Hello, Chroniclers! George here, creator of Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG. One of Mappa Mundi’s defining features is the process of exploring the Wilds of Ecumene, finding the secret ways used only by Monsters and Creatures, and moving through an indifferent landscape to complete your Chronicle. To represent this, we use the Journey Deck. In this blog, I’ll be sharing how I designed the Journey Deck, the role it plays in the game, and lots of juicy artwork. Let’s do it!

If you haven’t already, you can sign up to our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss any Mappa Mundi updates. Please fill in the form below, or visit us on Backerkit and follow Mappa Mundi there!

The Journey Deck - An Artifact in Two Worlds

TTRPGs are many things. They are games, first and foremost, but they are also the foundations of worlds, records of its history, guidebooks for travel, primers for cultural experiences. They are also pieces of art, objects that are beautiful and collectible in their physicality, beyond just the substance they contain.

The Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology core book will be all of these things, and hopefully more. Certainly each and every statement I’ve mention above inspired my design process; after all, the core gameplay loop for Mappa Mundi is the experiences that go into writing that history and geography of the world.

Within the game’s world, an imitation, a reflection, a commentary on our own world, the people communicate with Fate in two ways. The first is through the Bones. I wanted to remove the abstraction, as much as possible, of players rolling dice to play a game with a character who might have never touched dice in their lives. To that end, I wanted to ensure that the Bones were an integral part of the culture of Ecumene. With Fate being a central feature in the world, the creating and destroying influence, the use of dice became less abstract, as players using them to determine the actions of their Chronicler marries up with Chroniclers making use of the Bones to inform their decisions.

The same is true of the Journey Deck. I have an obsession with cards; I love the tactility that cards bring to a game and wanted to ensure I included them in the design for Mappa Mundi. With Fate playing such a prominent role in the cosmology of the world, a deck of tarot-sized cards was the obvious way of including cards. As with the Bones, I wanted the cards to be mirrored between the real space of the gaming table and the narrative space of Ecumene. I wanted, in other words, the Journey Deck as a physical artifact to be mirrored in Ecumene, and thus the Journey Deck was born.

The first six Journey Cards we produced for *Mappa Mundi*. From left to right: Forest, River, Fog, Wetlands, Clearing, and Lake. Artist: Joel Kilpatrick / Three Sails Studios

Designing the Journey Deck - Mechanics

My first focus when designing the Journey Deck did not have it as a piece of representation. Before designing the Bones and decided that I could incorporate dice into the Mappa Mundi experience, I actually intended for the game to be diceless. Instead of rolling dice, players would build a hand of cards that they would then use to interact with the world mechanically. While I really liked this idea (and still do; I am still working on different versions of this mechanic for other games), I was convinced by Jeremy, Mappa Mundi’s developer, to incorporate dice, and so the Bones were born.

Thinking about how the Bones were mirrored between the play space and the game space, I knew I wanted to do something similar with cards. However, while dice are a natural part of TTRPG gameplay, the role played by cards—especially in the way they are used in the world of Ecuemene—was less apparent. (Note: there are plenty of incredible games out there, especially solo games, that make use of tarot cards in this way. However, I didn’t think this approach would work for Mappa Mundi.)

At the same time, I knew that the Journey Phase, the second of three phases in Mappa Mundi, was shaping up to be a significant contribution to the TTRPG space and was my way of trying to make travel and exploration both more important than they usually are in other TTRPGs (where travel tends to be an afterthought at best) and to introduce a simple but powerful mechanic into Mappa Mundi’s toolbox. From this, the Journey Deck was born.

When complete, the Journey Deck will be comprised of 72 cards, and each and every copy of Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG will come with a copy. The deck will feature 30 Monster cards, two generic Creature cards, two generic Opportunity cards, and 38 Journey cards. The latter is what I’m here to focus on today.

Each Journey card, like a standard tarot card, can be interpreted differently depending on its orientation. For Mappa, those orientations are Rightwise and Inverted. The cards you see above are all rightwise; they give rise to immediate Shaping opportunities, with Chroniclers having made choices and taken actions in the prior Research Phase that resulted in a positive experience. When cards are inverted, Chroniclers will have to overcome a challenge set by the Narrator before they can begin the process of Shaping the landscape it represents. If they fail, they will suffer penalties and surrender the right to Shaping to the Narrator.

Six of the most recent Journey Cards produced for *Mappa Mundi*. From left to right: Coast, Saltmarsh, Lagoon, Estuary, Mangrove Forest, Waterfall. Artist: Joel Kilpatrick / Three Sails Studios

Designing the Journey Deck - Artwork

Joel Kilpatrik, Mappa Mundi’s incredible artist, and I spent a good amount of time discussing how the Journey cards should look. Joel and myself have been working together for some years now, and there is a lot of trust and respect in our relationship; I know that I can go to him with a vision but without the language to adequately describe it and that Joel will not only not judge, but will come back to me every time with exactly what I had in mind (even if I didn’t quite realise it yet!).

I asked Joel for beautiful painterly landscapes inspired, somewhat, by water colour paintings, that could be interpreted as positive or negative, welcoming or dangerous, benevolent or hostile depending on which direction you looked at it from. Joel came back to me some time later with the first set of Journey cards, having used a tool he refers to as ‘radial symmetry’. The results, as you can see, are amazing. They are far beyond what I expected in both quality and style, and each one is hand stained, digitally speaking, ensure that every card is unique in the deck. The mark of a true craftsman, for sure!

The Saltmarsh Journey card, in the rightwise orientation. My favourite Journey Card so far. Artist: Joel Kilpatrick / Three Sails Studios

Giving Form to the Wilds

The Journey Deck is a very special part of Mappa Mundi, and the effort we are putting into making it beautiful, functional, and feeling like it is part of the world of Ecumene reflects its importance. After all, though Mappa Mundi is a game that primarily functions in the Theatre of the Mind, providing players with a touchstone that links the play space and the game space, giving them a glimpse into the world their Chronicler sees in front of them, can only deepen the experience, in our opinion.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the Journey Deck, its function in-game, and some close ups of the art style. As we complete more cards, I’ll be sure to share them on our social platforms, so if you haven’t already, come and join us on Facebook, Discord, and Backerkit. You won’t regret it!

Until next time, Chronicler!

George, Mappa Mundi creator

Want to discuss what you’ve just read, or learn more about Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG? Come and join us out in the Wilds by joining us on Discord and Facebook!

Click here to join our Discord server
Click here to join our Facebook page

And don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list so you don’t miss a single update!