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Hello all,
I started running Council of Thieves a couple weeks ago and I was really in need of a map with all the labels. I bought the map folio, the poster map is beautiful, but it was too big to just scan and slap some text on. So I looked around on the message boards and I found one map that showed the various districts, but it was on the original style map. So I went ahead and made my own. I think it's OK to post since it's fan made. If there is a problem let me know.
I like the map you put some work in to that
That is OUTSTANDING work! This is an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to run CoT.
Sean, terrific map! Did you use Campaign Cartographer to create it (w/ the City Designer add-on)?
Nope, It's drawn by hand and colored in Photoshop. Although I have done a couple symbol sets for Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer. &:)
This is really great. Thank you.
I'm getting ready to run this AP and was thinking to myself that a map with the district names would really help me.
It's.... it's... BEEYOUTEEFUL! I'm grateful *and* jealous.
Awesome!!! I wish my CoT were just starting instead of just ending.
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Hello all,
I started running Council of Thieves a couple weeks ago and I was really in need of a map with all the labels. I bought the map folio, the poster map is beautiful, but it was too big to just scan and slap some text on. So I looked around on the message boards and I found one map that showed the various districts, but it was on the original style map. So I went ahead and made my own. I think it's OK to post since it's fan made. If there is a problem let me know.
VERY nicely done. I have just started a CoT game and I will definitely use this as a resource.
An amazing map and wonderful resource. It even had a distance key, wonderful!
Thanks for posting your excellent work.
Looking at this and looking at some of the AP volumes and the like, I actually understand some of the locations better than I did when I was reading the AP and trying to figure them out. Thank you very much for this, my descriptions of Westcrown are likely to become more logical now.
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Looking at this and looking at some of the AP volumes and the like, I actually understand some of the locations better than I did when I was reading the AP and trying to figure them out. Thank you very much for this, my descriptions of Westcrown are likely to become more logical now.
That reminds me, I also meant to post this cheat sheet for the key so you can find where these locations came from throughout the AP.
- Crown Sector -
1. The Korradath (vol. 25, pg.55)
2. Vaneo Drovenge (vol. 25, pg.55)
3. Vira Oberigo (vol. 25, pg.55)
4. Sostarlannex (vol. 25, pg.55)
5. The Dorjanala (vol. 25, pg.55)
6. Vira Julistarc (vol. 25, pg.55)
7. Ghivel’s Townhouse (vol. 30, pg.45)
8. Corna Barracks (vol. 30, pg.39)
- Blade Sector -
9. Vira Grulios (vol. 25, pg.55)
10. Staviancara (vol. 25, pg.55)
11. Vira Salisfer (vol. 25, pg.55)
12. Trivardum (vol. 25, pg.55)
13. Vaneo Dioso (vol. 25, pg.55)
14. Skarx’s Guardhouse (vol. 30, pg.40)
15. Walcourt (vol. 29, pg.30)
- Treasure Sector -
16. Miratanza (vol. 25, pg.55)
17. Nightshade Theater (vol. 26, pg.20)
18. Slave Barge Dock (vol. 30, pg.42)
- Despair's Altar -
19. Cader Boneyard (vol. 30, pg.34)
20. Thelsing’s Tower (vol. 30, pg.35)
- Dead Sector -
21. Ramble Gardens (vol. 25, pg.57)
22. Sunset Gate (vol. 30, pg.32)
23. Verennie’s Lair (vol. 30, pg.37)
24. Old Temple of Erastil (vol. 25, pg.38)
25. The Dusk Market (vol. 25, pg.57)
26. The Devildrome (vol. 27, pg.13)
- Blood Sector -
27. Obrigan Gate (vol. 25, pg.57)
28. The Pleatra (vol. 25, pg.57)
29. Walcourt (vol. 25, pg.57)
30. Jacovo’s Stables (vol. 25, pg.32)
31. Bruised Eel Tavern (vol. 25, pg.27)
- Hope's Altar -
32. Pegasi Bridge (vol. 25, pg.55)
33. Canaroden (vol. 25, pg.58)
34. Visio’s Tavern (vol. 25, pg.12)
35. Limehouse Theater (vol. 26, pg.19)
- Scribe Sector -
36. Taranik House (vol. 26, pg.20)
- Coin Sector -
37. Rolan the Tinker (vol. 30, pg.30)
38. Delvehaven (vol. 27, pg.30)
- Priest Sector -
39. Sanqatada Cinqarda (vol. 25, pg.58)
40. Vaneo Arvanxi (vol. 25, pg.59)
41. Aroden’s Rise (vol. 25, pg.59)
42. Uralt’s Walk (vol. 25, pg.59)
43. The Arodennama (vol. 25, pg.59)
44. Qatada Nessudidia (vol. 25, pg.59)
45. The Imperial Marina (vol. 25, pg.59)
46. Old Shrine of Aroden (vol. 26, pg.23)
47. Vira Ciucci (vol. 30, pg.11)
48. The Gargling Gargoyle (vol. 30, pg.29)
Creative Director
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That's a pretty nifty map! I like it!
Now that said... a challenge to ALL city mappers out there.
Westcrown is a HUGE city. It's got a population of over 100,000. As a result, the city should be correspondingly larger than, say, a city that has about 17,000 people in it, like Korvosa.
One of my biggest problems with city maps once they get to be populations of 100,000 is that the "show every building" technique no longer makes much sense or even really works. That's why we went for a much less "satellite view" and much more "hand drawn old-tyme artistic" map of Westcrown in the adventure path.
Basically, think of it this way.
Look at the map of Korvosa from "Guide to Korvosa." It's a 4-panel poster, and it's got a LOT of buildings showing. If we accept that the map of Korvosa has the right amount of buildings to match up to a city with a population of 17,000, then a city with 110,000 people (which is closer to Westcrown) should probably be five times the size of the city of Korvosa, which means at the same scale where the buildings in a map of Westcrown are the same level of visibility as the map of Korvosa, that map would have to be five times as big. And suddenly, instead of a poster map that measures about 2 feet by 1.5 feet, you have a poster map that measures about 10 feet by 7.5 feet. Which is REALLY difficult to create.
This problem is particularly vexing to me. Especially when you consider that our largest city, Absalom, has over 300,00 people in it.
The solution I want to try next is to produce a map that simply LOOKS like it's more densely packed, so we can do a map of a city with hundreds of thousands of citizens at a scale that'll let us put it on a single page. At this scale, from a bird's eye view of MUCH higher, individual buildings will no longer be visible. And thus, maps should not show individual buildings at all, but perhaps individual neighborhoods. But if you fill those neighborhood blocks in with a color, they start looking like individual buildings again.
I guess what I'm looking for is a way to do a fantasy RPG style medieval city map that gets across by just looking at it that the map doesn't show individual buildings, but still LOOKS as pleasing to the eye and crammed with detail as, say, the OP's original map above. It's a pickle. I've not yet seen a published RPG map that satisfies this desire for me, but I hope to one day help produce one that does.
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The solution I want to try next is to produce a map that simply LOOKS like it's more densely packed, so we can do a map of a city with hundreds of thousands of citizens at a scale that'll let us put it on a single page.
James, for the single page approach, in my opinion the OP's map is the best thing one can get. So if Paizo would take the same approach as the OP on future maps, I'd be a happy camper.
For more details that can be zoomed in, you need sweet PDF action, and since Paizo is in the business of PDFs, the best thing you can get that way that I have seen is this:
http://www.candlekeep.com/downloads/ez_waterdeep.zip
Notice that this map is fully bookmarked... (i.e. mage section identifies all residences in use by mages; poison section has a bookmark for each poisonmaker's location, etc.)
It's bloody awesome.
The bookmark "About this map" gives you the creator's coordinates if you wish to contact him. :)
This map looks really neat, but as James said you still can't map a city like that realistically. Judging by the scale on the map about 12 buildings are shown in a 1 mile stretch. So each building pictured on the map is about 400 feet across.
Not that I mean to disparage the OP's work, it is awesome. Just saying that the illusion of accuracy isn't the same as actual accuracy. I'm fairly certain the only way to do this (or a city like Absalom) in a truly detailed map would be to divide the city into sections and do posters of each district.
Thank you very much for sharing your work, Mr. MacDonald.
I am in awe of your talents. Well Done, sir!
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As has been mentioned, James, why not do poster maps of sections of the city instead of trying to fit one extremely large city like that one page. The OP's map is simply awesome to say the least.
James but for your dilemma in which I truly agree, would be not as simple but to do a city map by panel instead of the entire city being shown in one entire page or poster if you will. Doing sections is the best bet. Even neighborhoods.
Thanks to the OP for this map.. I WILL be using it! :)
A classic tourist's map might be the solution to the density problem for large city maps. I recall many maps aimed at tourists containing little beyond the major thoroughfares, rivers, walls, neighborhood boundaries, numbers for sites of interest (with a key, of course), and drawings of the major landmarks within each neighborhood. Coupled with detailed maps of the area in use for each volume of the AP, it could suffice.
Fantastic catch with the double Walcourt.
Großartig! *great work of art*
Cudos
Truly awesome! I too wish I had this map at the beginning.
This map is absolutely fantastic! Well done, and thank you very much for posting your work!
Brilliant job! A must-have for anyone running this AP.
That's just freakin' awesome!
And not to do the whole "Great job, can you do this too" shtick but, assuming you slapped a layer with location numbers / names on it, would it be possible to talk you into putting up a map -without- those? I would really like to add this map to my gaming maps archive and have it be a bit more flexible in use than Council of Thieves locations dictate.
Again, thanks for the magnificent work!
Made it really big with photoshop and posted it on my living room's wall. Players love it, too.
Thanx again for sharing your work with us.
Nope, It's drawn by hand and colored in Photoshop.
Sean, terrific map! Did you use Campaign Cartographer to create it (w/ the City Designer add-on)?
That's incredible. Maybe you could become the next Paizo cartographer :)
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That's just freakin' awesome!
And not to do the whole "Great job, can you do this too" shtick but, assuming you slapped a layer with location numbers / names on it, would it be possible to talk you into putting up a map -without- those? I would really like to add this map to my gaming maps archive and have it be a bit more flexible in use than Council of Thieves locations dictate.
Again, thanks for the magnificent work!
Here is the map with no text.
http://www.kencyclopedia.com/maps/WestcrownNoText.jpg
That's incredible. Maybe you could become the next Paizo cartographer :)
I'm trying.... &:D
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I read through all the posts before looking at the map. I almost got desensitized to all the "Wow it's amazing!" posts.
Then I looked at the map.
It's astounding that thing is hand-drawn. Scharlata said they printed it and put it up on the wall. I'm going to do that too, but I don't have Photoshop. Here's what I'm planning on doing:
I'm going to use the Block Posters website (http://www.blockposters.com/) and upload the map and have it print out on multiple pieces of paper so I can put it up kind of like a collage.
BTW...this website works great for any kind of artwork you find digitally.
Thank you, Mr. Macdonald! I sincerely hope you get some scratch from Paizo for cartographic work.
...The solution I want to try next is to produce a map that simply LOOKS like it's more densely packed, so we can do a map of a city with hundreds of thousands of citizens at a scale that'll let us put it on a single page. At this scale, from a bird's eye view of MUCH higher, individual buildings will no longer be visible. And thus, maps should not show individual buildings at all, but perhaps individual neighborhoods. But if you fill those neighborhood blocks in with a color, they start looking like individual buildings again.
I guess what I'm looking for is a way to do a fantasy RPG style medieval city map that gets across by just looking at it that the map doesn't show individual buildings, but still LOOKS as pleasing to the eye and crammed with detail as, say, the OP's original map above. It's a pickle. I've not yet seen a published RPG map that satisfies this desire for me, but I hope to one day help produce one that does.
I had a few thoughts as I read James' post.
1. An Atlas of Rare City Maps is a beautiful book with some amazing examples of real cities of various populations. Using this book, you can find examples of some "too-many-buildings-to-show" maps that hint at city blocks with interior alleys and the like. I think someone at Paizo may already own a copy, as I'm fairly certain it was an issue of Dragon or Dungeon magazine where I first saw this book mentioned, and if so, it seems it had to have been during the Paizo era.
2. Using the maps in that book as an example, it should be possible to show the by-clocks scale for much of a city, then have spyglass-circles (I'm not sure what those are called) that point to larger off-map circles with blown-up sections of important districts or neighborhoods, to show individual buildings.
3. I'm not sure I agree that a city with 100,000 people has so many more individual buildings than one with 25,000. Most fantasy cities reflect the pre-industrial norms, where everyone in the city gets around mostly on foot (with wagons and carriages for deliveries and the wealthy, respectively). They also tend to include city walls. As the population of a city like that grows, you get more densely packed, taller buildings, culminating in something like the row-houses-and-shops that are still found in a city like Paris. Build enough 6-story walkups with shops at street level, and you can pack a lot of people into the space that was previously taken up by individual houses with yards. Paris is actually an extremely good example for this, as they don't allow any buildings taller than a certain limit (which comes out to about 6 stories) within the old city limits - all the larger modern buildings (as well as modern housing subdivisions and the like) are relegated to the suburbs, so to speak. And there's still plenty of room inside the walls for the grand old structures, gardens, parks, and so on. I haven't compared the scale on the Korvosa map to that of the real Paris map, to see how big they are and compare their listed populations - maybe I'll have to check that out this evening...
There may already be an assumption that Korvosa consists of these sorts of structures, but really, the Crimson Throne adventure path made it seem that most buildings were still only one or two stories. So, lots of room on a map that size for larger buildings and far more people to fit in.
fantastic!!! a great map! all locations! and the pages we can find in AP!
gods bless you sean.
Your work is amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing it with us.
SCM,
Great map. This map puts the AP one to shame (no insult intended Big P - personal opinion - perhaps there's a better one later in the AP modules...).
The added place markers are very helpful and the ability to increase the resolution for printing is a welcome bonus. Now it can be read.
Thank you for sharing it.
- Voo
P.S. - I hope Paizo hires you for map work. Freehand in Photoshop and this quality... Beats out the other maps.
P.S.S. - Did you take liberty and move the Pegasi Bridges and add a gate? Any other additions/changes?
SCM,
P.S. - I hope Paizo hires you for map work. Freehand in Photoshop and this quality... Beats out the other maps.P.S.S. - Did you take liberty and move the Pegasi Bridges and add a gate? Any other additions/changes?
Thanks very much for the compliments.
a) Yes, Paizo has hired me to do some cartography work. For which I am very grateful and excited.
b) I got the locations of the bridges from the huge poster-sized illustrated map. So apparently they we're relocated from the illustrated one in the cover of the adventure to this new location in the poster map.
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Here is the map with no text.
http://www.kencyclopedia.com/maps/WestcrownNoText.jpg
Heya Sean, great work.
I would like to use this map for my council of thieves campaign to let the players get a idea of where things are in the city.
The downside is that the map with text has several give-aways to the players (ie tells them where the bad guy lairs are).
Is it possible to get the photoshop psd file for this map. This would allow me to change the following:
- Change the city name. I placed the campaign in Forgotten Realms, so the city name changed to Telflamm.
- Move building locations. I removed the first mention of Walcourt, since I believe it was meant to be in the second location. I moved Miratanza to the west of Blade Sector since the description seems to suggest it is outside the walls.
- Provide a map to players with only the locations detailed that they have heard of.
- Add new locations created for side-quests.
Thanks in advance for any help. I really, really appreciate all the help.
beautiful! Perfect!!
The link now returns a 404. Has the file been removed or relocated?
Oh no! I grabbed a copy and I'm sure others did too. Is it kosher of us to post it if Sean doesn't put it back up?
Oh no! I grabbed a copy and I'm sure others did too. Is it kosher of us to post it if Sean doesn't put it back up?
I would love a copy, Treppa, if you're e-mailing it out (in case it doesn't get reposted). I'm Dale (at) tbug.net.
