2016

5 December 2016

Narwan Topographic Map (Patreon)

Calidar, Narwan, Patreon, topographical maps 3

Today I am proud to present to you the first map from my Patreon campaign: The Emirates of Narwan Topographic Map.

Before I continue, I’d like to acknowledge the generous support of my patrons for November 2016:

Jesper Andersen, Azure Admiral, Trenton Bergeron, David Chart, Francesco Defferrari, Bruce Heard, Grégory Le Louette, Wendy Lord, Harri Mäki, Gordon McCormick, Sverre Midthjell, Thomas Pizard, Friedrich Röhrer-Ertl, Kurt Stoffer, and Sandra Tait.

It’s thanks to these fifteen wonderful people that I can publish this map here.

Special thanks also go to Bruce Heard, who pulled out all the stops to further develop Narwan and make this a map to remember.

I’d also like to thank all those who have helped spread the word about my Patreon, as well as those of you who have pledged since. Every backer is one step further along the road for me, and I’m very excited to see where that road goes.

But first, let me explain this first map. It’s a two page spread of the Emirates of Narwan, designed to be ready to print in a book, which means the map is about 16.5 x 11 inches, plus bleed (an extra 1/8 inch). The middle section of the map has been carefully placed so that details of the map don’t fall into the binding of the book.

For now, of course, this is a file in your computer. The version I am publishing here is 150 DPI, or half the full resolution. I am releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, with the permission of the copyright holder, Bruce Heard. This means that you are welcome to share the map online, introduce it on your blog, and so on, as long as you attribute the copyright, and I hope the cartographer too! At the same time, it is an official Calidar map, so please don’t use it to make other maps, and of course you can’t sell it or use it for any commercial purposes.

Now, with that out of the way… As well as endorsing and indeed backing my Patreon campaign, Bruce has contributed new details for this map, developing Narwan’s geography into a far more fleshed-out form. Compared with the Great Caldera map in CAL1, you can now see villages, mines, and lighthouses; trails have been revised and expanded to crisscross the realm, and shipping lanes are in place; the major rivers have all been named and labelled; and there’s even a new symbol for pearls in the southeastern corner.

It’s a more complete picture of Narwan than we’ve ever seen before.

In addition to this, I have continued to refine my topographic style, as previously seen in the Great Caldera and Meryath maps in CAL1, as well as Osriel, Ellyrion and indeed Narwan maps in CC1. I hope you’ll agree it’s getting better and better — again, this is largely thanks to my Patreon community, who have been great at providing feedback over the last week.

So what do you think?

If you have any comments or suggestions, please fire away.

This is only the first in what is to be a regular feature. If you’d like to support these Calidar maps, please head over to my Patreon and check it out. If you’d like higher resolution versions, you should know that becoming a patron will unlock access to these, too.

Here’s to many more maps!

25 November 2016

Support my Cartography at Patreon

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Today I have launched a Patreon campaign. If you would like to support my mapping activities, please check it out, and consider becoming a patron.

Here’s a short excerpt:

This Patreon is about helping me to make more maps for you and others to enjoy, and use in RPGs. During the day I work as a high school teacher in Japan. So all of my mapping is done in what little spare time I can find. I also have two (soon to be three) small children, so my time is quite limited.

That’s where I need your help. With a little funding, I could afford to spend more time on mapping. I could also invest in more software to assist with my efforts.

In short, I could make more maps.

I want to produce more Calidar maps. In fact, I want to map the whole world, continent by continent.

You can find it here.

I hope this will open up new possibilities for my cartography, but I can’t do it without you. Whether you decide to pledge or not, thank you for your continued support! Please help by spreading word of this campaign.

23 November 2016

Beyond the Skies: An Insider’s Review

Calidar, review, thematic maps 2

Back in August 2014, when Bruce Heard’s first Calidar book, In Stranger Skies, was released, I wrote a review from my insider’s perspective. Please indulge me once again, as I’d like to do the same for the new book, Beyond the Skies.

Even in its early stages, it quickly became clear that Beyond the Skies would be a much larger beast than its predecessor. Bruce started working on it soon after In Stranger Skies was finished, and it went through various drafts before it became the 248 page book it is today.

The heart of the book is its chapters describing Calidar’s gods, split into pantheons based on each nation. There are more than 90 gods detailed in all, which is really quite mind-boggling. The write-up for each god follows a pattern, with a profile giving details of personality traits, dates of origin, places worshipped, etc. This is followed by “mythology”, which usually presents the god in terms of a story its followers often tell, or sometimes just a narrative introduction. Finally there is a description, detailing the god’s appearance, motives, secrets, and relations with other gods.

Thor by Joe Garcia — Thor, by Joe Garcia

Without exception, the write-ups are very well thought out, carefully constructed, and a pleasure to read. This is thanks to Bruce’s diligent writing process, with many gods seeing multiple (often extensive) rewrites and revisions over the course of the project. Within each pantheon the gods are all connected, and one of the delights of the book is discovering the connections between the different pantheons.

While the god profiles are undoubtedly the core of the book, in fact these chapters also present a wealth of other background material on each nation — so much so that CC1 Beyond the Skies is just as much a core setting book as CAL1 In Stranger Skies.

Specifically, each nation receives a historical timeline revealing its early history from the point of view of the gods and their faithful. Some of these are even more detailed, such as Belledor’s, which includes the story of the fellfolk migrations from throughout the Great Caldera.

Ghedrun Evercraft's Symbol — One of more than 90 divine symbols

There’s also a temple floor plan, a map showing the geographic distribution of different faiths, and a diagram showing the relationships between the gods in each chapter.

Did I mention that each and every single god has its own divine symbol?

The remainder of the book details demons and divine followers, secret societies of the gods, mortal religious organisations, and even benefits and divine favours granted to faithful followers. Not to mention articles providing a closer look at essential Calidar topics such as the netherworld, seitha, and the Dread Lands.

Beyond the Skies is illustrated with a beautiful cover by Den Beauvais, and internal black and white art by Joe Garcia, Eric Lofgren, and Simon Todd. There are some really nice pieces in there, and I found myself really enjoying the different styles of each artist — particularly since each pantheon was assigned to a different person, so the pantheons all have their own art style.

The focus of the book being what it is, there wasn’t as much call for maps this time round. But I did have fun creating thematic maps for each pantheon.

My main contribution this time round is undoubtedly the layout, which was a long and painstaking process, although of course worth it in the end.

All in all, I can’t recommend CC1 Beyond the Skies enough. Please head over to DriveThruRPG and buy it!