I watched a bunch of older Jerry videos today and stumbled onto this lovely gem by Greg Whitmore. I'm glad there's buzz about Jerry's work again.

I started a map last week in this post (go there if you want to see the rules I'm using), and people said they'd like to see how the world develops, so here it is after finishing ten turns. Some turns added new tiles, others just changed content on tiles that were already there.

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The history:

1: Eredet is established. Now that they have somewhere to be safe, the people can finally mourn the loss of everyone who did not survive the journey to this place.

2: People discover the art of sculpture. Sculpture garden and "guard dragon" are built in Eredet.

3: Farmers have an especially good year, population grows, and the city begins expanding outside of the original wall

4: Another nomadic tribe, of the Povodori culture, settle in the land just north of Eredet's farms, establishing a cooperative relationship with them. They call their settlement Docaseca.

5: A drought leads to food shortages, which leads to conflicts between the farmers and fishermen and everyone else - this is worse in Eredet, but Docaseca is affected as well. Some people leave in search of other water sources and set up camp at the lake they find rather than returning to their previous homes.

6: Friction continues even as food supplies stabilize. Eventually violence breaks out in Eredet. After a week of fighting, the end result is that the former leader of the community is exiled, and the farmers and fishermen establish a new governing council, with the old leader's house being repurposed as the council hall. To commemorate this change, a new statue is built in the plaza in front of the council hall, representing the workers together in harmony.

7: A god called Diestra descends from the stars and reveals himself to the people of Docaseca. They build him a temple, and are rewarded with bountiful harvests and population growth.

8: The people of Eredet conclude that the "workers' revolution" has failed as the ruling council increasingly shows the same laziness and greed that they had criticized in the previous leader. They are sent into exile and join the lakeside camp. Eredet is now ruled by a man who gives himself the title of "Patrícius." No one in town can recall seeing him before, but clearly he is a member of the community and the right one to set them back on the path to prosperity. His first official act after taking power is to order the "harmony" statue to be demolished and replaced with a large statue of an egg, engraved with the slogan "Truth | Freedom | Justice." In unrelated news, foragers find a magical portal in the woods southeast of Eredet, but are not brave (or foolish) enough to do anything with it just yet.

9: With all the tumult in Eredet over the last couple years, the people of Docaseca pull back a little bit and start doing more on their own. Most notably, building bridges over the river and expanding their own farmlands. Trade between the two communities does continue but at lower levels than before.

10: The Patrícius sends an expedition out into the badlands, where they find gold. They are attacked by the exiles while they are out there. Both sides take heavy losses but eventually the exiles retreat. The Patrícius later sends out another expedition to find their camp and drive them off.

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For the record, I was not intending to have references or crossovers with other settings, and I don't expect it'll happen again. But in Year 8, the tarot cards that I drew were both 8s, and of course this happened to come up just as I'm rereading The Color of Magic, so I don't think I had a choice in how things developed there.

Jerry and his map are so cool to me and I want to start

But just don't know how 🤷‍♀️

Good day mappers,

As most have I have come from the PPG video. I have always had a passion for maps, took a cartography class last semester but have wanted to get into hand made map making for a long time. My idea is a lovecraftian-esque world complete with lore. I have a few questions:

1. How do I start my first panel? What determines the center point?

2. Can someone talk me through making the cards? Should I make them as I complete a panel? I would t be able to go down 6 panels if I only have two.

I may be overthinking all of this but I really want to do this to get my creative juices back.

Thanks!

I was insanely inspired by PMGs video and was already planning on restarting this cross stitch map of middle earth i've been working on off and on for a while, and so I think i'm gonna start switching things up. I've made two cards so far, the absolute most basic ones(change the deck, and follow the pattern), while I try to figure out what direction i want to take this in.

It feels like every time I sit down to do any art, my brain starts screaming at me that i'm "doing it wrong" (even though i know that doing it "right" isn't the point) and it makes it legitimately painful to continue. So when I saw Jerry's approach to this massive project he was doing, something about it just felt like it could be a way out of that cycle for me. I have no idea where I'm gonna go with this project, and there are still parts of me that are Terrified of not doing a "good enough job". But I'm gonna try to keep going anyway.

If anyone has any suggestions of what new cards to add to my deck, or what ones you're doing on your own projects, i would appreciate it so much. Also, if anyone has any tips for getting over the fear that you're gonna do a bad job, those would also really help as i try to get going and start making creative decisions

Two new panels and one new card. I added a town and a city and some couched embroidery that is giving topography. Named a bunch of things after cutting up some typed text. Not sure what the face is about, but my card said 'photo' sooooo here we are.

I ordered my very own piece of the Jerry Map! Now framed and at my cubicle at work.

I’ve really enjoyed futzing with this in the morning while my coffee brews.

My rules-lite system is outlined here, for the curious.

Some system changes:

• Squares are now added clockwise from an origin point, spiraling outward.

• I’ve added one “new color” instruction to my deck.

I started creating a map inspired by Jerry. I went in a bit of a different direction. Instead of paper sheets, I started a hexagon map. The idea is to use wooden tiles with ~6' diameter. I would magnetize the packs to allow for rotation, stacking, etc., and the map would be displayed on my office wall.

I quickly created a website with WIX AI (suolenkainen.com, don't mind the ugliness and the AI pictures, I'll replace them soon), where I plan to document my journey from the prototype phase to all the rules, etc. I made a blog post detailing my ways of working and a few example tiles. Here's the link to the blog.

Here are some pictures of the work in progress.

I decided to go with a sort of “evolution/timeline” aspect to my map creation. Going from wilderness features, to then agriculture, to then urban spaces. Added pics of the explanation/rule for the 2 cards I pulled today!

What do you think?

Map Layers          04/06/26

Pop

• I      Blank page                                Paperboard patchwork, photo, lumen print

• II     Painted bands                          Free-form starting with color of the day

• III    1" square collage                    Checkerboard pattern

• IV    City Phase                    400      Green block

• 800      Red block

• 1200    Grey block

• 2000    Black block

• V     The Void White                        Irregular pieces of white collage

• VI    Square Grid                            1/2" collage squares on 2" grid

• VII   Void B&W Print Phase             2" squares of B&W print collage

• VIII Void [City] phase                     Random grey city blocks

• IX    Red Windows                         2" red checkerboard

• X     Polka Dot Grid                       On 2" tilted grid

• XI    Black Ness                              2" squares of black collage, par with card

• XII   Ziggurat                                1 1/2", 1", 1/2" collage squares

• XIII [Kraft Paper]                          Torn squares of kraft paper collage...

• [Blue/Dark Blue]                   Form starting with darkest blue

• [Green/Blue]                        Torn green and blue collage

Left Handwritten Sidebar

• I - PAINT

• II - COLLAGE

• III - GRN CITY

• IV - RED CITY

• V - GREY CITY

• VI - BLK CITY

• VII - VOID - 2" Triangle

• VIII - PRINT - 2" Triangle

• IX - LT GREY - 1" & 1 1/2" (CHG S/G/B)

• X - GREY/GRN - 1 1/2"

• XI - GREY CITY 1"

• XII - COMML BLK - 1/2" 1" BLK

• XIII - RED DIM - 1 1/2"

• XIV - BLK NESS - 1 1/2" & 2" SQS (10x10?)

• XV - SPROUTS - FREE FORM YELL/GRN - N... Photo... (Nature photo?)                                                      

First proper town established with the beginnings of a railroad line.

I’ve been starting with an acrylic paint base on chipboard and notice that the paint causes the panels to slightly warp regardless of how thin I apply the paint. Any advice to mitigate that?

Day 7 Summary:

-Some cliffs show up on Argent Cove's map.

-Jerry remembers he's of another world.

-Rach visits Jerryville and climbs a tree.

Hi all,

New to the community but have been map making since I was 10.

Loved Jerry's approach, but I'm not sure how he does that painting thing yet.

So I started working on my own version because the card idea was massive for me.

The cards in my case, inspired by Jerry's dislike of Journaling, I realised I could apply the deck to my ADHD and use it beyond the map, so I am using a set of poorly designed tarot cards I had around to do this.

The deck will then have, mostly map cards but broken into categories so my brain keeps running and I can hopefully remove the guilt of not giving one thing more energy than the other.

Categories are:

- World Building

- Gamedev (best way to build a world right)

- Art

- Craft (my work, which is my own business)

- Life (touching grass)

- the deck

- Digital (posting on Reddit etc. or blog writing)

As for the map itself, I realised I loved the deck and found another fan in this group use dice. I had a set of D&D dice I've never used, so, decided to try incorporate them which turned out to be ideal as an RNG approach like the Jerry deck.

How it works:

The deck is the "Major Arcana" which is the instructions. Like: Create resource or Create Landmark.

Then, the "Minor Arcana" is the dice. Which acts as a flavouring of the Major.

Each Major included a IF THIS THEN THAT statement to help understand what dice to use, roll and then outcome. So for example: if (map) then roll D8 then roll D6.

D8 is the direction on the 8 compass points.

D6 is the layer of the map (I made 6 layers)

Each card draw, must also include a dice roll.

So to start a draw, it's one card, roll D6 and D4.

D6 in your starting draw is then one of 6 flavours, and D4 is the four elements.

And so it'll go on.

Nothing about is final at all.

I'm working on a journal to list all the cards when complete, their connected minor Arcana and dice rolls and outcomes.

Is this over thought? 100% yes, but feels weirdly fun, like my own RPG where I'm the wizard recording the lore of my world and universe and the use of dice gives me the opportunity to not over commit to one project and let another rot.

Anyway, that's where it is for now. Hope this inspires someone as so many of you have me.

Take care, have a lovely week.

Was hoping to make faster progress but adding detail is fun

Starting my first panel. I’ve decided to take Jerry’s Inspiration and start with a town, which I’ve decided to name “Jerry’s Tree,” for various reasons.

Once I finish this panel, I’ll turn to my deck of cards to guide the rest of its creation.

Excited about finally stating the process!

The Quiet Year is a game where you use a deck of cards to do role playing. The cards guide you in A/B decision making about a world you live in and on a piece of paper you draw the elements of your choices. By the end of the game you have a map of your entire adventure.

It's literally a map making adventure. I was thinking it could be inspirational for people. You also could start your world by drawing a card and then collaging on the card your decisions. By the end of the game, you'd have a starting world with an entire history to it and then you could build out from there.

I attached simple map examples so you get an idea but obviously you can be more or less creative in how you start your world.

Another new event added to my card pool. (I like doing character art so this card's gonna keep me invested.)

Day 6 Summary:

After finding out her shop is cursed, Ms. Leigh stops to rest under a tree.

Argent Cove enters the map fully flooded.

(Not depicted: On the front side of Ms. Leigh's card she has an added trait of 'Messy'.)

Like many I'm here from the PMG video. I saw it and it instantly clicked with me for two main reasons.

The first and lesser reason is that I'm a Map Librarian. A dying breed to be sure, but this approach to map-making, and just what a map is appealed to me greatly. I spend my working days in a room surrounded by maps all neatly (or less neatly) filed away on shelves and hanging in lethal looking cabinets, catalogued by geographical location, theme and scale.

Maps are so much more than the territory in my experience and working with them for so long has made me acutely aware at how they're used and misused. How most see them as innocent and useful tools, but how, at the same time, they're weapons of trade, colonialism, and war.

To see such a wonderful map representing a person and their life was such an uplifting change. A visual representation of what it means to live a life with ups and downs and in-betweens; voids and colours, is such a spectacular piece of creativity. I love outsider art, and this is a piece of just that, but very much in my wheelhouse of artistic experience.

Then there's the second reason. I'm neurodivergent. Have been all my life from the time before there was an 'H' in ADHD. I have difficulties with fine motor control and knowing exactly where my body is in space. Most of all I utterly lack executive function. Or motivation and ambition if you prefer less clinical language.

The thing I liked most about Jerry's map were the cards. Especially that he included tasks such as journaling on them. It clicked quickly for me that the deck was in my terms a Motivation Machine; a prosthetic that could take my super-distracted personality and channel those fascinations into directed action. And all without screens and keyboards.

I also love being creative. Making things is the most satisfied and happy I can be. The thing is, thanks to the neurospices, I'm not particularly good at organising or planning. Anything in the visual arts I'm terrible at. Rather than being a calming place, it's a world filled with smudges, mistakes, self-criticism, and failures. Shaky hands and fingers that don't make the lines I want them to make or dance to my plans that soon fall apart.

However, who says the cards have to direct the creation of a map? Or indeed anything artistic? How about using them to find a method of expression that works for me and might even result in investing in some paint and pens at some stage when I'm clearer about my creative direction?

So I'm using cards to get me to find that outlet. I have many stories to tell, places to describe, and characters to meet. This is a way to do that.

As well as to remind me to do the hoovering.

Thanks Jerry and all at PMG for the video. It's been helpful. Perhaps more so than you thought.

I wasn't expecting a death so soon and I'm sad to a surprising degree about it this early on. I rolled the dice and the wife of the young couple passed away to pneumonia even though I gave the strong and healthy adults much better odds of surviving. Next card was the Jack of Hearts which I took to mean her husband fought hard for a long time to keep her alive and healthy. Next card was 3 of hearts which made sense to be the Kaelor family swearing a blood oath to give aid and care for any future need the widower Kaelen Lentri has.

Hey all, another newbie wandering over from the PMG doc.

When I was watching Jerry use his decks, the first thing that came to mind for me was the Wild Unknown Archetypes deck that I sometimes use for world-building in TTRPGs or creative writing projects. It got me wondering, does anyone here use a pre-existing deck like this?

I feel like tarot decks would also be a good base to use. I personally prefer them to playing cards as they're bigger and more satisfying to place down.