The following is an alternative of the Cartographer subclass for use in my campaigns. I shifted the focus almost entirely to the Adventurer's Atlas, and lean hard into exploration and party support. To compensate for the lack of combat and social features, I bumped up the known spells by adding one more spell per level. A member of this subclass is ideal for campaigns that feature dungeon or hex crawls, and cross-planar adventures at the highest levels of play.
Cartomancers are masters of the quill, able to craft magical scrolls and maps. Most notably, they learn how to make a powerful personalized magic item, a mystical atlas capable of mapping with incredible speed and accuracy.
Additionally, cartomancers generally love to explore and document whatever strange things and places they discover. Traveling is dangerous, thus it is good to go with friends and consequently many cartomancers pragmatically share their maps and magics with allies. Some cartomancers go so far as to join or form expeditions, delves, safaris, and other organized groups with an interest in going forth to remote places.
Your dedication to your craft ensures you always have certain spells ready.
When you reach a Artificer level specified in the Cartographer Spells table, you thereafter always have the listed spells prepared. They are Artificer spells for you and do not count against your Prepared Spell limit.
| Artificer Level | Spells |
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Comprehend Languages [Ritual], Illusory Script [Ritual], Starry Wisp, Tenser's Floating Disk [Ritual] |
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Find Traps, Locate Animals or Plants [Ritual], Locate Object |
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Clairvoyance, Leomund's Tiny Hut [Ritual], Tongues |
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Hallucinatory Terrain, Leomund's Secret Chest, Locate Creature |
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Passwall, Scrying, Teleportation Circle |
You gain proficiency with Calligrapher's Supplies and Cartographer's Tools. If you already have one of these proficiencies, you gain proficiency with one other type of Artisan’s Tools of your choice.
Quick Scribe. When you scribe a Spell Scroll using the crafting rules in the Player's Handbook, the amount of time and gold required to craft it is halved.
You can spend 8 hours applying your Cartographer's Tools to a blank scroll to make a magical map known as an Adventurer's Atlas. You are keyed to your Adventurer's Atlas and can only have one in existence at a time. If you make a new one, any preexisting Adventurer's Atlas you had and its copies are destroyed.
Copies. You can spend 1 hour applying your Cartographer's Tools to a blank scroll while studying your Adventurer's Atlas to make an unkeyed copy of it. As a Magic action you can key a copy to a willing creature that has Intelligence 4+ by handing it to them, or you can key it to yourself. Once a copy has been keyed to a creature, it cannot be keyed to a different creature. You can have a number of copies of your Adventurer's Atlas in existence equal to your Proficiency Bonus. If you are already at your limit when you make a new copy, an existing copy of your choice is destroyed. Until you reach 15th level in this class, copies are inactive while not on the same plane of existence as your Adventurer's Atlas.
Shared Mapspace. Your Adventurer's Atlas and its copies are map instances that update a shared magical mapspace. As each map instance is moved it redraws itself to map the area within a 10 foot radius centered on its current location minus any area that is blocked by Total Cover, and then updates the shared mapspace with what it has drawn so far. While the Adventurer's Atlas exists, the shared mapspace remembers every location that each of the map instances have ever rendered. It can also store various kinds of information, and eventually can even store spells.
Cartographer Spell Effects. When you or any map holder cast certain spells while in possession of a keyed map instance, the shared mapspace is updated. Any information gained from Find Traps is applied to the shared mapspace, as is the location of the closest creature or plant found by Locate Animals or Plants. When Locate Object or Locate Creature are cast, an arrow is rendered pointing from the casting location to the target, labeled with the name of and distance to the target at the time the spell was cast. The scrying sensors of Clairvoyance or Scrying are represented on the shared mapspace while they exist, and any areas observed by either spell are also mapped. When Leomund's Tiny Hut, Passwall, or Hallucinatory Terrain are cast their location and area are represented on the shared map space for their duration. When Teleportation Circle is cast to teleport to or create a teleportation circle, the location of the relevant teleportation circles and their sigil sequences are added to the shared map space.
Usage. Your Adventurer's Atlas and its copies appear blank and useless to creatures that are not keyed to them, but a keyed user instead sees an animated and interactive display that re-renders itself in real time. The following benefits are available to a creature using a map instance they are keyed to:
Change View. As a Magic action, toggle the display between an isomorphic, side, or top down view.
Interact. As a Magic action, render a location from the shared mapspace, or pan, zoom, or rotate the current display.
Share Display. As a Magic action, allow other creatures to see what is being rendered on your map instance for 1 minute.
Messages. Your Adventurer's Atlas and its copies now allow the sending and retrieveal of messages to the shared mapspace.
Send Message. As a Magic action, post to the shared mapspace a message containing up to 25 words in any written language the sender knows, or a magical drawing of what is being looked at with a caption of up to five words. The message sender must finish a Short or Long Rest before using this option again.
Show Message. As a Magic action, access a specific message, or the next unread message that has been posted to the shared mapspace in chronological order. The map renders the location the selected message was sent from, with a legend showing the elapsed time and the message.
Spellograms. Your Adventurer's Atlas can now store magical spells as Spellograms in its shared mapspace that are crafted and cast in the same way as Spell Scrolls. The combined spell level of Spellgrams stored in your Adventurer's Atlas cannot exceed your Proficiency Bonus. An attempt to store a Spellogram that would exceed that limit fails.
Store Spellogram. A user able to craft a Spell Scroll can enscribe a prepared spell onto the map itself as if crafting a Spell Scroll. The spell is committed to the shared mapspace as a Spellogram.
Use Spellogram. As a Magic action, display a collection of symbols representing any Spellograms stored in the shared mapspace. Optionally, select and cast one of them as if casting a spell from a Spell Scroll, regardless of spell list restrictions. The caster chooses Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma as their spellcasting attribute for this casting, but in the case of a cantrip the level of the creature that stored the Spellogram is used. The Spellogram disappears from the shared mapspace and is no longer available.
The positional tracking of your Adventurer's Atlas improves, and map instances now act as teleportation anchors for one another.
Map Pins. Each active map instance now includes a marker representing itself when it updates the shared mapspace. The marker for an unattended map is a blank pin, while the marker for an attended map is a cameo of the creature carrying it. These markers can be used to trace the movements of each active map instance historically and in real time.
Map Rescue. When a creature carrying an active map they are keyed to is reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, they can teleport to the unoccupied space closest to another active map instance, and then become Stable. If the Adventurer's Atlas is used in this way you must finish a Long Rest before before doing so again. A copy used in this way is destroyed.
Map Shift. As a Magic action, choose a different active map instance and teleport to the unoccupied space closest to that map. If the Adventurer's Atlas is used in this way you must finish a Long Rest before before doing so again. A copy used in this way is destroyed.
The copies of your Adventurer's Atlas now remain active even when they are on a different plane of existence than your Adventurer's Atlas. The Map Rescue and Map Shift benefits of your Positional Atlas feature can be used to travel between planes unless blocked by other magic or effects.
Telepathic Connection. As a Magic action, you can use your Adventurer's Atlas to forge a telepathic link with any or all of the other creatures that are in possession of a map instance they are keyed to and that are willing and able to allow it. The connected creatures can communicate telepathically through the bond whether or not they share a language. The communication is possible over any distance, and across planes of existence unless blocked by other magic or effects.