Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Here Be Dragons

My name is Steve, and I'm a map goob. My ode to the cartographer's art is at Kobold Quarterly today: "Here Be Dragons."

Maps speak to us. Our brains work much like maps. “Mindmap” is the name for a type of diagram that helps people to recognize and organize connections between ideas. It’s no coincidence that “map” and “plan” are synonyms as both nouns and verbs, or that the earliest known maps are painted on cave walls.

There was a time in ages past when a reliable map was considered among a nation’s most valuable and strategic treasures. People devoted their lives to filling in the blank spaces with something more meaningful than “here be dragons,” and many of them died to extend the ink on the parchment by a few more pen strokes.
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7 comments:

  1. How strange I just posted all my maps I made up over the years to my Blog- Must be on the brain lately

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    1. That's an amazing collection of maps on your blog. You didn't post a link, so I will: Yawning Portal.

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    2. Thanks I thought it might be good to bring many of them into the light of day for people to see- since so much of my free time growing up went into making them. Im going to add another posting which contains all the fantasy maps I am inspired by and like , as well.

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  3. That’s why I always try to show the players a map of the world at large and then a zoom in within the map, of their current adventuring area. Maps create an emotional resonance with the setting. Even in historical games, a map of Europe with current countries conveys a sense of history as the borders show how countries were then. They are fun, they are useful and, perhaps most important, they are educational.

    Maps also show the personality of its creator, how he interpreted the world ? And maps also distinctly show elements of a culture, particularly more detailed maps such as city maps, dungeon maps, etc.

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  4. More Maps Posted to my Blog if you wanna take a look

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  5. Truly tremendous output. Most of my hand-drawn maps are dungeons rather than worlds.

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