It happens, eventually, in any game. Something goes wrong or someone makes a mistake. I'm not talking about total party kill type mistakes, or even "oh, I didn't mean to insult the Queen to her face" type mistakes.
This sort of mistake is the one where players don't understand what the GM said, or the GM screws up and can't salvage the situation in any way.
The question that arises then is, how do you go on? Do you get "takesies backsies" or are you stuck with whatever horrible situation has arisen?
In some cases, the retcon might be necessary because without it, there can be no forward action. Perhaps without a do-over, the entire game would simply end with the players staring at the GM with no options left and no way to retrace their steps in game. Perhaps the do-over is needed because of table issues. Sometimes a do-over is needed because of interruptions that result in no one remembering what happened in that last combat, and they choose to simply fight it out again.
Is it ever acceptable to retcon? Is it ever OK to allow players to take back an action or a conversation? Or is it the Great Forbidden Taboo for a GM to ever say, "No, I'm sorry, let's do another take there"?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Keltarnay Gnomes
The gnomes of Keltarnay are not quite like the standard Player's Handbook gnomes. They are both more colorful and more dangerous, and many kingdoms bear strong mistrust for the antics and escapades of these lively folk. Gnomes are inventors, engineers, and perfectionists. If a gnome doesn’t come up with an original idea, he will refine it and make it work better. If he doesn’t invent or refine, he will find ways to work the inventions of others into a solution for whatever problem he may think needs solving.
Gnomes are inveterate tinkers, in the sense that they simply do not believe that there is anything they are not meant to know. They hold science as the pinnacle of knowledge, and though they have healthy respect for the power of the gods, they do not let that get in the way of their experiments and theories.
Boccob is a friend to gnomes, for his thirst for knowledge is matched by their endless curiosity. Ehlonna and her followers tend to watch gnomes very narrowly, for many of their favorite “projects” involve large amounts of metals which must be mined. Some gnomes favor the druid’s path, and these unusual individuals try to direct their kin’s efforts in a direction that causes the least damage possible, ecology wise.
Gnomes love explosions, bright colors, and distilled liquors. A few of them have found ways to combine two out of the three, such as Dram Grixby and his very potent liquor known as Grixby’s Green. They also love efficiency, and are always looking for ways to take the drudgery out of life – the better to have more time for experiments!
The main problem (for other races) with gnomes and their endless ingenuity is that they don’t always plan things through as thoroughly as they could – and occasionally they tinker with forces more powerful than they anticipate. Such blunders have caused some of the worst and most infamous “gnomish debacles” which have so alarmed other races and cultures. Among these blunders are such catastrophes as the Great Fire of 256, which claimed the lives of a thousand humans and 14 gnomes, after a prototype “express distillery” exploded and burned down the entire port district of Zara’s capital city.
Gnomes Around the World
In Tarnaclese, gnomes all hail from one place – Gilderhall, an independent city-state currently situated on the shores of the Star Sea in the southeastern regions of the continent. Gilderhall is a fantastic and strange place, being one of only two “mobile settlements” in Tarnaclese. The entire city rests on a massive plate of specially forged metal (the gnomes refuse to specify what sort of metal it is). Even more astounding, the plate sports roughly ten million articulated, crab like legs, and the entire city walks in a seventeen mile long “circuit” which delineates the land claimed by the gnomes. Should enemies attack, the city can erect automatic defenses, and gnomes can man these defenses to make them even more devastating. If the enemy is not dissuaded by large cannons and magically augmented catapults, the city can actually flee.
In Narrudan, gnomes have long been the favored prey of the slave trade; their physical limitations tend to make them easy prey, and in some lands techniques have been developed that essentially “brainwash” the gnomish slaves into accepting their lot without resistance. Those gnomes who are free are very often heavily involved in efforts to rescue or liberate their captive kin. Gnomes in Narrudan are often much less garrulous and much more suspicious of humans and other “big races” due to their generations-long fight to remain free. There are no gnomish strongholds in Narrudan.
In Iskadar, the gnomes enjoy great prestige and hold a sovereignty of their very own, a trade empire of sorts – these gnomes have perfected the art of powered flight. Their air ships ply the sky ways, enabling trade and travel across the vast empires of Iskadar, and their other inventions are just as popular and efficient. Their science has improved the lives of many of the people, and gnomes are usually treated as charmingly eccentric rather than dangerously inventive.
Gnome Crunch (by which I mean the rules, not a breakfast cereal for ogres)
All gnomes receive prestidigitation (twice a day) as a spell like ability (note that this is a change from the standard). They frequently make use of the minor effects of this spell – the most obvious use being their hair color. Gnomes are born with colorful hair, but they tend to magically or physically dye their hair in eye-searing shades or even truly shocking combinations of colors. They favor bright clothes, and don’t always favor practical or tasteful fashion.
Every gnome has a “specialty” or a particular field of interest. They get either one craft or one profession skill, as a class skill, and to that one “specialty” they may add a +2 bonus. Some gnomes take more than one craft or profession, but they are still only specialists in one.
Monday, February 21, 2011
GM Blunders: Narrating (and sick children)
So, I learned this evening that if one's child is throwing up, one should pretty much call the game night and go home.
I also learned that no matter how bored the players seem, no matter how quiet it seems they are, they are NOT waiting for you to tell them a story, and they do NOT want you to just narrate and get it over with.
Perhaps I was too distracted by my son's distress to really focus on the game. Maybe I should have just called the game night entirely, and stayed home, so as not to inflict my son on everyone else. I didn't think of that, I confess, because he is having an allergy attack, nothing catching - but that does not excuse or change the fact that his cough is quite loud and he is feeling terrible. For that, I fail at being a thoughtful friend, because if I had asked first, perhaps the players would have requested that we not game.
I had planned out the evening's game, in some detail, or so I thought. But I failed to take into account (or failed to correctly evaluate) the dramatic potential of an emotionally distressed being. The interaction between the tragically pitiful phoenix, and the player characters, as the PCs tried to soothe and encourage the creature and convince it that life is worth living, was...terrible. It began to feel, from the GM's chair, like a really badly plotted Lifetime movie, or one of those cheesy after-school specials. And if I wasn't enjoying the interaction, I can't imagine how the players could be having any fun. Which frustrates me, but I do not know where I went wrong. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I still can't see why the plan was so flawed as it played out. Perhaps my own lack of ability to bring such a tragedy to the table in a way that made the players want to react contributed to the problem.
Certainly the unexpected dragging out of the scene did not help. Casting magical fire upon the phoenix egg to bring it to the point of hatching, and bathing the newborn creature in more fire to aid its first hours of life, seemed like a brilliant plan. But the fact that this meant the PCs were casting for hours and hours - those that even had anything they could contribute, which was also a problem - things bogged down there.
They bogged down even worse once the phoenix began reacting to them, as my attempts to show them a frightened creature fell flat, and my further attempts to convey the creature's personality just made everything worse.
Finally, we called the game for the night; we didn't finish bringing the Phoenix back to life, and I for one felt frustrated and defeated. At least one of the players was also frustrated. There was a feeling that I was not letting anyone talk, and I was only narrating - again. It's been a problem in the past.
This issue makes me sting, at least partly because I don't think they'd feel that way if I was really paying attention to them. But at the same time, I feel indignant and hurt, because I was trying, really trying, to watch them for clues and signals that they wanted to say something. I confess I never saw that the bard wanted to speak up, and I must have run right over the top of that player. I also was told that I kept "saying no" to the players, apparently shooting down suggestions that they made. This confuses and hurts me even more, honestly, because I made a concerted effort to say "You don't know, you'll have to try it." I can't be more encouraging than that, or I'd be giving away the answers, wouldn't I?
There are times lately that I feel I should simply not speak during a session except to lay out exposition, voice NPCs, and answer direct questions from the players. It is not a nice feeling, for I am vain enough to like the sound of my own voice. And I feel like I'm no good at this damn game sometimes. But, I remind myself to take the criticism like an adult, and go on, and improve wherever I can see and understand what needs to be fixed.
I also learned that no matter how bored the players seem, no matter how quiet it seems they are, they are NOT waiting for you to tell them a story, and they do NOT want you to just narrate and get it over with.
Perhaps I was too distracted by my son's distress to really focus on the game. Maybe I should have just called the game night entirely, and stayed home, so as not to inflict my son on everyone else. I didn't think of that, I confess, because he is having an allergy attack, nothing catching - but that does not excuse or change the fact that his cough is quite loud and he is feeling terrible. For that, I fail at being a thoughtful friend, because if I had asked first, perhaps the players would have requested that we not game.
I had planned out the evening's game, in some detail, or so I thought. But I failed to take into account (or failed to correctly evaluate) the dramatic potential of an emotionally distressed being. The interaction between the tragically pitiful phoenix, and the player characters, as the PCs tried to soothe and encourage the creature and convince it that life is worth living, was...terrible. It began to feel, from the GM's chair, like a really badly plotted Lifetime movie, or one of those cheesy after-school specials. And if I wasn't enjoying the interaction, I can't imagine how the players could be having any fun. Which frustrates me, but I do not know where I went wrong. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I still can't see why the plan was so flawed as it played out. Perhaps my own lack of ability to bring such a tragedy to the table in a way that made the players want to react contributed to the problem.
Certainly the unexpected dragging out of the scene did not help. Casting magical fire upon the phoenix egg to bring it to the point of hatching, and bathing the newborn creature in more fire to aid its first hours of life, seemed like a brilliant plan. But the fact that this meant the PCs were casting for hours and hours - those that even had anything they could contribute, which was also a problem - things bogged down there.
They bogged down even worse once the phoenix began reacting to them, as my attempts to show them a frightened creature fell flat, and my further attempts to convey the creature's personality just made everything worse.
Finally, we called the game for the night; we didn't finish bringing the Phoenix back to life, and I for one felt frustrated and defeated. At least one of the players was also frustrated. There was a feeling that I was not letting anyone talk, and I was only narrating - again. It's been a problem in the past.
This issue makes me sting, at least partly because I don't think they'd feel that way if I was really paying attention to them. But at the same time, I feel indignant and hurt, because I was trying, really trying, to watch them for clues and signals that they wanted to say something. I confess I never saw that the bard wanted to speak up, and I must have run right over the top of that player. I also was told that I kept "saying no" to the players, apparently shooting down suggestions that they made. This confuses and hurts me even more, honestly, because I made a concerted effort to say "You don't know, you'll have to try it." I can't be more encouraging than that, or I'd be giving away the answers, wouldn't I?
There are times lately that I feel I should simply not speak during a session except to lay out exposition, voice NPCs, and answer direct questions from the players. It is not a nice feeling, for I am vain enough to like the sound of my own voice. And I feel like I'm no good at this damn game sometimes. But, I remind myself to take the criticism like an adult, and go on, and improve wherever I can see and understand what needs to be fixed.
The Legend of the Last Phoenix (Malivar)
In the kingdom of Malivar, the mountain stands, massive and proud - the mountain known as Uthgar's Rest, or more familiarly, simply Uthgar. It is a most unusual mountain, nearly 30 thousand feet tall. But Uthgar is not only one of the highest mountains in the world. It is also the slimmest mountain in the world, for the last ten thousand feet rise from the earth in a massive spire, a spindle, a needle of rock. As if this were not enough, the tip of Uthgar is perfectly flat, as if the top were chopped off by some massive celestial blade. This tip, tiny in comparison to the mountain itself, is a mere half mile wide and three quarters of a mile long.
The tip of the mountain catches the light, and flashes near dawn and sunset - for the top is covered in black volcanic glass.
This is Uthgar's Rest, and the legendary place where the last Phoenix died.
The Phoenix, among the sages of Malivar, has long been a symbol of the kingdom's hope and perseverance. They once used the image of this legendary bird as their royal symbol, but for a thousand years this has not been so. For the last Phoenix died in Malivar, and she never came back.
The legend says the Phoenix met a man, a proud noble of Malivar, and fell in love with him. But the man was foolish and vain, and though he preened under the Phoenix's attention and paid her high compliments, he turned from her and accepted the hand of a wealthy man's daughter, the better to gain power and wealth for himself. He threw away the Phoenix's tokens and scorned her love.
In fury and anguish, the Phoenix struck against him, and burned his home to the ground. His hapless wife was caught in the inferno. The man chased after the enraged Phoenix, and followed her to Uthgar's Rest. He swore he would capture her and enslave her to the end of her days, to make her pay for what she had done. As it has been told, the man was a fool. In Malivar to this day, "phoenix chaser" is an idiom for a colossal piece of foolishness or bravado.
At last the man reached the top of the mountain. Exhausted, bedraggled, and yet still furious and vengeful, he found the Phoenix as she languished at the top of the mountain. She had gathered incense and precious woods, to light her own pyre and perish in flames - such is the way of a Phoenix ready to die. She was ready to burn herself and thus be reborn, clean and fresh and unable to remember the man who had hurt her so.
But the man fell upon her where she lay, choking her gorgeously feathered neck. Like mad things they struggled and fought. The nest of incense was broken and scattered, and the Phoenix in desperation summoned her holy fire upon them both, incinerating them together. Lightning and fire lashed the mountain top, in a storm unlike any ever seen, before or since. The people trembled and the mountain moaned under the whip of the Phoenix's grief and fury and desolation. The smoke and the fire did not fade until a night and a day later, when rain began to fall all across Malivar.
The priests came then, in rain and smoke, trembling with fear of what they might find.
But what they found was nothing.
The glass topped mountain was empty, bathed in rain like tears. Ashes washed over the feet of the priests, and the wind moaned like a woman in the depths of grief, but there was nothing left of the Phoenix or the man. Not even a stick of incense or the tiniest feather remained...and though the priests prayed and propitiated, the Phoenix did not appear.
Five generations of priests faithfully tended the site of the Phoenix's fall. At long last, one tiny shred of hope appeared - a stone was found that resembled an egg. The last priest to tend the holy site enshrined the egg and swore his life to watching over it. He died a hermit, five hundred years ago. Now the only thing left is a small shrine, and an alter, and a carefully gathered stack of dry wood stored inside the shrine.
And one other thing: an inscription.
"The key is three."
[Note: image used with permission of http://iribel.deviantart.com/; Thank you Iribel!]
The tip of the mountain catches the light, and flashes near dawn and sunset - for the top is covered in black volcanic glass.
This is Uthgar's Rest, and the legendary place where the last Phoenix died.
The Phoenix, among the sages of Malivar, has long been a symbol of the kingdom's hope and perseverance. They once used the image of this legendary bird as their royal symbol, but for a thousand years this has not been so. For the last Phoenix died in Malivar, and she never came back.
The legend says the Phoenix met a man, a proud noble of Malivar, and fell in love with him. But the man was foolish and vain, and though he preened under the Phoenix's attention and paid her high compliments, he turned from her and accepted the hand of a wealthy man's daughter, the better to gain power and wealth for himself. He threw away the Phoenix's tokens and scorned her love.
In fury and anguish, the Phoenix struck against him, and burned his home to the ground. His hapless wife was caught in the inferno. The man chased after the enraged Phoenix, and followed her to Uthgar's Rest. He swore he would capture her and enslave her to the end of her days, to make her pay for what she had done. As it has been told, the man was a fool. In Malivar to this day, "phoenix chaser" is an idiom for a colossal piece of foolishness or bravado.At last the man reached the top of the mountain. Exhausted, bedraggled, and yet still furious and vengeful, he found the Phoenix as she languished at the top of the mountain. She had gathered incense and precious woods, to light her own pyre and perish in flames - such is the way of a Phoenix ready to die. She was ready to burn herself and thus be reborn, clean and fresh and unable to remember the man who had hurt her so.
But the man fell upon her where she lay, choking her gorgeously feathered neck. Like mad things they struggled and fought. The nest of incense was broken and scattered, and the Phoenix in desperation summoned her holy fire upon them both, incinerating them together. Lightning and fire lashed the mountain top, in a storm unlike any ever seen, before or since. The people trembled and the mountain moaned under the whip of the Phoenix's grief and fury and desolation. The smoke and the fire did not fade until a night and a day later, when rain began to fall all across Malivar.
The priests came then, in rain and smoke, trembling with fear of what they might find.
But what they found was nothing.
The glass topped mountain was empty, bathed in rain like tears. Ashes washed over the feet of the priests, and the wind moaned like a woman in the depths of grief, but there was nothing left of the Phoenix or the man. Not even a stick of incense or the tiniest feather remained...and though the priests prayed and propitiated, the Phoenix did not appear.
Five generations of priests faithfully tended the site of the Phoenix's fall. At long last, one tiny shred of hope appeared - a stone was found that resembled an egg. The last priest to tend the holy site enshrined the egg and swore his life to watching over it. He died a hermit, five hundred years ago. Now the only thing left is a small shrine, and an alter, and a carefully gathered stack of dry wood stored inside the shrine.
And one other thing: an inscription.
"The key is three."
[Note: image used with permission of http://iribel.deviantart.com/; Thank you Iribel!]
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Naming of Kingdoms
Here is a chance to help out with the ongoing creation and development of a campaign world.
Most of the time it seems like you can just slap a name on a kingdom and you're done. Many times it seems unimportant to know the name of the kingdom, if your PCs are mainly dealing with one large town and the surrounding area. But in my world, that simply isn't so.
When I made this world, I pretty much populated it in a storm of creativity, scribbled down kingdom boundaries, and came up with names on the fly.
So I have fun place names like Acharya, and Scharnhoff. Inhabited by Acharyan elves, and Scharnovian dwarves. My point here is, see how the kingdom name lends itself to a nice, pronounceable suffix? Yeah. That's nice. England, with the English, Japan with the Japanese, right? Shouldn't be too hard to put these suffixes in place...! Or so I thought.
Then I started going over the names again.
So. Here's my list. You'll quickly see what the problem is. Parenthetical comments are pretty much there for emphasis.
Ladmirault - Ladmirans
Borqu - Borqese? Borqans? (pronounced Borkan?!)
Zokaras - Zokarans
Middelvede - Middelvans? augh
Khadijah - Khadish, Khadi
Scharnhoff - Scharnovian
Akdemir - Akdemiran
Zaldana - Zaldanan
Sulimen - Suli, Sulimese
Plains of Suhl - not really a kingdom, does it need a suffix?
Zara - Zaran (defunct in certain time settings, as this kingdom was absorbed Yr 475)
Malveaux - Malveran (also defunct, as this kingdom fell in Yr 468 or so)
Zamarna - Zamarran, Zamarnan
Bharat - Bharati
Delcina - Delcinian, Delcese, Delcinan (lame)
Mikish - Mikish, Mikash, Mikishese? (augh)
Serna - Sernese, Sernan (lame)
Mancera - Manceran
Sangani - Sanganese
Suddoth - Suddan, Suddothese, Suddokite? (lame)
Zandiphal - Zandiphalian, Zandiphite
Malivar - Malivaran, Malivite, Malivarish?
Acharya - Acharyan
Morvant - Morvannish, Morvanite, Morvanian (also, time consideration, this land fell in Yr 496)
Adeghani - Adelghanite, Adelese?, Adelghanish, Ghanese
Yeah.
Any commentary or thoughts would be helpful.
Most of the time it seems like you can just slap a name on a kingdom and you're done. Many times it seems unimportant to know the name of the kingdom, if your PCs are mainly dealing with one large town and the surrounding area. But in my world, that simply isn't so.
When I made this world, I pretty much populated it in a storm of creativity, scribbled down kingdom boundaries, and came up with names on the fly.
So I have fun place names like Acharya, and Scharnhoff. Inhabited by Acharyan elves, and Scharnovian dwarves. My point here is, see how the kingdom name lends itself to a nice, pronounceable suffix? Yeah. That's nice. England, with the English, Japan with the Japanese, right? Shouldn't be too hard to put these suffixes in place...! Or so I thought.
Then I started going over the names again.
So. Here's my list. You'll quickly see what the problem is. Parenthetical comments are pretty much there for emphasis.
Ladmirault - Ladmirans
Borqu - Borqese? Borqans? (pronounced Borkan?!)
Zokaras - Zokarans
Middelvede - Middelvans? augh
Khadijah - Khadish, Khadi
Scharnhoff - Scharnovian
Akdemir - Akdemiran
Zaldana - Zaldanan
Sulimen - Suli, Sulimese
Plains of Suhl - not really a kingdom, does it need a suffix?
Zara - Zaran (defunct in certain time settings, as this kingdom was absorbed Yr 475)
Malveaux - Malveran (also defunct, as this kingdom fell in Yr 468 or so)
Zamarna - Zamarran, Zamarnan
Bharat - Bharati
Delcina - Delcinian, Delcese, Delcinan (lame)
Mikish - Mikish, Mikash, Mikishese? (augh)
Serna - Sernese, Sernan (lame)
Mancera - Manceran
Sangani - Sanganese
Suddoth - Suddan, Suddothese, Suddokite? (lame)
Zandiphal - Zandiphalian, Zandiphite
Malivar - Malivaran, Malivite, Malivarish?
Acharya - Acharyan
Morvant - Morvannish, Morvanite, Morvanian (also, time consideration, this land fell in Yr 496)
Adeghani - Adelghanite, Adelese?, Adelghanish, Ghanese
Yeah.
Any commentary or thoughts would be helpful.
Map Making
It occurs to me that there must be a dozen ways to make maps. I mean, there are all those great dungeon generators out there, and terrain generators.
But me, I take the old-school approach. So I'm going to tell you about old school.
I generally use graph paper. Two reasons: one, I always intend to do my maps in varying scales, and graph paper makes that a ton easier; two, it's much, much easier for me to lay down terrain on a graph-paper type format, because it lets me "count" how many squares of mountains or whatever.
Drawbacks to the graph paper method is that the terrain does come out kind of "blocky" later, and sometimes so do things like coastlines, roads, and rivers. But it's a flaw I can live with.
The first step is always a line drawing. I get a pencil, and my graph paper, and just scribble. I usually have some vague idea in mind when I start. Vague as in - "oh, well, a big central continent with three island archipelago type things, and an inland sea, and a great big semi-enclosed sea like the Aegean." Then, once I've got a lightly-sketched continent, and I'm happy with the outlines, I re-draw, darkening the lines I want. I add in squiggles for coastlines, and more or less decide as I'm doing so where the major mountain ranges are going to be.
Next, I take this line drawing to a window, along with some tape and a blank piece of white unlined paper. I tape the outline up, and transfer it to the blank paper, giving me a line drawing I can scan in later. (This is a relatively new step, but it's one I intend to keep.) Yes, I could do this with a light-box, if I had one, but I don't and I'm not yet ready to make one for myself. I don't know where I'd keep such a thing, anyway. But this step means I don't have to scan in a fully colored map with graph lines, and try to magic away the graph lines in Photoshop.
Now, with my simple outline in hand, I go back to my drawing table (i.e. my desk). I set the plain outline to the side, since it's done for the moment. The graph paper copy gets terrain now, which I sometimes use some random rolls for - "ok, 2d6 squares worth of swamp..." - but sometimes I just let my hand wander, and doodle in some mountains here, some forest over there. Happy little trees!
Once I've got that done, I usually do the rivers last. This is because I've found that waiting until I've got some clue about the mountains means I don't end up with a line that makes a fantastic looking river running clean over some foothills, where the stream would have to flow uphill then downhill, several times. Not a mistake I've made since I was, like, fourteen - but still very embarrassing to make that mistake and then bring my "masterpiece" map to a convention game!
All the terrain penciled in, I now begin color. I use map colors, lately the cheaper ones. They are acceptable, if not as saturated as the more expensive (meaning Prismacolor) pencils.
Coloring terrain is simple enough; I have specific colors for three "heights" of mountains, for swamps, for forest, for pine forest, for tundra/glaciated terrain, for desert, for scrubland, for grassland. I have little symbols for different terrain as well, so the two go together nicely.
Once colored, the map is done, for that scale. I label it and get it in a folder, sheet protector, or whatever else I need.
Then, it's on to scale maps. This is always enlargements, and can be only a few "panels" - making a one-page continental map into a four-page map - or it can end up being a "book" - i.e. going from a 600-miles-per-square map to a 25-miles-per-square map. In all cases, I delineate for myself the boundaries of the new scale, so I know which "squares" are going to be on the new page.
Then, the process begins again, this time with boundaries drawn round the edges of my smaller-scale maps. I frequently use a large-square graph system, similar to what you see in an atlas or road map, so that I can keep track of where I am.
And as I am happily sketching, drawing, and coloring these scale maps, I'm usually also making notes about the lands, the people, the kingdoms and cultures that enrich the area, and make it a place, not just a picture.
It is true that this process could be simplified somewhat by going digital – starting with a line drawing on blank white paper, and scanning it in. Once scanned, I could then manipulate everything about the map – even using grid lines if I want – and place as much detail as I desire into the thing, enabling much simpler (and possibly quicker) map making.
But, the old school way gives me a lot of time to think about the world I am building, and that’s very important to me. The smell of ink and pencil and the feeling of satisfaction as I finish a page of scaled-up map are also very important things to me. Sure there are easier, maybe even better ways. But hand drawn maps have their own special sort of magic, and that’s not something I can get back if I use purely digital methods to produce the artwork.
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