Drawing on the map

The drawing tool is for everything you’d otherwise mime with your hands — “the ledge runs along here”, “the blast covers this circle”, “X marks where the body was”. Open it from the toolbar (Drawing Tool) or press D. Players can use it too, not just the GM.

The DRAW TOOL panel has two tabs: Tools and Shapes, with the number of shapes on the map shown in brackets.

Pick a mode

Under Mode you get nine options:

Select, Freehand, Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Circle, Polygon, Lasso and Text.

Freehand draws as you drag. Line, Arrow, Rectangle and Circle drag from one point to another. Polygon and Lasso build a shape point by point. Select lets you click an existing shape to edit it instead of drawing a new one.

Style

Under Style:

Stroke — the outline colour, with a switch to turn the outline off.
Fill — the fill colour, with a switch to turn the fill off.
Opacity — how see-through the shape is.
Stroke Width — the line thickness.
Share new shapes — whether what you draw next is visible to the rest of the table. With a shape selected this reads Shared and toggles that one shape.

Text

The Text section is where you set up a label before placing it: Content (the words), Font, Size and Color. Choose the Text mode and place it on the map. To change the wording later, double-click the label on the map and type, or select it and edit the Edit Text box.

Managing what you’ve drawn

With a shape selected you get Update (apply the style changes above), Delete, and + Spaces — “Add this shape as a polygon to Spaces”, which turns an enclosed shape into a named region other tools can target. It’s available for polygons, lassos, freehand loops, rectangles and circles.

The Shapes tab lists everything on the map — type, point count, and whether it’s shared. It reads “No shapes yet.” when the map is clean. Each row has:

a share button (Share shape / Unshare shape),
a visibility button (Hide shape / Show shape), and
Delete Shape.

Select a polygon or lasso in this list and the terrain-effect controls appear beneath it — see terrain effects.

Terrain effects — turning a drawn shape into difficult terrain or a hazard.
Keeping effects in a space — a drawn shape doubles as the boundary for rain, smoke or gas.
Pings and cursors — for pointing at something without leaving a mark.
Measuring distances — when you want a number, not a shape.
Building the map — the rest of the map tools.