Hello readers

For those new to the site, welcome! For those who are returning, a warm welcome back.

When I was looking around for topics to cover about worldbuilding and writing from my own life, I saw a new email notification. Project Deios was accepting its Kickstarter members! I clicked on that link and finished my signup, and it was so exciting to see the site for the first time, to be able once more to consider the infinite potential dwelling in the hard work of Dungeon’s Fog’s new fully backed software!

I came across this mapmaking project during the summer of 2019 by pure happenstance. I can’t accurately recall what was the first way in, if it was WorldAnvil or if it was by the Kickstarter first. Still, I ended up integrating myself with both sites, because the promise of the content storage display and design really appealed to my desire to recreate the world I stopped designing in 2011. I made sure to back it as soon as I was able, and the team behind the project has been working exceptionally, diligent with consistent updates. They’re starting to prepare the alpha playtesting now!

The Kickstarter was fully funded in 10 hours, but watching the trailer is still really exciting, the possibilities are endless!

The intent of this post is to share my personal take on creative cartography: how it’s influenced my worldbuilding and the reasons why mapmaking is so magical in being able to physically mark the spaces of a fictional world. After I show you, I’ll have evidence from my personal life to explain why Project Deios is such an exciting prospect for me and why you should consider supporting! Please join me in a comfortable dive through gaming and design nostalgia and see why making maps is so fun!

Back to the 00’s-10’s

I have memories around 2000 or so where maps first officially entered my life. The most poignant of these memories is that of the world map for Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World. Despite having access to this map, I never actually played this game. I don’t even recall seeing my dad play it either, it may have well been a relic from my dad’s younger years. However, seeing that map planted a seed that would ultimately result in a forest of various inspirations at least 2 decades before the Project Deios software would even get announced.

The bright colors: greens for the trees and brown-yellow for the deserts, would stay with my cartographic pursuits for as long as I designed them. Dropping the images of random monsters to represent potential encounters, I started to follow this as well as the map’s depictions of the Elemental Planes. Because of this simple image, I already pondered the concept of a multiverse before I was a teenager! ~ Retrieved from https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=mm2jap via Google Search “might and magic II map” 4th result.

Cartographic depictions for novels and games have been an evolving art form for as long as I can remember. For me, the most powerful was my dad’s Might and Magic II. Still, later in life, I would end up having several encounters with maps from older eras. Tolkien’s Middle Earth map is one of the most popular and earlier designs of the creative cartographic fields. Some of the world maps were published during the author’s lifetime, and now have much more public awareness due to Peter Jackson’s film, allowing knowledge of Tolkien’s image in his mind of the world he described to be shared globally.

After my oldest memory of creative cartography, I can trace the mental images and pinpoint memories of maps from TSR’s Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Elder Scrolls. I would end up encountering world maps in SNES RPGs like Square’s Secret of Evermore and Capcom’s Breath of Fire.

As much as I could talk about world maps and their origin points on my timeline, I know that cartographic aesthetic is most definitely appreciated on a visual stimulus level rather than a descriptive one. Taking that into consideration, I’ve decided to treat readers to a few photographs of my available collection. This will allow me to demonstrate the level of exposure I’ve had to the idea of creative maps, and just why I get so excited from the prospects of being able to create my own. So without further ado, here are some of the major franchises that have given me access to an infinite variety of creative possibilities through their map designs!

The Forgotten Realms: Faerûn, The Sword Coast, and Baldur’s Gate

A vast collection of Forgotten Realms themed content from 5e manuals as well as PC and PS2 games, even an old Capcom game! Got stuff labeled with Wizards of the Coast as well as TSR, and it all runs the same pattern of the Sword Coast for decades. ~ Personal Collection, taken with my Moto G7 and modified and uploaded by Google Photos

The Forgotten Realms has always been a big part of my creative and fantasy upbringing. Baldur’s Gate was the first doorway, then Icewind Dale following after. Once I started playing D&D seriously during 4e that I realized the PC games of my past connected to the game available in the manuals. Dark Alliance was accessible to me even before 4e, so I have a history of visiting the Realms years before I genuinely realized what they were.

Eberron: Khorvaire, Argonessen, Aerenal

Though not as old as the Forgotten Realms, Eberron’s world has been around for 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition iterations, which I arranged from left to right on top of the current 5e large-scale map of Khorvaire. ~ Personal Collection, taken with my Moto G7 and modified and uploaded by Google Photos

I didn’t exactly get to experience Keith Baker’s creation the traditional way, but my profusion of Google research ended up allowing me to come across it. This would allow me to understand it better when it became featured in Heroscape during 2010, and it has been a part of my favorites ever since. My last two campaigns have been Eberron themed, and I really like to write within Baker’s setting, so mentioning the world maps as influencing my own designs feels necessary for my cartographic history.

Video Game Maps: SNES, N64, Game Boy, PS2

An eclectic array of maps from all sorts of franchises I’ve participated in: Ogre Battle 64, Morrowind for the PC and Oblivion for the Xbox 360, Shadow Man 64, SNES Super Mario RPG, SNES Breath of Fire, SNES Secret of Evermore ~ Personal Collection, taken with my Moto G7 and modified and uploaded by Google Photos

Of course, alongside my TRPG history was the video game maps. Back in the early 2000s, each game box was a treasure trove of immersive elements. You used to get a world map, a handbook, detailed art, and various features to help your journey feel much more fulfilling during the game, now and days they’ve gut out a lot of that content. Still, during its shelf life, it was a fantastic tool for narrative investment.

It doesn’t end with these specific genres. I could add more photos to describe how Heroscape allowing me to put the pieces of various landscapes for fighting maps by hand, would expand on these maps of yore. I’m also omitting my current investment with Final Fantasy XIV, including the lore book full of detailed geographical placement on an enormous variety of regional and continental maps because I could write a whole post about this by itself.

The list has an enormous and diverse product placement that solidifies an entire lifestyle’s worth of imagination within the space of hand-drawn fictional continents. For me, every fully detailed world maps with regions and place names gave me an area of art I could travel to in my mind’s eye to further understand the place’s importance to the narrative. When I stepped away from these worlds, I could always revisit these images when I’d go to draw. It wasn’t long till I started mimicking them.

A Childlike Understanding of Worldbuilding

I really can focus the first efforts of my cartographic ventures in Europe, I had developed a habit of watching my father play video games on the P.C. whenever the time allowed and having the maps nearby made it extra special. I used to go adventuring a lot as a kid as well, hide in nearby woods and trees as the natural enclosures often drew my creative side a lot more than usual. Once I moved to the military housing next to S.H.A.P.E., I had friends who wanted to roleplay game scenarios outside on the playground. These were my younger years, so things like this never got questioned, but I’m pretty sure I was LARPing back in the day. I ended up being the record keeper of these adventures in imagination. Part of that meant drawing the map.

Most of the time, it started with a direct replica of the video game worlds we themed those reenactments on. I used a lot of what I had access to at the time. These were the older maps I posted above. Creative writing assignments in school had me stretch away from these pre-existing models of world design. Before long, the small regional plans I started to draft would begin to develop a sort of syncretism of both the borrowed elements of previously viewed design in addition to the new concepts I’d come across as a kid. I used the internet heavily during my time in school, which opened up a new door to design on top of the assignments and the maps at home. I was continually adjusting, continually developing new elements. I went through two main characters in Europe, the two divided by two school semesters and the difference of access I had at these times.

Just to make it clear, I won’t ever condone stolen ideas, as the design was replicated and sold as your own. What I describe, I think, is the natural creative process. We seek to emulate what moves us first before attempting anything of our own. Think of it like cooking. Most chefs don’t need recipes, but how do you think they got there? Chefs got to the point of no recipe with the constant looking up of methods and the development of the muscle memory of cooking recipes. They practiced getting familiar with scent, seasoning, flavor, and taste of all the ingredients available to them. That way, when the time comes, they can make a dish with nothing but parts worthy of acclaim of judges on Iron Chef! You have to start with recipes first, then you can craft your own.

The largest map project I ever attempted

Although I understand the process of emulation better now, it remained fascinating to me during that time that the names of places I enjoyed the most were borrowed once or twice during sessions of play during recess and outside my home. Within the confines of a dozen notebooks and sketchpads, I would collect landscape ideas over the years.

I wouldn’t actually end up attempting a world map till late middle school when I moved back to the United States. Funnily enough, this would also be the first time I would feel the effects of a move. I was used to the displacement that happened due to being an army brat. But leaving Europe was the first time I felt an emotional disruption, and it didn’t help that I was entering a new middle school that had its own meta standards that didn’t exist in Europe. Compared to European kids? American preteens are mean. I closed myself off for a whole semester, finding an eventual invitation to the clique of kids that everyone else avoided, and I found my creative drive getting more attention and access.

It was in the 8th grade, as I went to draw out the line of a coastal region I had made (isn’t it crazy how it starts with the coast), I added an area I designed back in Europe for the opening scenes. And I can’t really remember what else drove this, aside from having a tiny conveniently sized notebook, but soon the coast occupied a vast continent that spanned three whole pages. Before long, I made full-color sketches of two entire hemispheres containing major landmasses spanning 8 pages.

I won’t forget to regret this end result because I put so much work into this map. I spent so much time at the edge of a desk, making sure the colors were right, the details were sound, the designs expressed everything I wanted for each continent, you name it. It went on for a very long time. Then, since I was able to carry this 8-page map around since the sketch paper was durable for travel, I brought it to a sleepover to show a friend. And I ended up leaving it at his house.

The Defeat of Distance

Moving in its own way was a consistent bane to my creative processes. I gathered materials steadily, and I still do, but every time I have to move, I inevitably leave things behind. The frustration of the vanished effort made me more and more adept at the gathering of resources, but the consolidation and comfortable carry of these ideas were near impossible. I stopped making maps for a while, somehow feeling that mental pictures were more convenient to maintain in movement, and wrote a lot more about place identity to retain the details that would comprise a geographic location.

By 2010 I had more available access to the internet. I found myself a frequent poster on the Heroscapers.com forum site, where the game would eventually meet its discontinuation at the hands of the pull of the recession two years prior. I wanted to rescue the ideas that were inspired by Heroscape despite the game forever being closed off from future development and embarked on developing a fan fiction answering one of my oft-repeated questions, and it was a hit. It wasn’t long that I wanted to visualize the setting I was describing, and I suddenly had a map on my hands.

However, in 2012, I moved once more traveling to Honduras. Despite being no fault to the task I was engaged in at the time, distances killing my creativity would end the life of the map I made in 2011. Even though it was a temporary stay, being removed from my content over a substantial period made me forget all the finer details. And when I returned in 2014, I didn’t even feel the same energy from the map that I did when I created it just three years prior. I learned the distance was my enemy to continued creative cartography.

A quick side by side comparison of a map project depicting the same world. I often did several drafts as new details came up with additional lore for the series, adding and subtracting what I felt did or did not fit. However, this was such a small fraction of what I realized what I could do. I could be mapping entire hemispheres, but as it stood, continents took a lot of my energy. ~ Archives, taken with my Moto G7 and modified and uploaded by Google Photos

Why Project Deios is worth the investment for me (and worth considering for you)

When I learned about Project Deios, I saw a software that both provides specific assets for designs, allowing you to start with buildings and work your way out into planets, and I was hooked. It’s the software I didn’t know could exist but serves every single one of my needs. I get to take it with me by cloud, so I won’t lose it or forget what it means and represents to me. Using Project Deios, I get to add all sorts of elements and cultures reflected in designs for both the simple folk and their homes and go as far as the landmarks of the land and the continents of the world itself. I get to share these maps with those interested in watching the progress on my world, connect said charts to documents drafted in WorldAnvil, update as I go. I even get to prepare them for campaigns in addition to publications, did I mention it helps you design builts all the way up to planets?

The good, hard-working people of Dungeon Fog and all the affiliates behind Project Deios have created software that helps fulfill a wide variety of my cartographic needs. No more will I have to reply on carrying the maps of several series for reference, or drafting the content on paper only for it to be left behind. It’s all within the server, and the developer team is extremely open to discussion and feedback! In fact, I asked if I could have this blog post released in conjunction with their pre-order announcement, and I got permission to do so! Nobody can ask more from a team like the minds behind Project Deios, they’re exceptionally brilliant, good at what they do, hard-working, and kind!

So if you are an aspiring worldbuilder, if you’ve seen a realm inside your head that no one else has had a chance to know, I much encourage you to consider pre-ordering the Project Deios software. You get to contribute to a new legacy of cartographers in doing so. Part of this legacy includes those like me who surely have seen and felt the inspirations that come from maps once saw. Whether it be in the front covers of novels, in the boxes of the early era of video games, pr in the world maps of our H.U.D. today, creative cartography has captivated generations!

Project Deios is genuinely the revolution of creative cartography worldwide. Your support for them only contributes to a greater future for this art form!

Check out their website!

https://www.project-deios.com/index.php

Project Deios is genuinely the revolution of creative cartography worldwide. Your support for them only contributes to a greater future for this art form! Check out their website! https://www.project-deios.com/index.php

~ Jeremy Unitt