{"id":1831085,"date":"2024-05-15T19:27:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T23:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1831085"},"modified":"2024-05-15T19:27:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T23:27:19","slug":"a-library-of-17th-century-map-elements-useful-for-fantasy-and-game-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/05\/a-library-of-17th-century-map-elements-useful-for-fantasy-and-game-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"A Library of 17th-Century Map Elements, Useful for Fantasy and Game Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Stark extracted elements from a 1688 map of part of Germany<\/a> to create a library of tree, hill and town signs<\/a> that he thought entirely appropriate for use as map assets for a role-playing game. I look at them and see fantasy map design elements. In 2019 I noted the similarities<\/a> between 16th-century maps and modern fantasy map design. Also, digitally created fantasy maps often feature clone-stamped hill signs; you could do worse than clone-stamp these if you were whipping a fantasy map up. At least there\u2019s more than one kind of hill sign to clone-stamp: there are, in fact, 159 hills and 26 mountains\u2014more than 400 tiny images in all, and it\u2019s interesting that David has separate categories for towns and cities, and for hills and mountains. [via<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Stark extracted elements from a 1688 map of part of Germany to create a library of tree, hill and town signs that he thought entirely appropriate for use as map assets for a role-playing… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[87,31],"class_list":["post-1831085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-antique-maps","category-maps-and-literature","tag-fantasy-map-design","tag-fantasy-maps","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1840139,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/fantasy-mapmaking-tools\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":0},"title":"Fantasy Mapmaking Tools","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 May 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"I\u2019ve been making note of procedural fantasy map generators for a while now. These are tools that generate a map of an imaginary landscape, town or dungeon, mostly (but not necessarily exclusively) for the purposes of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. The latest to come to my attention is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Games"","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1787272,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/05\/an-anciente-mappe-of-fairyland\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":1},"title":"An Anciente Mappe of Fairyland","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 May 2019","format":"image","excerpt":"\"An Anciente Mappe of Fairyland,\" produced by Bernard Sleigh around 1917, is a marvellous conflation of classical myth and fairy tales. Nearly five feet wide, it was apparently designed to hang in nurseries. The echoes of its design elements can still be seen in later fantasy maps and children's book\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/sleigh-fairyland-1024x315.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/sleigh-fairyland-1024x315.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/sleigh-fairyland-1024x315.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/sleigh-fairyland-1024x315.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4860,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/09\/the-territory-is-not-the-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":2},"title":"The Territory Is Not the Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 September 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Critiques of fantasy maps have more to do with the shortcomings of fantasy worlds than the maps that depict them.","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"From Jared Blando, How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps (Impact, 2015).","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/blando-example.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1827730,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/02\/one-map-to-rule-them-all-fantasy-map-design-elements-in-arcgis-pro\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":3},"title":"One Map to Rule Them All: Fantasy Map Design Elements in ArcGIS Pro","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 February 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"John Nelson\u2019s One Style to Rule Them All is an ArcGIS Pro map style that applies fantasy map design elements to real-world geographic data. It does something similar to his earlier (2018) map style, My Precious (described here) only differently and with fewer assets (and 1\/60th the download size). John\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screenshot of John Nelson's One Map to Rule Them All ArcGIS Pro map style to a map of the Mediterranean area.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5582,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/06\/the-sixteenth-century-origins-of-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":4},"title":"The Sixteenth-Century Origins of Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 June 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the things I'm interested in for my fantasy maps project is the origin of fantasy map design: where does that tell-tale fantasy map look come from? Look at enough fantasy maps, and it's hard not to notice certain commonalities in design. As Stefan Ekman demonstrates in Here Be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2279,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/06\/fantasy-maps-middle-earth-vs-westeros\/","url_meta":{"origin":1831085,"position":5},"title":"Fantasy Maps: Middle-earth vs. Westeros","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 June 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"In the latest instalment of Hannah Stahl's series of posts on fantasy maps at the Library of Congress's map blog (see previous entry), she takes as a starting point my argument that Tolkien's map of Middle-earth is the\u00a0progenitor map from which the modern fantasy map design is descended, and compares\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1831085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831090,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831085\/revisions\/1831090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1831085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1831085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1831085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}