Mapping Valloward
This past week was special for me, as I gifted a map to some folks that ended up using it in their twitch streamed game.
The group is playing a Forged in the Dark based game called Court of Blades - a game of power politics, gunpowder diplomacy, renaissance magic, and romantic skullduggery.
The group began by playing a totally different game to organically create the world together called Ex Novo. It left them with a map that did everything they needed really, but that they wanted to update. It had been a while since I'd cracked open my drawing case, so the final result is admittedly a little rough still, but I am very proud of how it turned out AND that it was used on stream!
Getting back to what I was saying though... Ex Novo is a worldbuilding game that you can play solo or with a group to develop a setting. It's one I've owned for a while but not actively played yet, so seeing the Speculate! crew playing it was awesome. It's such a fun way to as a group make a setting that everyone has some direct connection to.
When you're playing Ex Novo, usually you'd be at a table passing around some pens or whatever, but since they were streaming from 3 different countries, they made use of a shared drawing tool, and the end result was this:
It probably looks like a chaotic mess to you, but there's actually a ton of information on here. City districts, landmarks, and other fun bits and bobs are all recorded on this paint-like canvas.
After that, there were a few worldbuilding and game master streams to further flesh out the world and the first official game where they were playing Court of Blades.
After that, the group had about a month between games and I managed to use that time to re-watch the worldbuilding streams and bust out my pens and pencils. Mike - the Dancing Master (game master) for the game had done a quick clean-up sketch himself of the ExNovo map, and I used both (plus my re-watch) as reference for my work.
It's functional! A lot cleaner than the prior one, and definitely gives you an idea of the island they're using.
I took progress shots as I drew, and I've dumped some of the best ones here for you folks to see.
Here there be dragons. Or, rather, sea monsters!
Three caves create a triangular underground cave system, dug by a prior people. This is how I opted to show the entrance to each.
The Howling Pit. It howls.
And finally, the moment the map I gifted the group showed up on my tv screen:
It was super cool to see something I made out in the world. I am probably going to do a round 2 of the map, as there's some stuff I'd like to improve and add, but overall... I'm extremely proud of this.
Until next time, happy gaming!
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