Aonbarr Cartography

Yester Hill (Druid's Circle)

I broke Yester Hill into two areas so that I could keep the maps consistent with 5 foot per square on the grid - the first part is the Druid's Circle. I struggled a little with the Strahd Wicker Man, but I'm happy enough with the mass of sticks I went for in the end. I don't really like the idea of the structure being so detailed that you can recognise it as Strahd, and I think it functions better as a vaguely humanoid shape.

Abbey of Saint Markovia

The Abbey of Saint Markovia was the first map I worked on that featured snow - it took some getting used to, and there were a lot of teething problems with regards making certain objects and pathways look like they'd been snowed on. Originally I just slapped the snow asset down on everything and tried to make it work, but I came back at the end and instead used a transparent layer of white through the Pattern Shape Tool. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that thing.

Argynvostholt

Oh, Argynvostholt... until you came along, I had no idea what I was doing where levels and layers were concerned. You forced me to learn (well, sort of - my technique is still pretty questionable), but I do hate you for it. There are a lot of overlapping layers here, and it took me a while to figure out the best way to do things in order to get the effect I wanted. It probably didn't help that I had taken a break from making maps for like two months before I came back to start this one, so I ...

Van Richten's Tower

I struggled with this one a fair bit during the early days of the process - I can't remember why precisely, but I think it had something to do with the slight change to the tower's size as it rises, and the inclusion of windows that weren't meant to be full-size. Whatever the case, I came back to it at the end of the project and completely rebuilt it from scratch, also making variants for the collapsed tower, and for Ezmerelda's wagon being destroyed. There's also a variant that includes both...

Wizard of Wines Winery

I really struggled with getting terrain right in the early days of the project - the Wizards of Wine Winery was what forced me to figure it out. I still came back and revised it later, but I kept the pathways through the vineyard as I had originally made them.

I also had to Google images of medieval cranes and printing presses for this one, and then attempted to very crudely replicate them using Dungeondraft assets. Fun!

Kasimir's Hovel

I separated Kasimir's Hovel from the Vistani Camp as I felt the map was quite unwieldy as it is in the module - a lot of unused space, and I didn't think the homes of the other Dusk Elves needed to be included in any battle maps. I may eventually make an alternate to Kasimir's Hovel, just in case anybody's players pick a fight with one of the other Dusk Elves.

As an aside, I really didn't like that the module describes that his vestibule is decorated, but does not state what it is deco...

Vistani Camp

I took the liberty of separating the Vistani Camp from Kasimir's Hovel, as there was a lot of unused space between the two - not to mention the hovels of all the other Dusk Elves that didn't necessarily have to be included in the map. Kasimir's Hovel is named accordingly.

Coffin Maker's Shop

Wachterhaus

I think this was the first map with which I started to deviate from the descriptions purely as written when I began this project - wild stuff, like adding in rugs where there were no rugs mentioned, that kind of thing. Fiercely liberating stuff. Seriously though, I do find the official maps can be quite empty, so I eventually started fleshing things out somewhat.

One thing that bothered me immensely about Dungeondraft while I was making this one was the lack of any kind of assets for f...

Burgomaster's Mansion

Something I really struggled with in both the Burgomaster's Mansion and Death House was the inclusion of objects being covered by a white dust cloth. I don't know how it took me so long to try using the Pattern Shape Tool with a transparent white color, but it worked pretty well in the end. Now, getting the bear head mounted on the wall was another story - I had to place the bear rug on the 'below ground' layer, and cut the bear rug's shape out of the floor. Not ideal.

Blue Water Inn

No alternates or anything fancy with this one - just an inn full of interesting characters. I may come back to this and make an alternate for post-uprising Vallaki at some point.

Old Bonegrinder

Another map whose name I felt the need to change - I called this one Durst Mill back when it was only intended for my players' eyes, and that stuck until I was getting around to uploading all my maps and remembered that's not the name the module gives the place. It's 'Old Bonegrinder' in my folders, but the files within those folders are all down as 'Durst Mill'. Forgive me.

Fun fact: I burnt myself out through excessive preparation combined with the map-making project. My Curse of Str...

Tser Pool Crossing

This map right here - this one was tricky.

First of all came the question, which way does the river flow? It took a lot of Googling and studying the map to figure out that it was flowing from east to west. I think. Honestly, I still expect to be told that I'm mistaken on this one, but such is life.

The second issue came when I realised that the map of Barovia only looks like the Old Svalich Road connects to both ends of the dirt path that runs along the river. Why ...

Tser Pool Encampment

I could not tell you much it pained me when I first made this map that I simply could not place some kind of flap over the entrances to the tents at the Tser Pool Encampment. When I came back to it at the end of the project, I had discovered the power of the Pattern Shape Tool and transparent colors, so I could finally fulfill that lifelong dream of having the entrances to tents be slightly less exposed to the weather.

My players had a good time here, between meeting the Vistani (who a...

River Ivlis Crossroads

There's not an awful lot to say about this particular map, bar the fact that I must have spent several weeks going back and forth between whether or not I wanted treetops to be transparent, so you could see exactly what was simply under the canopy and what was hidden behind tree trunks. In the end, I decided to keep the trees solid, as I just felt it looked so much better that way, but I reserve the right to change my mind!

Church of Barovia

I couldn't tell you why, precisely, but for some reason this was saved as 'Barovia Chapel' when I began work on this project, and I didn't notice it was incorrect until I had already created so many versions of the map that the thought of renaming it physically pained me. As such, it remains 'Barovia Chapel' in the Drive folders with all of the maps.

This was the second map I worked on for this project, and so, the second map whose subterranean elements were created separately, so the ...

Death House

The unfortunately named 'Death House' - I personally prefer to go with 'Durst Manor', as the original name is far too on the nose. Similarly, when I was running the area, I made a lot of changes, many of them taken from MandyMod's Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd series, as I felt like the whole thing was a bit much. I ran fewer combat encounters, but I also removed the mimic from the dungeon and the bones in the dungeon's dining area, as the cult that were practicing ritual sacrifi...

Map of Barovia

I think that when I decided to run Curse of Strahd, I started by recreating the map of Barovia through Wonderdraft, using assets I had drawn with my Wacom tablet.

The scale is a little different to the scale in the module as written, as I wanted to increase the distance between the various locations across the region, but  this map is more for aesthetic presentation than accuracy anyway (hence the lack of a grid), though I do have variants that remove the scale, so you can adjust ...