Starting small

[Ish]

Hi, I've been lurking on the forums for some time and used some of the content in my campaigns but most of the time I drew maps by hand on paper so never bothered registering. I am starting a new DnD5e campaign soon, however, and thought it would be a good excuse to create some maps in PS. This will be the first game for most of my players and I thought giving them some nice printouts and online access to hi-res maps to the world we are building together will make them enjoy it all the more. I have a pretty solid knowledge of adobe products but I never paid enough attention to maps to even know where to start so I am using the fantastic tutorial made by pyrandon for my first project.

I wanted to give the players an easy, versatile area with all the needs and wants of a fresh adventurer so they can venture in whatever path they wish but without making me go back to the drawing board after every session. The campaign will start in a small region of villages, a couple of towns and one lord overseeing it all from his castle on the cliffs. There is no larger area or continent mapped out as yet, I will just see how the story goes and expand the map as the characters' knowledge of the world around them grows.

I only had a couple of evenings for this and won't have any more for some time so saving my progress here. I'll keep the latest WIP in the OP for ease of access.

C&C welcome

### Latest WIP ###

[Ish]

First sketch on paper


As in the OP; I wanted to start with a generic region of towns, villages and a castle. I had the idea of an underwater adventure starting at a castle by the sea so I started with that. The cliffs are highest where the castle is and most of the land to the west is lower than this.

The player characters will all be first level looking for their first adventure so I had to come up with enough versatility to accommodate their ideas but within one small region.

South of the castle is a small trading town with port for ships coming from the faraway east. On the other side of the river delta is a small fishing village. The main town of the region is Forkton, just a few miles up along the river. Most of the farming villages are north of Forkton and west of the river. The valley between the river and the cliffs is mostly rocky plains, not even comparable to the fertile soil of the river fork.

A second route from the castle goes along the forest directly to Forkton, interrupted only once by a tiny settlement of lumberjacks and rangers.

Forkton itself is the heart of the region, a walled town large enough to have several temples and a wizard tower. The seasonal market for the nearby villages is also held here.
Two not too popular but reliable trade routes go further inland to the west and north, dotted by more fields, villages and forests.

To the south of Forkton the earth rises again to a rocky, woody hill, occupied by a clan of nomads that come to town a few times a year to trade pelts, furs, carved bone charms and precious minerals for items they cannot easily produce.


First render in ps


When starting to go over my sketches in ps I didn't want to complete every element before moving on to the next, rather I just wanted to play around with the different bits so that I get the hang of it and can come back to it all later to complete / add / change things as I see fit. Most of the ideas are materializing in my head as I work on the map, like the little hill in the river bend that will almost certainly have some haunted ruins atop it.

First details of town


Again with the town I wanted to play around with effects and colours, see what works best. So far everything is very basic but seeing all the little details slowly come together makes me really excited about the region and the stories it may hold.


Any comments and critique welcome, I am still in the experiment phase with this all so anything and everything can be helpful to me.

[Cartography Dragon]

That's pretty cool! The town looks great and is logically placed, keep it up!

[Ish]

Had a bit of time today, played around with textures and reduced the hex grid to half its original size.

I much prefer how the rocks look now, wasn't very happy with them. The ground texture still needs some refining but a lot of it will be covered with forestation, buildings, etc.. so I'm not sure I'll do that right now. Might work on some layers further up and then come back to this to make them all work together.

Before:


After:

[Ish]

That's pretty cool! The town looks great and is logically placed, keep it up!

Thanks Dragon, I'm glad you like it! I am aiming to keep everything geographically logical to create a realistic environment so any comment is appreciated.
One thing I have been thinking on was where to place cemeteries. In the end I settled on the hillside southeast of the town of Forkton. That leaves it downriver from the town and out of the way but still relatively close (there will be a bridge on either side of town proper). Also lets me move the little hamlet south of town to the east, all the way to the river. That placement would give them more salty water (from the rain slowly washing the remains downhill) and an ideal location for tanners and washing women. Also a great location for spreading spooky rumours as the cemetery is just across the river.