Brazenthrone

Well, it happened.  The patreon goal has been reached.  I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to go from 6 patrons to 50 in two weeks, so thank you very much to all of you who threw in to support me.

What am I going to do for you in return?  I’m going to draw The Dwarven City of Brazenthrone.

Picture this:  a small dwarven settlement nestled on the side of a mountain with caravans coming and going.  This isn’t the city.  This is an outpost for trade with the surface world.  Behind it, a pair of huge bronze doors are set into the mountain.  These will lead us inside.

Behind the doors is a small garrison and a long, wide tunnel.  Arrow slits to the left and right, murder holes above.  The doors are there to keep out bandits and orcs.  This is the city’s real defense.  After a while, the tunnel ends with a guarded portcullis.  This leads us into the city itself.

Past the gate, the tunnel blooms into a huge chamber, nearly the size of Finbarr’s Marsh.  This is the Great Hall, the heart of Brazenthrone and the main nexus of the city, as well as the political, academic and financial center.  Here you will find banks and bulk goods traders, libraries and schools, the embassies of the nearby duergar and svirfneblin nations, as well as those of several surface kingdoms.  You will also find the Great Festhall, an enormous tavern with seating for hundreds, where all the major dwarven holidays are celebrated.  On the right night, you may even find the High King drinking here.

Several major areas adjoin Brazenthrone’s Great Hall, most notably the city’s four Quarters:  the Common Quarter, the Noble Quarter, the Anvil Quarter and the Old Quarter.  Each of these is around half the size of the Great Hall.

The Common Quarter is the main residential center for most of the dwarves in the city.  Here, you will find homes– both houses and large apartment blocks– markets, theaters, taverns, temples and more.

The Noble Quarter is where the highborn dwarves live.  Their estates surround a large underground lake, with the wealthier families living closest to the shore.  Others live in mansions carved high into the rock, with wide balconies overlooking the large chamber below.  Upmarket shops such as jewelers and tailors can be found here, as well as the city’s finer taverns and theaters.

The Anvil Quarter is the center of industry.  Here, dwarves make goods from not only iron and steel, but stone, glass, gems and leather.  The craftsmen here can make nearly anything a person could want.  This is especially true in the Anvil Quarter’s Gnomestown district, a small enclave where gnomish wizards, tinkers and artificers work hand-in-hand with dwarven craftsmen and engineers to make incredible machines and magical devices.

The Old Quarter is sealed off, having fallen victim to a catastrophic event hundreds of years ago.  Now occupied by gods-know-what, the gates to this ruined area are opened only to those with approval from the highest authorities.

These areas make up the city’s core, but there is far, far more to explore.  There are the mines, where the dwarves harvest their iron and gems; the mushroom farms, where they produce their food and raise livestock; the Pits of Justice, where criminals are sent to rot.  There is the Grand Temple, the High King’s Palace, the Old Mines, the Deep Outpost, the Treasure Vaults and more.

This is what I am going to make for you.  Brazenthrone will be usable as a living city or as an abandoned ruin– a gigantic dungeon to be explored, large enough for entire campaigns to take place there.

Here’s what to expect:  Brazenthrone will be one huge, connected map, but I will draw and release one chamber at a time.  Because of the size and scale of this map– around 6-8 times the size of Finbarr’s Marsh— I will alternate between drawing parts of Brazenthrone and drawing other maps, one for one.

I’m not sure how long this will take to finish, but I think 8 months to a year is a fair estimate.  Keep in mind that you will be getting it piece by piece, starting with the entrance and the city’s core areas, so you will have quite a bit of map even before we hit the halfway point.

This will probably not be the largest fantasy map ever made, but it might be the largest hand-drawn fantasy map ever made.  I’m predicting between 1000-1300 hours of work in total.  I’ll start on an overview map of the city to plan the general layout once I’m finished with what I’m working on now (which is also pretty big).  You should get that within 2 weeks at the latest.

This is happening.  So very, very happening.