Mapping Ironsworn Delve

Hey folks, we're back to the Map Mine this week, partly because I ran out of time to do a proper solo session. So! instead I'm going to do the Solo session next week, and this week we're going to revisit a previous post and represent the points with an impromptu map. Sorry about that, hopefully the extra post will make up for the shorter post this week.

A while ago, I did an Ironsworn Delve as part of the random maps series. At the end, we wound up with a point map that looks like this:

So, what I thought I'd do for this week is use Inkarnate's wonderful mapping tools to turn this into a couple of mini maps, to represent what happened in the solo session if this was a more "traditional" map.

I do mention in that earlier post that if you're just using Ironsworn: Delve as a "traditional" mapping tool you're missing out on a lot of stuff. And that's still very true - this is simply a representation of what happened in the fiction of the story and not intended to be a "true" tactical battle map.

Colorful Maps!

Without further ado, here's what I came up with:

Part 1 - Areas 1-4

I've made some implicit decisions here that I think were reflected in the solo play session, namely I took a "side path" near the beginning, and this top-down map implies that had Ael continued along the "main path" he'd have arrived at the lake.

Likewise, I only put tokens down for the most important things in the narrative. The traveler's corpse and the two campsites. Area 4 had an encounter with a spirit, but otherwise, it was a misty lake. I thought about putting another layer of fog using the foreground texture tool to represent the mist, but really the lake texture looked pretty good as-is. So I left it alone.

Part 2 - Area 5

Same kind of deal here, the most important features of Area 5 were the massive tree, the altar, and the skeletal horror that tried to bar Ael's way to the altar. So I put them all on there, along with some other embellishments.

Wrap Up

This is a short (and probably disappointing one), but hopefully you'll all go check out Inkarnate if you like the maps - they have a ton of tools and stamps for doing this kind of thing quickly and intuitively.