Cartography

Cartography is the mapmaker's skill: it draws maps of the world with a mapmaker's pen, and — far more importantly for most players — it is the skill that decodes treasure maps. No crafting station is needed; the pen works anywhere. General crafting rules are in the Crafting Overview.

The mapmaker's pen ↑ top

A pen holds 100 uses, or 150 if it was crafted exceptionally. Drawn maps take their value from your skill, not from rolls — so a pen tinkered from colored metal (see Tinkering) helps with flat success chance on every draft:

	Mapmaker's pen	Success chance
	Iron	—
	Shadow Iron	+2%
	Copper	+4%
	Bronze	+6%
	Verite	+8%
	Valorite	+10%

The bonus needs a real attempt behind it — a map you have no chance at without the pen stays at zero. (Deciphering treasure maps uses deciphering tools, not the pen — the bonus does not apply there.)

Drawing maps ↑ top

Each map is drawn onto one blank map (sold by mapmaker vendors). Success starts at 0% at the recipe's minimum skill and climbs to 100% at its maximum:

	Map	Skill range	What it shows
	Local Map	0–60	The area around where you stand
	City Map	50–80	A wider area around you
	Sea Chart	70–100	A very wide area — useful at sea
	World Map	90–120	The world itself, centered on the map's heart

Higher Cartography draws larger and more detailed maps — the area and zoom scale with your skill at the moment of drafting, so a Grandmaster's sea chart covers far more water than a novice's. Maps can even roll exceptional quality and carry a maker's mark, though a map's real value is its coverage, which comes from skill.

Draw maps out in the open world. A map drafted inside a dungeon comes out as a useless indecipherable map — the blank map and pen charge are still spent, so step outside first.

Decoding treasure maps ↑ top

Treasure maps drop as loot but arrive encoded — unreadable until a cartographer deciphers them. On Sagas this is done with deciphering tools (a charged tool like any other): use the tools on the map, or pick Decode Map from the map's menu, and your character works at it in short attempts until the map is fully deciphered.

Minimum Cartography needed per map level:

	Map level	Min Cartography
	1	0
	2	41
	3	61
	4	81
	5	100
	6	111

Deciphering tools made from colored metal reduce the requirement: Shadow Iron −5, Copper −10, Bronze −15, Verite −20, Valorite −25 — a Valorite tool lets a Grandmaster (100) decode even level 6 maps. Better tools also speed up the decode. (A colored mapmaker's pen, separately, adds +2% success chance per tier when drawing maps.) Each attempt costs a tool charge, and the finished map records who decoded it.

Note that level 6 maps need 111+ skill with plain tools — one of the main reasons to push Cartography past Grandmaster. The full treasure hunt (digging the chest, guardians, loot) is covered in Treasure Maps.

Raising the skill ↑ top

Cartography reaches 120 via Exploration skill scrolls. Past 100, skill buys you level-6 decoding, the World Map recipe, and ever-wider drawn maps.

Training is simple — draw the best map you can, and decode treasure maps whenever you have them (decoding attempts train the skill too):

Blank maps are cheap, so the only real cost is pen charges — stock a few mapmaker's pens (crafted by tinkers) before a long session.

What you can craft ↑ top

Maps

	Item	Skill	Resources
	local map	0 – 60	1 × Blank Maps or Scrolls
	city map	50 – 80	1 × Blank Maps or Scrolls
	sea chart	70 – 100	1 × Blank Maps or Scrolls
	world map	90 – 120	1 × Blank Maps or Scrolls

Related ↑ top

• Treasure Maps — the full treasure-hunting guide
• Crafting Overview — shared crafting rules
• Skill Scrolls — raising Cartography to 120
• Mining — digging up the chest needs a shovel-hand too
• Tinkering — makes mapmaker's pens and deciphering tools