itch.io

For anyone curious how this works in play, I also released a free icon set that represents the symbolic layer of hex mapping.

https://monkworks.itch.io/hex-biome-icons-free-cartography

Greatly improved the quality 1.1

Hex Biome Icons – Free Cartography Starter Set is Live!

I’ve just released Hex Biome Icons – Free Cartography Starter Set on itch.io.

This is a lightweight, minimalist hex icon system designed for:

• Hexcrawl campaigns

• Solo RPG mapping

• OSR-style overland play

• Fast fantasy cartography

The set includes 10 core biome icons:

Forest
Desert
Grasslands
Hills
Jungle
Marshlands
Mountains
Seas
Swamps
Tundra

Each icon is:

• 1024×1024 PNG

• Transparent background

• Solid black silhouette

• Consistent 5px hex border

• Clean and readable at small scale

A high-resolution contact sheet is included for quick reference.

Why This Exists

While building the Hex Diorama Terrain line, I realized sometimes you don’t want full illustrated scenes — you just want clean symbolic mapping.

This free starter set is meant to be:

• Fast

• Minimal

• Functional

• Easy to drop into any hex grid

It works as a standalone cartography tool, but it also acts as a symbolic entry point into the larger Hex Diorama Terrain ecosystem.

Pay What You Want

The set is free, with optional support if you’d like to help fund future biome expansions.

If you’re building a hex map, journaling a solo campaign, or running procedural travel, I hope these are useful.

🔗 You can grab it here: Hex Biome Icons – Free Cartography Starter Set by Monkworks

Monkworks here. I went to school about 100 years ago for game design and digital art/animation. That officially makes me an old-school tabletop enthusiast. These days, I’m finally chasing the dreams and ideas that younger me assumed would already be done by now. I just released my newest tabletop game assets Hex Diorama Terrains.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be releasing all ten biomes in the Hex Diorama Terrain series. Each set is designed to stand alone or combine into a larger, cohesive exploration library.

Hi everyone,

I’ve just released Hex Diorama Terrain — Forests, a cinematic hex-based terrain collection designed for tabletop and solo RPG campaigns focused on exploration.

🔗 https://monkworks.itch.io/forest-hex-set

This project is part of an ongoing terrain series built around a simple idea:

These are not top-down maps.

They are environmental dioramas.

Each hex is a self-contained scene — a window into a larger world. Instead of cartographic precision, the focus is on atmosphere, depth, and narrative suggestion.

The Forests set includes:

• 64 high-resolution (1024×1024) hex tiles

• Wilderness anchor tiles for repeatable traversal

• Settlement-scale tiles (hamlets, fortified towns, larger cities)

• Landmarks like ruins, caves, dungeons, and bridges

• Seasonal and weather variations (summer, fall, winter, mist)

The tiles connect logically on a hex grid without visually merging into a continuous map. They’re designed for hexcrawl campaigns, sandbox play, and solo journaling — where travel and discovery matter.

I’ve been developing the series biome by biome, building a consistent internal scale and visual language across the entire system.

Would love to hear thoughts from other GMs and solo players — especially those who run exploration-heavy campaigns.

Thanks for taking a look.

— Monkworks