For Starters: The Map

The first time I made a map for my D&D homebrew setting, the result was . . . functional, but not very attractive. And by "not very attractive," I mean that I cringe when I see that thing now. It doesn't look like a fantasy map. It looks like a square with some colors and words on it. Witness the ugliness here: 

My first homebrew map.

Obviously, I'm not very proud of this thing. But it was very important to me to have a map. I needed to have a place that I could visualize, somewhere for the adventures I was trying to create to be able to take place. I think most every game master relishes the opportunity to develop a map, and I'm not an expert at either the design or the geography, so I'm not in much of a position to give advice about it. That said, I want to talk about something important I've learned about maps.

First, let me share another map. This one was created for the campaign I ran on the radio. Like the continent map above, it is lacking in visual appeal. I needed this one for a different purpose, one which gets me closer to my important lesson about maps. For this map, I took a simple map of the city in which the campaign was set and divided it up into districts. Here is the map for the port city of Torga:

Torga, broken up into its ten districts, plus nearby ruins.

Because this campaign was run on the radio, the visuals were not so important (which is fortunate, because I probably couldn't have managed it if I'd had to). However, it made clear to the players looking at it that Torga was not just a city to explore. It was ten distinct places which together made up the city. Within each district, they found shops and people and sometimes murderous ghosts and once, a blind barkeep who thought all animals were goats. And I have to say, I was absolutely pleased when the players could fluently communicate about each of the districts. They had come to know the city by its component parts, its individual flavors. That made the city seem larger and richer. 

One important detail about that campaign: the player characters were all members of a criminal outfit which largely focused on nonviolent crime. The slang-like names of the city's districts helped to color their language with the sort of vernacular we're used to in crime movies and shows. Details about the districts added to that feeling—the district known as "The Field" was so named because it was a largely flat area, but also because it was the most wealthy part of town. Thus, to the thieves in their gang, "The Field" was also where they did most of their work. (You work in your field, was what I was going for.) This sort of characterization of the city helped cement the criminal status of the players. 

The districts accomplished another goal: the city's population was extremely fragmented. I tend to include political struggles in my campaigns, and Torga was no exception. Keeping the city broken up in terms of districts and people kept the feeling that Torga was a house divided. Torga also had an extremely strict police force, which served to make the players feel persecuted and oppress much of the city's poor population. The players' statuses as criminals in a city which seemed oppressive added to the feeling that they were righteous in their rebellion. (That sense of being right even as they committed crimes regularly opened the door for lots of fun philosophical issues throughout the campaign.)

Finally, the ruins scattered around Torga achieved something else important. Three of the ruins around the city had been abandoned generations before to form one larger city which the earlier inhabitants had hoped would become more prosperous. But the abandoned towns hadn't fallen apart right away, leaving mostly intact towns around Torga. In the case of one of those towns, Trass, the ghosts of hundreds of orcs killed in their beds for refusing to join the conglomerated city kept living in the ruins, which weren't ruined at all. (This allowed for some great horror scenes, as the player characters explored a town which was perfectly intact and haunted by tortured souls.) But the important thing that the players learned from these ruins which were always visible on the horizon was that even Torga's past was fragmented. Hell, Torga's warring political factions named themselves after the abandoned towns around them out of loyalty to their ancestors' values—and the map, showing one city split up and surrounded by ruins, reinforced all of this. 

Now I'm going to show a map which tries to do something very different. I spent a lot of time preparing a campaign which was going to be a Western-horror story built into my D&D world. Brief background so that the Western-horror thing makes any sense in a D&D-world: I developed an island dominated by a desert which was somewhat rich in precious metals. This meant that the inhabitants of the island had to live without much agriculture and predominantly on herd animals and mining. Quickdraw archers became the stand-in for gunslingers. And the horror component arose as the campaign's archenemy altered reality in disturbing ways and sent waves of undead against the island's settlements. Unfortunately, we only managed about three sessions before the group disbanded. But I still had spent many long hours working on the details of the island, its inhabitants, and especially its map. 

The map of my Western-horror setting, drawn by an NPC in the story.

When I made this map, I put far more effort into visual appeal. I wanted my players to see the map and be genuinely excited that they would get to explore it. The things I discussed above about characterizing the campaign through the map are active here too—I tried to name each town in a way that sounded both Western and fantasy. As a result, the towns have names like Hangman's Slab, Hart Springs, Red Hawk, Ruby Range, and Sunset Ridge. 

There are a couple features on this map, though, that do more than characterize the place. As you can see, the top of the map is labelled "Our Island of Ramsey." I had this map printed and gave it to my players while in-character as an NPC who had called the island home his whole life. The NPC who created the map had been a ranger for most of his adult life, riding the island to fight back against outlaws and marauders; this gave him the opportunity to create his own map of the island during his travels. Like this NPC, the player characters were lifelong residents of the island. With a large title calling the island "our island," I tried to give the player characters (and the players themselves, for that matter) some ownership of the place. That was especially important given the archenemy's goals, which targeted the entire island. Similarly, in the lower left corner of the map is written, "To my friends, with the best of luck." This is a minor detail, but it reminded the players every time they referenced the map that back home in their little town of Hart Springs was a community that supported them and needed their help. 

One last note about the Ramsey map: while I had always developed my cities in detail before getting down to mapping, I decided with Ramsey to try something new. Instead, I developed only the small town the player characters began in, then mapped the whole island, and finally finished by figuring out what those other towns were like. This gave me as the DM a few benefits which I want to share here.

• Creating the town's profile—who lives there, how many people live there, what industries the town relies on, what the government looks like—after building the map allowed me to factor the geography and location of the town into what the town is actually like. Fort Weaver, for instance, is nestled into the mountain range so that only one side of it is open to easy attack. From that point, I was able to decide that the city cared deeply about defense, even to the point of paranoia. Fort Weaver became a sort of police state fueled by constant fear. Hangman's Slab, on the other hand, ended up characterized by its access to geographical assets. Its close neighbor, Hyder Bend, lies at the meeting point of the ocean and Ramsey's only significant river. Hyder Bend is also one of the two ports which face the larger continent to the west. But Hangman's Slab lacks the ease of shipping associated with a river, and it has nothing to attract sailors from the west. It became a penal colony over time, using its relative geographical isolation to keep prisoners from the rest of the island. Using these kinds of details about location can make it far easier to develop interesting details about cities.
• I'm pretty terrible at coming up with interesting architecture. To me, buildings are mostly just buildings, and I envy those game masters who throw impressive, unique structures into their campaigns. To address this deficiency, I look for interesting building designs in fantasy art. The internet is chock full of amazing artwork in fantasy realms. I avoid outright stealing others' ideas by trying to combine several inspiration pieces or coming up with my own additions to what I find. To bring this back to the map discussion, take a look at some of the drawings of what the cities on the map look like. Each settlement has a distinct look, whether in terms of building shape, layout, or what kind of defenses the city has, if any. As noted in the bullet point above, I developed the city's profile after creating the map. So I chose those images for the towns and then challenged myself to explain why each settlement used the kind of buildings they did. Hyder Bend, for instance, features tall towers. I decided that Hyder Bend was a powerhouse in the stone and masonry industries, which allowed the city's inhabitants to create massive stone towers cheaply. I also decided that the city had only a small stretch of land which was stable enough to serve as foundation for buildings, making it even more important to make the most of the limited building space. As a result of these details, Hyder Bend became a tight, bustling, city more like New York City than the settlements around it, which resembled ranches. And despite my lack of architectural talent, I had a handful of cities with distinctive building styles by working backwards from inspiration. 
• I won't necessarily say that I think my Ramsey map is pretty, but I'm certainly more proud of it than I am of my earlier maps. I spent at least twenty or so hours in Photoshop working on just that one big map, and I was proud enough of the outcome at the time that I printed an extra copy of it to hang up or frame. (I'm very pleased to say that the map I'm working on for my current campaign—the one this blog revolves around—is far better than Ramsey in every way. Look for details on that map in an upcoming post.) I think that what excited me so much about my Ramsey map was that it did something none of my previous maps did. It conveyed a tone visually. The continent map above—the first one—gave enough of a place to work with so I could build my world. The Torga map with all of its fragmented districts conveyed a tone which was important to the campaign. But the Ramsey map took tone one step further. It looked like a map someone living there would make. It looked like it had lots going on at the same time (this has always been important to me as a DM; even if your campaign revolves around your players, the world does not). And most importantly to me, it looked like it was a place ripe for adventuring. I think a map should answer questions, but ask a few too. And the Ramsey map told you most of what was out there and where it all was, but it didn't tell you some of the things you wanted to know. What happened to Old Paradise, and why did they need a New Paradise? Who would want to live in the Boneyard Marsh? And what is the deal with Red Hawk, nestled into that dark forest? The tone I wanted with Ramsey was that there were lots of stories and adventures waiting out there, and the visuals of the map suggested as much.

The mantra for today: maps create tone. Be careful to create the tone you want. 

I'll be posting some images from my nearly-finished map for my current campaign soon, along with some how-to advice that's been helpful to me. Other upcoming news will include a basic rundown of the campaign setting and a look at the three custom classes I've created with my players for the campaign. 

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