Map-making skills

battlemap-mcp comes with a set of skills: written guidance your assistant reads before it builds, so a map is planned and reviewed rather than assembled piece by piece. Each skill covers one kind of job. Clients that support skills pick one up when your request matches what it is for, and you can also name one, for example “use battlemap-interiors for this room”.

The Claude Code plugin and the companion download install the skills; the Claude desktop extension does not include them. To update or replace them, see Replace skills.

Skill	Use it when
battlemap-art-direction	You give a brief for a new map and want a deliberate plan before anything is placed: what the map is for, its focal point, routes, palette, mood and how dense each area should be. It asks you about decisions that change what gets built, then hands the build to the other skills.
battlemap-environments	The scene is outdoors: a forest, shoreline, trail, ruin exterior or open encounter area. It sizes trees and vegetation from the art itself, makes the ground and main route readable first, and adds detail by zone.
battlemap-interiors	You are furnishing a room, tavern, dungeon chamber, shrine or workshop. It starts from the room’s purpose and the paths through it from each door, places the main furniture before smaller props, and stacks things that rest on other things on the right layers.
battlemap-material-language	You want the map to look like one place rather than a collage of assets: a small set of materials used with purpose, and objects drawn from one art style.
battlemap-lighting-hierarchy	The brief calls for atmosphere, a lit route, focused light or deliberate darkness. It sets the overall light level first, gives every light a visible source, and checks that the areas you play in can still be read.
battlemap-composition-audit	A map is nearly built and needs a whole-map check before final polish: whether the focus, routes and busy and quiet areas read clearly. It looks at what exists before adding anything.
battlemap-visual-review	A map is built far enough to judge from screenshots and exports. It names a few visible problems, fixes at most three at a time, and looks again.
battlemap-vtt-rebuild	You have a Universal VTT export (.dd2vtt) of a map but not the original Dungeondraft file. It imports the walls, doors, windows and lights exactly, then rebuilds the art by eye over the export’s image. See VTT export and import.

For a whole map, art direction plans and the other skills build. Environment and interior work then goes region by region: your assistant finishes one area before moving to the next, and looks at it before calling it done. Before it starts, it checks which asset packs the map includes, which grid you snap to, and whether the library has every piece your brief names; if something is missing, it tells you and offers options instead of quietly substituting a lookalike.

The composition audit and visual review close the loop. They judge what is on the map, from images, and suggest a small number of fixes rather than chasing a score.

The skills shape how your assistant works; you still decide what the map should be and when it is finished. The example prompts show requests they handle well.