Plot Map - Battle at the Church of Whitewode - Explaination

Spoiler Alert!

If you are one of my players you may not want to look at this until the end of the Campaign.

This is the current Plot Map for the Whitewode Campaign in my world of Elthos.

What is a Plot Map?

I'm glad you asked.  This is a technique that I've been experimenting with to provide myself with a visual queue card while I am Gamemastering.  It shows a great deal of information about the current state of the Campaign, including where the main Characters are in relation to one another, what paths they have taken, or may take, where the key places and events are, and the array of forces in the scene.  It also may show symbolic references that remind me which Elkron are in play, and what they may be trying to accomplish.  This one Plot Map acts as a snapshot of the game in it's current state.  Together the Plot Maps form a visual history of the Campaign, so that later I can use them to recall major events, characters and influences.  It's been extremely helpful for me while GMing, and also a pretty cool form of documentation on the Game Story.

The key to it is include as many of the major elements as possible in a small a space as I can manage.  This way, one sheet can be used to remind myself of important points during the play of the game.

To give an idea of how this works in practice, if you take a look at the lower right corner you'll see the Church of Whitewode (which is on fire) up on the ridge overlooking the town towards the West Gate.  There is a beam of moonlight hitting the Church steeple in which Hermel (H.) and his daughter Peaches (P.) are attempting to use the silver bell in the steeple to reflect the moon beam towards the blacks sphere of darkness atop the West Gate Citadel, in which the obsidian alter is located.  Nicholas Blair is attempting to cast a massive spell from atop the tower to thwart the Pech and Gnoll Armies situated on the marshes before the township.  Just outside the Church are Thorgrim (T.) and the Gnoll (Gn1) waging a fierce battle against one another (revenge), while below the Church are Reverend Russel (Rev R.) and Reverend Trask (Rev T.), each of whom are taking different routes.  Reverend Trask has taken the Treasure of the Lizard King and the escaped prisoners to the West Citadel, while Reverend Russel is attempting to climb the stairs to the Church to aid Hermel and Peaches in their task.  You will also see that the Gargoyle (Gg.) is on his way to also provide aid to our heroes, while the Gnoll's brother (Gn2) is simultaneously making his way towards Reverend Russel to kill him before he can aid anyone.  Just below the crescent moon you can see the Spire that is White Tower, near where Delvin is actually located with the 12 musical children whose rescue is the goal of the quest.

Ok that's the lower right hand corner.  You can see how glancing at the picture would be far easier for me during the game than peeling through my notes. Obviously this wouldn't be necessary were it not for the fact that the Whitewode Campaign is enormously complex.  It is the equivalent of a Soap Opera in RPG form.  But that's a topic for another post, why I decided to create the Campaign this way, how I approached it, and whether or not I think it's a successful method. Stay tuned for that post as well.  I will publish it after the completion of the Campaign.

In the meantime enjoy the Plot Map, and hopefully if you're also running a complex Campaign this concept of Plot Mapping the thing may be helpful to you.  Best wishes and happy gaming!