Gemthrone Wilderness Map

We’re about two weeks out from the start of Zinquest 3 through Kickstarter and I’m posting another preview of my upcoming OSR adventure module called In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe. This time I’m showing the full color version of the overland map for the adventure setting. If I did my math right, the map covers a little over 1,000 square miles of pure crab spider and troll-infested wilderness, ripe for adventure. There is a black and white version that is more suitable for at-home printing that will be available as well.

The map is on a two-page spread and will be placed dead center in the zine so it will easily lay flat and be easier to locate within the, now, 52 page zine. It features 4 “settlements” including the dwarven town, Karn Buldahr featured in my previous post and 7 dungeons (literally restraining myself to not add more). For the setting map, I wanted to take a different approach. Abstract hand-drawn maps are beautiful, but I wanted to try to make something that felt more real. I studied topographic trail map design and tried to combine that idea with classic hex map iconography.

The map was made by me using Adobe illustrator with a tiny bit of Photoshop for the relief shading. It is a labor of love and took a considerable amount of planing and production time (though it’s still a work in progress until it all goes to print).

I think in my next post I’ll show one of the dungeon spreads. I’m really stoked how those turned out and I think the layout and map designs will make for a smooth DM experience.