Maps for dungeon masters

Three tools make maps. The map studio turns a described place into a battle map, the way the AI does when a fight starts. The Map Forge and Map Editor are the hand tools: paint terrain, place walls, doors, lights and props, set fog and a skin. The region map editor draws the wider world. All three live in the workshop's Battle maps and Region tools and in the DM console at the table.

The map studio

Describe a place: "a collapsed chapel with a flooded crypt below and a rubble-choked nave". The studio shows the words it recognised as chips (chapel, flooded, rubble) and rolls a battle map from them, with a skin chosen from the campaign's setting. Roll again, adjust, or open the result in the editor. The AI Dungeon Master uses the same studio mid-play.

Map Forge and Map Editor

Both are rebuilt around a tool rail, layers, a tileset panel and an inspector. Fifteen tools, each with a hotkey on a desktop:

• Terrain: brush with radius, line, rectangle, ellipse and fill with a live preview; undo and redo; stamp props by hand from the palette.
• Structure: walls (movement and half cover), doors (open, closed, locked, secret), labels, map notes with place links.
• Light and sight: light sources with presets, light zones, magical darkness, fog painted or computed, a DM-only overlay image.
• Dressing: an uploaded backdrop that fog still covers, ambience cues placed on the map, a bystander token from the cast, tags, and the map's skin (its painted look; fantasy has sixteen, each other setting its own).
• Navigation: zoom, pan and pinch on every surface; a selection model with an action bar; drag as a second way to do anything; autosave; an objects panel; a hotkeys overlay.

Maps can be any size the encounter needs. A prepared map outlives the encounter it was drawn for and can be deployed again.

Running a map at the table

The Battle tab during a fight is the editor's live twin: move tokens, open doors, place a hazard, reveal fog, pull and lock the camera for a set piece. The token HUD shows a creature's numbers to the DM. Freehand drawings and notes by players appear when the setting allows them.

The region map

Roll a region at any size from 24 by 18 to 192 by 144 with named presets; places, pins, lines and labels are carried where they still fit. Draw roads, rivers and borders tap by tap, paint coastlines, forests and ranges, write place and region labels, erase, or hang a picture in place of the tiles. Drag painting, a keys sheet, undo and autosave throughout. Save the whole map as a PNG.

The Atlas over the region

A WorldForge atlas map can be the region's backdrop, from the same file. A pin places its location on the region through the map's frame, and bound pins and markers move together; each step is shown for review first and can be undone. From a place's pin, its nested map or its World entry you can create or link its battle maps and encounters and open them at the table; a picture never becomes walls or light. Map settings rename a map, replace its picture and set how it sits, and pins and region corners can be placed by keyboard and by number. To show players a map, the DM reviews exactly what they will see first: pins and regions hide one by one, and players get labels and positions only.

Imports

Addon maps and board views

If the host has enabled a map-generator addon, Build a map with an addon appears in the map library. Its result is a prepared map with terrain the rules engine checks. A board-view addon appears in the board's View switch, with Options for this device where provided. Android does not offer addon controls yet. See Addons.

Painted or not

Battle maps are painted from their terrain on each player's device; the DM sets the skin, the player can switch painting off for an old phone. Nothing here needs an image backend. Scene art for a location is a separate thing and does.