from the fishermen's boats.
I remember the fish market from my wife's and my first trip together to Norway to visit her grandparents in August 1979 or so. The market was quiet crowded and interesting, although I don't eat fish.
Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes are on our next OS trip - but that won't be for hopefully no more than 2 years. we will look forward to meeting you in person (if you think you could survive the shock). I have been to Denmark though - it seems VERY flat.
I can promise you, Norway is anything but flat. The geography is quite the opposite from Denmark.
Quenten, think of fjords.