Sources for Good Maps?

[Just Joe]

As a GM, there is no resource I desire more than good maps. Those in many Harnworld products (by Columbia Games) are excellent, but I would love to get my hands on others. I'm particularly interested in relatively realistic settings in which FH combat might take place: a castle or keep, a bridge or ford, maybe an inn. Detail is a plus, as is ease of convertability to a HERO-scaled hexmap.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

[SirWilliam]

There are bunches of maps on the net, but here's a program you can use to make your own fairly painlessly.

http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/index.html

[Wolf]

I know it's harracy, however Wizards does have a reletively good article every week on their website, it's called "map a week" :
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mwa/archive2003
and there is at least a year if not more of archived maps for every week. I use them and the modern counterpart for any maps I need in my games.
You should be able to find what you need.
-Cam

[keithcurtis]

The old Fantasy Hero Companion I had a lot of good maps of classic fantasy locations. Also, Flying Buffalo put out a series of Citybooks where each chapter describes a location in a fantasy city. Palladium had a good book of Castles.
You can also wait for Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds. ;)


Keith "Mapmaker" Curtis

[Victor]

While it's not so good for maps of building interiors, you can find some interesting maps at the following link... http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

[kiahoga]

try www.dragonsfoot.org its a good place to find maps and the like

[Elizabeth]

I've found some great maps of castles, churches and other buildings, along with great street level details of cities and good country side maps in turn of the century travel guides like Baedekers Travel Guides. You can find them on ebay. I'm not sure what the current Baedekers are like.

Another very good source is a magazine called 'Country Life'. It's about English country life. They usually feature one old manor house in each issue with great photographs maps and descriptions. Again I was looking at turn of the century copies of the magazine, which you might be able to find at a well-stocked college library. The magazine is still going, their web site is http://www.countrylife.co.uk/.

[Greatwyrm]

Check with Steve Jackson Games (www.sjgames.com). The maps they make for GURPS should be just the right scale for HERO and already in hexes.

[keithcurtis]

Actually GURPS hexes are less than half the size of HERO hexes.

GURPS hex = 1 yard
HERO hex = 2 meters

Their early maps had no real detail to them and were acceptable, but their later stuff is out of scale.

Now, that being said, I really don't have a problem with this. I frequently use a different interior scale than exterior, just so a barroom brawl has some tactical interest. If a room is 3 hexes by 2 hexes, there just isn't enough room to move around. If everything else scales, it's a perfectly equitable solution.

Keith "rubber ruler" Curtis