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Continuing on from the last post about dungeon creation, this time the map is getting a bit of a flesh-out. Now everything looks much more professional. The fiend-worshiping Uvahtun are camped out in the middle of quicksand lake, accessible by a winding solid path hidden to the naked eye.
This mini dungeon can be dropped into any desert themed campaign as a side-crawl. If your party is playing in Empai Tirkosu, the party might encounter this anywhere on the eastern side of the island, pulled from the plane of Dust thanks to planefall. The encounters are balanced for a level 1 party of 4, but can easily be adjusted to accommodate different party compositions.
Creating the map
The map creation is simple enough, and all done using free software. The first rough sketch (very rough sketch) was squiggled out on a whiteboard, as seen below.
Next was the proper line art. Professional artists would use hardware like a Wacom or a Sai, but because I’m a skint dev with no artistic aptitude, I use Sketchbook eXpress on a tablet.
Then comes the colouring. As before, the correct way to do this would be to boot up Photoshop or some other high-end graphic manipulation program, but I just use GIMP. Plain colours make the map looks somewhat presentable, but it can look better.
And that’s where shading comes in. Now things begin to look 3D, and there’s some nice lighting to add to that feeling of murkiness.
This looks much more proper. But wait, there’s more! Using a texture overlay can really make your maps come to life; even if the texture is vastly different to the area it’s covering. For example, on the Rahm Oru map I used a seamless carpet texture for the grass overlay.
Some markers, the spellpunk Tirkosu border, and a grid, and the final result is the map you see at the top of the page.
I really enojyed making this: it might become a regular thing if people are interested. If so, let me know in the comments! Any ideas for the next map are also welcomed.
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