I'm finally all caught up on Critical Role's fourth campaign after an extended break—and I've been very much enjoying the "Schemer's Table", one of three central groups (the others being Soldiers and Seekers) that comprise the actual play show's ambitious group of 13 players.
As opposed to the Soldiers, who've been hunting down the bugger that ratted Thjazi Fang out, and the Seekers, who've been trying to find Thaisha Lloy's son, the Schemer's Table has been concerned with political intrigue. As such they've stayed put in Dol-Makjar, the central city of the campaign, to do their underhanded work.
But it's always hard to convey a city to your players, given city maps are some of the hardest to draw and design—personally, I just create landmark nodes and link them like a mindmap. But if you're the kind of production company/media empire that Critical Role's become, you'll be able to handsomely pay some incredibly talented artists to do this.
Behold! Dol-Makjar in all its glory, as posted to the Critical Role Instagram this week. Penned by staff cartographer Andy Law, it's a doozy. You can see the full render on Critical Role's website, though I've also shared it below.
Even as someone who has locked into the lore of Brennan Lee Mulligan's new setting, it's been nice to clean up some mental images that just weren't quite there. For example, I'd somehow missed that the Hallowed Round, theatre of one Halandil Fang, was outside the city walls.
That puts the Rookery, where the Schemers have been meeting almost every night to discuss their plans, halfway across the city and up a steep hill besides. Halandil's calves must be insane from all that walking—that, or Dol-Makjar just has a really solid public transportation system Brennan's yet to mention.
I highly recommend zooming in on this thing, though, because the artwork's freaking gorgeous. There's been a ton of work put into properly selling the city's rugged verticality—which makes sense, given Dol-Makjar was originally a defensive fortress town before the orcs rose up and slew their tyrannical god, making it a centerpiece of the Shaper's War.
Mostly, I'm just good-naturedly jealous. My tables will have to continue enduring my collages of JPEGs because, unlike Critical Role, I do not have a personal cartographer. Not that you need one to run a campaign, mind.
