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I want to get your thoughts on Vatican City as a potential megaproject for later this year. It's the only country I can draw in its entirety, for several reasons. First, because it's fairly small. And second, because most of the buildings are famous and the floor plans are publicly available. This includes (click for photo):

There are some smaller buildings I don't have floor plans for and would have to make up. There are also a few modern buildings that won't be included, like the train station and the Paul VI Audience Hall, which is probably the ugliest thing in the Vatican.

I'd draw this one building at a time, rather than all at once. So each building would have its own map, as well as being added to the overall map. Once all the buildings are done, I'd draw in the gardens to finish it off.

If I draw this, I would alternate between drawing Vatican maps and other maps, so it wouldn't be the only thing I was working on. Also, I am still drawing the previously-announced megaproject first. And, just to clarify, this would be a 5' (1.5m) grid scale battlemap of the entire Vatican, inside and outside, including upper and lower levels. I'd estimate this project would take somewhere around a year to a year and a half to finish.

So, is this something you'd be interested in? I'll be making the decision on whether or not to draw this based on the response to this post, so leave a comment or shoot me a message to let me know how you feel. If you've got any questions or other thoughts, let me hear those as well. Your feedback will decide the future of this project.

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HaploTheHand

I cannot express how much I would love this!

CrimsonFenrir

That would definitely be an awesome addition to a map portfolio...having a random encounter or mission at the "Vatican" would be amazing.

clawforce

This is an awesome idea, do it

Jeffrey P

I just loved your mega-project of Mont St. Michel, and made such great use of it in my homebrew D&D game. So I'd love something like this, but especially the Necropolis and Grottoes first, followed perhaps by the Palace, Basilca, and Museums and the Court last. I'm just thinking about where I could set interesting adventures as opposed to something they're just visiting or passing through.

Alex Smith

That would be amazing

RunningGentles

I saw this and immediately started thinking of how to run a series of adventures involving recapturing the Vatican. So ambitious! I say do it! I might just plug it into my "the multiverse is getting all jumbled" pick-up campaign.

Luke Rolfs

pretty damn cool idea

Silas

This would be amazing, but don’t sell yourself short by thinking this is the only country you could draw, you could do Monaco and maybe even somewhere like San Marino.

milbysmaps

I posted this, went to the store, came back and there are 15 comments. Wow.

milbysmaps

I'd almost certainly draw St. Peter's Basilica first, but that would include the grottoes and necropolis, since they're underneath it. I'm thinking I might draw all the famous parts first, then email the partially-finished map to someone at the Vatican Library and see if they might be able to share some floor plans of any of the other buildings. It's probably worth a shot, anyway.

Matthew Neville

Amazing idea. Vatican City already looks like a battle map.

milbysmaps

You could probably have quite a few encounters if you used different parts of the map separately.

milbysmaps

Maybe, but they're both too modern anyway. The nice thing about the Vatican is that almost all the buildings are both old and really cool. It's all wheat and no chaff.

Bryan

While this sounds like a cool idea, I think most of use could do this too since the floor plans are public. Personally, I would rather see your creative thoughts put into a project rather than copying what has already been put in place.

Simon 'Landmine'

Enabling parties to go full 'Mission Implausible'! (I've forgotten which one it was with the Vatican in it.) That would be epic. (Especially as I don't just play fantasy settings.)

Violette

Yes, please!!!!

Jasper van Nieuwenhuijzen

Would be awesome. Can easily fit as the main base of any religious organization or cult. A city full of clerics and paladins that players need to infiltrate

KoonFox

amazing, cant wait to see it!!

Rob Spirko

Echoing this. I just finished an extended stay for my party in Mont St. Michel. I am the kind of nerd who looked up the tide charts and we tracked the time. What a great map--super complicated though with all the elevations. This looks to be a similar scale of awesomeness and usefulness.

Jeffrey P

I just had so much fun with a post-apocalyptic "Last of Us" fungi and post-tech society mashup. I'm one of those DMs who can't draw maps to save my life, but once I have a map can spin a good story around it.

Wilfred_of_Ivanhoe

This is a great idea! Lots of potential with this one. I would vote for this or more underdark maps.

AN7

With your style and approach? Absolutely 100% I can’t think of a lot of map makers who could do this justice but I absolutely believe you could make this epic. Though a quick request for fun, exclude the train station, but maybe have an Eberron ish variant with a lighting rail station?

milbysmaps

I've got another megaproject in mind that would be based around a dwarven deep road. That idea needs more time to cook, though.

milbysmaps

As far as the train station, sorry, but I don't want to include fantasy stuff in a historical map. So, I'll probably just draw whatever was there before the train station was put in.

Simon 'Landmine'

Oh yes! There's no reason a bunch of 1920s Investigators could possible need to abstract something from the Vatican ... is there? :-)

Sinam Al-Khafaji

As you seek out these multi-map projects, a vote as s strong alternate vote for the City of Glass on the Elemental Plane of Water.

Adam El Akkad

Anything Renaissance Italy in style is great for me, I love holding campaigns in places like that and it seems like Vatican City would be a cool place to start! Will the maps have references to "modern" stuff, like automobile roads and telephone lines, or will it be still usable for the usual fantasy medieval D&D style?

milbysmaps

I'm only going to include pre-modern stuff, so I'll remove the train station and parking lots and so forth. There are old maps of the place available, so it shouldn't be hard to find out what was there before.

Magpie

Honestly one of the coolest ideas I've heard