Happy new Year ! Outlook for 2026

Hey everyone,

with the release of the latest packs, I can officially close the 4th year of BirdieMaps with a smile and welcome the 5th.
I’m still a bit baffled that I’ve come this far. What started as a way to support my education and earn a little extra money slowly turned into something I never expected: doing maps full-time. And yet, here we are.

Looking back at 2025

2025 was an amazing year in terms of Patreon and mapping projects. I released two large projects: Neverwinter and The Island Pack. Each of them took several hundred hours to complete, and I learned an incredible amount along the way.

On top of that, I released many additional packs, adding up to well over 100 unique maps throughout the year.

A lot also changed behind the scenes:

• I retired my old laptop and switched to a PC

• I returned to Moulinette

• I coded my own BirdieMaps Tool, which now handles many of the most mundane tasks (saving a lot of time, paid for with a fair amount of headaches :D ). This has been the biggest time-saver this year, and all that saved time went straight back into improving the packs.

• And of course improved my mapping skills by a lot.

With The Island Pack, I also dove much deeper into Foundry V13, especially the new Regions system. For the first time, I also introduced ambient sounds directly on scenes.
All sounds are free to use from Pixabay, and proper attribution can be found inside the module files.
Every map released after The Island will now include placed ambient sounds by default.

The difficult parts

2025 wasn’t always easy. I struggled a lot with personal issues, depression and PTSD made this year particularly hard, and global events didn’t help either.

What truly carried me through was having good friends around me and, just as importantly, a very supportive community. Even when I fell behind schedule, I always knew that you didn’t mind if things took a bit longer. That understanding and trust meant more to me than I can properly put into words, and it played a real role in my mental recovery.

Thank you for standing by my side.

From a business perspective, I definitely hit a wall during the second trimester: no real growth, but also no decline. At the moment, BirdieMaps covers my rent, bills, insurance, cat food, and taxes. That’s okay, but it’s not yet enough to build savings, which is my next personal milestone. Anything beyond that will be reinvested directly into growing and improving BirdieMaps.

Outlook for 2026

This might sound contradictory to my goals, but in October I decided to pause commission-based Tiers for a while. I’m stepping back from commissions to reduce workload and focus more on growing the business sustainably.

This also means there will be fewer maps for the community packs. I still have a few commissioned maps left in storage, so there will be at least one more community pack coming.

As a result, I’m bringing back the voting system from the early days, something I couldn’t manage while handling many commissions.
You’ll once again be able to vote on which themes I should cover next. More details will follow in a separate post.

Other plans for 2026

• More polished posts: I’ll put more effort into the visual design of my Patreon posts and announcements.

• Collaborations: I’m already in contact with a few YouTubers, and I’m also looking forward to working with landscape artists to create richer environments for some maps.

• More community engagement: This doesn’t come naturally to me as I’m not the most social person and generally prefer staying in the background. But that mindset doesn’t work well for an online business. I’m actively working on stepping out of that comfort zone, so expect more activity on Discord and other channels.

• I recently joined a German D&D Discord, where I’ll be offering mapping workshops (for German-speaking members).

• For English speakers, I’ll continue the monthly livestream with Kylie from Cantrips Media.

• A huge announcement in February (sneak peaks on Discord) ;)

• Going back ALL maps and adding sounds there as well.
  
  

You like my maps?

All my maps will always be free to use and i can only offer this due to some of you subscribing. If you find yourself using my maps more often, please consider to support me here on patreon. It really makes a difference :). Thank you

A note on AI usage

I realized I’ve never clearly stated my stance on AI, so here it is:

I currently use AI only for:

• Coding assistance

• Translation

• Proofreading

AI is never involved in the creative process of my maps.
Any text you read, even when translated, reflects my own words and thoughts.