Navigating the Game World: How Hare and Raven Creates Maps for Gamers

When gamers sit down at the table to roleplay, it’s helpful to have tools for navigation—like maps that reflect the world of the game. Great art is an added plus. At Hare and Raven Maps, owner and artist Andraste creates beautiful, practical battle maps for Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Everyday Heroes, and other TTRPGs. She shared with Evil Genius Games what drew her to mapmaking, her love of art, and why she’s a fan of Everyday Heroes.

Evil Genius Games: What drew you to the world of TTRPGs?

Andraste: I’m a storyteller at heart and I love collaborative storytelling, which I do in several spheres. But TTRPGs have always been the nexus of creative, collaborative storytelling. I adore the dynamism that comes from making the story with other people’s assistance. I like putting down the framework and then watching my players pick it up and run away with it. That aspect of it was always fun for me. And so I usually DM and GM.

EGG: How much have you GM’d over the years?
Andraste: I have lost count! But it’s more than 6,000 hours that I’ve GM’d in probably more than a dozen systems.

EGG: How did you get connected with Evil Genius Games?

Andraste: When I started learning to be a GM, I played Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5, and part of that system was d20 Modern. I adore everything about that whole system, to the point where I have a proof copy of the first chapters or the core rulebook—my pride and joy collector’s item.

When the fourth edition rolled around, the support for d20 Modern faded out. I just sort of kept a weather eye out, because I’m still a collector of TTRPG books. And I was blessed by the Instagram algorithm and saw an ad for the Evil Genius Games Kickstarter for Everyday Heroes—the spiritual successor to d20 Modern.

After reading through the Kickstarter page, I pledged to the Evil Genius Level, so I’m getting one of everything. I was like, “Yes! Take my money. I want I want this to happen!” I have never been so excited for the launch of a TTRPG, ever.

EGG: What do you like about Everyday Heroes?
Andraste: I love the system for its versatility—the strong, the fast the wise, the charismatic hero—that toolset. I’m really a fan of it because it gives you so much dynamism in your characters. You’re not locked in. You can make a rogue that is a charismatic hero, or a rogue that is a dexterous hero, or a rogue that is a strong hero. Some things will fit more than others. But you have the dynamism to make that happen.

EGG: How did you get your start in art? Why maps?
Andraste: I’ve been doing art forever. Art has always been a way for me to relieve stress and express my creativity. But I started creating maps when I got into TTRPGs some 12-13 years ago. The maps that I made were fully hand-drawn, tea-stained affairs that were desperately overcomplicated. There was no reason that I had to go that hard, but I enjoyed it. I generated these maps for personal consumption at my home games.

Once the pandemic happened and everything moved online, I realized I didn’t have the time to handmake the maps and scan them in somewhere in the shutdown world. So I started making maps digitally, mostly just for my own consumption and home games.

EGG: How did you get from mapmaking from your own games to starting a business?
Andraste: I recently finished a two-year campaign. And after I made maps for that, I was asked, “Why don’t you like give them away? Do something with them, rather than spending hours and hours and hours making them for one use.” So I decided that maybe they had a point. That’s when Hare and Raven Maps was born. The business is a fairly new affair.

EGG: What makes your maps unique?
Andraste: There are hundreds and hundreds of mapmakers now who make maps for fantasy games. But modern maps are rarer to find, especially ones that are not just generic. There aren’t very many detail-oriented, modern mapmakers, and I’m very detail-oriented. So I’m hoping I can contribute to the player base of Evil Genius Games and provide maps for the cinematic adventures and other adventures they want to run.

EGG: What does it take to create an effective modern map for TTRPGs like Everyday Heroes?

Andraste: It’s very hard to make a modern map that doesn’t age poorly. For example, tech moves so fast. There was a book released for d20 I think it had 23 maps in it. But those maps were made circa 16-20 years ago, and some of them look aged. You can tell by the computer technology. In a lot of the maps you can find, monitors are still CRT monitors, yet no one’s had a CRT monitor in their everyday work life for the last 15 years. You have to just consider the small details.

So, I make modern maps, but not necessarily for just one time period. My plan is to make maps in various time periods—turn of the century, 1920s, Mad-Men era 1950s, the end of the 1990s dot-com bubble, and today—because those are generally the biggest points where tech changed visually.

EGG: When people check out Hare and Raven Maps, what can they expect?
Andraste: I have a couple of things on the website already. There’s always one map available that people can pick up for free. It will be one floor of a building or usually the map that I think that people will get the most use out of. For more complete versions, the maps are for sale individually, in pack, and as a set.

For example, I have what I call the magical mansion. The ground floor version is available for free; the second floor and its basement are not. And there are multiple versions—you can choose just one, several or all the versions. If you just need the one map, you can get that one map and it shouldn’t break the bank.

EGG: What kind of maps are you working on right now?
Andraste: I currently have an adventure in the works. It’s a standard, introductory adventure—a heist—with low to mid-level characters that serves as an introduction into modern play. It’s designed to just be a one-shot adventure, done in one to two sessions. It will be very simple.

EGG: What else can Evil Genius Game fans look forward to from Hare and Raven Maps in the future?
Andraste: I plan to have sets of maps so people can pick them up for their various games. I love being in the Evil Genius Discord channel and seeing everybody’s home brews and the fantastical, sometimes off-the-wall ideas that they have for campaigns just thrill me. So I would love to be able to facilitate having maps that they can use for their games. I’d also like to offer asset packs at some point so people can make their own maps. Nothing thrills me more than having someone say, “I used your map for something.”