Zap Dynamic, our resident expert in theoretical cartography, has been hard at work over the past few months creating custom maps for a number of fantasy worlds. It’s been Zap’s pleasure to bring cities, valleys, countries, even entire continents to life since we opened up shop this past autumn. You can learn more over at Zap’s Atlas, but today we’ve got something special in store: our very first encounter map!
A Wooded Road
Wooden wheels creak along a rutted forest road. The pines on either side stand in terrible silence as a ravine looms up ahead. No matter, it’s not like these wagons’ll make it to the village by any other route. All the same, best to keep a hand near your blade…
Zap’s Atlas: Forest Ravine depicts a road at the bottom of a steep-walled gorge, surrounded by large boulders and thick evergreen trees. The perfect spot for an ambush. It makes an excellent aid for theatre of the mind gameplay in any fantasy setting, especially The Seven Quillcrows, the free one sheet we released last week. Separate layers allow you to remove the wagons from the map if you prefer an empty ravine. These layers can also toggle a grayscale version of the map for easier printing.
It’s Pay What You Can over at DriveThru RPG, so go pick up your copy today!
Design Notes
As a GM, I usually run theatre of the mind games. I like worldbuilding with words, but I know visual aids can be helpful too. Even if they’re not big enough for use with miniatures, I try to have encounter maps on hand for players. Being able to actually see your environment makes it a lot easier to imagine your character’s predicament. I think that makes for more creative actions during these encounters.
Games at my table run on a pretty tight budget (as is case for many of you, I’m sure). I have some thematic card decks and bennies for Savage Worlds, but I can’t hit the print shop before every session. Any maps, character sheets, or other aids I need usually get printed from the library. Zap’s Atlas provides maps with that kind of gamer in mind. This is a 300dpi .pdf sized for print on US Letter paper. In addition to removable wagons, the file contains a color version of the image and grayscale version I adjusted for easier printing.
If you use this map in your game, we’d love to hear about how it went!