The Lost Catacombs of Auldbaern are ancient, dwarven catacombs in the Black Loch. The winding, labyrinthine tunnels are lined with niches holding the bones of long-dead dwarves. I’m sure your party will be deeply interested in all those remains– for academic, archaeological reasons, of course.
But they’ll be particularly fascinated by the royal tomb deep within the catacombs, with its gold and silver sarcophagus and lavish funerary offerings. Oh yeah, they’re gonna archaeologize the hell out of that.
Nearly half the time I spent drawing this went into the royal tomb alone. I wanted it to be so much more ornate and splendid than the rest of the map that the party would be completely unprepared to find something like it. I think the appeal of exploring old catacombs is the possibility of finding something unexpected and amazing. And the royal tomb is the unexpected thing I put there for players to find. Hopefully, they’ll enjoy the scenery while they’re killing the king’s revenant and arguing over who gets his magic battleaxe.
Next up, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: a gothic manor house with a moat, in which a knight or lesser lord resides. It’ll be a little bit Ravenloft, a little bit Mordheim and it should make a good home for a bad person.
Well, I believe that’s about it. Let me know what you think of the map!
The wall of skulls in the catacombs is just one of those features, isn’t it?
It’s meant to be an ossuary. They’re a fairly common thing in catacombs.