Welcome to the world of Kinragon – or rather the story of a Cartographer’s journey through Campaign Cartographer 2 & 3.

About two or three months after I bought CC2 and while I was still trying to fathom out how to use it properly, I saw a posting on the group list by an author in Australia who had written some fantasy novels and had a number of publishers interested. She wanted to help visualise the world she had created and was seeking a map-maker to provide a world map that would provide her not only with the visualisation but which would help her address inconsistencies and might even generate more material for the stories.

Without any real expectation of success, I wrote to her and offered my dubious services. After the exchange of a few e-mails and to my amazement, I was asked to undertake the work. It was a “labour of love” because the only reward that might ensue was the opportunity to see my work published and potential enquiries from the publishing world.

There follows a series of stages that the mapping went through. Anyone wanting a detailed set of instructions for each step is welcome to ask and I’ll try to find the time to provide them once I know the total of what’s wanted.

At this point, it’s important to point out that, with one or two exceptions, I used only those features and tools that came with the basic CC2 package.

The first thing to do was to see what Victoria had in her own mind’s eye and (hopefully) on paper. So I requested sight of sketches etc. Pictures 2 & 3 are what I received and these came together with the request that the basic shape of the northern part of the map should be altered to achieve geographical effects approximating to those of the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand.

Picture 1 - Marlborough Sounds, NZ