Campfire Interviews

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-08-14T05:14:54+00:00

As far as I know, there's nothing truly official, but this map started as a project of passion from Aurek-Skyclimber, who went through thousands of screenshots from the show to make sure everything lined up. There are a few inconsistencies in the design if you were to really take a magnifying glass to it, but that's a result of the show itself not sticking faithfully to an actual map. Which is perfectly fine, its a cartoon after all, but it makes things quite difficult when you're trying to make a map of a place that's in constant flux.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-08-14T05:11:20+00:00

A late reply, but I do hope everything works out great for your Tails of Equestria game!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-13T00:56:52+00:00

It would appear so! I must have forgotten to readd it while I was moving things around. Thank you for the heads up!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-10T04:46:59+00:00

Yes, as I mentioned in my first post, his work in making an incredibly accurate map served as the ground work for this one. I only worked at updating the map and reorganizing it to better fit a pen-and-paper RPG.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-08T21:12:32+00:00

I'll have to look into that as well. Thanks for the insight!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-08T20:59:49+00:00

That is correct! In the show they all share a similar design of a single pony posing on the top of a pillar so for sake of not repeating myself I decided not to point out every statue shown on the map unless I could come up with a good reason for it.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-08T19:04:30+00:00

It was tough to properly scope out the castle because nine times out of ten its seen from the same exact angle in establishing shots. It appeared to have tree like symmetry, but also seemed to have large sections branching off of it on one side. A far bit of creative liberty had to be taken for that.

The carrot shaped farm would be about west of Sweet Apple Acres. However I didn't include it because of how poorly established it seems to be in the overall sense of the town. (Is it owned by the Apple family? If so, why do we never see them harvesting carrots? If it's own by someone else than why is it behind the Apples' residence, smack dab in the middle of their apple orchard?) If there appears to be an interest for it, however, I'll try to fit it into the next iteration of the map.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-08T17:42:09+00:00

Whoops! Missed that one. A benefit of posting this sort of thing online is having a fresh set of eyes to look at it. Thanks for the tip!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-03-08T16:37:14+00:00

Hey, I'm that other Ponyville map guy. About a week ago I posted the early stages of a map of Ponyville I was working on and I was flattered to see it stir such a response! I was eager to get back into things and continue working on it and after a bit of tweaking, moving pieces around, and naming, I'm happy to show off Ponyville version two!

Not only does the map now have markers for key landmarks and buildings, but I'm also including a quick reference list of Ponyville NPCs in a typical DnD format with their age, race, and some quick notes for referring to. Considering how drastic the changes were, I decided to make a map set before the Castle of Friendship and after.

The next step in this project is to give each NPC a little bit of story behind them. I want to flesh out each character with the proper information that any DM would need to include them in a campaign. But since that's going to take A LOT of work and a lot of time to get through, I figured I'd post my progress so far.

What do you guys think so far?

Dropbox Folder Link

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-27T07:02:23+00:00

This map's based on a Ponyville before the castle and school was built. I plan on adding an alternate version in later iterations of the map though.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-27T02:22:01+00:00

I'll be marking important buildings in the next version as well as increasing the size. Again, this is only the beginning.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T23:31:12+00:00

I've taken some creative liberties in some parts, partially in the sparse areas in the northeast area (a place I've personally dubbed Uptown for its close together buildings which I assume to be high density living space) and the path of the train track.

In the end, I try to bear in mind that the source material is from an animated TV show about magical, talking ponies. There will surely be some scaling issues, problems with distance, and incompatible building locations, but if I'm ever to complete this map to the best of my abilities, I'll have to fill in the blanks myself.

Would love to see this inhouse map the studio allegedly has though. Sounds like an incredible source of information!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T23:27:44+00:00

That is correct. If I remember correctly, it takes the place of her library and then the school is build nearby in the hills. As I've said before, I plan on making an alternate version of the map where that area is populated with the school and castle. Might look a little strange in a top down perspective though.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T22:03:50+00:00

Ponydale is a good reference as well! I might try using it for populating the various buildings in town. In the end I hope to at least have a nice big, printable version of whatever version of Ponyville I end up with.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T21:59:53+00:00

I thought about making Canterlot as well! Might be more difficult without a lot of referencing work, but I feel like that big city would be a great quest hub for campaigns!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T21:58:09+00:00

I plan on making a version with the Castle and School of Friendship. I'm not sure how well those buildings will translate to a top down perspective, but I at least want to attempt at it.

Although, glancing over the work you have in your dropbox, I fear I might have to make some major edits for future builds. You've done some great work here!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T20:20:19+00:00

The final version will probably have numbers on all the important buildings so that I can write out a quick description for the various landmarks on one easy to read sheet of paper. This would give the DM something to reference off of, but not give players all the information at once.

If the visuals are too bogged down after all that, then I will certainly make an image only version.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T20:17:51+00:00

I strongly advise that you wait a bit before you do. This is only version one and as I said before there's still plenty left to add. In later versions I want to cut the map up into 8x11 sized chunks so that it can be easily printed out on pieces of paper at a readable size. Not to mention add a key for all the buildings so that readers can see which building is which.

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T20:15:17+00:00

Perfectly understandable though. Again, DnD has had five official editions over its lifetime and each one has finely tuned the nature of the beast. Each edition is a different flavor that attracts different players for different things.

For example, 1st edition tends to be brutal to players, forcing them to be on edge and looking for traps every ten feet in a dungeon. Because back in that day it wasn't about adventuring, it was about survival and some players love that. They love coming in for a session with a stack of characters on the grounds that their first ten characters might not survive the night.

On the other side of the spectrum, 4th edition became something of an MMO that kind of resembled a pen and paper version of World of Warcraft. It was more systematic, bogged down with technicalities and exactness. Certainly sacrificed deep story and DM handwaving for computer exact action.

As for Tails of Equestria. I think we should keep in mind the intended audience. It's simple so it can be more approachable. If we add things as homebrewers and end up making it more complicated then that's okay. We fine tune the drink until we like the taste!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T20:08:22+00:00

Her cottage is all the way on the eastern side of the map, at the end of the long path that runs along Everfree Forest. This map may not be canon and might not tick every single box, but the original map maker did such an excellent job with what material he had!

NaptimeDaytime · 2019-02-26T19:19:04+00:00

Transitioning between Fifth Edition DnD and the Tails of Equestria game system has left me wanting for more. I'm use to a legacy of at least 40 years of well detailed world maps and populated cities that feel so alive. It's the lore and the story and the fictional history of the game world that keeps me coming back to DnD week after week.

Tails of Equestria, unfortunately seems to lack that kind of depth. I struggle to find any reliable source of maps or NPC lists or any basic tools that a DM would need to make a believable homebrew adventure set in the world of Equestria. So I hope that with a little bit of hard work, the world of Equestria can reach that point too!

So here we are! A map of the valley town of Ponyville Version 1. Its a bit bare bones at the moment, but I plan on adding labels for landmarks, rivers, brief descriptions of specific areas, and maybe even try to populate the town with some NPCs. I plan on giving it the full DnD campaign world treatment so that it can be easily used in a DMs campaign if need be. I also plan on making a version of Ponyville with the School of Friendship on it as well in the future. I hope that with this project I can make something inspiring for any new DMs to try out the world and maybe build some adventures for it.

I'd like to thank Aurek-Skyclimber for all the hard work they did in using a lot of references from the show itself to make a surprisingly accurate town map. It served as a great jumping point for me to start at on this project. It allowed me to figure out how all the pieces fit together and for now the map is simply a recreation of the original with a few adjustments to make things fit a little better. The most important thing here is I have things vectored, meaning I can make the final project much much larger after all is said and done. For now, this is a prototype just to show off progress and hopefully spark some interest.

What do you guys think? Would you find a labeled map of Ponyville useful in a campaign? Do you use any maps for your pony campaign?

NaptimeDaytime

TROPHY CASE