From coastal holds to deep-forest ruins — a tour of the mapmakers stocking the Codex.
Cartography is having a moment in tabletop, and a surprising amount of the best work is coming out of Canada. Maybe it's the geography: when home includes that much coastline, forest, and tundra, fantasy terrain comes naturally.
There's the Victoria school of living-world maps, where every road and river is an argument about trade and weather. There's a prairie contingent obsessed with vast, legible overland maps built for hex-crawls. And on the east coast, a cluster of artists drawing tight, atmospheric dungeon levels you could run cold.
What unites them is restraint. The strongest maps on the Codex give the table one clear landmark to navigate by and resist the urge to decorate every empty corner. They're tools first and art second — which, paradoxically, is what makes them beautiful.
If you're assembling a campaign, browse maps by region feel rather than by tag. A coastal hold, a frostbitten pass, a drowned ruin: pick the places your story needs, and let the cartographers' choices fill in the world around them.