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Finding DR Games


I guess I should introduce myself, as this is my first post on this blog. My name is Toby and a couple of years back I started drawing maps. I gave what I did a name; Dark Realm Maps. Before I knew what was happening kind folk were sharing my designs and drawings across Twitter and I was blown away by the interest. This was something I loved doing. I am an artist with a long term interest in Board Games and RPGs as well as extensive video gaming experience. I have been to a thousand worlds, played a thousand characters, completed a thousand quests and live a thousand stories. And here I was able to create maps which tap into all of this. For me becoming Dark Realm Maps seemed like a natural move. With my maps I was creating fantasy worlds which I could draw a whole bunch of supportive people into. What a great place to be!

I began to realise that core to Dark Realm Maps is narrative. My drawing style is punctuated by detail. I add objects, furniture, atmosphere, clues, disorder or whatever is required to tell a story. I literally live the spaces as I draw them and imagine those who use or view the maps are doing the same thing. I want to bring them alive. Other creators realised this and commissions began to trickle in and my work was appearing in publications and modules. Then last year I was ENnie nominated for my work on the Lamp’s Light module by Mat Corley. This level of involvement naturally led to me writing some of my own modules, which I put on DMsguild, and it facilitated a change in mind set. It made me think about my future and how far I wanted to take the creative process.

I started playing around with hex tiles and drawing landscapes. I conceived some ideas about how a game might run (which I will talk about in later blogs) and the step from just Dark Realm Maps to Dark Realm Maps and DR Games came naturally from this.

So I needed somewhere to talk about this and I thought why not a blog? I also have a whole bunch of theories and ideas about game design that I want to share as well as my progress with current projects, including the big one (more on this to follow) so I hope you will be along for the ride. There will also be exclusive content that can only be found here, so enjoy!

Don't forget though you can also find me on Twitter and Instagram which I suspect is how you arrived here in the first place...so welcome to my new DR Games Blog.

Cheers guys!
Toby Lancaster
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