This hand-drawn and coloured map covers the streets and alleyways from the Skinners’ Hall and Steelyard in the west, to the Tower of London and the fields beyond the wall to the east. The Adventures Window of the Soul and The Gong-scourer’s Baby unfold on these streets – both kicking off across the river in Southwark.

The PDF provides a large format map, including layers that feature the wards on one and churches and notable inns on the other. In addition, as the world of Dee continues to develop and expand, the “living map” will be updated with more layers and content that will be freely available to those who purchase it.

In some small part, the map of the Ossulstone Hundred aligns with the same concept. Wards and streets, stores and alehouses, traders and warehouses… Such details fall to the need of the Table and the story’s progression. Perhaps I took something from Free League’s Forbidden Lands and the notion of a map to be annotated. If the GM or I spend our time delineating every home and storefront across the map, what’s left for Player engagement?

Like Ex Libris or Lost in Translation‘s villains, I think The Dee Sanction benefits from focusing progress and plot on difficult decisions and desperate solutions. That’s not to say that the Agents always lose or that every ending becomes mired in shades of grey. But everything is not set in stone, and situations can arise that embrace the loose threads of the past, allowing the Table to create the fabric of their Elizabethan world together.

Remember the guiding principles on page 6, What It Isn’t About… fabricate rather than procrastinate. The Table should never freeze with the paralysis of concern that events might not perfectly match the canon of history. The story should be about what you want it to be about. Agents should engage in the sort of missions and adventures that entertain everyone. It demands that the Table works together, and the GM might need a little more time and a bit of leeway when it comes to a retcon or two. Or at least the opportunity to correct a bit of history if the session’s excitement means creating an unintentional dead-end in events.

This is where Journals matter and the concept of playing characters beyond a simple core. Suppose Players handle the history and take notes on events, people and places. In that case, the GM can focus more on fleshing out events, weaving old threads into the fabric of the whole, and creating a satisfying world.

However, this is not that London. The Dee Sanction is already an alternate take on history and in mapping out the areas, wards and neighbourhoods you should expect differences. Many differences. The map is being hand-drawn and then coloured. Beyond that, I’ll be marking up key streets and locations. The general sights and sites will be the same, but I fully expect, for example, that some churches might be the wrong shape, the guildhalls the wrong size, and the islands under London Bridge the wrong orientation.

That’s a fictional London for you, without being an utterly fictional one. This is a Tudor capital with hearty nods to a reality you can read about and expand upon through John Stow‘s travelogues, but don’t expect everything to be just so. As the Core Book indicates, the game isn’t about pedantry and the map isn’t either. This is not an exam; there will not be a test.

For one, John was born in the Tower Ward of London, in 1527. Tower Ward is one of five within the Ossulstone division, a large swathe of the capital that stretches south from Finchley to the Thames.

The Ward owes its name to the Tower of London, the grand fortress overlooking the river. Dee had the displeasure of spending time in the Tower under the charge of being a sorcerer, imprisoned on the word of Queen Mary, in 1555.

Not to fall short on towers, Dee and Kelley’s adventures in scrying, in the 1580s, charted the Watchtowers from which the angels of the compass points overlooked the mortal world. Each Watchtower supported an array of lesser entities, each with their own name and purpose.

At Dragonmeet, I had a partial map of east London, both north and south of the river, including the Tower Ward and the Tower of London itself. Twenty generous souls laid claim to twenty dubious traders, with the opportunity to name them at a later date; whether they figure in an adventure or as part of the planned Ossulstone Hundred supplement. The Hundred will provide information on some of the sights in Dee’s old haunt and beyond, along with non-player character traders, hooks for adventures and more. I feel some carefully crafted random tables coming on…

Every day during August, I’ll be writing something new on The Dee Sanction and aim to connect the word prompt of the day with the development of the game. Check out the concept, the list and the graphics over at AUTOCRATIK.