I always find it funny when people apologise for giving places simple descriptive names when that's how *a lot* of our place names came to be! It's just usually not immediately obvious to us because that original description no longer applies, it's in a language that predates ours or we've just known it as a place name so long it never occurred to us. For example, I live in a town that's called "swamp". Very few people living here know that though, because it's an anglicised spelling of an indigenous language *and* they converted the wetland for farming. It's still just called swamp though!
It's funny because 90% of old place names are literally that, the other 10% being named for someone who lived there or founded the settlement there, or are named for an event that happened there. The ones that aren't immediately apparent in English are because they fell into one of those categories in another language. Easy way to obscure this if it really bothers you is to translate the raw name components into another language appropriate to the culture, then apply some vowel and consonant shifts to it. As an example, If you don't want a town called Rivermeadow, say for example the place used to be inhabited by "welsh" elves and is now inhabited by "english" halflings. Take River and Meadow and when translated into Welsh you get Afon and Ddol respectively. At this point you can mess around with synonyms if you like, but perhaps we like Afonddol as a combo, which the halflings may pronounce "Avinthel" because it's easier for them to say. Now you have an authentic sounding nonsense name that is secretly a place name. It's not the perfect process and I'd go a little more in depth for books, but it's good enough for a ttrpg.
I used to agonize over coming up with "exotic" place names (often with gratuitous apostrophes and embedded capitals; I was young) that inevitably led to confusion and frustration at the table, mainly due to my insistence on "proper pronunciation " of my made-up words. "No no no, it's pronounced Brrg'ah! Roll the R's! You forgot the glottal stop! Do it again!" Now, having (hopefully) matured, I've replaced "exotic" with "evocative", and descriptive names with implied historicity. Like, a pair of paladins defeated a dragon in those hills? Here's Dwonker's Tumble, and Tumble Town, and the dwarven mining outpost - Chisel Pits and the Smithery. There's St. Ecbadar's Last Riding, and the town of St. Esquellon Heights. Yarklin Keep overlooking the villages of Yark's Shadow. The goblin town of Totem bordering the Seeping Woodsnarl. Easier for me and my players to remember, and less wasted time explaining "Gargathal Garm" is goblin-ese for "trading post". And my towns are keyed at neighborhood-level. Here's the riverfront wards of Flotilla, Boatworks, and Spinnaker; there's Crofter's Basin and The Lots, yonder lies Esquellon Tower and Mercy Manor. Much simpler than constantly explaining which one is the Zoosh and which one is the Shoozir. (My, he do go on, don't he?) I'm inspired! Gonna spend the rest of the afternoon mapping now
Since you're using a map from Paris, it made me think of something arguably cooler than sewers : Paris actually has catacumbs, and while you can visit some of it as a tourist, most of it is illegal to go through. Although that doesn't stop some people, who call themselves cataphiles, from entering the network. And it's quite a fascinating network (you can even find maps of it on internet), with rooms who all have their own name and history, inscriptions noting the name of the street that is built above ground, and even connections to sewer networks or technical galleries for the subway. You can still find bones in some of the rooms, although most of them have been stolen over the years (yes, a lot of people like to grab a human skull for their living room decorum).There are entrances all over the city, if you know where to find them. I would advise not going if you're claustrophic or if you're not with someone who's really familiar with the network though, as tourists often get lost, prompting the authorities to seal entrances and that is why a lot of cataphiles tend to gatekeep. There's this whole complex relation with the police who chases them through tunnels but also asks for the help of experienced dwellers when someone has gone missing underground. They usually don't chase them for long anyway, since cataphiles like to carry around homemade "smoke bombs" (for lack of a better word) to cover their escape (or to piss off tourists; the smell is actually quite pleasant, as it's just potassium nitrate mixed with sugar).
You’re a LIFESAVER-I have a game coming up where they’ll be heading to a large city and I’ve been massively stressing over the map. Tysm for these resources!
Heck yeah! Focus on giving them just a few interesting choices at first, and write out 10 secrets about the city that you can pull from in any scene, Sly Flourish style! You'll have a great time, I'm sure!
I appreciate the mention of reading disability. It is always valuable to know how others deal with theirs. I've managed to find some fonts that are easier for me to read, so I use those wherever possible. I do wonder if I could use this map making method in a program I can make a PDF with so that I can test it with my screen reader. Looks like I have an experiment for later today. Thank you so much, your videos are always valuable and fun.
Yeah, I'm sure there are all kinds of ways to get this basic process to work in all kinds of software. I assume a program like InDesign would be capable of making a screen reader friendly version! Cheers!
@@Gmorktron It is going to vary one person to another and you should ask them if there are any fonts that work for them. I know there is the dyslexie font which helps some people, but doesn't work for me. Fonts I use currently and have used in the past are Ariel, Comfortaa, Josefin sans, Jua, & Merriweather. There are even some dressier fonts that still have a high readability. Two I really like for this are Emilys Candy & Strawberry Cupcakes. It may take some time to find the right font. I know I stayed with Ariel for years before I found better fonts for me. Ariel was just so much easier to read than the Times New Roman that is everywhere. Good luck to you and your player.
This video is exactly what I’ve been needing! I recently started a big city campaign as well, and I’ve been struggling to make a map for my players, since I’ve been trying to draw it every time. I also really love the way you did the sewers! I have a whole gang that uses them to move around so now I can show their movement in a way that makes sense!!
Wow! This is a really inventive way of approaching a city-based campaign or adventure. Making city maps can be sooooo fatiguing, this is revolutionary yet so simple. I also like the "unknown" parts, reminds me of Dungeon World agenda "Draw maps, leave blanks" and leaves opportunities for the players to have input into the worldbuilding once they get into it. Finally..."Lichen Park" haha oh my god, that's a good one! "I've, become so pun..."😁😁
Really liked your point about the nature of place names and how their aesthetic informs their function! Now I'm gonna write a random table for grounded fantasy place names, thanks for the inspiration!
I was sceptical in the first few minutes, but I was surprised by the direction this took, and now I’m keen to try this method out myself! Thanks for sharing these ideas! 😁
I've been wanting to create a city but I've been intimidated by the prospect. This seems like a great way to jump into the process, and the inverted colors for the undercity is BRILLIANT.
Brilliant idea, I’ve always loved making fantasy maps but really struggled when it came to city maps. This is such an effective and simple way to make a functional map that’s easy to look at. Thanks for the great content as always!
This is fantastic! You might be interested in the worldbuilding tool Beak, Feather & Bone, which uses any unlabelled map and has the players (or player, since you can play it solo) mark locations on the map based on factions.
Love this video because I am not a great artist like you are, but am pretty good at remixing and using art that you can find online! These are solid tips and very creative!
Love these sorts of videos! the amount of times I’ve just ripped off historical maps, places, and words from around the world for my games are not even countable. I think it’s important for DMs to learn the art of not planning for everything in a city or world. When I first started I thought I had to come up with every shop name, NPC, their history & whatever else. Now I just throw an evocative and realistic sounding name for a place and see where it takes me. Recently I threw out the name Sacrifice hills as a location immediately it got the players attention. An example I like to reference for naming places in real life is, there is a creek called Breakfast Creek in Australia, it’s named that because the settlers who named it had breakfast there. The names I use in the world I’ve created always sort of follow they idea of: is it named this because of an event?, is there a reason the name is still called this, was it named something else before and what do the locals call it now.
This is such a cool and accessible way to implement believable maps into a game with much less effort! I've really only recently started to fully grasp how much work good storytelling can do in the imaginations of others
Your videos are always a delight! This one is especially nice for me as I am planning to create a big city for my ongoing campaign with lots of districts, secret societies and pathways which should act as a playground for my players. Also, your naming scheme really resonates with me, it's reminiscent of stuff from authors like Vandermeer, Mieville or Harrison with their wierd megacities sprawling with outlandish creatures and cultures. Keep it up!
Thank you so much!! I think I picked up this naming convention from a video game called Kentucky Route Zero, which puts normal stuff where you'd least expect it, and weird stuff where the normal stuff should be! Haha
@@mapcrow Yeah that's a great game! If you're into reading I highly recomment checking out the mentioned authors, their style of twisting classical fantasy creatures and settings by adding something deeply wierd and exiting reminds me of the way you design your maps, creatures etc.
Im kind of lost when making a city campaign. I think its because i dont have any real map, just a bunch of abstractly positioned places of interest. Next time ill try using a map since this method seems so much easier than drawing a thousand buildings by hand.
Heck yeah! Plenty of gorgeous maps out there for free already! And honestly, the lines aren't doing as much work as the words are, but it helps to tie the experience together!
Great alternative to world building from scratch. Many of your suggestions apply well to "all-original" map efforts as well. Now about this "Hissing Nunnery"... perhaps a fangtasy destination?
Yeah, this is basically the exact way I plan out all the maps that I draw too! Those big creative works always start with small creative decisions that anyone can enjoy making! I kinda think the Hissing Nunnery is filled with ascetic gorgons, but who knows what'll turn out to be! Haha
Thank you for this, I thought I was the only one who did this lol. I love using "old" real world maps with some changes to create real "feeling" cities, forts, etc. My big project is adapting the Catalan Atlas as my World Map, which if you're not familiar check it out... it OOZES medieval personality.
I've low key had a love affair with that map since I first saw it. I found it in a dusty old book in a small town library right around the time I was working on my homebrew setting (early 90s/late 80s) and my mind was instantly on fire. What I really want to do, is make a version of it as a tabletop for my future gaming table. That's the long term goal anyway. More likely, it'll be a triptych hung on the wall. Maybe I'll have something together by the 30th anniversary of my game.
I also agree that fantasy names get way too out of hand. The amount of things in my small homebrew that are just named "The [noun]" is a lot and I much prefer that to not remembering what anything is called ever.
I’m a new DM and stumbled on your channel through your factions video. Quickly devoured everything in the span of a few days and it’s helped me more than anything else I’ve seen! I’ve learned a lot and as a recovering academic myself I really appreciate the amount of research you’ve put into everything. I saw a few comments on some other videos referring to a discord you have. Is that still open? I’d love to get more involved. Thank you so much for starting this channel!
Hey, I know you've set building better monsters aside for the mo, but if you were to get back to it, it'd be really cool to see you do some stuff on gnolls and on aboleths, both of which feel somewhat lacking to me, though the former more obviously than the latter.
I always find it funny when people apologise for giving places simple descriptive names when that's how *a lot* of our place names came to be! It's just usually not immediately obvious to us because that original description no longer applies, it's in a language that predates ours or we've just known it as a place name so long it never occurred to us.
For example, I live in a town that's called "swamp". Very few people living here know that though, because it's an anglicised spelling of an indigenous language *and* they converted the wetland for farming. It's still just called swamp though!
I lived in a street called Gutter most of my life. Mostly because in colonial times there was a canal or a drainage system passing by.
It's funny because 90% of old place names are literally that, the other 10% being named for someone who lived there or founded the settlement there, or are named for an event that happened there. The ones that aren't immediately apparent in English are because they fell into one of those categories in another language. Easy way to obscure this if it really bothers you is to translate the raw name components into another language appropriate to the culture, then apply some vowel and consonant shifts to it.
As an example, If you don't want a town called Rivermeadow, say for example the place used to be inhabited by "welsh" elves and is now inhabited by "english" halflings. Take River and Meadow and when translated into Welsh you get Afon and Ddol respectively. At this point you can mess around with synonyms if you like, but perhaps we like Afonddol as a combo, which the halflings may pronounce "Avinthel" because it's easier for them to say. Now you have an authentic sounding nonsense name that is secretly a place name.
It's not the perfect process and I'd go a little more in depth for books, but it's good enough for a ttrpg.
I used to agonize over coming up with "exotic" place names (often with gratuitous apostrophes and embedded capitals; I was young) that inevitably led to confusion and frustration at the table, mainly due to my insistence on "proper pronunciation " of my made-up words.
"No no no, it's pronounced Brrg'ah! Roll the R's! You forgot the glottal stop! Do it again!"
Now, having (hopefully) matured, I've replaced "exotic" with "evocative", and descriptive names with implied historicity.
Like, a pair of paladins defeated a dragon in those hills? Here's Dwonker's Tumble, and Tumble Town, and the dwarven mining outpost - Chisel Pits and the Smithery. There's St. Ecbadar's Last Riding, and the town of St. Esquellon Heights. Yarklin Keep overlooking the villages of Yark's Shadow. The goblin town of Totem bordering the Seeping Woodsnarl. Easier for me and my players to remember, and less wasted time explaining "Gargathal Garm" is goblin-ese for "trading post".
And my towns are keyed at neighborhood-level. Here's the riverfront wards of Flotilla, Boatworks, and Spinnaker; there's Crofter's Basin and The Lots, yonder lies Esquellon Tower and Mercy Manor. Much simpler than constantly explaining which one is the Zoosh and which one is the Shoozir.
(My, he do go on, don't he?)
I'm inspired! Gonna spend the rest of the afternoon mapping now
I live in Las Vegas, which means, "the Meadows".
I've been having difficulty with the city for my new campaign, so this video couldn't have come at a better time. This is a pretty amazing idea!
Glad I could help! Thanks for the kind words!!
Since you're using a map from Paris, it made me think of something arguably cooler than sewers : Paris actually has catacumbs, and while you can visit some of it as a tourist, most of it is illegal to go through. Although that doesn't stop some people, who call themselves cataphiles, from entering the network. And it's quite a fascinating network (you can even find maps of it on internet), with rooms who all have their own name and history, inscriptions noting the name of the street that is built above ground, and even connections to sewer networks or technical galleries for the subway. You can still find bones in some of the rooms, although most of them have been stolen over the years (yes, a lot of people like to grab a human skull for their living room decorum).There are entrances all over the city, if you know where to find them. I would advise not going if you're claustrophic or if you're not with someone who's really familiar with the network though, as tourists often get lost, prompting the authorities to seal entrances and that is why a lot of cataphiles tend to gatekeep. There's this whole complex relation with the police who chases them through tunnels but also asks for the help of experienced dwellers when someone has gone missing underground. They usually don't chase them for long anyway, since cataphiles like to carry around homemade "smoke bombs" (for lack of a better word) to cover their escape (or to piss off tourists; the smell is actually quite pleasant, as it's just potassium nitrate mixed with sugar).
You’re a LIFESAVER-I have a game coming up where they’ll be heading to a large city and I’ve been massively stressing over the map. Tysm for these resources!
Heck yeah! Focus on giving them just a few interesting choices at first, and write out 10 secrets about the city that you can pull from in any scene, Sly Flourish style! You'll have a great time, I'm sure!
I’m a lurker on your channel, really enjoy your art and your ideas about making dnd better with its monsters and systems, keep at it! :)
I appreciate the mention of reading disability. It is always valuable to know how others deal with theirs. I've managed to find some fonts that are easier for me to read, so I use those wherever possible. I do wonder if I could use this map making method in a program I can make a PDF with so that I can test it with my screen reader. Looks like I have an experiment for later today. Thank you so much, your videos are always valuable and fun.
Yeah, I'm sure there are all kinds of ways to get this basic process to work in all kinds of software. I assume a program like InDesign would be capable of making a screen reader friendly version! Cheers!
I have a player with reading disabilities. What font do you use to make it easier to read?
@@Gmorktron It is going to vary one person to another and you should ask them if there are any fonts that work for them. I know there is the dyslexie font which helps some people, but doesn't work for me. Fonts I use currently and have used in the past are Ariel, Comfortaa, Josefin sans, Jua, & Merriweather. There are even some dressier fonts that still have a high readability. Two I really like for this are Emilys Candy & Strawberry Cupcakes. It may take some time to find the right font. I know I stayed with Ariel for years before I found better fonts for me. Ariel was just so much easier to read than the Times New Roman that is everywhere. Good luck to you and your player.
This video is exactly what I’ve been needing! I recently started a big city campaign as well, and I’ve been struggling to make a map for my players, since I’ve been trying to draw it every time. I also really love the way you did the sewers! I have a whole gang that uses them to move around so now I can show their movement in a way that makes sense!!
Wow! This is a really inventive way of approaching a city-based campaign or adventure. Making city maps can be sooooo fatiguing, this is revolutionary yet so simple. I also like the "unknown" parts, reminds me of Dungeon World agenda "Draw maps, leave blanks" and leaves opportunities for the players to have input into the worldbuilding once they get into it. Finally..."Lichen Park" haha oh my god, that's a good one! "I've, become so pun..."😁😁
Really liked your point about the nature of place names and how their aesthetic informs their function! Now I'm gonna write a random table for grounded fantasy place names, thanks for the inspiration!
I was sceptical in the first few minutes, but I was surprised by the direction this took, and now I’m keen to try this method out myself! Thanks for sharing these ideas! 😁
I've been wanting to create a city but I've been intimidated by the prospect. This seems like a great way to jump into the process, and the inverted colors for the undercity is BRILLIANT.
Brilliant idea, I’ve always loved making fantasy maps but really struggled when it came to city maps. This is such an effective and simple way to make a functional map that’s easy to look at. Thanks for the great content as always!
You are one of my fav d&d/trpg channels, keep the good work Krow
I enjoy all of Map Crow videos
Names are everything, and names on a map: even more!
This is fantastic! You might be interested in the worldbuilding tool Beak, Feather & Bone, which uses any unlabelled map and has the players (or player, since you can play it solo) mark locations on the map based on factions.
Love this video because I am not a great artist like you are, but am pretty good at remixing and using art that you can find online! These are solid tips and very creative!
Dave Rumsey's collection is my favorite thing on the internet. It's just pure bliss to look at any map in there.
Yes! I straggle with large scale maps and I really needed this guide
Heck yeah! So happy it's helpful!!
I would have never thought of searching for historical (copyright free) maps, what an incredible idea
I'm literally in need of a city map for this week's session, so this is the most timely thing ever. Thanks!
There is a great medival city map generator available online for free that - with a little fiddling - spits out everything from village to large city
Love these sorts of videos! the amount of times I’ve just ripped off historical maps, places, and words from around the world for my games are not even countable. I think it’s important for DMs to learn the art of not planning for everything in a city or world. When I first started I thought I had to come up with every shop name, NPC, their history & whatever else. Now I just throw an evocative and realistic sounding name for a place and see where it takes me. Recently I threw out the name Sacrifice hills as a location immediately it got the players attention.
An example I like to reference for naming places in real life is, there is a creek called Breakfast Creek in Australia, it’s named that because the settlers who named it had breakfast there. The names I use in the world I’ve created always sort of follow they idea of: is it named this because of an event?, is there a reason the name is still called this, was it named something else before and what do the locals call it now.
This is such a cool and accessible way to implement believable maps into a game with much less effort! I've really only recently started to fully grasp how much work good storytelling can do in the imaginations of others
Nice! I agree with you way of naming. It really makes you want to imagine stuff about those places
It also helps me paint the scene when they go somewhere too! I'm using the prompts as much as my players are!
Questing Beast's newsletter sent me here. This was solid. Loved naming parts of a city and undercity, they provoke an instant imagery.
Your videos are always a delight! This one is especially nice for me as I am planning to create a big city for my ongoing campaign with lots of districts, secret societies and pathways which should act as a playground for my players. Also, your naming scheme really resonates with me, it's reminiscent of stuff from authors like Vandermeer, Mieville or Harrison with their wierd megacities sprawling with outlandish creatures and cultures. Keep it up!
Thank you so much!! I think I picked up this naming convention from a video game called Kentucky Route Zero, which puts normal stuff where you'd least expect it, and weird stuff where the normal stuff should be! Haha
@@mapcrow Yeah that's a great game! If you're into reading I highly recomment checking out the mentioned authors, their style of twisting classical fantasy creatures and settings by adding something deeply wierd and exiting reminds me of the way you design your maps, creatures etc.
I once used a 17th century map of Rotterdam with a little photoshop for a city of mine!
Beautiful Paris map
What a great video! Between this advice and the mapping systems in Electric Bastionland it's all cities for me these days.
Great to hear! Yeah, I want to talk about making your own spark tables for setting color, and that is heavily inspired by EBL!
Brilliant stuff! Love these tips. Thank you!
ohhhh this is brilliant! and I didn't realize you were a teacher as well, I'm sure your students appreciate having you as their teacher :D
You can also mirror the map image to further obfuscate any text that's on it and which real-world city you're using.
I used an obscure real world language once and 2 of my players knew what it was! So crazy
Im kind of lost when making a city campaign. I think its because i dont have any real map, just a bunch of abstractly positioned places of interest. Next time ill try using a map since this method seems so much easier than drawing a thousand buildings by hand.
Heck yeah! Plenty of gorgeous maps out there for free already! And honestly, the lines aren't doing as much work as the words are, but it helps to tie the experience together!
Brilliant video with awesome ideas. Thanks!
Great alternative to world building from scratch. Many of your suggestions apply well to "all-original" map efforts as well.
Now about this "Hissing Nunnery"... perhaps a fangtasy destination?
Yeah, this is basically the exact way I plan out all the maps that I draw too! Those big creative works always start with small creative decisions that anyone can enjoy making!
I kinda think the Hissing Nunnery is filled with ascetic gorgons, but who knows what'll turn out to be! Haha
woah, thanks so much for this! this is a great tool!
Glad it was helpful!
I used an old map of a larger city near me for the Fallout: Fort Smith game on my channel. Colored it pipboy green. Worked out great.🙂👍
~ Adam
Love your videos so much! every time you post it brings joy to me, cant wait for your next video!!
Wow, thank you!
Dude! That's sick!
Thank you so much!
This is so cool! Thanks!
This is a fantastic video! Thank you for the tips.
You are so welcome!
Thank you for this, I thought I was the only one who did this lol. I love using "old" real world maps with some changes to create real "feeling" cities, forts, etc. My big project is adapting the Catalan Atlas as my World Map, which if you're not familiar check it out... it OOZES medieval personality.
Wow, just looked up Catalan Atlas, and it's gorgeous! Cheers!!
I've low key had a love affair with that map since I first saw it. I found it in a dusty old book in a small town library right around the time I was working on my homebrew setting (early 90s/late 80s) and my mind was instantly on fire.
What I really want to do, is make a version of it as a tabletop for my future gaming table. That's the long term goal anyway. More likely, it'll be a triptych hung on the wall. Maybe I'll have something together by the 30th anniversary of my game.
Seeing the sewer system made me gasp too!
It's a great way to expand the adventure space without very much extra work! Cheers!!
Great stuff! Love your work dude!
Glad to hear it!
I also agree that fantasy names get way too out of hand. The amount of things in my small homebrew that are just named "The [noun]" is a lot and I much prefer that to not remembering what anything is called ever.
this was amazingly helpful thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Idea; find a historical map of your own hometown and use that! See how long it takes players to figure it out.
I’m a new DM and stumbled on your channel through your factions video. Quickly devoured everything in the span of a few days and it’s helped me more than anything else I’ve seen!
I’ve learned a lot and as a recovering academic myself I really appreciate the amount of research you’ve put into everything.
I saw a few comments on some other videos referring to a discord you have. Is that still open? I’d love to get more involved. Thank you so much for starting this channel!
Thanks for watching and for the kind words! The discord is closed and gone. It was just too much for me to process. Haha
This is a great idea.
Thank you! I'm glad you like it!
@@mapcrow I can see myself combining this with Spectacular Settlements to get some really interesting city districts.
i am a GM with Dyslexia dnd I totally feel your pain
Yeah, it's a real struggle. But still, I am comforted to know that whatever happens, I am in a room of friends!
lol I am using that same map of Paris to develop my settings capital city!
Heck yeah! It's a great map!!
AWESOME!
Hey, I know you've set building better monsters aside for the mo, but if you were to get back to it, it'd be really cool to see you do some stuff on gnolls and on aboleths, both of which feel somewhat lacking to me, though the former more obviously than the latter.
I was really hoping the video was just going to end when you said “I just stole one from the internet”. Great video though
Love it thank you!!
I,m curious about the plot hooks you made on the first session
Soo cool very usfule
Thank you!
Fantastic video
"Lichen Park" xD
Haha! The thing is, I didn't even realize what it sounded like until I said it aloud in the game. Haha
I quibble with the title. I feel like this is much less making a map and more labeling an existing map.
Yes. Similar to how when you make instant noodles, you are just warming up existing noodles.
@@mapcrow fair enough! I concede your point.