Author: MattMilby

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Windward Point Rookery: An Aarakocra Village

Windward Point is a place that isn’t meant to accommodate the non-flying. There are no stairs between levels and no paths to walk between them, which might make things interesting for your players. The rogue and the wizard will be fine. The rogue can climb reliably well and the wizard can fly from place to place. But the cleric? He’s gonna end up praying for his god to fix his broken legs by the time he’s done here. No athletics OR acrobatics? Best of luck, fella.

In case you’re unfamiliar with aarakocra, they’re a bird-like humanoid race that looks like this. Well, until fifth edition, when they apparently grew some arms. This leads me to a point I wanted to mention: the lore about aarakocra is REALLY inconsistent. At least one of you is looking at this and thinking, “Aarakocra would never live there, they’re too claustrophobic.” And you’re right, there are sources that say that. But there are other sources that say aarakocra used to live in cities carved into cliffs. So how do I decide which version to go with? I chose the version I thought was more interesting.

In any case, I think it’s reasonable to imagine that some tribes of aarakocra could be comfortable with lifestyles that others aren’t. Humans are certainly like that. You’ve seen those survivalist shows, right? They drop Bear Grylls or whoever into an arctic wasteland and he shows you how to build a fire, find food, get to safety. Remember that, somewhere, a few hundred kilometers to his north, is an Inuit village where people are just going about their day.

Anyway, next up is a dark, surreal estate on the plane of shadow. I’ve been looking forward to drawing this one and I have every intention of making it as grim and bizarre as humanly possible. If this thing doesn’t make Warhammer 40K look like My Little Pony, I will have failed.

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

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The dynamic lighting for Brazenthrone is finished.

With the rest of Brazenthrone taken care of, patrons using Roll20, Foundry or EncounterPlus will never have to draw wall segments for any part of the city ever again. And neither will I. THANK GOD.

Anyway, I’m going to start sketching out the next map. Here’s where to get the dynamic lighting stuff:

Roll20

Non-patrons can download the wall commands (which draw in the walls and doors using the UniversalVTTImporter script) from here. They’re in the ZIP file. Instructions are included.

Patrons can download all the commands from the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the Roll20 Wall Commands folder.

Foundry

The public Brazenthrone module can be downloaded with this manifest URL.

The link for the patrons’ module can be found in the Table of Contents (pinned as the top post on my patreon page, visible to patrons only). If you already have the patrons’ module, you can just update it.

EncounterPlus

Download the public Brazenthrone module here.

The patrons’ Brazenthrone module is in the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the EncounterPlus Modules folder.

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Mind Flayer Dreadnought Spelljammer

You’ve gotta love Spelljammer. Want to travel into space? Just duct tape a spelljamming helm to the deck of a stolen fishing boat and you’re off to explore the stars.

Mind flayers, however– former masters of the universe that they are– tend to be a bit more sophisticated about interstellar travel. Dreadnoughts are the capital ship of the illithid fleet and they weren’t built for catching seabass. In addition to carrying a variety of weapons on board, the dreadnought also holds a fleet of boreworms, small attack ships with a single crewman. Boreworms aren’t fighters, they’re actually boarding ships, designed to crash into the side of a ship, punch through the hull, then eject the illithid pilot into the enemy vessel.

If you find some things about this ship unusual, remember that mind flayers are a little different than the rest of us. As a brain-eating species, they don’t need a dining table or a kitchen. And illithids love pools. That might be their main motivation to rule the universe: more time in the bath.

As I promised, I’m going to spend the day doing the dynamic lighting for Brazenthrone. I think I can get the rest of it finished by tomorrow. I honestly thought this would take longer and I’ve never been happier to be wrong.

Next up is the aarakocra village, the second-to-last of the Great Vote maps. The last will be the Deepspire, a fortress city in the seas of the Underdark, carved into the sides of a massive column of rock stretching from the sea floor to the roof of the cavern. This is going to be a part of the Black Loch and will be pretty huge, so I’m going to do the next Cartographic Congress map before I get started.

That map will be a dark, surreal estate on the plane of shadow. I hope you like weird, because that is going to be WEIRD. I’m going for “Salvador Dali plus MC Escher plus your worst childhood nightmare.” We’ll see how that goes.

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

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Another hard day’s work in the dynamic lighting mines

I got quite a bit done on the VTT walls and doors for Brazenthrone. Links to download this stuff for Roll20, Foundry and EncounterPlus are below. These maps are now lighting-ready and available to the public:

  • The Noble Quarter (4 levels)
  • The Old Quarter (3 levels)

Those maps, along with the ones I did earlier, will complete the public module. There’s now a patrons’ module as well, with the following lighting-ready maps:

  • Delvers’ Rest
  • The Grand Temple
  • The Iron Mines
  • The Old Mines
  • The Mushroom Farms
  • The Pits of Justice
  • The Underdark Trading Outpost

I think I can probably finish this up in one more session. Most of what’s left is small chambers and I don’t think they’ll be much trouble. Anyway, here’s where to download everything:

Roll20

Non-patrons can download the wall commands (which draw in the walls using the UniversalVTTImporter script) from here. They’re in the ZIP file. Instructions are included.

Patrons can download all the commands from the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the Roll20 Wall Commands folder.

Foundry

The public Brazenthrone module can be downloaded with this manifest URL.

The link for the patrons’ module can be found in the Table of Contents (pinned as the top post on my patreon page, visible to patrons only).

EncounterPlus

Download the public Brazenthrone module here.

The patrons’ Brazenthrone module is in the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the EncounterPlus Modules folder.

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The Floating Market

Everybody having a good holidays? I hope so, but if not, remember that 2020 is almost over, which is a cause for celebration by itself. And, with tomorrow being New Year’s Eve, it’s completely acceptable to drink your way across the finish line.

This map kind of feels like something someone else drew. It’s a completely reasonable size, it’s almost all outdoors and the map takes up the entire image with no convenient place to put a title. I mean, I did draw this and I remember doing it, but… how do I put this? It’s like watching a movie with Liam Neeson in it and he doesn’t kill a single person the whole time. It’s not bad, necessarily, but it feels a bit strange.

By the way, floating markets aren’t a thing I made up. They used to be fairly common in Southeast Asia and there are still a few around today. It’s a very practical idea if you think about it. How do you get your stuff to the market? On a boat. Where do you sell it from once you get there? How about the boat? Then how do you get home? Throw the boat in reverse and you’re on your way.

I considered drawing a bridge across the river, but I decided against it. That might seem like a strange choice, but I think it’s actually better without one. If the players need to cross, they’ll have to figure out how. There are plenty of possibilities if they aren’t in a hurry, but if they are, they might have to do something crazy, like jump from boat to boat. It’s a recipe for chaos, and chaos makes for interesting encounters. That’s my thinking, but if you have any other thoughts about it, I’d love to hear them.

Anyway, next up is a mind flayer dreadnought, which is a spelljammer warship. After that, I’ll be drawing an aarakocra village. But, as I promised earlier, I’ll be taking a day to work on the dynamic lighting for Brazenthrone first. This has been going much more quickly than I thought and I suspect it’ll be done by the end of January.

Well, I’d better get started on that. Let me know what you think of the map!

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The Walls of Brazenthrone for VTT

I spent all day yesterday marking the walls and doors of Brazenthrone for VTT. While the experience hasn’t turned me into a gibbering psychological disaster, I still don’t recommend it. Anyway, here’s what I got done in a day of work:

  • The Great Hall (6 levels)
  • The Anvil Quarter (2 levels)
  • The Common Quarter (3 levels)
  • The Noble Quarter (1F only)
  • City Gates
  • Inner Gates
  • Surface Trading Outpost

For Roll20, these come in the form of wall commands for UniversalVTTImporter. You can download the commands here (in the file called “The Dwarven City of Brazenthrone VTT”). Instructions for using them are in there too. Use the special maps that are included.

For Foundry, there’s a new module you can install with this manifest URL. And for EncounterPlus, there’s a new module you can download here.

The version of the Great Hall in the Foundry module was done by Josh H., who did the most absolutely perfect wall lines I have ever seen in a VTT map. Seriously, they are a sight to behold. I’m actually worried he’s going to look at the ones I did and go, “Look at this scrub with his crappy peasant walls.” Hopefully they’ll meet his standards.

So, all this is in the free public Brazenthrone module. I’m planning to put the rest of the Noble Quarter in there, as well as the Old Quarter, then the rest of the city will go in a patrons’ module. That feels pretty reasonable to me. The free stuff gets you up to the gates, into the Great Hall and gives you a tour of the major districts, which are the places you’d least want to mark the walls for.

As I said before, I’m going to spend a day on this between maps, so I’ll get back on it once the next map is finished. Well, I’m gonna get some drawing done. If there’s anything wrong with any of this stuff, leave a comment and I’ll take care of it!

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Drowning Hill – Roofs

Sorry, this took me a bit longer than expected because holiday stuff. Anyway, VTT versions of Drowning Hill with walls and doors are in the patrons’ Foundry module and the patrons’ EncounterPlus module.

If you downloaded the free module for Foundry or EncounterPlus more than 3-4 days ago, you should grab the new one (you can update the Foundry module). They’ve both been fixed up and all the maps and walls should be in good shape.

This is especially true with the EncounterPlus module, which required a little more attention. If you use EncounterPlus, you have Matt C. to thank for that, by the way. Since I don’t have a Mac and can’t run E+ myself, I was flying blind while trying to fix the errors and I wouldn’t have known what worked without his feedback over the last month or so. I’ve already said this quite a few times, but here’s one more: Thank you!

As I mentioned before, I’m going to spend one day between maps doing the VTT walls and lighting for Brazenthrone. After that, I’ll be starting on the floating market map. Until then, have a good holidays!

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Drowning Hill

Here’s the non-annotated version and the DM notes. This is pretty far from your run-of-the-mill village and I think I owe everyone an explanation of some of the things that are going on here.

Drowning Hill is a village meant for an amphibious race. The name is a fairly literal description of the place, since most of the village is submerged by high tides. With the place being underwater on a fairly regular basis, it’s not an ideal location for people who are particularly picky about whether they’re breathing a gas or a liquid.

I could talk more about the various races that might live here, but all my thoughts on that are in the DM notes. Also, it just recently occurred to me what a perfect aboleth lair this would be and now that’s the only thing I can see. A big, clairvoyant fish hiding under his cult of drooling lackeys.

You might be wondering about Nina’s Inn. Why Nina? Well, the idea for this map came from the Cartographic Congress, and the person who proposed it, James, asked if I’d name the inn after his wife, so I did. Although, in the DM notes, I may have… sort of implied that she’s a fish cultist. Let’s hope James married a woman with a good sense of humor.

I tried some new things with the color here and I’m pretty sure this is the best I’ve ever colored anything in my life. So I might keep doing that. If you’ve got any thoughts about it, let me know.

The next map won’t take long. I’m going to make another version of this with roofs on it. Everything’s already drawn and I might have it done by tonight. After that, I’ll be drawing a floating market, one of the last three maps from the Great Vote. Anyway, let me know what you think!

 

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VTT stuff is much better now.

I’ve got news for Roll20, Foundry and EncounterPlus DMs, as well as some news about Brazenthrone. Let’s take it one at a time.

Roll20

I started using a new script to allow you to automatically make walls for your maps. It’s called Universal VTT Importer and it’s better for a few reasons: first, it makes both walls and doors. Second, it works with Dungeondraft, so I can make proper walls for you instead of the janky ones with all the dots.

As a guy who draws his own maps by hand on paper, I didn’t expect that I’d ever have a need for Dungeondraft, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, the wall commands you need are with the VTT files for the oasis map (in the “Newest Patron Content” folder). There are also instructions on how to use them. Follow my instructions, not the ones in the link above. I did some of that stuff for you.

Foundry

I finally got around to cleaning up the public Foundry module and, uh… that thing really had some problems, huh? Sorry about that, but they’re all taken care of. The grids all line up, the walls are all aligned properly and I took care of a bunch of other little things that I noticed.

Mostly, the problem was that I didn’t make some of my older maps with VTTs in mind and it caused issues. I won’t bore you with the details. I did take a few maps out because they would be an enormous pain to get their grids aligned, but these were almost all from my early black and white days. In other words, they were crap. I made the effort for anything good, like Finbarr’s Marsh and Neuschwanstein. Still, if anyone was planning a massive, five-year campaign around Burdock’s Trading Post, I do apologize.

Here’s the manifest URL for the public module. You’ll have to uninstall the old one and install this, but in the future, I’ll make them updateable. For patrons, the Wahat Al-Hasan Oasis is now in the patrons’ module. The manifest URL is in the Table of Contents.

EncounterPlus

The best news is for you. I’ve converted both of the Foundry modules into EncounterPlus modules. This took some work, since the converter is very particular about everything being a certain way. Missing image file? Something out of place? Oh hell no! Call the whole thing off, ABORT, ABORT! I ran the converter, got an error message, fixed the problem, ran it again, got another error, fixed that problem and, after doing this about seven million times, I finally present to you: the public EncounterPlus module.

Everything in the public Foundry module is in here. 66 maps, ~275 tokens and a few dozen journal files. There’s also a patrons’ module, which is in the patron content drive, in a folder in the VTT section.

One word of warning: I haven’t tested that the public module works yet. I don’t have a Mac and I can’t run E+, but the patrons’ module has been tested and it should be fine. Also, I need to thank Matt C. for helping me with this. It would not exist without him. If the public module is confirmed as working, I’m going to send it to the E+ devs to give out to anyone who wants it.

Brazenthrone

The following is something I’m really going to regret saying later. Still, here goes:

I’ve been thinking about doing the walls and doors for Brazenthrone lately and I’m feeling like it’s hard to justify not doing it. It’s an insane task, but, I mean, it’s tens of hours of work for me that saves other people a combined total of hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. So… I’m going to do it. God, that was really hard to type.

The thing is, I need to do this in a way that enables me to not go completely nuts. So, the plan is to do it a bit at a time. I’m thinking I’ll spend one day on it between maps. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but– like Brazenthrone itself– it’ll get done eventually.

I’ll release it in the form of Universal VTT Importer commands for Roll20 and modules for Foundry and EncounterPlus. I’ll do FantasyGrounds if I can find a converter, but I haven’t seen one yet. Most of it will probably be for patrons, but I’ll make some of the really crazy stuff– like the Great Hall– public. No one should have to draw the walls for that monstrosity. Well, except me.

Anyway, I’ll spend a day on this after I get done with the next map. We’ll see how it goes.