Category: Annotated – For Patrons

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The Black Nail

The Black Nail is a demonic tower that’s been driven into the ground. There’s a bunch of bizarre stuff on each floor, all of which leads down to a giant hand holding a large, stone chest at the bottom. The chest probably contains a demon, artifact, magic item or something pertinent to your campaign. Let me suggest you go one of two ways with this:

  1. There’s a demon/monster/enemy in the chest, or
  2. The hand holding the chest is the monster and it attacks once the players open it.

Or you could do both. I put some suggestions on what to do with the other rooms in the DM notes, so patrons may want to check those out.

Next, I’m going to make a variant of this map for patrons. It’s nothing too elaborate, so I should have it done in a couple days, but I think it might be useful to some of you. Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that. Let me know what you think!

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Rhynstock Lighthouse

Those of you from Spain might be thinking this place looks familiar and, yes, this is the Torre de Hércules (Tower of Hercules). Except it isn’t. The Tower of Hercules is an amazingly unique lighthouse, but it has one big problem, which is that it’s a terrible D&D map. The interior is just a staircase. So this is the Tower of Hercules on the outside, but not on the inside.

I was a little conflicted about whether to title this the Tower of Hercules or not, but I decided against it. My longstanding policy is that I only give a map the title of a real place if it’s a reasonably accurate depiction of that place. If I’m using a real place for inspiration, but still getting creative with it, I give it a different name. Still, I try to be as open as possible about my inspiration when I take it from real life. I don’t want to get accused of taking credit for designing any famous landmarks.

Next, I’ll be drawing a great, demonic tower driven into the ground like a giant nail, with only the top floor sticking out. After that, it’s back to drawing more of the Vatican. You know, there’s a nice holy/unholy mix here at Milby’s Maps lately. Widely varying levels of holiness available. I hope everyone’s enjoying that.

Anyway, I’m gonna get started on that demon map. Hope you like the kinda-sorta Tower of Hercules!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 3rd Floor

There’s remarkably little information out there on a lot of the non-public parts of the Vatican and that includes some of the sacristy. One of the few things I read about the uppermost floor is that there were apartments and a salon there and that’s how I depicted it. I also saw a photo of one of the terraces (where the gardens are in the map above) with a bicycle on it, so I suspect there might be people living there now. Either that, or people are really paranoid about bicycle theft in the Vatican. Actually, that’s not too hard to imagine. Rome is, like, 50 meters away from here, after all.

Anyway, that’s the sacristy done, so I’ll probably be drawing either the Sistine Chapel or the Apostolic Palace next. But first, I need to get caught up with the Cartographic Congress maps, so I’ll be drawing a few of those next. First up is a fortified lighthouse based on the Tower of Hercules in Spain. After that, I’ll be drawing a great, demonic tower driven into the ground like a giant nail, with only the top floor sticking out. That’s a high-concept kind of map, which I always like. Hopefully, I can come up with some suitably disturbing stuff to fill it with. Fingers crossed.

Well, I believe that’s it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions about the sacristy or anything else, let me know!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 1st Floor

Here’s the first floor of the sacristy finished. It’s occupied by the Vatican Archives and the workshops of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, which is the organization responsible for the maintenance of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Okay, I’m gonna get back to work on the third and final floor. Be back with that before long!

By the way, If you want to see the rest of my Vatican City maps, you can find them all here.

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Circensis: The Underworks

Here in the lower level of Circensis, there are some crypts, guard posts, a stable and a few other things. There are also a few disused chambers where the town’s poorest residents sleep.

I added a small tunnel leading into the underworks from the house in the upper left, which I thought might create some interesting possibilities. Maybe the party has to sneak into or out of the town and meets a group of smugglers who know about the passage. Or maybe a group of raiders finds out about it and sneaks in under cover of night. You may not have a use for it, but it’s there if you do.

With Circensis finished, I’ll be getting back to the Vatican. I’ll be drawing the Sacristy next, which is just south of St. Peter’s Basilica. This is where the passages at the bottom of the basilica map lead. Sacred relics were (and are) kept here, as well as the treasury. It also contains the workshops of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the group of maintainers and restorers responsible for the upkeep of the basilica.

All right, that’s about it for now. Hope you like how Circensis turned out!

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Circensis: A Town Built on the Ruins of an Ancient Amphitheater

Well, this place turned out a bit bigger than I expected, but I think it was worth the effort. I’ll be drawing a map of the underworks next, which won’t be nearly as elaborate as this level, but will have some interesting stuff going on. It’ll also give this place an entrance.

As you can see, some of the amphitheater’s tiered seating still exists, making it clear what this place used to be, although most of it has been leveled off and built over. The walls of the ancient city that this was once a part of are scattered around nearby and were probably picked apart to build the town.

As I said, I’ll be drawing the lower level of Circensis next (and I’ll have DM notes for patrons with that). Then, it’s back to the Vatican. Anyway, this town-built-on-an-amphitheater seemed like a popular idea, so I wanted to ask how you think I did with it. Let me know what you think!

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St. Peter’s Basilica – The Reliquary Lodges

This is the last part of St. Peter’s Basilica, which means all that’s left to draw is… *checks notes* everything else in Vatican City. Not a problem.

These small rooms were built into the large columns around the basilica’s main dome, each with it’s own balcony. Here’s a photo. Each one contains a notable relic: the True Cross, the Spear of Longinus (aka the Spear of Destiny), St. Veronica’s Veil, and the Head of St. Andrew. Here’s a picture of the spear, which is kept in a crystal vase. And here’s a picture of the Head of St. Andrew, which is kept in a container that I think we can all agree is very head-shaped and very normal.

The next map of the Vatican will be the sacristy, since it’s adjacent to the basilica, but first, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: a village built inside the ruins of a huge amphitheater similar to the Colosseum. I’m thinking of circular tiers of houses around the sides, a market in the center, Maybe some sewers, cisterns and shady stuff in the underworks.

I’m pretty into this idea and I expect it to be a fairly large map. Not quite a megaproject, but a lot bigger than Templemore Village, which was a similar sort of idea. Anyway, if you’ve got any suggestions or interesting ideas about it, by all means let me know. I’ll be back once I’ve got something to show you. Until then!

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Rindlestone Hall

This map isn’t quite a real place, but it’s strongly inspired by one. Peveril Castle in Derbyshire, England is located over a cave called Peak Cavern, or “the Devil’s Arse.” According to legend, this cave “was where thieves’ cant was created by a meeting between Cock Lorel, leader of the rogues, and Giles Hather, the King of the Gypsies.”

Now, if you’re like me, you just heard a bunch of stuff you didn’t think existed outside of D&D. Thieves’ Cant is a real thing? And there’s a King of the Gypsies?! And– wait, rogues? What else are you hiding, England? Are paladins real, too? Can Anglican priests cast spells? Do your druids shapeshift? I WANT ANSWERS DAMMIT.

Okay, okay, I’m calm. Look, I just wasn’t expecting to learn that rogues and Gypsy Kings were inventing real-life Thieves’ Cant in a cave underneath a castle. I thought the most D&D thing in English maybe-history was Robin Hood and this kind of blows that away. Wow.

So, next up, I’ll be drawing the last part of St. Peter’s Basilica: the reliquary lodges. These are located inside the four main columns around the center of the basilica, so they’re pretty small and should only take a couple days to finish. I’ll say more about them when I’m done.

All right, I’m gonna get to it. See you soon!

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Fort Irongall on the River Styx

Hell. Hell never changes. Wait, that’s war. Does hell change? I’m not sure. In the traditional D&D cosmology, there are nine hells and they’re all different, so I think we can conclude that hell does, in fact, change. In a sense, anyway.

With that settled, I’m curious what you think about my depiction of hell. We’ve got the River Styx, some pools of blood (which I imagine is what it rains in hell), and a variety of skulls, corpses, heads on poles and so on. I wanted to draw something a little different from the standard-issue “pit of fire,” but I wasn’t trying to completely reinvent hell. Anyway, I hope it works for you.

With this done, we’re back to our regularly scheduled maps of Vatican City. I’ll be drawing the Roman Necropolis next, which is the second-to-last part of St. Peter’s Basilica. That’ll be three maps in a row with quite a lot of death in them. I hope you guys like death. Any death fans out there? Let’s hope so. Anyway, I’m gonna go look up some floor plans for that and get to it. See you soon!

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The Vatican Grottoes

For me, the Vatican Grottoes are one of the most interesting parts of Vatican City. From St. Peter’s Basilica, you can enter through the stairs in front of the central altar, as well as the stairs in the four large columns around it.

There are mainly two things in the grottoes: tombs and chapels. The tombs are mostly those of former popes, but you’ve also got a cardinal, a queen of Cyprus, and a few others down there. A lot of the chapels are dedicated to nations, specifically: Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Mexico. I’m not sure what it takes to get your country a chapel in the Vatican Grottoes, but it must be pretty difficult if Italy didn’t make the cut. I’m just saying, they’re pretty Catholic and they’re literally across the street.

Below the grottoes, there’s one more level: the Necropolis. This is a group of ancient Roman tombs that were rediscovered in the 1940s. This will be the next part of the Vatican I’ll be drawing.

Before that, however, I’ll be drawing the next Cartographic Congress winner, an infernal fortress that guards the banks of the River Styx, with watchtowers overlooking the river and lots of rusty, bloody bulwarks, cages, etc. So, that’s certainly something to draw in between maps of the Vatican, haha. Well, I’m gonna get started on that. Let me know what you think of the grottoes!