Highport featured in my game a while back, and I had started to develop a map on CC2. Thus, I wanted to share what I was doing here.
OK, Just for fun I started working on a city map of Highport, the current location of the party in my PBeM game. I'll post maps here, so anyone who may be interested can follow my progress and comment if they'd like. I'm basing it on some maps I have from published sources, such as the World of Greyhawk maps, the various Slaver modules, etc. It is also being created somewhat ad hoc as the party spends more time in the city. Anyway, I thought I'd start with a couple of maps from the published sources, so you can see what I had to start with. I will also throw in some descriptions I have given the party so far.
I then started to keep track of places/descriptions as the players in my campaign adventured. I was slowly working on the map, but my CC2 ability is simply not as good as many others. So, a lot of the time I was "winging it" on the fly.
I basically just put the Slavers map as my CC2 background, then drew a relief map over it, adding all the roads and such. Then I hid the background map. I have no really good idea how to make good walls and such. It seems to be a macro thing, and I am absolutely clueless there! So, I fuddled my way through this the best I can! :)
Here's the descriptions I gave my players as they entered Highport.
Highport: Population 15,000; Integrated (human [SOf] 5,550, orc 3,000, half-orc 2,700, goblin 1,500, hobgoblin 1,050, gnoll 750, other 450).
[From one of the characters who got an aerial view from his griffon.] You can get a general layout of the city. The orc/humanoid areas are pretty obvious as the buildings are very ramshackle. The human areas are pretty well rebuilt from the destruction of decades ago. The outer walls have been rebuilt, and they are quite formidable. There is what looks like a military district to the NW, and there are numerous open areas with either tents or other shanties. A ruined inner wall once enclosed the port area, and many warehouses dot the place. The city seems to be mostly asleep. You see quite a few ships docked in the ports, but when you go to take a closer look you see something large take off from the top of the tower to the NE, right along the bay.
[This is after they entered and passed through the shaded areas (4, 17, and 13). Along the Suss Road and in the first tent/shanty area, where the NW of the inner ruined wall and tower are located: After a while you come to a large open area to your right. It is full of tents and other flimsy shanties. Through the center of this area runs a ruined wall, with a semi-ruined tower in the center. There are various carts around it, as well as a crude crane, and you hear the rapping sounds of hammers on stone. Somebody seems to be in the process of rebuilding the tower.
OK, you continue on from where you stopped by the open tent shanty area. You pass through another orc area and then along more shanty-towns before moving into a much better looking district. A large road curves around to the left, skirting this section of town and heading towards the coast. You pass through this section, much more "civilized" with various shops and such as you would expect. You eventually come into another large open circular area, though this one is devoid of tents. (the center open circle where the Suss, Coast, and Slave roads meet)
It is a market square, in the process of being rebuilt. Off to the right is the ruined inner wall, and a large camp is set up there, where you can see that man men are at work dismantling more of the wall and breaking the stones up for use as cobblestones. About half of the area is already paved, and gangs of dirty-looking men are hard at work on the rest. They must be slaves, as you see overseers around them with whips to push the slackers.
Also to the right is another tower, though this one has been completely rebuilt (area 12). The wall immediately beside it has been rebuilt as well, and a new wall encloses the area around it. A banner flies from the tower, though you cannot make it out as it is hanging limply in the nearly still air.
The road passes through the center of the square, where it meets two others in a Y. One branch heads left, towards the coast, while another heads right, through the large gap in the old wall. There is a large inn just on the edge of the square to the left of the road as you enter the open area, the Glad Goblin Inn.
Noot follows the main road down towards the docks. That last tower (area 3) he notes has been repaired as well, and a large beacon set in the top to act as a lighthouse. This entire section is very well maintained, and all the normal shops and businesses can be found along the main road. He notes the coming and going of humanoids as well, so keeps up his "disguise" as a sailor as he approaches the docks. When he gets to the waterfront, he immediately notices that about half of the original piers are completely ruined. There are yet seemingly derelict ships tied up to them, so from the sea they would seem to be in use; however, from here it is obviously a trick to confuse those who would approach from the sea. He notes that all the piers in this "human" section of the port are in operation and there are 7 ships currently berthed, 6 merchant ships and 1 war galley.
Noot finds about half-dozen taverns along the last stretch of road: The Fisherman's Casque, The Bottle, The Tavern of Fishes, The Soaring Harpy, The Sad Harlot, and The Naga's Tail.
I wanted to put the stuff I used and/or developed as my campaign proceeded, so I just copy/pasted it above. I'll add more. Also, here's a view of my CC2 map. I'm not sure if this is the completed map.
I have a hard time getting CC2 maps to be useable to non-CC2 users. Maybe somebody who is better at it than I can help me? I've tried exporting maps, but the resolution goes all to hell. The best I've come up with is to do a Print Screen, paste to Paint, then save it. However, if I could figure out how to save the map maybe as a jpg or something, so that you could click on it and get a big zoom, that would be great. Admittedly, I'm just at a loss as to how to do it.
At one point, I ran into some snags, where I was trying to zoom in to place some buildings and the colors started disappearing. I really don't know why, but that was when I put in the contours, and it stopped happening.
Anyway, next I tried to place a few things that the players have already seen, which would end up adding some more detail.
Man, wish I was better with CC2! As I said, I was "winging it!" You can see the slaver ship The Ghoul at the top-right, docked at the bent pier. Again, lack of ability meant that I just put two straight docks together at an angle. It doesn't look great, but it was functional!
I used a bunch of basically blockish building for the warehouses, and left room around them for alleys and such. I added some ruined ones, as it's Highport! :) I also put in stacks of crates and such, since this is a warehouse district. With my CC2 map, I can zoom in, do a screen capture, then put that image as a background with Maptools. Instant combat map. I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but that's what I do.
Finally, along the bend of the road at the center of the screen you see a complex. That's the temple from A1. Here it's already the Temple of the Earth Dragon. I built it by putting a bunch of smaller buildings together, along with extra bits and pieces, and I tried to get as close to the actual layout of the temple as I could. Thus you see the open area in the center, which originally had a bunch of ruins within it. IMC those are wooden buildings for orc soldiers. There's a temple part at the top-right and the cemetery at the top-left. Finally, I added a tower in the center, bottom-left of the central courtyard. I'm not sure this map shows the right placement, but I didn't mind since once the party entered the temple complex, I started using the map from A1, altered with my Maptools program. Hm, maybe I should post that?
Oh, and there was also the following which was described to my players when they reached the temple area:
New map of the area immediately around the Temple of the Earth Dragon. Now, a few things. First, there is an entrance on the south wall as well, where the steps are. So, you have 4 entrances. The main entrance between the two wings (you should be able to see the stone path leading up to it). That is blocked by the portcullis. Then there is an entrance at the end of the west wing. There is another entrance in west side of the west wing. Finally, there is an entrance on the south side (shown where the steps are).
The building Hepla saw orcs enter is the right hand small building, just to the NW of the Temple's west wing. In that area there's some ruined buildings just north of the two small buildings, between them and the road. There's also a larger building further to the west. All the other buildings on the map (in this temple area and the warehouse area further west) are now official. If you have any further questions, let me know. In terms of scale, it's about 25' between the corner of the NW corner of the temple and the NE corner of that small building.
The rebuilt tower (12) has some more walls added around it, and that is what I used for the Temple of Hextor. I know the Slaver's said it was a "converted warehouse" but that made no sense. It's not even in the warehouse area! Plus, being that it shows on the map being near where the old wall and towers were, this made sense. The party was actually going to check there for weapons since they have a weaponsmith, but they changed their minds. Anyway, this sets up as a more militaristic-looking place, and more serious and powerful than some old warehouse.
18. is the Stockade. I'll add the details from that. This is where the slaves are kept and auctioned.
19. Guardhouse. Also from the canon map, this is the guardhouse for human guards, the Count's Men. There are also outlying areas for cavalry stables too. Again, these are basically cobbled together, but I actually liked them. :)
21. is the Glad Goblin Inn. I "may" have my map of that to post here. I'll look around for it.
22. That's an apothecary. I never quite got around to adding more buildings in that area, just threw that down so the party would know where it was!
Finally, you can see the ruined wall and the first tower to the bottom-right of the round central plaza? That's where Berenn and Elrae almost died fighting stirges!
Basically, I just took the map from A1 as a background, then added stuff over it. I tiled the hallways and rooms. This version is flipped sideways, so it would show up better.
Thanks for the posts ragnar. I find these very useful as I am running a campaign based on the Slavers module. My PCs have only just arrived in the Gnarley and I am planning on having them stumble across the humanoids of Blackthorn and Gnarley Rangers this session.
Cool. If you want to follow what my party did as they traveled though the Gnarley to Elredd and down the Wild Coast, please check out my campaign thread.
The party had no idea at the time that they were headed into the Slaver series, which I altered quite a bit, mixed with old and new, etc. Anyway, you can track their progress here and see what I did with the various places.
Thanks. It's ironic. As much as I love the maps Anna makes, and various other maps I find for combats and such, they also make me feel a bit...inadequate. Hm, maybe that's the wrong word. Still, I try, and I slowly think I'm getting better. At least I hope so.
I just need to figure out if there's a good way to save/export the CC2 files so that they are useful files for web viewing. The way it is, if I export it I can't zoom in. If I do, I lose the resolution. It's frustrating. I need somebody with more CC2 knowledge to help me out!
The publisher used to maintain a CC2Viewer program that anyone could use to view a CC2 file, not sure if it's still available though. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
I just used this newer one a few days ago on some old CC2 maps (I have recently been going through the Articles- Cartography & Geography section, and updating dead links and any of the mapping files that I happen to have; many still to do), and it worked just fine. I did notice that initially the maps I viewed displayed differently, but I figured out that some of the layers needed to be selected to show. This could have been the map maker's fault in that they submitted a map file with not all of the layers properly selected, not the fault of the viewing program. Everything looked perfect once the layers were selected. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
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