How To Draw A Fantasy City Map

A road that consists of nothing only packed earth and e'er-encroaching weeds, a vibrant and thriving tavern stretching three stories tall, a sprawling warehouse district at a newly defunct dock. Wherever your Dungeons & Dragons adventures take yous, maps can exist incredibly useful tools for immersion, fleshing out your gameplay, and even making it easier.

There's three types of maps:

1. Region maps – this kind covers a larger area, from whole villages to unabridged kingdoms or continents, showing y'all the terrain, roads, and chief points of interest. Sometimes this is only used for illustrative or reference purposes and so your players can better grasp the earth they vicariously live in and therefore plot their travels accordingly. If yous play a more sandbox type of game, then this map can take on a more functional role; equally it volition likely be divided into hexes, your greater exploration charted by which hex you wish to explore adjacent.
   
2. Battle maps – (or battlemaps) theatre of the mind (TotM) games tin exist very fun and exciting, merely it tin likewise lead to a lot of defoliation and fourth dimension-wasting, as the players need to ask repeatedly for clarifications. The battle map solves this, allowing the players to see themselves, visible enemies, and measure the distance in betwixt themselves whilst waiting for their turn to come upward. Visuals on the map itself can help fuel a mental picture of the heroic tales the die are telling, and make keeping runway of environmental hazards and hurdles easier.
   
3. In-grapheme map– typically seen as a handout or something a character makes in game. Think of information technology as the kind of maps you'd go at the mall, but with more than tea staining. These maps are fantastic for immersion in the surface area and lend a more in-the-moment feel to dungeoneering. Devious DMs will want to notation that maps the characters have need not tell the whole story, if they're accurate at all.

Now y'all know what types of maps there are. But what about where to become them from? How would you become well-nigh creating the masterpiece in your listen on screen? Well, since you asked:

1. Best Digital DnD Map Makers
   1. Inkarnate
   2. Dungeon Fog
   3. Dungeon Painter Studio
   4. RPG Map Editor ii
2. Best DnD Premade Maps
   1. Inkarnate and Dungeon Fog
   2. 2-Minute Tabletop
   3. Patreon (various)
3. Best DnD Map Generators
   1. Watabou Fantasy City Generator
   2. Azgaar'due south Fantasy Map Generator
   3. Donjon's Random Dungeon Generator
4. Physical Resource
   1. Chessex Mat
   2. Hazard Maps
   3. Dungeon Tiles

All-time Digital DnD Map Makers

Inkarnate

Inkarnate

If you're looking to create beautiful region maps (in colour or parchment style), then Inkarnate is a dandy tool. It offers a variety of 'stamps' and models to decorate your maps with, to create the terrain you envisioned when you first saturday down and decided 'this, this is the world I will start the apocalypse in.' They regularly update the art bachelor and recently added a battle map style for creating come across perfect maps in which to terrorize your players. You can add a filigree during creation or leave it sterile and use the grid in your virtual tabletop (VTT) of selection. The best part? It's entirely free to use, with a reasonably priced paid option if you want thousands of more art assets and the license to utilise the maps y'all create commercially.

Dungeon Fog

Dungeon Fog

Another great tool, Dungeon Fog, takes a different strategy, with a free account you take access to all assets and the total public gallery, the grab is that you can only have 3 created maps at a fourth dimension and all pro avails volition be watermarked. Commercial licensing is separated out into a higher tier, so if you don't need it you don't take to worry nigh paying for information technology. Overall, a fantastic map maker, best suited to battlemaps and smaller region maps.

Dungeon Painter Studio

Dungeon Painter Studio

One of the oldest options, Dungeon Painter Studio offers a wide diverseness of tools for creating battlemaps, as well as a pick of online tool (similar our other entries) or a standalone app, sold and managed through the Steam shop. Since the decline of Flashplayer, the browser based version is now offered as a download. Don't worry if you aren't running the latest and greatest from the tinker gnomes, Dungeon Painter will run on most laptops and PCs.

RPG Map Editor 2

RPG Map Editor ii

Built-in from a video game developers desire for a proficient looking, but uncomplicated to employ map cosmos tool, RPG Map Editor 2 is a cracking tool that tin be ran in browser or downloaded. The assets support traditional fantasy maps as well as more modern or futuristic settings if yous discover yourself chasing hover cars rather than carriages. It's pay what you want and the programmer makes certain to say that includes free!

Best DnD Premade Maps

Inkarnate and Dungeon Fog

Whilst both of these sites are great map making tools, they also provide large libraries of community-created maps  you tin can download and use at  leisure.

ii-Minute Tabletop

ii-Minute Tabletop

This fantastic website has over 200 map and nugget packs for use in your games (with easy to impress pdfs if you play at a physical tabular array). You're probably thinking this is actually expensive, right? Well that'due south entirely upwardly to you, many maps and assets are pay what you desire (PWYW) with a recommended price of $ane, but yous tin go them completely free to try out or if you're on a tight upkeep. Other maps are a fixed cost of a dollar or bundles are available for more than.

Patreon (various)

Many talented artists now take to Patreon to support their craft and provide their audience with keen fine art. A few great map-orientated Patreon pages are: Afternoon Maps, Cze and Peku; for the more technically-minded, Animated Dungeon Maps, provides maps that feel alive, whether it be through dancing flame or flying arrows.

All-time DnD Map Generators

Watabou Fantasy City Generator

Watabou

A fantastic tool for generating map style region maps for your cities of interest. I personally utilise a map generated with this in my campaigns.

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

Azgaar

Actively in development, Azgaar's generator tin provide maps for a whole continent. You might be thinking that would exist random shapes, simply the generator even draws borders, roads, and names the various kingdoms and towns it creates. Go ahead, zoom in and see all the details for yourself!

Donjon's Random Dungeon Generator

Donjon

If you're looking for a more barebones map, or desire to give your session more than of an old schoolhouse feel then look no further. Donjon's Random Dungeon Generator non only generates a map, but will as well generate encounters, traps and environment details for you. A few clicks and you tin can have an entire session of content created for you, for free!

Physical Resources

Chessex Mat

Versatility may likewise be this product'due south middle name, this is a mat with a foursquare grid on ane side and a hex filigree on the other. So whether you're dungeon diving or in the centre of your hex crawl, this mat's got you covered. Great at all!  And if you want to add together some details, and walls, etc., merely don't have any fancy terrain, you can depict right on the grid every bit they're moisture erase! Clean information technology well later each use, and this staple of tabletop gaming will see you lot through many campaigns.go

Adventure Maps

Running a module your friends have been talking nearly for months, but worried virtually conveying how epic the world is at the tabular array? Want to utilize the maps in the volume but don't want to cutting the folio out or keep flipping it to the players? Grab some full size maps to put on display, similar this lovely prepare for the Tomb of Annihilation or this set that'southward crimson picked from some of the best adventures across editions.

Dungeon Tiles

Maybe you prefer a more than modular approach. If so, so dungeon tiles are for y'all. These are minor sections yous tin can arrange to create the dungeon layout you desire, some are preprinted with art like this official set up, or are blank canvases for your imagination, like this dry out erase set.

Feel free to ease upwardly on the sharpie marks on your table;  you lot're at present well-equipped to prepare beautiful backdrops to your parties (mis)adventures. Just exist conscientious yous don't autumn into the historic period-erstwhile trap of map prep: getting sucked in and forgetting to prep annihilation else! If yous're happy with the hoard of maps y'all've just created, and so y'all should head on over to our campaign ideas article and get some inspiration for what to practise on those maps. Happy DMing!

Source: https://dicecove.com/best-dnd-map-makers-generators-premades/

Posted by: johnsonquablosom.blogspot.com

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