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Garden Shrine Village Ruin map
Busy week, I only just finished this map. This is the first rest stop for the adventurers after having left Tsue-jo on their return trip, of course their curse is starting to affect them now. This will be the site of a 3 part haunting and a place for some treasure. The merchant and his rescued daughter will be sleeping in the Old Mill, one of the few standing structures in this village. The adventurers will most likely stay in the Garden Shrine to the west side of the village, just south of the Animal Guardian Cemetary.
Hand-draw, digitally scanned, imported to Xara, then bevels, colors, shadow and labels applied...
Link to larger version: Garden Shrine
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Re: Garden Shrine Village Ruin map
You know GP, while I don't play vid games (too many other irons in the fire) and don't do anything resembling your work, this thread has been a fascination to read through from time to time to see your work. thank you for making these posts.
Take care, Mike
Re: Garden Shrine Village Ruin map
I don't play video games either. My publication, maps and illustrations are for D&D type games. Five people sitting at a kitchen table with books, character sheets, and dice to handle the probabilities of success or failure in any endeavor, one guy being the referee or game master, the rest are players - part of the storyline. Its a story telling game. While there are ways to play D&D online, the emphasis really is to play live games in front of live people - no electronics necessary at all. Incidentally, I use D&D in this explanation as it is the oldest and most well known brand of that game. However I am designing for Pathfinder, kind of an offshoot to D&D, but very much the same thing.
The publishers of Pathfinder are condusive to third party publishers, whereas D&D is not.
I know in this day in age, video games or MMO's are the first thought in RPG games, but really those aren't RPG games at all. Only live play games with pencil and dice are roleplaying games - I've been playing such games for 30 years. And its for that kind of game that my maps, illustrations and concepts are being designed for.
GP
PS: I enjoy sharing my work, and glad you find it inspiring - I really enjoy doing it.
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One Page Dungeon Contest 2011 entry
This will be third year I participated in the One Page Dungeon Contest, last year, I almost won, except one of the criteria for entries required a detailed legend-key that indicated monsters and treasures present in the room. I didn't list the monsters on the legend and it bumped me out of contention - I won't make that mistake this year.
The contest is sponsored by various RPG bloggers in the US and Europe with many prizes and actually many categories for a 'dungeon' (but it doesn't have to be a dungeon) the entire map must fit on a single A4 or letter size as a PDF.
I'm no where beyond just started on this map, but I thought I'd post as I make various object for it, so you can see it in the WIP (work-in-progress) stages.
All I've created is the primary piece the entire map is built around and that is a grand pipe organ, the instrument of Bardic Lich (arcane undead being) called the Maestro of Cacophony. I will post more to the thread as other objects get created. Note I am very busy with my publication and commissions, so I may not get done with this quickly...
I used Nendo to model the pipes in 3D rendered in Raydream, traced outlines but used the 3D rendered image for the color behind the linework, and applied to my hand-drawn and beveled shape composite of the organ created in Xara Xtreme Pro 4.
The pipe organ map object below:
Attachment 80207
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Re: One Page Dungeon Contest 2011 entry
Accompanying the Bardic Lich and his Grand Pipe Organ is the Dead Orchestra, here's some more map objects for this darkly humorous map design...
Instead of JPG files, these are all PNG files with Alpha Channels (transparency):
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Re: One Page Dungeon Contest 2011 entry
I guess I'm sort of doing this as a working tutorial. One more map object drawing of a weird dead musician, then the floorplan (so far) with just wall line art. I have yet to conceive the floor itself, though probably hand-drawn stone tiles with patterns in the orchestra hall chamber. Once I finish and place the floor, then I'll start to populate it with the various map objects. I still need to create several more dead musicians, some dead audience and lots of furniture - so lots to do still.
Oh, the empty space below the hallway (center bottom) will be stairs down - haven't done that yet. The empty space in the bottom right corner is where the legend-key is going, one of the criteria for the contest.
Added below: the dead percussionist, and the floorplan walls and elevated floorplan.
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Endless Terrain Battlemaps
I have a map product that I 'invented' 4 years ago that is still the most popular product I sell, called Endless Terrain Battlemaps that are completely created in Xara Xtreme Pro 4 using photo textures of terrain and photorealistic map objects. It consists of 4 double side printed 11 x 17 inch maps tiles at 1 inch = 5 foot square grid or hex grid. The map tiles have heavy lamination.
Recently I started up a new website called Free RPG Maps, where I offer 2 free map downloads each month using the current month's available Endless Terrain Battlemap set. I intend to create a different set with varying terrains on a month to month basis. The product is sold as a monthly subscription for either a printed map tiles set or a digital only JPG bundle of 8 maps for use in Virtual Terrain applications (an online tool to play RPGs sharing maps and other content with online players.)
The 2 free maps will be available at each half of the month and are posted on my new Free RPG Maps Community Forum as free download links. So I get to play forum admin now.
Anyway design wise, Endless Terrain Battlemaps feature geomorphic edges on all four sides of each map face. The idea is each map tile has a unique terrain layout, however because the edge graphics lineup perfectly with another tile (half trees on both tiles) layout four tiles in a rectangle, you have literally hundreds of combinations using 180 degree turnings of the map, flip them over, and rearrange their layout. Its what makes them endless, and having ongoing value to gamers without working with one paid-for map of a forest. Once you use it in game for a second time, those maps lose their 'new car smell' - with mine having endless layouts they provide more bang for the buck.
Anyway, I thought I'd post a thumb of my first free map offering, so you can see the style of the map (not my hand-drawn style.)
Just one of my many ongoing projects.
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GP
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Re: Fantasy maps created using Xara Xtreme
Just added 10 free map objects as bonus downloads from the website, with plans of doing 10 at least each month.
Here's a thumb of all 10 objects...
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Re: Fantasy maps created using Xara Xtreme
It seem the campfire object is the most popular, so I thought I'd post it directly here:
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