Cartographers are wanderers, exploring the world to discover and map out the forests, mountains, rivers, seas, hidden hamlets, and migrating herds, returning to civilization to draw up their discoveries and sell their notes to map makers and booksellers or illustrate and sell themselves. Many times they are hired by wealthy benefactors, nobles, or other groups, but many also take up the career for the adventure itself and to satisfy their innate wanderlust. Cartographers must often travel to the edges of the world in order to complete their maps.
You learned your trade by apprenticing under a master cartographer, picking up a variety of survival skills, including basic weapons skills for self-defense in the wilds. Some choose to develop their weapons skills further, while others develop arcane talents to support their exploration and survival.
- Skill Proficiencies: Choose any two: Athletics, Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Animal Handling, Perception, Survival
- Tool Proficiencies: Cartographer's Tools and Navigator's Tools, or Calligrapher's Supplies, or Painter's Supplies
- Languages: One of your choice
- Equipment: A simple weapon, a set of cartographer's tools and a set of navigator's tools, or a set of calligrapher's supplies, or a set of painter's supplies, a set of traveler’s clothes, bottles of inks, ink quills/pens/brushes, map/scroll cases, blank parchment, blank paper, and a pouch/purse containing 10 gp.
You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can always gauge distance and scale with great accuracy.
Suggested Characteristics
Cartographers are often loners, wandering the world and staying away from civilization for months at a time. They travel alone or in small groups for protection, and occasionally fall in with adventuring groups or hire guards. Cartographers are defined by their life of travel and discovery.