---
name: fantasy-1981-child-dm-map
description: Redraw a supplied fantasy map as a ten-year-old dungeon master's homemade pencil map from 1981. Use for child-drawn D&D maps, early home-game graph-paper maps, uneven pencil and colored-pencil town maps, or requests to match this young-DM style while keeping the source layout.
---

# 1981 Child DM Map

Make the map itself look like an earnest child's Saturday-afternoon drawing. Keep the map readable and recognizable. Avoid both a toddler's random scribble and an expert artist's polished retro illustration.

## Read the source

- Use the user's latest selected map or approved working base as the geographic source. Reuse prior approval; do not restart an atlas review for a one-off style change.
- Inspect every supplied image. Separate geography references from style examples.
- Inspect [the Mirabar sample](assets/example.jpg) for materials, marks, handwriting and level of finish only. Never copy its river, circular walls, districts, place names or date onto another place.
- Before rendering, note the source extent, north, land/water connections, road junctions, crossings, gates, wall circuits, gardens and named sites. Keep these fixed. Follow Map Geometry Master if available; the rules here also apply when this skill is used alone.
- If no geographic source is available, ask for the map to restyle. If the user explicitly wants a new place designed, treat new geography as a draft rather than official lore.

## Draw the style

- Use a flat overhead map on one sheet of cheap square graph paper. Preserve the source's full geographic extent and aspect ratio by default.
- Use mostly soft grey school pencil, with a few dark blue ballpoint corrections. Add uneven pale blue colored pencil for water, green for trees and gardens, and occasional tan roofs. Honor requests for monochrome or other materials.
- Make lines uneven, circles imperfect, wall strokes retraced, and main streets a child's slightly awkward ruler work. Let line weight vary without losing street connections.
- Draw modest top-down house boxes, some with a simple X or ridge line. Simplify tiny roof detail inside its source block if needed; preserve building masses, density, open ground and landmark positions. Do not scatter generic houses across roads or gardens.
- Keep separate garden walls and pools. Make tower circles and gate openings readable. Draw a bridge across water, not as a dam or new strip of land.
- Use hand lettering, including an uneven hollow block-letter place title and smaller labels in spare space. An occasional crossed-out letter or light eraser trace is enough. Keep names accurate and keep important detail visible.
- Add mild pencil smudges, faint erased guides and light paper handling creases. Keep the paper mostly clean. Avoid burnt parchment, heavy stains and staged props.
- Use simple source-matched terrain marks, such as upside-down U hills and tiny tree symbols. Do not turn flat ground into hills for decoration.
- Show the drawing itself, not a child, hands, gaming desk, dice, book cover, or staged photograph of stationery.

## Keep presentation honest

Default to a homemade sheet with a small crooked north arrow and a short handwritten key where space permits. Use no CAD sidebar, official seal, modern type, glossy effects, professional calligraphy, 3D view, or isometric buildings.

The requested child-drawn style replaces the usual professional plat frame. If the user also explicitly requests the standard plat, load its current template and spec, keep its measured frame/grid, and apply this style only within the map field. State that mixed choice plainly.

Keep graph cells square. Include a distance statement only when its relation to the displayed grid is supported. Never inherit a source's feet-per-cell value after changing cell spacing. Omit uncertain numeric scale or label it as a game estimate. Do not invent population, heights, survey accuracy or dates; use 1981 as the style period, and write the year on the sheet only if requested.

## Render and check

1. Use the host's image tool with the geography source attached as the edit target. Include the sample only as a separate style reference when helpful. If no image tool is available, give the prepared prompt and say that no image was rendered.
2. Use [the prompt pattern](references/prompt-pattern.md), replacing its fields with the actual place and source facts. Keep geographic constraints separate from mark-making instructions.
3. Check the result against the geographic source: north, river connections, mainland versus island, crossing count and endpoints, wall circuits, gates, street junctions, garden enclosure, landmark order, district density and open spaces.
4. Check the finish: pencil and light colored pencil, imperfect but legible handwriting, square graph cells, no professional frame and no polished digital linework.
5. Fix material errors before delivery. Describe a generated restyle as approximate; never claim a checked coordinate match without a traced overlay.

Return the image with a short note. Keep the generated drawing as a style output; do not replace the approved geographic master with it.