A small hamlet or large farmstead

So I decided to do some doodling today and came up with a very nice hamlet or farmstead.

The map is a small settlement - it could be a hamlet or a large farm set somewhere near the edge of civilization. Most of the buildings are to the north of the central clearing, with a fenced in area for some livestock and an attached barn. There's a statue in the center of the clearing. It could be some old family relative or perhaps the founder of the hamlet. Maybe it's to the local deity.

to the south is another house with a large wrap-around porch. I think of this as the blacksmith, personally. Just to the right of the blacksmith is a stream that flows out of a cave opening, under the central area and into a pond on the north side. A small escarpment in the northeast allows the pond to escape as a waterfall into a small ravine. Lastly, some scattered trees dot the area, which is otherwise grassland.

Been fiddling with the tablet and drawing some maps...

Nothing big or exciting, just seeing what I can accomplish with digital ink. What do you think? I'm not entierly sold on the use of color or the hatching.

This could be the lair of a single hill giant or an ogre. 

I call this one "The Devil's Hole". It would make a good location for a tribe of goblins or kobolds. It's not finished. The name is, for me, reminiscent of something completely unrelated. Given a bit more time I could see releasing a larger scale version for in-game use. But first I'd have to work out scale issues and what not. (i.e. figure out what size grid people would find most useful).

A castle from the past

Time for a little change of pace. The map below I drew around 1990. It is the stronghold of one of the PC's I was playing around the end of high school. There's nothing amazing about it, unless you take into account that the map survived 25 years with only some slight wrinkling.

Castle Ziemovit, circa 1990. 

The castle was not much, Just a keep surrounded by some buildings and, further out, a few tilled fields. Beyond that its just open grasslands. There's a small dock in the center that allows boat traffic to the sea. A watchtower is at top-center and a waterfall is center-left.

Given more time and playing, I probably would have filled in the rest of the blank space with copses of trees, small hills and the occasional home or farm. But this campaign wound down shortly thereafter and the map sat in the stack of my notes for a long long time.

Lastly, one item of housekeeping. I am going to attempt to adhere to a Fridays only publishing schedule. I was thinking three times a week, but I don't want to burn out too quickly over this. :) The good news is that it means 3 posts this week (there will be one on friday).