#drawing maps

Ahhh kandarin, one of the largest, content rich areas of Runescape.

It is also a massive relic of Runescape 2003 design. Much of the layout hasn't been touched since RSC and to be fair I'm fine leaving most of it alone, hell in runescape 3 it looks basically the same aside from the addition of the player owned farm.

But there are some areas that are so wonky or unrepresentative of lore significance that I'd really like to see them touched up or redone completely. Today I've whipped up my own sketches for what they could look like with a bit of quick photoshopping.

Port Khazard, the diplomatic haven of the Mahjarrat General Khazard. It's sort of hard to tell what the town even is here. It's sort of just the fight arena hanging out in the middle of nowhere with the port stuck next to it. It's also incredibly close to the last gnome settlement of central Kandarin, which they are constantly embattled with. Luckily for everyone involved khazard's troops choose to fight them at the designated BATTLEFIELD north of the village as opposed to say, throwing bombs directly over the hedge maze next to their tavern. The gnome maze even has an exit directly next to this tavern, perhaps they keep this for strategic access to booze.

Aside from the positioning the Khazard town has no sense of thoroughfare, there's no paving or "town center" that isn't a gated off Colosseum. Heck the Port, theoretically where most activity and services would be centered, doesn't really have direct access to the town, it's sort of inconvenient to walk around the whole fight arena to access the town's only two general stores.

My suggestion here is to turn the whole town into more of a "Port Town" It's still a pretty cluttered design but I think it has a natural sense of being more navigable than just a bit rectangle with buildings placed around it. Most of the buildings are moved to center around a main road with direct access to the port (which I also repaved) and i've rotated the fight arena so the prison cells are a bit more out of the way. I also added a little town square in the north, where I imagine a big statue of Khazard stands. (this is also where the tavern would now be but i forgot to put the beer icon)

The town also puts a bit more respectful distance between it and the gnome village, however a well fortified barracks still remains for tactically observing their defensive neighbors. The main entrance to the port has also added a bit of battle scars.

You may also notice the awkwardly placed NMZ is missing, I'll get to that next!

The Temple of Ikov, Sorceror's Tower, Ranging Guild, Legend's Guild forest. There was plenty of land up for grabs here so it seems like everyone just set up shop wherever they could. For anyone who's done the temple of ikov quest you also know one of the most powerful artifacts in all of runescape and the last sect of Armadyl Knights is just below that dungeon marker.

This is sort of the opposite treatment this time, I wanted this area to seem LESS lived in, so that such a big amazing secret made more sense to keep here. Instead of a random rectangle, the temple of Ikov is now in the ruins of a large tower, with several rows of ruins emanating out from it. The sorcerer has moved into an opposite tower near the temple, perhaps another ruined tower emanating with energy. Our sorcerer friend has also taken up another responsibility, now housing the nightmare zone within their tower somehow.... idk it just fit I guess. I don't really like NMZ honestly I sorta wish it'd just get removed so i was willing to stick it anywhere.

Photo: Getty Images

Despite strong advocacy, congressional and legislative redistricting continue to leave minorities unrepresented. Litigation is expected before the 2022 primaries.

[This post is direct translation from this post I wrote on my main blog @hojasdeoctubre. If you are interested in writeblr and can understand spanish you can go check it out if you want. Also, thanks to @cawolters for showing the original post some love and requesting this translation]

I know there are some softwares and web pages out there that can draw fantasy maps, but I’m an analogic person and pen and paper are easier for me, so I’m gonna show you guys how I make my maps. We’re going to make this map of a city I called Odenwood (name of a city from a fanfic I wrote when I was 13 featuring a mercenary and a noble girl who was the biggest Mary Sue that ever lived and whose name was slightly similar to mine, but she was defenitely not me).

Warning: This post is reeeaaallyy long. Maybe you think that I’m overexplaining. I’d rather go slow and make myself clear.

1. Materials

2 sheets of paper

Pencil

Rubber

Black sharpie

Black pen

2. Land

Well, I like cliffs and coast towns, so that’s what I’ll draw. If you guys prefer mountains and rivers that’s fine too.

We start by drawing the land:

I first used a pencil and, when I was happy with it, I used the black pen. Don’t go thinking that I can draw perfectly on the first try.

3. Main points

Now is when we use the second sheet of paper. We place it on top of the first one so we can see through. We don’t need to redraw the land on the second sheet of paper but we have to see the beach, the cliff...

And now we place the main infraestructure of our city. I have placed a merchant harbour on the East because in my imagination the world expands on that side and merchant vesels will come from there. However, I’ve placed a fishing harbour down in the Suth because the waters are calmer there and the fishing is better.

The castle will always be in the most hard to access part of the city cause that’s the most protected. The cliff is the perfect place for that.

4. Paths

Now we start tracing the paths between our three main points and another path that comes from the mainland. People in the castle will need fish, goods and travel to the rest of the continent.

Long paths wil have curves as people always take the way of least resistance. Steeps, rocks and stuff like that will make them have to go around and create curves.

Then we draw shortcuts. People walking down the upper road (from now on we’ll call it the King’s Road, which is what people from the city will call it if the one living in the castle is a king) will want to get to the fishing harbour (Fish Street) and the merchant harbour (Merchant Street) [Note: As you can see, naming streets is a no-brainer]. They are not going to get to the castle every time they want to get there. That’s why we draw secondary paths (purple).

Then we draw paths that lead to other zones, like forests (that we still don’t have) and farming (blue).

And last, shortcuts between those cause humans are just lazy (green).

And now we have a web of streets and paths that will allow us to work.

Other common names for streets are: (this are common names for streets in Spain)

Main Street

New Street

North/South/East/West Street

Great Street

Sun Street (streets called Sun are usually the ones that go from East to West, for obvious reasons)

Church Street

School Street

(Name of the job: Smith / Librarian / Tanner...) Street

High / Low Street

We are not exactly original when it comes to naming streets.

Now we mark spots where several streets meet. Those are going to be plazas and rotundas:

5. Start Drawing

We go back to the first piece of paper and draw our castle and harbours:

(you can see the web of paths underneath)

6. Walls and neighbourhoods

Having the piece of paper with the streets underneath is going to be useful now because we are going to draw the walls of the city. We need to see where the paths are so we can place the gates:

Once we have the limits of the city, we can start drawing blocks (neighbourhoods) respecting the streets and leaving blank spaces for the plazas.

If you see, the gate of King’s Road is bigger. That will be the main gate, used by dignataries coming from the continent. We’ll call it King’s Gate, although probably the citizens will call it “the big / great gate” when they are not being formal.

The other gates will have names too: West Gate, South Gate, Merchant’s Gate and Coast Gate. I guess...

7. Small streets

Now that have our neighbourhoods (they will probalby be organized by jobs, although most services like inns, bars and shops will be near King’s Road), we break them into smaller blocks:

And after that, when we see blocks that are still too big, we can draw patios and yards, or small alleys:

(ignore those roofs that are already drawn. I got carried away and forgot to take a picture).

We could leave it like that, if you like the white aesthetic. I wanted to show you how it looks with all the roofs done so I’ve drawn the direction of the waters. I’ve also added monuments in the plazas.

8. Growth

Our city is finished. We coul leave it like that. However, if our city is ancient and thriving, and the peace has lasted long enough, it’s possible that more people have wanted to move to it. The problem was that the city was alreaady full or living inside the walls was too expensive. In those cases, it is possible the new neighbourhoods start to form. You don’t need the protection of the walls during peace times.

These new neighbourhoods wil start around the gates and will expand along the path. Only after a really long time will they start to expand far from the main paths.

We draw those new neighbourhoods and a forest and it’s done. Here you have the beautiful city of Odenwood.

This is my first summer of running games entirely online (no papers, no nothin’) and it can be hard to adapt a tabletop game into media without making new accounts or spending money or dealing with nightmare technology. ESPECIALLY if you tend to homebrew monsters, worlds, religions, classes etc. like I do. Here’s some tips that have worked for me and cost $0

BATTLES 

So you can run a battle without a map. I know, horrifying right? I’ll elaborate in a different post.

Failing that, I use google sheets because you can have multiple people editing the same thing, you can stretch the grids, and it tends to be fairly universally taught and google has considerably better support than most game sites.  MAPS OF PLACES

Here’s how I do it. This is from Kylion-6, and it’s a map of a mine that they explored several weeks ago.

Starting image:

I’ve greyed out everything except their immediate tunnels, and keyed them according to how they appear structurally

Progressive other images:

As they go deeper, rooms and other tunnels become exposed. I do this by having two layers on my drawing software (also downloadable for free on app store), one with my map the other with the grey paint. 

I can also do this with rooms:

Here I’ve indicated height of the room (top right) and drawn up the features. 

In Discord I just pop the images in, and everyone can see them. It’s very convenient. 

Lessons of Italian Geography [nr.1]: the 20 Italian Regions

Aosta Valley (IT: Valle d’Aosta);

Piedmont (IT: Piemonte);

Lombardy (IT: Lombardia);

Trentino Alto Adige;

Veneto;

Friuli Venezia Giulia;

Liguria;

Emilia Romagna;

Tuscany (IT: Toscana)

Umbria;

Marche;

Lazio;

Abruzzo;

Molise;

Campania;

Apulia (IT: Puglia);

Basilicata;

Calabria;

Sicily (IT: Sicilia);

Sardinia (IT: Sardegna).

-Digital simulators that just make the damn thing for you. I’ve never done this because I usually just need like a map of a single region but like the idea? Great. 9/10

-Digital art. I usually do this. Real good. Can have layers. Smooth and shiny. Good content. 9.5/10

-Physical maps on nice paper in ink. Good, no erasing. very scary and permanent. Did I remember the river? oh fuck its over the town now cuz it was already drawn and you can’t erase pen haha screw you. Unforgiving medium. 7/10

-Pencil map. Weak visual impact, useful for emergencies. Can be erased, but can also become messy. Over all completely meh, but at least its erasable. 6.5/10

-Trackpad maps. Hell on wheels. Can I erase? Yeah. Can I draw a straight line? No. 3/10

-Mouse maps. Less squiggly than trackpad but still real trackbad. 4/10

For my sapphic fantasy adventure novel, Tavern Tale, I drew some maps. The story is set in cozy autumn and inspired by RPG side quests. So here’s the “area map” I drew

My original drawing got such a glow-up from the map makers over at my publisher, Space Wizard. Look!

Welcome to Trelvania!

(Specifically the province of Iramont where the story Tavern Tale takes place)

Are you ready to go on an adventure? It's cozy with high stakes, set in autumn, and inspired by RPGs. Side quest vibes!

Divine, a 25-year-old healer of the Goddess of Souls is chasing her talisman, the key to accessing her magic well. She's chased the thief who stole it across half of Trelvania; the betrayer a servant of the Goddess of Condemnation. In the city of Iramont, Divine meets Saph. The flirty tavern owner and axe wielder with an eyepatch has a proposition: Saph will help Divine locate her talisman if Divine helps her complete a mysterious quest in a chest.

Out Jan 2025