Fantasy City style section of a Larger map

I began work on a new map project for a new set of adventures I'm working on. The Main map is a massive ruined city. Part of which has been 'reclaimed' and functions as a small town restored within the ruins. Adventurers come to the ruins and make their home base out of this reclaimed area. The industry of this town is treasure seekers! Kind of like a fantasy version of a gold rush town.

So I did a map of the reclaimed area but wanted to show on this map that it's just a part of a much larger picture. Here's the result.
Fann Hlurth - Reclaimed Area

The surrounding 'border area' is just background details, but I'm thinking I might add all the details (like buildings, roads & trees) and have them set to the same blur. That way, looking at the map it will be obvious that this is just a small part of a much bigger picture. The index on the left are for the major locations. I plan on populating the rest of the buildings by using the index across the bottom. Right now, it just labels the building number and it's coordinates. I'll be adding what those buildings are as I develope the details.

Comments

  • JoeyD473JoeyD473 Betatester 🖼️ 2 images Traveler
    This is an awesome map.

    How did you get the grid to do just a small section of the map?
  • bearclawbearclaw Traveler
    edited May 2010
    I put a Map Border entity on the Map Border sheet around where I wanted the grid to be (since it restricts to the map border). Once the grid was created, I just deleted the Map Border entity.

    This map took a LOT of small fiddling with to get everything just right. Now that I've done it, I thought of many ways of achiving the same result with a lot less work.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    edited May 2010
    Very nice map. The effect with the detailed map on the undetailed background looks very cool. You really should put some outlines or something on th ebackground as well though. Right now, it doeas give a strong impression that there is nothing at all there.
    Posted By: JoeyD473How did you get the grid to do just a small section of the map?
    You can always draw a grid on any part of the map. Instead of clicking "Apply" in the grid dialog box, just click "Select Points" instead, and you get to define the placement yourself.
  • bearclawbearclaw Traveler
    Ah, very good point. I've been humming & hawing about putting the roads, buildings and other details on the blured area (with the same blur factors) and I think you've settled me on doing just that.

    And for the grid, that would have been a whole lot easier than my way!!! :)
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    Posted By: bearclawAnd for the grid, that would have been a whole lot easier than my way!!! :)
    Yes, but thanks to the power of CC3, a lot of things can be accomplished in different ways. Finding a way to do it is more important than finding the "right" way.
  • bearclawbearclaw Traveler
    edited May 2010
    Ok, so I took this map and made some adjustments. Put all the other details around my focus area and set them all to the same sheet with the heavy blur effect. This looks MUCH better.
    Fann Hlurth extended
    Thanks for the suggestions. This is definelty the kind of map effect I was looking for.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    Yes, it looks a lot better now. You get a much better appearance that the section is part of something larger.

    One thing though, you say the mapped section represent a restored part of the ruins. It sounds a bit unlikely that they have restored a perfectly rectangular section, so perhaps a few ruined buildings in the outskirts of the reclaimed are map, to indicate that civilization ends here (for now)?
  • bearclawbearclaw Traveler
    Very good idea. I have yet to complete the whole large map. Once I do, I'll be adding ruined sections and stuff. That'll definetly make it to this map too. This is part of an ambitions dual-DM set of adventures, so i wanted to get this map out of the way so that my partner DM can begin fleshing out this part while I continued on the next part :)

    I"m looking forward to doing other sections of the ruins like this too. There are many rivers and such forming natural divisions throughout the city. The only part that is actually reclaimed is the part within the rivers. The section to the south is acutally just plain abandoned.
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