Make an Instant City Map! 

I always find it funny when people apologise for giving places simple descriptive names when that's how *a lot* of our place names came to be! It's just usually not immediately obvious to us because that original description no longer applies, it's in a language that predates ours or we've just known it as a place name so long it never occurred to us. For example, I live in a town that's called "swamp". Very few people living here know that though, because it's an anglicised spelling of an indigenous language *and* they converted the wetland for farming. It's still just called swamp though!

I've been having difficulty with the city for my new campaign, so this video couldn't have come at a better time. This is a pretty amazing idea!

Since you're using a map from Paris, it made me think of something arguably cooler than sewers : Paris actually has catacumbs, and while you can visit some of it as a tourist, most of it is illegal to go through. Although that doesn't stop some people, who call themselves cataphiles, from entering the network. And it's quite a fascinating network (you can even find maps of it on internet), with rooms who all have their own name and history, inscriptions noting the name of the street that is built above ground, and even connections to sewer networks or technical galleries for the subway. You can still find bones in some of the rooms, although most of them have been stolen over the years (yes, a lot of people like to grab a human skull for their living room decorum).There are entrances all over the city, if you know where to find them. I would advise not going if you're claustrophic or if you're not with someone who's really familiar with the network though, as tourists often get lost, prompting the authorities to seal entrances and that is why a lot of cataphiles tend to gatekeep. There's this whole complex relation with the police who chases them through tunnels but also asks for the help of experienced dwellers when someone has gone missing underground. They usually don't chase them for long anyway, since cataphiles like to carry around homemade "smoke bombs" (for lack of a better word) to cover their escape (or to piss off tourists; the smell is actually quite pleasant, as it's just potassium nitrate mixed with sugar).

You’re a LIFESAVER-I have a game coming up where they’ll be heading to a large city and I’ve been massively stressing over the map. Tysm for these resources!

I appreciate the mention of reading disability. It is always valuable to know how others deal with theirs. I've managed to find some fonts that are easier for me to read, so I use those wherever possible. I do wonder if I could use this map making method in a program I can make a PDF with so that I can test it with my screen reader. Looks like I have an experiment for later today. Thank you so much, your videos are always valuable and fun.

I’m a lurker on your channel, really enjoy your art and your ideas about making dnd better with its monsters and systems, keep at it! :)

This video is exactly what I’ve been needing! I recently started a big city campaign as well, and I’ve been struggling to make a map for my players, since I’ve been trying to draw it every time. I also really love the way you did the sewers! I have a whole gang that uses them to move around so now I can show their movement in a way that makes sense!!

Wow! This is a really inventive way of approaching a city-based campaign or adventure. Making city maps can be sooooo fatiguing, this is revolutionary yet so simple. I also like the "unknown" parts, reminds me of Dungeon World agenda "Draw maps, leave blanks" and leaves opportunities for the players to have input into the worldbuilding once they get into it. Finally..."Lichen Park" haha oh my god, that's a good one! "I've, become so pun..."😁😁

Really liked your point about the nature of place names and how their aesthetic informs their function! Now I'm gonna write a random table for grounded fantasy place names, thanks for the inspiration!

Brilliant idea, I’ve always loved making fantasy maps but really struggled when it came to city maps. This is such an effective and simple way to make a functional map that’s easy to look at. Thanks for the great content as always!

I've been wanting to create a city but I've been intimidated by the prospect. This seems like a great way to jump into the process, and the inverted colors for the undercity is BRILLIANT.

You are one of my fav d&d/trpg channels, keep the good work Krow

I was sceptical in the first few minutes, but I was surprised by the direction this took, and now I’m keen to try this method out myself! Thanks for sharing these ideas! 😁

I would have never thought of searching for historical (copyright free) maps, what an incredible idea

Love this video because I am not a great artist like you are, but am pretty good at remixing and using art that you can find online! These are solid tips and very creative!

Brilliant stuff! Love these tips. Thank you!

This is fantastic! You might be interested in the worldbuilding tool Beak, Feather & Bone, which uses any unlabelled map and has the players (or player, since you can play it solo) mark locations on the map based on factions.

Yes! I straggle with large scale maps and I really needed this guide

This is such a cool and accessible way to implement believable maps into a game with much less effort! I've really only recently started to fully grasp how much work good storytelling can do in the imaginations of others

Questing Beast's newsletter sent me here. This was solid. Loved naming parts of a city and undercity, they provoke an instant imagery.

I'm literally in need of a city map for this week's session, so this is the most timely thing ever. Thanks!

Brilliant video with awesome ideas. Thanks!

Nice! I agree with you way of naming. It really makes you want to imagine stuff about those places

Dave Rumsey's collection is my favorite thing on the internet. It's just pure bliss to look at any map in there.

Love your videos so much! every time you post it brings joy to me, cant wait for your next video!!

Love these sorts of videos! the amount of times I’ve just ripped off historical maps, places, and words from around the world for my games are not even countable. I think it’s important for DMs to learn the art of not planning for everything in a city or world. When I first started I thought I had to come up with every shop name, NPC, their history & whatever else. Now I just throw an evocative and realistic sounding name for a place and see where it takes me. Recently I threw out the name Sacrifice hills as a location immediately it got the players attention. An example I like to reference for naming places in real life is, there is a creek called Breakfast Creek in Australia, it’s named that because the settlers who named it had breakfast there. The names I use in the world I’ve created always sort of follow they idea of: is it named this because of an event?, is there a reason the name is still called this, was it named something else before and what do the locals call it now.

This is so cool! Thanks!

I enjoy all of Map Crow videos

Your videos are always a delight! This one is especially nice for me as I am planning to create a big city for my ongoing campaign with lots of districts, secret societies and pathways which should act as a playground for my players. Also, your naming scheme really resonates with me, it's reminiscent of stuff from authors like Vandermeer, Mieville or Harrison with their wierd megacities sprawling with outlandish creatures and cultures. Keep it up!

This is a fantastic video! Thank you for the tips.

Beautiful Paris map

What a great video! Between this advice and the mapping systems in Electric Bastionland it's all cities for me these days.

Great stuff! Love your work dude!

this was amazingly helpful thank you!

Names are everything, and names on a map: even more!

woah, thanks so much for this! this is a great tool!

ohhhh this is brilliant! and I didn't realize you were a teacher as well, I'm sure your students appreciate having you as their teacher :D

Dude! That's sick!

Love it thank you!!

I used an old map of a larger city near me for the Fallout: Fort Smith game on my channel. Colored it pipboy green. Worked out great.🙂👍 ~ Adam

AWESOME!

Great alternative to world building from scratch. Many of your suggestions apply well to "all-original" map efforts as well. Now about this "Hissing Nunnery"... perhaps a fangtasy destination?

You can also mirror the map image to further obfuscate any text that's on it and which real-world city you're using.

I once used a 17th century map of Rotterdam with a little photoshop for a city of mine!

Fantastic video

Thank you for this, I thought I was the only one who did this lol. I love using "old" real world maps with some changes to create real "feeling" cities, forts, etc. My big project is adapting the Catalan Atlas as my World Map, which if you're not familiar check it out... it OOZES medieval personality.

I’m a new DM and stumbled on your channel through your factions video. Quickly devoured everything in the span of a few days and it’s helped me more than anything else I’ve seen! I’ve learned a lot and as a recovering academic myself I really appreciate the amount of research you’ve put into everything. I saw a few comments on some other videos referring to a discord you have. Is that still open? I’d love to get more involved. Thank you so much for starting this channel!

Im kind of lost when making a city campaign. I think its because i dont have any real map, just a bunch of abstractly positioned places of interest. Next time ill try using a map since this method seems so much easier than drawing a thousand buildings by hand.

This is a great idea.

I used an obscure real world language once and 2 of my players knew what it was! So crazy

I,m curious about the plot hooks you made on the first session

Idea; find a historical map of your own hometown and use that! See how long it takes players to figure it out.

Seeing the sewer system made me gasp too!

I also agree that fantasy names get way too out of hand. The amount of things in my small homebrew that are just named "The [noun]" is a lot and I much prefer that to not remembering what anything is called ever.

lol I am using that same map of Paris to develop my settings capital city!

Soo cool very usfule

Hey, I know you've set building better monsters aside for the mo, but if you were to get back to it, it'd be really cool to see you do some stuff on gnolls and on aboleths, both of which feel somewhat lacking to me, though the former more obviously than the latter.

i am a GM with Dyslexia dnd I totally feel your pain

I was really hoping the video was just going to end when you said “I just stole one from the internet”. Great video though

"Lichen Park" xD

I quibble with the title. I feel like this is much less making a map and more labeling an existing map.