Tuesday 3 December 2013

3 years worth of dungeon maps!

As regular followers of the blog will probably know, for the last 3 years I have been sharing a bunch of greyscale (geomorph-style) dungeon maps over on G+ and on the blog itself.

So, since I've just finished the final map for this year (see the previous entry), I thought I'd post a brief recap of my (not so) little dungeon mapping project, and show how all of these maps can be pieced together to create a variety of different size/shape dungeon layouts.

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2011

During the first year of the project (which I dubbed 'Map-a-Monday' - due to the fact that I posted a new map on the blog every Monday morning) these maps were simple dungeon 'geomorphs' which could be pieced together in a variety of different ways ...as shown in the example below:

As you'd expect, the project yeilded 52 of these maps by the end of the year ...all of which can be found in THIS G+ Album.

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2012

The following year I continued with the 'Map-a-Monday' project - but this time I switched things up a little, and instead of dungeon 'geomorphs' I tried my hand at a bunch of caves and caverns. Once again, these maps were modular in design - meaning that they could be used in much the same fashion as the previous year's maps (or even used together to create a hybrid cave/dungeon layout):

However, there were 53 'Mondays' in 2012 ...and so this (of course) resulted in another 53 maps - all of which can be found in THIS G+ Album.

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2013

By the end of 2012, the thought of continuing the 'Map-a-Monday' project for another year had lost some of its appeal ...and so I decided to slow things down to a rate of one map per month - and thus the 'Dungeon-Monthly' project was born.

However, for this year's project I've opted to draw a number of semi-modular dungeon maps (of varying sizes) - which would not only work in conjunction with those from the previous two years, but could also be used in a specific configuration to depict a huge dungeon level all of its own:

An example using two of this year's Dungeon-Monthly maps with 3 maps from 2011's Map-a-Monday project.

All 12 of this year's Dungeon Monthly maps pieced together to form one huge dungeon level.

Note that all 12 maps from this year's project can be found in THIS G+ Album.

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So there you have it, that's 117 free* maps over the course of 3 years!

But does it end there? ...probably not - as I'm thinking of continuing the 'Dungeon Monthly' project into 2014 ...that is, assuming folks aren't getting a little bored with them by now :)


*for personal use only

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EDIT: I forgot to mention that there's also a bunch of additional stairways and dead-ends (to cap off any unwanted passages) in THIS album. 

13 comments:

  1. bored with maps? never ever ever

    looking forward to seeing more more more!

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  2. Thanks for all the cool maps!

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  3. Mmmm, because everyone loves dungeon crawling! In between playing MMO's that are grindfests and beating themselves in the nuts with barbed wire wrapped pingpong bats. Right?

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  4. I'd love to see city/urban modular maps, if you're looking for ideas/inspiration.

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  5. This is pure sweetness. Thanks so much for sharing (or for those of us behind the time, resharing)!

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  6. It's good to see that most folks like 'em :)

    Anyway, I forgot to mention that there's also a bunch of additional stairways and dead-ends (to cap off any unwanted passages) in the following album:

    https://plus.google.com/photos/115760310001867295685/albums/5752725744568979009

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  7. These are fantastic. Thank you very much.

    If you don't mind me asking, what software do you use to make these?

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    1. I'm currently using inkscape (a free vector graphics program) to draw the basic shapes of the rooms & passages, and my old version of photoshop to add in all the extra details/textures/etc.

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  8. These maps are great. Thank you.

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    Replies
    1. No problem (I hope you get some good use out of them).

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  9. (SLOW TO FAST APPLAUD)
    Absolutely wonderful. I can only offer you two things, inspiration, maybe, and further exposure of your work and efforts.

    The easy one, further exposure of your work and efforts to a relevant community. There is a website "roll20.net", they have an online campaign builder and play-assist software at "app.roll20.net". People can have their artwork published for free use or for charge to the web app's user base.

    My miniscule offers of inspiration, probably just direction. A kind of "office floor" layout, all appearing to be fabricated surfaces and done in gray-scale, it can be used for a lot more than just offices; i.e. hallways and corridors of ships, modern naval or space-faring ships. One I know that would not be so easy to create but I, at least, would greatly enjoy is wilderness layouts.

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  10. As someone just getting into DnD, what is the best way to print these out and create playtiles?

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