Terrain Tuesday: Spotted this One a Mile Away

Every adventure needs a map and every map needs a Cartographer’s shelf, right?

Well, good news, ladies and gents because STL Miniatures has a must-get Cartographers Set from their Fantasy NPCs 2 Kickstarter. Today, we’re going to focus on a cool, lil’ shelf that could be used in a variety of terrain settings.

This wooden shelf is just stuffed full of all sorts of interesting gadgets, books, and notes! We could stare at it for days on end. It could naturally snugly fit in a village (or dungeon) mapping room, an emporium town store, and even a wizard’s private quarters!

This is a skinny mini of storage space but 3DRPG thinks all that intentional crampedness adds to this scatter terrain’s overall charm. Isn’t it just swell how all the stuff seemingly clings onto the ledges of each shelf for dear life?!

So this marvelous piece of Cartographer’s terrain got us to thinkin’…how might we incorporate this type of shop into a campaign? Well, first you’re going to need a name and Reddit does not disappoint in this regard – Soulegion had our favorite suggestion: “Name it “The spot” and have a giant ‘X’ over the front door.” And DM Ben likes the proprietor being Mr. Felix Fharlanghn of the Phandalin Fharlanghns.

For your map mission integration, you can go several ways here:

• Buy it: the party is given a mission but needs the proper map to get there.
• Map it: the governor asks the party to help complete an unknown region.
• Trick it: the group’s map is false and sends them to an intentional ambush.
• Steal it: you “found” a collection of maps and simply want to sell them for coin.

And that’s just off the top of DM Ben’s head. Certainly, there are all sorts of additional story hooks here, right?

Just remember, your towns should be a place of discovery and just as exciting to explore. Don’t just gloss over them. We’ve given you every reason to add a Cartographer’s Boutique in your capital city or future village stop along with plenty of reasons to be a return customer. Let the surveying shenanigans begin!