I have been out of the office the this current week due to some health issues, but it’s given me some time to work on remastering an old Dungeons & Dragons module from several years back. As mentioned in a previous post, we are working on reissuing all previous campaigns again. The trade dress for this module is a call back to the old modules from the early years of D&D, and I’ve been working on fixing up many of the story and layout.

And, the maps. Oh, how I love maps, and making maps. There is just something about a hand drawn map (or in this case a digital drawn map) that, in my opinion, out ranks any VTT map. There are tools out there to help people craft amazing looking maps, but for me, I’d just soon open up Photoshop and draw with a pen on a tablet, or draw on a piece of paper. It’s relaxing to decompress and do something I’ve enjoyed doing since I was a child. Drawing maps.

These maps though are in the style of the old blue and white (or black and white) that was printed on those old yellowed pages. It felt almost like the ink would rub off on your thumbs as you flip through the pages and read the text on the pages. That is the style I’m going for. It allows for me to be more abstract when I don’t have time, talent, or a large team here at Crusader Games to draw these large scale maps comparable to the published campaigns of our current era.

With abstract maps, I can simplify the design to only what matters. This comes into play on dungeons the most, but even in towns, we’re not forced to make realistic looking maps. We can do simple layouts that allow the theatre of the mind draw the maps for you. But, it doesn’t make creating the maps any less complicated. I have layers upon layers, with styles and masks several levels deep. It takes time and the layers have to be in the precise order to look the way you want. Solid, Dithered, White, Grid Lines, Terrain Lines, everything has a place.

This just means it may take a few weeks before we get the first campaign up online for purchase. But working on the project and getting to update it has been a treat. And the homage to old school gaming manuals. As always, Happy Gaming, and lets hope to get this first one (and maybe two) out before Christmas.

A year or two ago, when Wizards of the Coast was romanticizing the license structure for the 2024 version of D&D, there was a uncertainty about the content that was placed on the DMs Guild, and whether that was going to be owned by the creators or owned by WOTC. Due to the, at the time, unknown ownership of where our D&D campaigns would ultimately fall to, it was decided to temporarily remove them from the internet and house them back on our digital bookshelves until said time was further fleshed out. It turned out that none of the hyperbole was ended up the case, but our campaigns were already removed from the website.

Our next goal for would be to relaunch those 3 campaigns and the supplemental class as a purchase through our own website. This way we can have them back up for publishing, perhaps retool some of the nitpicky issues with the adventure modules and clean up a lot of the sticky parts of the stories, all the while, seeing if they would need adjusted for the 2024 ruleset. For some of the team, this means that the story will need to be fleshed out, and for the artists, reworking some of the maps to make larger dungeons, or cleaner visuals.

The best part of tackling this is to dive into some 1980s red box set D&D campaigns and redo all the visuals in the style of those maps. There is always a piece of that in our hearts, and we personally have loved the old blue print maps from back in that era.

We’re also exploring the idea of including additional merchandise on the store front that could be sold based on previous works by Crusader Games. That portion of the website will be developed as time comes, and we’ll be sure to announce it on our social media pages as well.

Until then, Happy Gaming.