Lazlo Map

[Madmorigan]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

[Hotrod]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

Lazlo the country or Lazlo the city? It might be possible to do up a regional map of Lazlo. City maps aren't really practical.

[Madmorigan]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

Lazlo the country or Lazlo the city? It might be possible to do up a regional map of Lazlo. City maps aren't really practical.

It was the city I meant. I find them useful as I'm putting them into Maptool to play online.
I knocked a quick one up anyway.

Just used points of interest from the books and made a few up too.

[Hotrod]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

Lazlo the country or Lazlo the city? It might be possible to do up a regional map of Lazlo. City maps aren't really practical.

It was the city I meant. I find them useful as I'm putting them into Maptool to play online.
I knocked a quick one up anyway.

Just used points of interest from the books and made a few up too.

Mapping cities is a weird compromise. It's possible to map a village or town down to the individual building level with up to a few thousand residents. Once you get to 10k-20k, it quickly becomes unworkable; there will be too many buildings, so you have to start mapping blocks rather than houses. Once you get to 100k or so, side streets become impractical to map, so you have to start mapping large roads and neighborhoods. At 1 million+, you can map rivers, major highways, and districts. I've made a village/town map, and I've made one mega-city map (it's in Duty's Edge).

Any way you work it, though, city maps are messy, incorporating all kinds of weird rules we humans make, break, and adapt as we build and reshape our habitats. There's chaos and order, centralized and decentralized planing, grid-like layouts and layouts that flow with the land, or with economic activity, or with security concerns, or with combinations of all kinds of cultural and social values. Making a city map that looks and feels right is a daunting prospect.

Mapping something like Lazlo would add another level of complexity with magical geography like ley lines, nexuses, and pyramids. Putting something like that together would take a lot of work. I'd be very curious to see what you come up with.

[Orin J.]

basically, civic planners are more powerful wizards than actual wizards if you need a city built my a wide margin.

i dunno how you'd go around doing a good lazlo map but i would sure be fascinated to see what other people's takes on it are.

[Madmorigan]

I'm working on one now.

It's not a detailed map, my idea was to show areas/districts of the city with points of interest rather than a detailed one with every street and shop.
It's more so the players have something to look at and perhaps mark any places they visit with a rough marker in Maptool.

I post it up once done.

[Madmorigan]

It's a big map so best to zoom in.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QMU9CEPzU7NrrT0NVdTbKT4BGO-2xnrn/view?usp=sharing

1 and 2 covered in the books.
3. A tower for deep study. Spells of silence are cast throughout to allow for concentration.
4. The pinnacle of libraries holding the most highly prised books in the city.

District of Magic: Populated with magic and techno wizard shops, areas of learning, study and practice.
District if Learning: Libraries, bookshops, areas of learning, study and practice that do not relate to magic.
District of Commerce: General above board shopping.
Bartertown: The area for the more shady transactions.
Tintown: Shanty town outside the walls.
Greenvales: Populated by most of the farming community.
Waterside: General residential area.
Rend Cross: General residential area.
River Garden: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Fairlight: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Highbourne: The most expensive residential area with slightly cheaper properties outside of the wall.

Could probably do with adding military points of interest.

Used a generator as the basis adding my own text and points of interest, even knocked up my own Tower of Higher Learning graphic.

Happy to amend if people have ideas (e.g. points of interest) but the base map will have to stay the same.

[Hotrod]

I like it! Procedural generation is a good approach for the base map, and the ley lines align nicely with the layout. A few thoughts for you:
+If you make a vector version, you could zoom way in and do some local details with a program like Inkscape. A lot of online procedural generation city map creators can output a vector format, which can output whatever size jpg you want.
+Considering that Lazlo's population is ~3million (I think), this city is probably two orders of magnitude too small (best guess for this would be 20k-30k. That probably doesn't matter to most players/GMs, and if it troubles you, you could always get around this by identifying polygons that are buildings as city blocks instead.
+The city walls seem like they need more context and explanation. They're placed and sized like medieval walls, and it seems strange that they don't extend to the shorelines. It seems like half the city is outside the walls, which I like, since Lazlo's population has exploded with Tolkeen refugees.
+The labels are nicely curved, but they're hard to read. Having a light, fuzzy, faded backlight behind them would help with this.
+I like the images you use for special locations. The mix of overhead views of city blocks with isometric icons for key locations is jarring; you might consider trying some bevel/emboss effects on buildings and introduce some internal complexity into these big buildings.

I hope this feedback helps. Thanks so much for sharing this, and if you do anything more with it, please do share!

[Madmorigan]

I like it! Procedural generation is a good approach for the base map, and the ley lines align nicely with the layout. A few thoughts for you:
+If you make a vector version, you could zoom way in and do some local details with a program like Inkscape. A lot of online procedural generation city map creators can output a vector format, which can output whatever size jpg you want.
+Considering that Lazlo's population is ~3million (I think), this city is probably two orders of magnitude too small (best guess for this would be 20k-30k. That probably doesn't matter to most players/GMs, and if it troubles you, you could always get around this by identifying polygons that are buildings as city blocks instead.
+The city walls seem like they need more context and explanation. They're placed and sized like medieval walls, and it seems strange that they don't extend to the shorelines. It seems like half the city is outside the walls, which I like, since Lazlo's population has exploded with Tolkeen refugees.
+The labels are nicely curved, but they're hard to read. Having a light, fuzzy, faded backlight behind them would help with this.
+I like the images you use for special locations. The mix of overhead views of city blocks with isometric icons for key locations is jarring; you might consider trying some bevel/emboss effects on buildings and introduce some internal complexity into these big buildings.

I hope this feedback helps. Thanks so much for sharing this, and if you do anything more with it, please do share!

Thanks for the feedback.
I'll see what I can do when I have time.

The generator was on max for the size though so unless I do some manual editing post processing it wouldn't get any bigger.

Anyway good to get some comments back.

[Hotrod]

I like it! Procedural generation is a good approach for the base map, and the ley lines align nicely with the layout. A few thoughts for you:
+If you make a vector version, you could zoom way in and do some local details with a program like Inkscape. A lot of online procedural generation city map creators can output a vector format, which can output whatever size jpg you want.
+Considering that Lazlo's population is ~3million (I think), this city is probably two orders of magnitude too small (best guess for this would be 20k-30k. That probably doesn't matter to most players/GMs, and if it troubles you, you could always get around this by identifying polygons that are buildings as city blocks instead.
+The city walls seem like they need more context and explanation. They're placed and sized like medieval walls, and it seems strange that they don't extend to the shorelines. It seems like half the city is outside the walls, which I like, since Lazlo's population has exploded with Tolkeen refugees.
+The labels are nicely curved, but they're hard to read. Having a light, fuzzy, faded backlight behind them would help with this.
+I like the images you use for special locations. The mix of overhead views of city blocks with isometric icons for key locations is jarring; you might consider trying some bevel/emboss effects on buildings and introduce some internal complexity into these big buildings.

I hope this feedback helps. Thanks so much for sharing this, and if you do anything more with it, please do share!

Thanks for the feedback.
I'll see what I can do when I have time.

The generator was on max for the size though so unless I do some manual editing post processing it wouldn't get any bigger.

Anyway good to get some comments back.

Which program/website did you use to make the baseline city? I mention this because I might be able to help you find a way to get a vector version. If not, you can always use Inkscape to trace the bitmap you made, effectively vectorizing it.

[Madmorigan]

I like it! Procedural generation is a good approach for the base map, and the ley lines align nicely with the layout. A few thoughts for you:
+If you make a vector version, you could zoom way in and do some local details with a program like Inkscape. A lot of online procedural generation city map creators can output a vector format, which can output whatever size jpg you want.
+Considering that Lazlo's population is ~3million (I think), this city is probably two orders of magnitude too small (best guess for this would be 20k-30k. That probably doesn't matter to most players/GMs, and if it troubles you, you could always get around this by identifying polygons that are buildings as city blocks instead.
+The city walls seem like they need more context and explanation. They're placed and sized like medieval walls, and it seems strange that they don't extend to the shorelines. It seems like half the city is outside the walls, which I like, since Lazlo's population has exploded with Tolkeen refugees.
+The labels are nicely curved, but they're hard to read. Having a light, fuzzy, faded backlight behind them would help with this.
+I like the images you use for special locations. The mix of overhead views of city blocks with isometric icons for key locations is jarring; you might consider trying some bevel/emboss effects on buildings and introduce some internal complexity into these big buildings.

I hope this feedback helps. Thanks so much for sharing this, and if you do anything more with it, please do share!

Thanks for the feedback.
I'll see what I can do when I have time.

The generator was on max for the size though so unless I do some manual editing post processing it wouldn't get any bigger.

Anyway good to get some comments back.

Which program/website did you use to make the baseline city? I mention this because I might be able to help you find a way to get a vector version. If not, you can always use Inkscape to trace the bitmap you made, effectively vectorizing it.

It was this one: http://fantasycities.watabou.ru/

[Hotrod]

I thought so. That generator used to allow .svg vector files as an output, but looks like it doesn't anymore.

No matter. You can still vectorize what you've made. Inkscape is free. You can download it, open your .jpg or .png file into it, and then trace the bitmap to create a vector city map.

[DD The Shmey]

Madmorigan that map looks great! I can totally see that being useful to pull out in a game where the party is going to Lazlo.

It was mentioned earlier that the scale of the city might be smaller than 3 million people, but honestly if you were to keep scaling the city up you're likely to lose detail that would otherwise be useful to a game. As it is right now, I can imagine you pulling up the map, zooming in, and saying that the party members are running up 'this' street, and they see the bad guy that their chasing run into 'that' alleyway. At the same time it is also certainly big enough to easily get lost in and I can't imagine a scenario played out in a game where you need to have more city blocks for the party to explore than what is already in that map.

That generator site you used is pretty cool too. My brother was using a different random map generator for his D&D games, and I'll have to show him this one.

As for adding more points of interest into the map, have you consulted the new Lazlo Raw preview book?
I just got a copy of it a few days ago and have been reading through it. I think it's a pretty good book so far, although I am lucky that I came into the book without any preconceptions of the city, having never played a game set in the city before.

There is enough details on the city provided in the Raw Lazlo book to really construct a very detailed map. It describes 10 districts (such as the Harbor and University districts) each with 5-10 points of interest described in them. Such points of interest are each described with a few paragraphs with locations ranging from important places like the Congress of Electorate buildings, to more mundane places like to Karell's Florist flower shop or the Harbor Lakewall dikes/levees.

Based on what I gather about your planned game, I think the Lazlo book is likely more detailed than what you need in your game at this time. When the final book comes out, I don't think your players would mind if some simple things like the names of a few districts changed a little with the publication of a new map should they visit the city at a later date, especially when it seems like the gist of your map lines up with what I can see described in the book.

You mentioned maybe adding a military base into your map, and one of the larger landmarks the new book mentions is the Toronto airport (now called Lazlo Regional Airport) that has a military base (and HQ of the Lazlo Defense Force) on the site.
Another thing that kind of stands out when I look at your map is that the author mentions that the city of Lazlo has three nexus points forming a triangle around the city, each with pyramids to help tame the leylines. Other than that, if I was running a game in Lazlo right now, I would steal your work and use it in my game in a heartbeat.

If you are looking for more inspiration you could also look at the modern map of Toronto on Google Maps, and take a look at some the the street names and layout of the existing city. The layout will be out of date by roughly 400 years, but I'm willing to bet you can find something useful in it. When I try to overlap the two images and toggle between your map and the google map of Toronto to see where things line up, it looks like the Toronto airport would be somewhere around the border between your Greendales and Highbourne districts and could be as large as southern half or third of the Greendales district.

---
On a side note Mr. Hotrod might like to hear that at the same time I purchased the Lazlo Raw Preview, I purchased your new book Duty's Edge, and am looking forward to reading it. As I mentioned to you a few years ago I was doing some world building in the Phoenix Empire, and am eager to mine your book for ideas and insights. Paging through it I see you have quite a few chapters based in Rama City of Doom. After I am done reading it I'll let you know what I think.

... actually @Hotrod...
If you like I could take some notes while I am reading to describe my impressions of your work, or what I as a reader was thinking about at different stages of the book? I know that some authors enjoy reading that kind of feedback, although it has probably been a while since you finished writing the book. Let me know if there is anything in particular you'd like my impression on.

MESSAGE ENDS

[Hotrod]

On a side note Mr. Hotrod might like to hear that at the same time I purchased the Lazlo Raw Preview, I purchased your new book Duty's Edge, and am looking forward to reading it. As I mentioned to you a few years ago I was doing some world building in the Phoenix Empire, and am eager to mine your book for ideas and insights. Paging through it I see you have quite a few chapters based in Rama City of Doom. After I am done reading it I'll let you know what I think.

... actually @Hotrod...
If you like I could take some notes while I am reading to describe my impressions of your work, or what I as a reader was thinking about at different stages of the book? I know that some authors enjoy reading that kind of feedback, although it has probably been a while since you finished writing the book. Let me know if there is anything in particular you'd like my impression on.

MESSAGE ENDS

The Rama map was my first-ever attempt at a city map. The result was a little simple, but it communicated what I needed it to for the story.

I would be delighted to hear your thoughts on Duty's Edge, both during the read and after. Review posts are great, and if you prefer to PM me, that's fine too. I don't have anything specific, just whatever resonates with you as you read it. Thanks!

[Emerald MoonSilver]

For making maps I was considering buying campaign cartographer since its on sale now for half price. Has anyone used it? and if so how long does it take to get somewhat proficient with it?

[Hotrod]

For making maps I was considering buying campaign cartographer since its on sale now for half price. Has anyone used it? and if so how long does it take to get somewhat proficient with it?

Pretty much any map-making software is going to have a learning curve. I'd say look at the products of a few different programs, pick one, and give it a go. If you're a cheapskate like me, I've heard that Inkarnate is comparable to CC, and it has a pretty good free version. I haven't tried it myself, but plenty of cartographers love it. It might be worth trying out.

[Prysus]

For making maps I was considering buying campaign cartographer since its on sale now for half price. Has anyone used it? and if so how long does it take to get somewhat proficient with it?

Pretty much any map-making software is going to have a learning curve. I'd say look at the products of a few different programs, pick one, and give it a go. If you're a cheapskate like me, I've heard that Inkarnate is comparable to CC, and it has a pretty good free version. I haven't tried it myself, but plenty of cartographers love it. It might be worth trying out.

Greetings and Salutations. I was coming on here to recommend Inkarnate, but looks like Hotrod beat me to it. I've been using it for a only 2 or 3 weeks, but am really liking it and found learning it fairly intuitive just by playing with the features. Meanwhile I recall trying out Campaign Cartographer about 25 years ago and just couldn't quite get the hang of it (that was a long time ago, so things may have changed a lot since then, I don't know).

As Hotrod mentioned, there's a free version to try out. I'd recommend playing around with it for a bit and see how you feel about it. I managed to make a basic version of the map I had wanted in 2 or 3 hours, and a lot of that was just my experimenting with the program. The paid version is only $5 a month or $25 for a year (I went with the latter) and unlocks additional models. The program seems to also allow you to upload custom models, but I haven't tried that feature yet. In addition, there is an "Explore" option that lets you look at maps others have uploaded. You can download and/or clone (which gives you a copy that you can edit in the program), depending on the uploaders settings, which can help you see what it's capable of, as well as use if something already suits your needs.

Overall, I find the program fairly intuitive (and have made a few battle maps for my home group), though I do continue to learn more (getting better is a constant goal). I'll note, from what I can tell, you can't save in vector images, if that's important to you. From what I can tell the default save is 96 dpi. They do have different quality settings. The 4k version, for instance, looked fine normally, but lost some detail and a few lines very pixelated when zoomed in extremely close, but the 8k save had much smoother lines and cleaner details that I'm content with it as is.

Anyways, just wanted to provide a review from my experiences. Hope some of that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.

[Jockitch74]

It's a big map so best to zoom in.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QMU9CEPzU7NrrT0NVdTbKT4BGO-2xnrn/view?usp=sharing

1 and 2 covered in the books.
3. A tower for deep study. Spells of silence are cast throughout to allow for concentration.
4. The pinnacle of libraries holding the most highly prised books in the city.

District of Magic: Populated with magic and techno wizard shops, areas of learning, study and practice.
District if Learning: Libraries, bookshops, areas of learning, study and practice that do not relate to magic.
District of Commerce: General above board shopping.
Bartertown: The area for the more shady transactions.
Tintown: Shanty town outside the walls.
Greenvales: Populated by most of the farming community.
Waterside: General residential area.
Rend Cross: General residential area.
River Garden: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Fairlight: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Highbourne: The most expensive residential area with slightly cheaper properties outside of the wall.

Could probably do with adding military points of interest.

Used a generator as the basis adding my own text and points of interest, even knocked up my own Tower of Higher Learning graphic.

Happy to amend if people have ideas (e.g. points of interest) but the base map will have to stay the same.

Interesting. Are you basing any of this off of the original city of Toronto?

[Hotrod]

For making maps I was considering buying campaign cartographer since its on sale now for half price. Has anyone used it? and if so how long does it take to get somewhat proficient with it?

I should also mention that you don't need to get dedicated map software or buy anything to make some pretty awesome maps. I use GIMP, Inkscape, and WILBUR for the maps that I make. All three of those programs cost $0, and I've been happy with the results I've had so far. There's certainly a learning curve to these programs, but there are loads of tutorials out there. The Cartographers Guild website is a treasure trove of knowledge for folks who want to make awesome maps.

Most maps I've seen made with dedicated map programs like CC and Inkarnate look good and are serviceable, and if that's what you're going for, have at it. The downside is that you're working with a set library of assets, which tends to make the results look generic. Personally, I prefer to make my own assets, icons, and effects; this takes more time, but I find the end result satisfying, and the graphic design skills I've picked up have come in handy in ways I didn't anticipate when I started making maps.

[Kraynic]

I should also mention that you don't need to get dedicated map software or buy anything to make some pretty awesome maps. I use GIMP, Inkscape, and WILBUR for the maps that I make. All three of those programs cost $0, and I've been happy with the results I've had so far. There's certainly a learning curve to these programs, but there are loads of tutorials out there. The Cartographers Guild website is a treasure trove of knowledge for folks who want to make awesome maps.

This is definitely true. I started out making maps in GIMP, and there are definitely some good tutorials out there. I think the last map I made before buying Wonderdraft was actually kind of passable. I'm not saying previous ones weren't usable, but my progression was evident (to me at least, if not to my players). Wonderdraft has made creating a map that is presentable easier/faster, and it is more difficult (but certainly not impossible!) to make an ugly map. I would say, though, that making truly good maps takes a fair bit of practice even with software for that specific purpose. Go to any subreddit for map making or specific software, and you will see beautiful stuff that you are very unlikely to make with that specific software without a fair bit of time investment and practice.

[Emerald MoonSilver]

For making maps I was considering buying campaign cartographer since its on sale now for half price. Has anyone used it? and if so how long does it take to get somewhat proficient with it?

I should also mention that you don't need to get dedicated map software or buy anything to make some pretty awesome maps. I use GIMP, Inkscape, and WILBUR for the maps that I make. All three of those programs cost $0, and I've been happy with the results I've had so far. There's certainly a learning curve to these programs, but there are loads of tutorials out there. The Cartographers Guild website is a treasure trove of knowledge for folks who want to make awesome maps.

Most maps I've seen made with dedicated map programs like CC and Inkarnate look good and are serviceable, and if that's what you're going for, have at it. The downside is that you're working with a set library of assets, which tends to make the results look generic. Personally, I prefer to make my own assets, icons, and effects; this takes more time, but I find the end result satisfying, and the graphic design skills I've picked up have come in handy in ways I didn't anticipate when I started making maps.

I've been fiddling with photoshop cs6 and a new product I was given called clip studio paint pro. It's a decent generic drawing program and I'll spend a little more time using it before deciding to buy campaign cartographer or not. I even came across a really old drawing program at a garage sale that came with a 3rd addition d&d character creation program, but the 20 year old program doesn't appear to work with win 7 at all, oh well...

Emerald

[Warwolf]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

Just to answer your question: Yes, I created semi-detailed maps as I was laying out the city for the manuscript. However, I am not a cartographer and have no background with map-making software. The best I could manage was pasting Google Maps images into MS Word and then overlaying graphical objects to create borders, points of interest, ley lines, etc. I did forward all of these to Palladium with the manuscript so that whoever ends up doing the maps will have them for reference.

I provided an overview image of the city with the locations of the districts labeled, a ley-line reference map, and a map for each of the districts detailed for the book (Harbor, Midtown, Waterfront, Westvale, Heart of Lazlo, Northfield, University, Industrial, Market, and the Eastern Reach). I might go back and do a territory map for the entire Free State now that I'm thinking about it, though the locations referenced in the Raw Edition are pretty easy to locate and draw from.

[Madmorigan]

It's a big map so best to zoom in.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QMU9CEPzU7NrrT0NVdTbKT4BGO-2xnrn/view?usp=sharing

1 and 2 covered in the books.
3. A tower for deep study. Spells of silence are cast throughout to allow for concentration.
4. The pinnacle of libraries holding the most highly prised books in the city.

District of Magic: Populated with magic and techno wizard shops, areas of learning, study and practice.
District if Learning: Libraries, bookshops, areas of learning, study and practice that do not relate to magic.
District of Commerce: General above board shopping.
Bartertown: The area for the more shady transactions.
Tintown: Shanty town outside the walls.
Greenvales: Populated by most of the farming community.
Waterside: General residential area.
Rend Cross: General residential area.
River Garden: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Fairlight: More expensive residential area being inside the wall.
Highbourne: The most expensive residential area with slightly cheaper properties outside of the wall.

Could probably do with adding military points of interest.

Used a generator as the basis adding my own text and points of interest, even knocked up my own Tower of Higher Learning graphic.

Happy to amend if people have ideas (e.g. points of interest) but the base map will have to stay the same.

Interesting. Are you basing any of this off of the original city of Toronto?

No was all just made up.

[Madmorigan]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has made a Lazlo map.

I know there is likely to be one in the forthcoming books but my players are going to visit very soon so don't have the time to wait.

I'll knock one up myself but thought I'd check if anyone had done the hard work for me first.

Just to answer your question: Yes, I created semi-detailed maps as I was laying out the city for the manuscript. However, I am not a cartographer and have no background with map-making software. The best I could manage was pasting Google Maps images into MS Word and then overlaying graphical objects to create borders, points of interest, ley lines, etc. I did forward all of these to Palladium with the manuscript so that whoever ends up doing the maps will have them for reference.

I provided an overview image of the city with the locations of the districts labeled, a ley-line reference map, and a map for each of the districts detailed for the book (Harbor, Midtown, Waterfront, Westvale, Heart of Lazlo, Northfield, University, Industrial, Market, and the Eastern Reach). I might go back and do a territory map for the entire Free State now that I'm thinking about it, though the locations referenced in the Raw Edition are pretty easy to locate and draw from.

Looking forward to seeing the official stuff.