Checking In

Hi folks!

So, it has been a long time since I just offered an update on where things are with Aonbarr Cartography, so I thought I'd fill you all in on a few things!

First things first, however - a note of thanks:

I'm constantly blown away by how far the Patreon has come since I set it up; I was ready to give up on the idea of making maps for a living by the end of 2021, but thanks to all of your support, that dream actually seems attainable now. I'm not quite there yet, but I have a few ideas that might help me cross that threshold by the end of this year, if all goes well. So, thank you - this has been a dream come true, and I'm genuinely grateful to all of you.

Now, onto the updates!

1: I'm hoping to open up commissions in the near future. If any of my Patrons are interested in this, please let me know - I'd like to give the folk who have supported me so far a chance to be among the first to sign up when I go ahead with it. I don't have concrete details yet for when this will happen or the rates I'll be charging, but I'm probably going to aim for a relatively low cost on the condition that I can publish the maps to my Patreon for Patrons only.

2: After approximately two years of map-making for Curse of Strahd, I am finally playing the module. Some of you know that I was originally running it as a DM because I got tired of waiting for a chance to play it from the party's perspective, but I put the game on hiatus to focus on the map-making, and never got around to starting it up again. Last week, I had my first session as a player with a brand new group, and if that first session is anything to go by, I'm in for an incredible time. Fun fact: my character is the only member of the party with a pulse.

3: Starting August 6th I will be playing in a fortnightly streamed D&D campaign on DMDMStudios' Twitch channel. I played in a nautically-themed one-shot run by Derek a few months ago and we had an absolute blast with it, so he decided to turn it into a recurring campaign! We'll be playing a crew of Robin Hood-esque pirates, sailing across the Jewelled Seas, having adventures in every port - it's going to be a lot of fun!

4: I'm still streaming on Twitch twice weekly - Mapping Mondays, where I stream the map-making process, and Thursday night video games (currently playing Dishonored). I'm considering streaming the mapping process more often though, as having an audience is a good motivator to get work done. If any of you are interested in making maps yourself, feel free to tune in on Mondays and ask questions about the process, or ask for tips with Dungeondraft. I'm always happy to help if I can!

5: I've started making music again recently, after a seven year period where I barely touched an instrument. Most of it so far has been simple and moody atmospheric stuff - the kind of music you could possibly use in the background during a horror-themed TTRPG game, perhaps? I'm considering providing some of this music to my Patrons as a free benefit to signing up - would there be any interest in that? If so, should I release tracks as I record them, or would you prefer if I released collections?

6: I'm considering going over the maps in my Patreon and removing the original map pack, made with the default Dungeondraft assets, to remove some of the clutter in the Tags. I may also delete some of the outdated versions of the Curse of Strahd 2.0 collection, if there are more up-to-date versions. Does anybody have any strong feelings on the matter?

7: There's still a lot of Curse of Strahd to tackle - supplemental materials, random encounter maps, etc. - but I do also want to start working on other maps here and there too. Are there any maps for CoS (or its many supplements, or from other modules entirely, for that matter) you'd particularly like to see me work on?


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Thanks again for all of your support, friends - it started off as a tremendously difficult year for me, but after taking some time to work on myself, I'm honestly feeling better than I have in years, and I'm so excited to see where we can take this map-making venture in future!

-Aonbarr