We’re going to be looking at a challenge today. I've been asked several times over the past few weeks about making a video on creating smaller maps. We've covered a lot of different topics over the last fourteen weeks, but in each video, I create one A2 map and use that as the focus. But if you're not making something quite so big, what can you expect? What differences do you need to make? What techniques can you use to make the most of a map? Welcome, adventurers, to this week's topic: How to Map for your World.

Today, we’re revisiting fantasy towns and cities. My name is Ryan and I will be taking you through the process step by step, discussing some important points to keep in mind and flesh out your world, and we’ll finish up with this map of Smug Rock, the pirate stronghold on the back of Great Okh’aratoa. 

If you wanted to hide your treasure, why would you resort to tattered pieces of paper, crudely-drawn landmarks, and ‘X marks the spot’? If you wanted to make sure that you could find your hoard again, but still keep it safe from anyone who wanted to find it, wouldn’t you think your way through it a little more? Isn’t there more to treasure maps than you may think at first? Here is How to Make a Realistic Treasure Map.

Every adventure needs an ancient, weathered map: painstakingly drawn with just the right amount of detail to help, but not solve everything.

For a worldbuilder, it can be tempting to allow your story to stop at the travellers’ comprehension. To use their assumptions and understandings to fill in the gaps before you move on. But if you want to do more than tread water when filling your world, it’s not as daunting a task as it may seem. 

In this post, I will be going into the methods that I use to create a heist map, the details that I include, the tips and tricks that will elevate your writing and gameplay, and why I go to the effort of making a map, when you could really just write all this down. 

This week's map is the Bank of Indusaal, and our focus is in creating a map for planning a heist. It goes with our video on our YouTube channel, How to Map for a Heist

It happens to all of us occasionally, but when you’re creating your fantasy world, you may occasionally need a map of that city to aid you and your heroes in your adventures. You need to be sketching cities if you want to stay consistent.

Today, we're taking a closer look at drawing maps of sites and significant locations. As a writer or a game master, you're going to want to plan out the encounters that your protagonists face, whether they are in a peaceful village, a bristling castle, or a dank mine.

Hello, adventurers! Welcome back to the Red Quills, where we go through all of the tips and tricks you can add to your fantasy world to make it as lush and vibrant as our own. Today, we’re discussing culture in your fantasy maps and worlds – something that we have written about before, but we’re going to go more into depth on it today. 

Trade maps: no longer in use, but once an indispensable tool for anyone on the road looking to make a profit. This week, the Red Quills are talking about Trade in Fantasy Worlds: in our YouTube tutorial and the Shorts series coming out this week. This map, the Aelidian Islands, is a resource to go along with our 30-min tutorial on drawing your own.