With the little area map completed, it was time to draw the subterranean one, based on the Inkwell Ideas Dungeonmorph Dice designs from the Lairs set established earlier. Ideas for the contents were inspired by, compiled and adapted from the Inkwell Ideas book that accompanies these Dice, “Dungeonmorph Delves & Descriptions: Crypts, Lairs, & Sewers Edition”, in conjunction with relevant items already identified for the area map. As noted last time, quite a few fungal features had occurred already, with more here too, and for the names this time, I picked some randomly from the fungal items on cards in the Downcrawl Encounter Deck, part of the Downcrawl 2nd Edition RPG set by Aaron A Reed.

I wanted to use one of Sue's mapping styles for the underground layout, and as none closely match her Ferraris overland style, decided instead on the Creepy Crypts one (CA186) with some elements from the matching Forest Trails (CA191), plus some symbols from DD3 where required. Gridless, then gridded versions:

For those who've not used the Creepy Crypts style previously, it takes a little getting used to, compared with the more commonly encountered dungeon mapping styles. It works especially well for caverns, even if the sheet order may not be quite as straightforward as usual at times. The regular rooms towards the top right had to be drawn in a different way on higher sheets in the stack, which meant the grid for those had to be redrawn in separate segments, and even the odd separate line, because the normal grid sheet is buried a long way down in the stack by comparison to where these marble floors are!

There are a lot of oddities here, which the Atlas map notes will expand upon. That "Red" label, for instance, highlights the one redder crystal clump in its tunnel, which is the one that opens the secret door to the suite of marble rooms. Unfortunately, all the other doors in there are magically sealed, but players do love a challenge!

Following which, it'll next be time for a revisit to the massive continent of Doriant, somewhere in the Dungroth region...

One option you might think about @Mike Patterson is using plain coloured hexes instead of symbol ones. The terrain types on the one symbol per hex maps tend to have uniform, separate colours for the terrains, and while these work particularly well for coastal hexes with "proper" coastlines, rather than having the hexes run directly into the sea (so you don't end up with partial symbols in the wriggling coastline hexes), they can work just as nicely for the main maps, especially if you only use a limited range of terrains/hex colours. Which was pretty much how that Greyhawk map was drawn, barring the symbol-filled forests and mountains.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Darlene map of Greyhawk incidentally, try this page of the Greyhawk Online Wiki, although this blog post by Rob Conley (Bat in the Attic Games) has much higher-res versions of his own reworking of it for free download.

As noted in my closing descriptive post for the recent Oracle Mountains Atlas maps in Peredur, these next maps were to bring a return visit to the Forlorn Archipelago, not this time to the central Kraken Island, but the northernmost Fisher Island:

However, this was originally unintended. Over a year ago, while checking through the list of what was still to do in this project, I realised (despite previous double-checking) there was a duplicate location set for this map to one already completed. Luckily, I'd kept a list of "possibles" that hadn't made the final cut for sites to place maps, hence this one's choice.

This proved especially interesting, as drilling-down through the extant Atlas maps for Fisher Island, it became practical to zero-in on an unusually small area. So, the Island itself led to Basher Bay:

Which led to South Basher Bay:

And finally to the Silent Forest:

From where I opted to zoom-in to an identified, but unmapped, spot, The Crushed Keep:

The final three maps shown above here, from Basher Bay to the Silent Forest, were all constructed by JimP, who also provided some interesting notes for them, including that the Silent Forest was so-named as the Old Wizard there dislikes noise, so there are no animal or bird calls hereabouts, that other towers, now ruined, had been built close to that central Tower (which nearby area Jim had also mapped) to keep watch on the Wizard's activities, and that further away, nobody was really sure if the Old Wizard still lived or not, hinting that his Tower too might well be ruined by now. This though was mistaken! Jim's notes for Crushed Keep mentioned for all it was a ruin, there was no debris or mislaid items there, as might be expected ordinarily, and it looked as if it might never have been inhabited, so there was enough mystery here to play around with.

That orange square outline on the last map above was to be my one-mile area map, and such an unusually small region provided the opportunity for a different mapping style to the normal overland ones I often force into smaller spaces than they're used to, which was to be Sue's Ferraris Style from Cartographer's Annual 158. After gridding the area, and randomly choosing places to add a few extra features (not many, as this is meant to be a largely uninhabited wilderness), I sought inspiration from cards drawn randomly from three of Inkwell Ideas' Hexploration Decks, "Into the Wilderness", "Settled Lands" and "Beyond the Pale", with a couple more from two of the Creature Decks, "Fey, Constructs, & Wildlife" and "Animals & Vermin". These ideas were then adapted to fit the overall pattern from JimP's notes, with a few extra thoughts of my own.

Thus the area map:

Of course, the Ferraris Style is really intended more for settled places than areas mostly devoid of habitation, but it seemed to work nicely here anyway, with a few repurposed symbols, and a road line that really represents a collapsed subterranean tunnel.

I decided from the start that I wanted to respect Jim's use of broken, almost spiralling, patterns in the way the woodlands are laid out, while appreciating they were drawn within the constraints of the symbols in his preferred mapping style. I did though add some minor topography, to help mix-up the colours and look a little more. The tiny ponds were from Jim's original map, and I added a couple more of my own. Jim's notes on them give leeway for such additions: "A number of small ponds. Unknown depths. Anything falls in, the leaves close back up. No signs of anything nor anyone had come by there." So ones that have closed must also periodically reopen, where nothing had been mapped earlier!

There are other oddities here as well, and the card ideas included several connected with fungi, which seemed an interesting concept, perhaps further helping to deaden sounds in the region. The map's notes for the final Atlas version will, as ever, say more.

Mapping in the Ferraris style took a degree of getting used to, mostly because there are a lot of options for how things can be drawn, the different fill styles, effects and so forth. I kept both the sample maps that come with the style's package open while I was drawing this to help keep me right. Despite that, the map went together really quickly, after some brief experimentation, so this isn't a detailed WIP topic for once!

One thing I did test out at the end though were the options for different final looks to the map, by selecting three hidden Layers the style has built-in. While I was happy with the "vanilla" map, as above here, I also rather liked these three alternatives too, so hopefully, each can be toggled in the final Atlas FCW file as well. Thus we have a faded look:

A worn and dirty look:

And a yellowed with age look:

Next time, we'll delve beneath Crushed Keep's small hill...

I discovered when using the Ferraris Style (CA158) over the weekend that clicking any of the symbol catalogue icons, except the Minerals/Mountains one, automatically changes the Layer to MERGE. Clicking to change the symbol catalogue by the manual system (the button between the "Options..." button and the currently-visible symbols) does not force this change however, keeping the Layer as whatever is currently chosen.

For anyone unaware, having any new items added to the MERGE Layer is an extraordinarily bad idea, as this Layer is part of what helps control the map effects. Unfortunately, it's very easy to accidentally do this because of this unexpected defaulting with this style.

Luckily, I spotted it before I'd added more than a few symbols, although it took a while to discover it affected all but one of the catalogue icons, and it was easily remedied, but ths behaviour is something prospective users should be aware of!

The UK press in the last couple of weeks has been running adverts for the Great Western Railway, one of the privately-owned British railway companies, that runs train services between London, Southwest England and South Wales. Ordinarily, this would naturally attract no attention here, of course. However, they've been using a pictorial map to do so. This one:

Which perhaps is of rather greater interest!

I'm never sure if folks outside the UK will be able to access the online sources involved, but the map and the press-marketing story behind it came from this webpage.

When I started digging around today to find a copy of the map to post here though, I discovered there are actually now TWO such maps, and they're not quite the same! The alternate one is shown on this webpage (again, same caveats as before for non-UK viewers, although this is part of the GWR website, not a separate marketing one), which has folklore notes on some of the sites involved, and also a link to a supposedly free download of an accompanying book (although the page it goes to has no download option; you can view the book there and flip/read right through it, however). This alternate map looks like this:

Fewer points of interest, and no railway station names on this one, but just as interesting as a pictorial map, I think.