Using the maps

I'm intrigued by the tessellated random polygons thing you've used as a map on the Stronghold sheet, Vincent. Are those all custom drawn or do you have a program that generates them? Is there a reason they all have a single pixel dot in each polygon? When you actually draw a map out, what's it tend to look like? You go over lines to form larger shapes to suggest the outlines of buildings, walls and so on, I take it?

If people have example maps their group drew during playtesting I'd love to see them.

I'm intrigued by the tessellated random polygons thing you've used as a map on the Stronghold sheet, Vincent. Are those all custom drawn or do you have a program that generates them? Is there a reason they all have a single pixel dot in each polygon?

They're Voronoi diagrams. You start with the seed points (the single pixel dots you noticed) and each polygonal cell is defined as that part of the field which is closer to a particular seed point than to any other. You'll note that each straight-line border is exactly midway between two seed points.

Not sure how they're supposed to be used, though!

Ahah! I thought there might be a trick to it. Thanks muchly, Borogove!

I suspect one easy way to use it is that if your stronghold is in the center of one polygon, and another stronghold is in the center of another, you know the exact halfway points between the two, don't you?

Not sure how they're supposed to be used, though!

The same thing was brought up on G+, because the blank maps remind me of the province layouts in Birthright I suggested the following:
If you're drawing a region of terrain, think of every "box" as a province or a plot of land that a single person or keep or household controls and lords over. If you're drawing a town, village, or city think of every "box" as a block and the lines as streets. Of course, you can draw over lines on either kind of map, combine multiple "boxes" into single areas, or ignore the lines altogether and just draw over them.
Very old cities did not have regular city planning, and buildings and streets just sprang up as needs arose. Take a look at the center of London and you'll see the same kind of odd patterns with many of the major (and ancestral) roads.?

I got the diagrams from here:
http://www.raymondhill.net/voronoi/rhill-voronoi.html

-Vincent

Also I've found those maps are great for drawing coastlines and rivers.