3rd Supplement

2012 New Year resolution

Mia — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:58:03 +0000

It’s time to look back at 3^rd Supplement’s first year: We started with working like crazy and happily published our first maps, got two really positive reviews, worked on two floor plans, redesigned the website and finally started a German version as well. But around July reality caught up with us, mostly in form of lots of “daytime work” (which is a good thing, in a way), and that left us with not enough time for making our dreams come true (which is a pity). We’re happy with our output when it comes to looks and quality, but not so much when it comes to quantity.

On a lighter note, Heiko, ever the GM for years now, finally found a willing GM again, and is now playing in a Lord of the Rings campaign (based on Cubicle 7’s One Ring), so at least one of us is gaming some more. And as gaming brings out the best in us and helps us to get more relaxed, efficient and in that way more prolific, our New Year resolution is: More gaming!
And then, we hope to be back as better people with some more maps and other gaming material:-)

Mia & Heiko & the happy new year

CS translation spell roll: German version of our website

Mia — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:42:40 +0000

You might have asked yourself: Will they ever be back from vacation? Oh yes, but we decided to put some time in on a project, and one that is very dear to us: We now offer a German version of this website and soon we’ll publish our maps in German as well. We’ll start with Two Roads to Choose From-I… funnily I regret our choice of titles by now, because words that sounded flashy in English – or so I thought! – tend to sound cheesy in German;-)

Anyway, we soon will put our full efforts back into producing new maps, and the next is already in the making! Again, it will be a “Two Roads” map, and this time it’s about diverging roads and the pitfalls of not seeing your opponent approach…

In the meanwhile, thanks for your patience! And as WordPress proofed somewhat tricky when it comes to bilingualism, please let us know if you stumble over strange website behavior like receiving German speaking posts in your RSS Feed or other quirks… However, we hope, there won’t be any.

Vacation entry: 3rd supplement does terrain research

Mia — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:07 +0000

It’s vacation time and we vacation a bit as well, which in our case is hiking in the Bavarian Alps. So, at least, we can call this “doing research”. Last weekend, we researched (and thoroughly so) the Vorderskopf (6,096ft / 1,858m), a smallish mountain of the Northern Limestone Alps.
Up there, we rolled the dice, and on the surreal (but really happening) encounter table, it was a 100.
We were cowed rather too easily by…

(For more of them have a look at page 2)

More freebies: Scenery views for RiaML – II and RiaML – III

Mia — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:34:06 +0000

Meanwhile we posted two more free views that did not make it into the final map-PDFs. Find them on our Products page right above the respective map. (If you’re wondering at the posting dates… we backdated them to fit them where they belong).
The first one is for River in a Mountainous Landscape – II: The solitary dead tree, viewed from the river below.

And the other one belongs to our latest map, River in a Mountainous Landscape – III, and hopefully conveys a feeling of how dwarfed you might feel being there, sitting in a little vessel. (Oh, and the seemingly tiny little holes in the cliff’s face are, in fact, gaping entries to caverns, so click on the pic to enlarge – and get your climbing gear.)

Freebie! Extra view for our map RiaML – II

Mia — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:00:48 +0000

Sometimes Heiko renders more landscape views than he can fit into the final map’s PDF … Still, they might be nice to have, especially, in case you’ve got the respective map. So, we’ll put them on this site for download. (And for free:-)

Check the Our Products page, where you can browse through all of our products, with the freebies interspersed (as they come along, or rather right above the map they belong to).

This first one is an additional view for our Map Nr.2: River in a Mountainous Landscape – II. It’s what a PC would see when standing some 50 feet behind the dead tree, a bit to the east, and looking out over the land to the south-west. (Oh, this is tricky to describe, and that’s exactly the reason our maps feature arrows that simply show the viewer’s position when the mouse is hovering over the respective landscape view.)

Download this one right now, if you like, and come again later, to see, if we’ve put up some more already. (Actually this could be a nice reason to subscribe to our News Feed.)

Map Nr. 4: River in a Mountainous Landscape – III

Mia — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:37:54 +0000

With our latest map we continue the River & Mountains theme, but in a perhaps rather unexpected way, for it *is* about a river, but the map shows a hidden lake up in the mountains (fed from said river, though).

Click on the pic to browse through some of its pages.

Or (even better;-) get it right now (for $1.99) at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG & WargameVault (as always, Paizo and IPR will follow in a few days).

It’s the third map of the “River & Mountains-alignment”, and they all go well together. You might ask if our maps fit together exactly, that is, if one terrain begins where the other ends. No, that’s not the case. We assume the GM will take the PCs to the next map by describing the not so interesting parts of a voyage until fate strikes again. Actually, this map’s terrain might be the one that lies highest in the mountains, that is, upstream of RiaML-I and RiaML-II. But it’s always up to the GM to choose flow direction and altitude and thus, in which sequence the PCs will encounter our landscapes. Still, each of our map is a stand-alone, ready to play.

Preview: Nice little waterfall?

Heiko — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:59:58 +0000

Concerning our next map, River in a Mountainous Landscape – III, which shows a crater lake in the mountains (see the recent preview) I had the idea of a grotto on water level that is behind a curtain of water, falling down from above… well, it took some time, but here it is. See this preview of one of the map’s four additional landscape views.

Waterfall and grotto are done in Photoshop, that is, post-hoc drawn in into the rendered 3D shot. So everything else, cliffs, the plateau above, etc. is “really there” (= 3D construction) and could be further explored, but the waterfall and the grotto are 2D, and created for this one special view. We like them all the same, and it will be fun to send the players right through the spray of icy cold water (and from there it’s up to the GM’s fantasy for now, or up to a yet to come add-on showing the grotto’s interiors).

Got reviewed: Two Roads to Choose From – I

Mia — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:17:57 +0000

Reviews are important! To buyers of course, but to us as well: We are still fresh and crave for attention and feedback that helps us to grasp what you guys out there really want.

This time we got reviewed by Game Knight Reviews, and thoroughly so! What I like most is that Fitz from Game Knight Reviews remarks on what is unique in our maps: “These aren’t your typical maps. Mia and Heiko have taken a topographic map, which is useful for many real world applications, and applied it to an area suitable for just about any roleplaying game or genre.” Yes, that’s exactly what we aimed for, to go beyond flatness by introducing elevation and contour lines to toggle, additional perspective view (our 3D model – which we still love most) and light and shadow as well: The PDF’s centerpiece is a relief map where the topography is elucidated even more.

So, check out the review at Games Knight Reviews and all the other interesting articles there, for example a weekly digest of RPG-related “News from around the Net”.

More reviews of our products by now…? Find the very first one on River in a Mountainous Landscape – I at RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.

And… please write us! Give us feedback. Tell us, what you want. Or even do a review (Thanks!!:-)

Preview: Early stage of the next map, RiaML-III

Mia — Mon, 16 May 2011 21:42:34 +0000

See a first glimpse of our next one. We will continue the series “River in a Mountainous Landscape”, and this time the map will be about an especially forbidding part of the mountains, ready for adverse fate and impending doom…

Follow the river that winds its way through a narrow, gloomy gorge and – surprise! (unless one has a map;-) – suddenly the boat shoots out from the shadows into a wide glittering lake, sheltered by steep, seemingly insurmountable crags. Or approach the hidden lake from the land route, make camp on the high plateau… and finally dare to rappel down, canoe and all, to reach the isolated rugged crags that jut out from the cold and crystal clear water…
And don’t be deceived by the scale: This lake is large, the cliffs are menacingly steep! PCs in a small boat will feel dwarfed (if they weren’t dwarfs already).

Map Nr. 3: Two Roads to Choose From

Heiko — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:16:28 +0000

Click to preview some pages

Three days ago (and one entry below) we showed its 3D view, now our third map is ready for play and can be purchased on RPGNow, DriveThruRPG & WargameVault (Paizo and IPR will follow).

With this one we start a new mini-series: “Two Roads to Choose From”, focusing on the theme “taking the land route”: Often, there’s more than one road to take and PCs need to choose wisely…

Click the picture here to preview some pages and see the product description in the shops: This time, we added a verbal description of the place again, but kept it strictly system-neutral, just giving distances players most likely will ask for, elaborating a bit on flora and fauna, and pointing out the unique features of the place and it’s possibilities for play (for example, a hidden cave).

GMs who bought our first maps might ask, if we continue the Mountainous River theme… of course we will (next map is already in the making), as well, as we plan for some more roads to choose from!

Game on!