Author: MattMilby

Posted on

Dragonfly-Class Spelljammer – “The Mid-Priced Toyota of Fantasy Spacecraft”

I’ve never run a Spelljammer campaign, per se, but I have run campaigns where some mild-to-moderate spelljamming did take place (including my current one). If you don’t understand the appeal of the setting, let me try to explain it.

First, picture the show Firefly. Now, imagine that Kaylee is an elf. Imagine Wash is a wizard. And Shepherd Book is a priest of Tempus who always tries to solve people’s issues by asking, “When was the last time you purified yourself in the holy flames of battle?” That’s basically Spelljammer. Oh, and the Firefly would probably look like an actual firefly.

There’s some freaky stuff out in space, too.  For example: a giant skull full of mind flayers that are torturing beholders. Or how about a clump of pirate-infested asteroids held together by a giant plant? Or, my personal favorite, a big old cloud of wild magic shaped like a boat. For the record, that last one gives you, the DM, license to do literally anything. “Siderion, you are now neon yellow. And your arm turns into a sheep.” What? Are you serious? “You fall down. The sheep is heavy.”

I’m not sure what I’m drawing next, but I’ve got a few things I want to announce about some stuff I’m planning over the next year and I’ll let you know in a day or two when I post about that. I don’t want to hype this up like it’s some huge thing, but I think most of you will be into it.

Anyway, I hope those of you running Spelljammer games approve of my choice of ship! I don’t think I’ll be doing another spelljammer soon, but I may draw another one later in the year. I’m thinking it’d be something a bit bigger than this. Like, the kind of ship your party graduates to after this one. Maybe an elven Man O’ War? If you’ve got any suggestions, let me know and I’ll keep them in mind. In any case, tell me what you think of the map!

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.

Posted on

The Lair of Kaliphex

In case anyone is having a hard time understanding this complex labyrinth of a map, I made an annotated version to break it down for you. Hopefully that clears everything up.

There’s an unfurnished version, too, in case you need a cave without a giant, golden head and huge piles of cash. I suspect your players will prefer the one with the money, but it’s up to you.

So, the Lair of Kaliphex is a part of the Black Loch and is home to the resident dragon. Patrons can read about her in the DM notes, but here are the important parts:

  1. Kaliphex is a red dragon.
  2. She’s around 11,000 years old. Even for a dragon, that’s ridiculously old.
  3. She’s not evil. She’s not good, either, but she’s killed and destroyed so much that it just doesn’t do anything for her anymore.
  4. She’s lived on a number of different worlds. The last one may have been the Old World, where the tabletop wargame Warhammer was set. And she may— possibly— own Ghal Maraz.

For those of you unfamiliar with Warhammer, Ghal Maraz is the specific warhammer from which the game gets its name. It was made by dwarves, wielded by a god and seemed like an appropriate thing for an 11,000-year-old dragon to have.

In case you’re wondering, I do play Warhammer. My army is mixed Destruction and it’s pretty weird. The general is an ogre on a pink stonehorn. I’ve also got some orc cavalry whose armor is painted with elaborate heraldry like Brettonian knights. I call them the “High Orc Noble Cavalry.” And then there’s Pamela the Devourer, a colossal squig wearing way too much makeup and crashing through a wall like a demented Kool-Aid man. I want to be clear that no part of that last sentence was a joke or an exaggeration. I paint some weird stuff.

I also play Warhammer 40K, for which I have a Tyranid army. I mainly play Tyranids because I like the models, but it’s also nice to be on the team that’s winning. I haven’t actually played in quite a while, but I’m looking forward to meeting up with a friend for a game as soon as the Warhammer store re-opens. He’s probably reading this and, yes, I mean you. I haven’t forgotten.

Next, I’m going to be drawing a spelljammer. I drew a mind flayer dreadnought a few months ago, but this is going to be a more reasonable-sized vessel. Something for the party to cruise around in. Spelljammer is the one setting where people are still using maps from 1995 and I think it’d be good to get a proper map out there for DMs running their games offworld. I’m not sure exactly what kind of ship design I’ll be doing, but it’s not going to be the kind that just looks like a boat.

Well, I’m gonna go look at some spelljammers. If you’ve got any suggestions, let me know!

Posted on

The Casino de Mont Acceaux

So, this is the first casino I’ve drawn and I’ve got a question for the gamblers out there: is the carpet ugly enough? I don’t know why, but “All Casinos Have Carpet That Hurts Your Eyes” is so consistently true, it could almost be a law of thermodynamics. Anyway, I gave it my best shot.

The Mont Acceaux isn’t meant to be Vegas, I drew it with the Monte Carlo in mind. Actually, the ground level is very similar, the main difference being that I removed the opera house.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Monte Carlo is a 150-year-old casino in Monaco. It’s ridiculously classy, everyone speaks French and no one has a gambling problem, they’re just there for the atmosphere. If James Bond was a place, this is the place that he would be.

You might send your players here to rob the joint, but you could also just let them hear about it and stop by to gamble. Hopefully they don’t lose all the money they’ve accumulated from the hundreds and hundreds of people they’ve killed over the years on two hours of blackjack. That would just be… hilarious. Of course, if that happens, you probably need to prepare for them to rob it, because that’s probably what they do next.

Next up, I’ll be drawing something from the Black Loch. I think I’m going to do the dragon’s lair. Oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve drawn one of those yet, so I guess it’s about time I did.

By the way, sorry this took so long. I ended up deciding to recolor the whole thing because it just looked really bad. It took another couple days on account of that, but I’d rather take the extra time and make it look good than give you something terrible. Anyway, I hope it was worth it!

Posted on

Black Loch Tokens

You can download these tokens here.

These are tokens for everybody in the Black Loch with a name, plus some Tideborne orogs, Darksong Knights and an assortment of kuo-toa. And a chicken. There are also some alternate versions, most of which are just different skin colors.

Here’s a link to the DM notes for the Deep Spire in case you need a reminder of who these people are. That’s where everyone with a name is from, with the exception of the three ogres, who are from the Chesterboro Arms.

Anyway, I hope they’re useful to you! By the way, are the kuo-toa a little too murloc? I’m still not sure. Whatever, here’s a picture of everyone hanging out in the Chesterboro:

Posted on

Glogdolp – Roofs

Not too much going on in the roof level, but there is one thing I wanted to mention. If you look around the buildings, you’ll see little triangles pointing to the walls. Those are to indicate where the doors are. It occurred to me recently that that might be useful for some people, so I decided to try it and see what you all think.

Anyway, next I’ll be drawing some tokens for the Black Loch. Drow and kuo-toa and Lim the Big Dumb Ogre and so forth. Those will probably be done in a day or two. After that, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: a wizard’s casino. I’m thinking this is going to be more Monte Carlo than Vegas, but let’s see how it goes. In any case, after that, I think we’ll be headed back to the loch!

Posted on

Glogdolp: A Kuo-Toa Village

Here’s the annotated version.

Glogdolp is a kuo-toa village in the Black Loch. The main things they do here are mollusk farming and slaving. That big jail isn’t there to deal with widespread naughtiness.

Glogdolp is at the tail end of a larger kuo-toan nation called the Bluescale Empire, which stretches down the river to the south. They don’t have much of a presence in the Loch at the moment, but they have plans to change that. Those plans aren’t really happening in Glogdolp, but when we get to the nearby kuo-toa stronghold, you’ll get a look at the kind of nonsense they have in mind.

Basically, it’s crabs. Huge crabs. Like, stupidly huge crabs. Siege crabs. The Bluescale Empire is secretly breeding them and, at some point, they intend to use them to take over the loch.

Personally, I think Glogdolp would be a good place for a rescue mission. The kind that starts with a few potions of water breathing, so the party can sneak in through the underwater caverns. Or you could even have the party stop here to ask about something, then have them happen to see a bunch of slaves getting led into the cells. You know, start pushing some emotional buttons, get an argument going between the paladin and the rogue. We have to save them! We totally don’t. My god says we do! I don’t care about your god. You did when he was curing your Thayvian Crotch Leprosy!

Next, I’m going to draw a roof-level map of Glogdolp, which should only take a day or two. After that, I’m going to draw some tokens. Specifically, I’m going to make tokens pertaining to the Black Loch. So, kuo-toa, Lim the Ogre,  the orogs and drow of the Deep Spire, and so forth. If I’m going to draw all the places in the Black Loch, I might as well draw the people as well. That shouldn’t take long either.

By the way, if you don’t know about the tokens I made, there are around 270 of them and they’re free. You can download them all here.

Anyway, I hope you like the map! Let me know what you think of the Black Loch so far!

There are DM notes for this map available to patrons.

Posted on

Kuo Toa-Village – Work-In-Progress

I’m in the middle of coloring this at the moment. There are also a series of underwater caverns below, but I’ll show you those when it’s done.

The main thing the kuo-toa in this village do is capture travelers to serve as slaves or sacrifices. This is one of the reasons people stay at the godawful inn nearby. When the choice is either sleeping on a bed that smells like weapons-grade cat urine or getting brutally sacrificed to an imaginary fish goddess, most people would choose the former.

Posted on

The Chesterboro Arms – Lim the Ogre, Proprietor

Here’s the non-annotated version and here are the DM notes. This map is a part of the Black Loch.

The Chesterboro Arms is a straight up dump. Nobody thinks they’d ever stay at a place like the Chester, but then they find themselves in a REALLY scary part of the underdark. Wherever you look, there are bandits, monsters and all kinds of awful crap that wants to kill you. You probably shouldn’t even be there and you’re damn sure not sleeping there, so you press on. And you keep pressing on. And after a couple days of walking, you’d give anything just for a nap.

And then you see it: the Chesterboro Inn. Is the food good? You don’t care. Have the beds ever been washed? You don’t care. Is it safe to sleep here? Well, the innkeeper is the biggest ogre you’ve ever seen, so… yeah, probably. And, sure, the building looks like it’s going to collapse, but what are the odds that it happens today?

If you have questions about the Chesterboro Arms, you should understand that you’re supposed to have questions. I didn’t just set out to make this place crappy, I wanted it to be hilariously crappy. The outhouse is huge. You have to go through a bedroom to get to the storeroom. There’s a shed full of chairs. I don’t really have an explanation for that stuff, except that they seemed like things Lim the Ogre would do. Speaking of which, if you want to know the story of how an ogre opens an inn, that’s in the DM notes.

I’m going to draw another Black Loch map next, maybe the kuo-toa village. After that, I’ll do something other than the loch. You know, mix it up a bit. Anyway, I hope you like the Chesterboro! If your party ends up going there, please tell me how it went. I seriously want to know.

Posted on

The Vale of Pentandra

The Vale of Pentandra was a map chosen by the Cartographic Congress. Ben, who proposed it, wanted an elven city in the rainforest with a magical portal in the center, surrounded by two huge trees arching overhead.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I like the portal. Sometimes, as a DM, you want your players to be somewhere really far away. And you don’t want to say, “You get on your horses, clap the coconuts for two months and you’re there,” but you also might not want to do three sessions of “stuff happens while you’re on the road.” Having a way to avoid either of those things in a way that feels natural can be nice. Ready to stop doing Chult stuff and start doing Waterdeep stuff? This might be a nice place for the party to hear a rumor about.

I apologize for this taking so long, but I wanted to get it looking right and that required a lot of changing things around this time. Also– feel free to laugh at me– I got everything done an hour ago, was ready to post this, and realized I forgot to put a scale on it. I managed to forget about that for the entire week and a half it took me to plan, draw and color this. YEP THAT’S ME PROFESSIONAL FANTASY CARTOGRAPHER RIGHT HERE.

Anyway, I’ll be getting to work on the Black Loch next. I’m going to draw the inn on the left side of the map. I know there are a million maps of inns out there, but this one is going to be a little unusual, because this place is owned and operated by a clan of ogres. And it features only the finest ogre furnishings. Ogre-crafted tables. Ogre-crafted bar. Ogre-crafted doors and walls. Starting to get the picture? Your players think they’ve stayed at a crappy dump of an inn before. They have no idea.