Author: MattMilby

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Saint’s Rock – A fortified cathedral inspired by Ireland’s Rock of Cashel


 

, the inspiration for Saint’s Rock. Before it was a cathedral, it was the castle of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland. Fun fact: Brian Boru is the reason there’s a harp on your Guinness can. He’s also the reason that there are pictures of harps all over everything in Ireland despite the fact that no one plays it or has any interest whatsoever in harps or harp music.

Anyway, Brian Boru’s great-grandson gave the castle to the church, who rebuilt it into a cathedral. While the castle was dismantled, the gates and curtain wall were left in place, which, combined with the Rock’s location on a steep hilltop, made it a very well-protected church.

There are a few differences between Saint’s Rock and the Rock of Cashel, the biggest of which was the removal of a secondary chapel building and the addition of the cloisters. The passages through the walls are actually real. This photo shows what the second floor passages look like from the ground (you can see them at the bottom of the windows).

So, with this done, Brazenthrone‘s Noble Quarter is next. It’s the second-largest chamber of Brazenthrone and it’s going to take a minute. I’ll get you some work-in-progress photos along the way. Sound good? All right.

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.
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Brazenthrone – The Anvil Quarter- Second Level

 

With the second level done, the Anvil Quarter is now finished and Brazenthrone looks a lot less like The Dwarven City of 10,000 Desk Jobs. As I mentioned in the last post, the next Brazenthrone map is the Noble Quarter, which completes the core of the city (although there’s still a lot more to do). After that, I’m going to do something I’ve been waiting to do for a while: I’m connecting all the chambers of Brazenthrone and putting everything into a single image. Of course, I’ll have to shrink it way down to keep the file size from being absurdly huge, but I think it’ll be cool to step back and get a look at the whole thing.

So, I went to Spain earlier this month. And I learned a few things:

1)”España” is not Spanish for “Hot France.” I have it on very good authority.

2)Spain doesn’t know anything about October. Seriously, it was like 35°C (95°F). I don’t think October has even been invented there yet.

3)The Torre Del Oro is definitely going to be a map. Not soon, since there’s plenty of Great Vote maps to take care of first, but one day.

4)The Alhambra is unbelievable. It’s a giant castle with several palaces, a church, homes, workshops, gardens and about a billion fountains. These guys were really into fountains. Like, there are literally fountains surrounded by other, smaller fountains. Will this ever become a map? I don’t know. This place is absolutely enormous and it would easily be the biggest thing I’ve ever done aside from Brazenthrone. For now, let’s file it under “we’ll talk.”

5)Seville is kind of unreal. I’ve been to Spain before (I live in Ireland and Ryanair will fly you there for some loose change and a stale slice of leftover pizza). But before, I was in Barcelona. Barcelona is a great city with some impressive stuff, but… how do I put this? You can go to Barcelona and not realize that Spain was once the center of a massive empire that was swimming in gold. That is not the case with Seville. Seville slaps you in the face with that fact over and over again. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Plaza de España was built for that specific purpose.

Okay, here’s the non-annotated version. And, of course, there’s patron stuff for patrons. You know the drill.

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The Kothoa – The Dual Harbor of Carthage

 

The Carthaginian harbor is one of those things that has to have been imagined by a fantasy artist, except it wasn’t. It was real and this is, from what we know, what it looked like. On the left is the merchants’ harbor, built for trade, with a chain boom at the entrance that can be raised or lowered to block access. On the right, the war harbor, housing the mighty Carthaginian fleet. And in the center of the war harbor is the Admiralty Isle, a man-made island with more docking space, a naval shipyard and an observation room from which the fleet’s command can oversee everything.

The main departure from reality is the scale– the war harbor shown here has space for 34 ships, but the real harbor held around 220. Still, I think this gets the point across without the need for a map the size of a mattress.

Thanks to Anders, who proposed this idea to the Cartographic Congress. Some of my favorite CC maps are the ones where I started out thinking, “How the hell am I supposed to draw this?!” I definitely felt that way with this, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. Hopefully you like it too.

Next up is the second (and last) floor of Brazenthrone’s Anvil quarter. Then I’m going to do last month’s Cartographic Congress map, which will be inspired by the . Then I’m going to go straight into Brazenthrone’s Noble Quarter. I was thinking about trying to get one of the Great Vote maps done in between, but my thinking on that is this (and correct me if I’m mistaken): the Great Vote maps people are really champing at the bit for are the bigger ones, but I need to get the core of Brazenthrone (the Noble and Anvil Quarters) finished. Once I’ve got those two huge maps taken care of, I’ll be freed up to take on Mont-Saint-Michel, which, I suspect, is the map a lot of you are looking forward to the most. So, that’s the plan at the moment. We’re just gonna run past all the minions and rush down the big guys. Can I get a Leeroy Jenkins?

If you need it, here’s a version without the ships. There’s also an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.
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I mentioned in the last post that I’m going to be in Spain for a few days and I wanted to get this done before I left. Well, after a few days of doing literally nothing but drawing, this is as far as I got. There will be second floors for a few buildings and, of course, I’m going to color it, but that’ll have to wait until I get back. Still, I thought you might like to see what it looks like so far.
Okay, I’ve been awake since… a really long time ago. I’m going to sleep.
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Brazenthrone – The Anvil Quarter – Ground Level

 

The Anvil Quarter is Brazenthrone‘s center of industry. Here, dwarves can be found making things from steel, stone, gold, glass, ceramics and more.

One of the quarter’s more notable landmarks is the massive, communal Freehammer Forge, built to ensure that no dwarven smith is unable to practice his or her craft on account of being unable to afford a smithy of their own. Waterwheels power the Freehammer’s giant bellows, as well as two hammermills, a grinding mill and a rolling mill. The jewelers, smiths and engineers all have their guildhalls in the Anvil Quarter and the Royal Mint can be found here as well.

So, on Monday, I’m taking my first vacation since I started this. I’ll be going to Spain to attend a friend’s wedding on Monday and I’ll be gone for six days. That’s going to be pretty weird for me, since I’ve hardly even taken a day off in the last year and not drawing for six days seems like a totally alien concept right now. Luckily, my friends are getting married near the Alhambra and there is no version of reality in which I don’t take the chance to see that. It might end up becoming a map, who knows? I mean, not soon, but someday.

Next up is the harbor of Carthage, last month’s Cartographic Congress winner. I’m going to try to get it to you before I leave, but it’ll probably be pretty big, so I don’t want to make any promises.

And finally, this month’s Cartographic Congress has chosen Senator Williams’ proposal of a cathedral fortress. As it happens, I went to see a cathedral fortress several months ago and I was tossing around the idea of making a map inspired by it. Well, now it’s happening. If you’ve never heard of it, behold the .

Here’s the non-annotated version. There’s an expanded annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.

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Brazenthrone – The Anvil Quarter – Work-in-Progress

 

Here’s the Anvil Quarter, ready for the scanner. This actually took quite a bit of research to draw. I read about metalworking in the middle ages, glassmaking, foundries, ceramics and enamels, stonecutting, coin minting, hammermills… all kinds of stuff. I wanted it to look right and I think it does. Hopefully you’ll agree when it’s done.

All right, I’m gonna go put some color on this thing.

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Anchorage Isle

In honor of my wife’s birthday and the 1-year anniversary of the site, I’ve decided to give away everything for this map. All the patron content is free for everyone:

  • DM notes
  • VTT versions (includes Roll20 and FantasyGrounds sizes)
  • Print versions (in PDF)
  • You can download the 1-inch grid print version and a complete zip with everything in it from the patreon (they’re big files and patreon’s servers are much faster than mine).

Be sure to check out the DM notes if nothing else. There’s lore about the distillery, which makes the world’s most godawful hooch, the mysterious guy who lives in the manor house, and the island’s only tree. There’s also an idea for an adventure that’s inspired by a Clint Eastwood movie. Anyway, I hope it helps!

In the past, I normally haven’t done two really big maps in a row, but I’m starting to realize that’s coward talk. Next up is the most dwarven area of the dwarven city of Brazenthrone: the Anvil Quarter. Prepare your beard.

EDIT: I think this is my 72nd map. 72 in a year seems like a decent start.

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Merchants’ Trade Port Island – Work in Progress

First of all: yes, that is seriously my phone. Now you know. I’m the last person on earth with a phone that folds in half. I’ll give you a minute to finish laughing.

All good? Okay, so these are the pencils for most of the merchants’ trade port island. There are a number of smaller outlying islands, plus upper and lower floors for a few buildings, but my camera is dying and I had to fight with it just to get this picture, so the rest will have to wait.

The island has around 50 buildings, including three taverns, a brothel, a lighthouse, a distillery and a number of traders’ warehouses. I was reading about Port Royal, a town in Jamaica that used to be a pirate hangout. In its heyday, it was flooded with money and prostitutes and had around one bar for every ten residents. This will be that kind of place.

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Brazenthrone – The Grand Temple

Brazenthrone‘s Grand Temple is a religious complex dedicated to all the gods of the dwarven pantheon. I use Forgotten Realms deities for Brazenthrone, so the big golden gentleman in the middle would be Moradin the All-Father, surrounded by the other 13 gods of the Morndinsamman. The four larger statues are Berronar Truesilver, goddess of hearth and home (and wife of Moradin); Clangeddin Silverbeard, god of battle; Sharindlar, goddess of love and healing; and Dumathoin, god of mining and gems.

I said I’d be doing one of the larger maps chosen in the Great Vote next and I’ve decided on the small, but densely-populated merchants’ trade port island. In the vote, it was in the large category, but I’d say it’ll end up being what I’d normally class as a “huge” map (actually, I’d say it’ll be pretty massive). Also, as I said before, I’m looking to tackle Brazenthrone’s Anvil Quarter and Noble Quarter soon and one of those will probably come after that.

Here’s a version of this map without all the numbers and words on it. There’s DM notes, higher-res versions with even less words on them and VTT versions available to patrons, should you be interested.