City Map Archives - Page 3 of 3

Enter the Lost City and unearth its secrets

The Lost City has been found! Logan Bonner and Open Design have released their archaeological delve into the secrets beneath the sands this week and I had the pleasure of mapping the crazy locations that Logan and the patrons came up with. I’ve never before been given an art brief that involved drawing a deity – I’m just saying.

The Lost City takes place under the sands that hide the crashed remains of a flying city. As the PCs investigate they uncover the history of the city and must find out why the city fell from the skies.

A flying city is a wondrous location anyway, but the patrons and Logan pulled out the stops when coming up with fun sandbox locations for adventurers to explore. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers (but there are some – so if you’re a player you should look away now), but here’s a selection of some of the maps I created for the book: Continue reading “Enter the Lost City and unearth its secrets”

More Free City Tiles!

Wayfinder #5 is out in time for PaizoCon. It’s great to see this fan created magazine going from strength to strength. 5 is a good number – it shows that it has legs and it’s digging in for the long haul. The magazine keeps getting better and better, with this one containing 79 pages of adventures, monsters, variant rules and great art. The production quality is excellent and there are adverts by Paizo, Open Design, NeonCon and Rite Publishing (amongst many more). With that kind of backing, the magazine should have no difficulty continuing to grow. It’s a great place for people to try out their art or writing chops so there’s lots of new names in the contributor list as well as some familiar faces. You should definitely download your free copy to see who’ll be writing for Kobold Quarterly in a few months time!

I have some work in this Wayfinder as well. I created two more map tiles of city locations – to expand the set I created for the last Wayfinder. This time it’s a temple and a cathedral. Feel free to download these and use them for any non-commercial purpose.

The City of Redwall

The Dwarves of Redwall are builders. Their city stands on three great terraces carved from the side of a mountain, and the walls are grounded by massive octagonal cannon towers. As with any dwarven city, the overground structures, temples and railway stations are just the surface. Below the city, mines and tunnels probe deep into the earth.

Continue reading “The City of Redwall”

City tile ideas

After showing off the city map tiles for Wayfinder #4 (previous post) it got me thinking. The square format is repetitive and blocky. Also, the directional lighting means the tiles can’t be rotated for variety without it looking like there are 4 different suns. So, whilst they are pretty, they have their drawbacks when trying to create a large map. I also feel that creating a whole city at this level of detail is a bit of a fools errand. That’s a lot of tiles to build a district, let alone a full city.

So I’ve been playing around, and because this is a personal project rather than a commission, I can make my mulling public. So here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

free city tile for fantasy city maps - sketch and ideas

Here’s some of the logic behind the design: Continue reading “City tile ideas”

Wayfinder #4 Map Tiles

Wayfinder #4 is out – the latest iteration of the excellent free Paizo fanzine. You can grab your free copy here – and I recommend that you do, it’s 92 pages of great free content.

Now that it’s out I can show off some of the art I did for the magazine – the map tiles that appear on p85. Here they are in all their glory – free to use (for non-commercial purposes) for anyone who would like them. Let me know what you think, and whether an expanded set would be useful.

Click the thumbs below to see the large versions of the image and download them, or just right-click save as to download each one. Enjoy!

Gather round and hear Tales of the Old Margreve

Open Design has released their latest patronage project – the Tales of the Old Margreve. It’s set deep in an ancient forest of dark happenings and lingering curses.

Regional fantasy map from Open Design's world of Zobeck — The Old Margreve

As the cartographer for the project I’ve just received the final pdf and it’s a beauty. The layout work is fantastic and really reinforces the feel of old eastern European legends and horror. The anthology draws on fairy stories of the old school. Anyone who read the Brother’s Grimm wouldn’t go gaily into the forest looking for elves. This forest is one of ancient power and you disrespect it at your peril. Continue reading “Gather round and hear Tales of the Old Margreve”

Cassedega – Built on the Ruined Remains of Ankeshel

This sunken city map was created for Open Design for their Pathfinder supplement Sunken Empires. I was asked to create a city in two halves – one above the sea and one below – built on top of the ruins of an ancient city that had been sunken beneath the waves and recently re-appeared. Nothing like a challenge…

Continue reading “Cassedega – Built on the Ruined Remains of Ankeshel”