All about the map – and an early signup to the Kickstarter

Open-world adventures are all about the map. Poring over a good map, planning routes, finding features and potential interactions between them – these are the precursors to many a real adventure and a fictional one. Don’t you love a story that comes with a map?

I love creating the maps for Steam Highwayman. For the previous three volumes, I’ve worked directly from a old Ordnance Survey maps – but for Princes of the West, which covers all of Cornwall and most of Devon, I’ve had to work at a greater scale. I actually began with a map of the coast and then chose (painfully!) which towns to include, plotted a Guild Highway and added in other precious locations from there.

The result is a big map with several zones to it. There are key nodes, barriers to overcome (the border between Free Cornwall and Imperial Devon along the Tamar particularly), secret routes and hidden areas. At this rate there will probably also be some detailed maps for smaller areas – probably one around Tintagel, another for Dartmoor, and one for North Devon.

The map I’m sharing here is a draft of the version that will be printed into the book. The rather annoying proportions of Cornwall make a North-South orientation a bit annoying, so I have been wondering about something odd and NE-SWish that fits the peninsula onto a folio size page (8″x10″) better. Hmm.

I’ll produce a map pack for the Kickstarter as well, which will include a large version of the whole map and any smaller maps I end up making, as well as a touring guide and some other goodies I’ve been thinking of. And when will all that come available? Well, I’m planning to run my kickstarter campaign in July, and it will take a little while after that for everything to be printed and sent, so tune here until then.