3 commissioned Treasure Maps; in bone, birch, and parchment!

[sword peddler]

Autarch has given permission to share some maps I recently finished up for their succesful Lairs & Encounters kickstarter campaign! I was hired to draw out a handful of treasure maps that lead from one lair to another lair. Apparently they function as player handouts, so I drew them to appear as they would if the players found them, rather than the GM referencing them. I figured I would share them here; they are reduced in quality a bit to meet the forum limits, and include watermarks.

First up is a map found in the wreckage of a viking boat:

The original art order was for the map on a bone rune stick, but rune sticks are tiny little guys so I did it across a few bones tied together. I used water color paints and micron pens on this one. To get the content looking nice and etched in, I laid down whisps of water color, and then went over it in ink, and then back over it with a smidgen more of water color. The runes are actual runes.

The next one is an elven map on birch bark paper:

To get the birch bark right I used blondwood prismacolor brush tip markers and color pencils and ink, then converted to greyscale in GIMP. All of the detail was done in regular ink. If you zoom in close enough you can find a fallen log that I forgot to ink, just sitting there in pencil. The language is Welsh.

And finally, this one is a trade route:

This one I used the a couple of different shades of marker to get the water stained look of the parchment and the map details are done in various shades of sepia ink and black ink. The constellations mark various points on the route, and for each one the art order included the number of stars included, and the animal/thing. So I had to come up with the actual constellation shapes. I put the big black circles down on the map, but for the actually stars I got out a white sheet of paper and did them in black, then digitally inverted the color and put them in place. The words are in a mixture of old and new Berber. Counter clockwise, starting from the top left the constellations are Void, Crown, Cawl, Eye, Manticore, Scorpion, Naga, Prince, and Wolf.

Thanks for lookin'!

[tilt]

hehe.. fun idea... especially like the viking map - pretty cool

[ChickPea]

Nice work with these!

[Tonnichiwa]

These are very nice. I like the unusual medium. I may have to use these ideas in some of my games.

[Ilanthar]

Fun and well done. I particularly like the last one and the way you did the mountains.