Category: Annotated – For Patrons

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Fort Bourtange

In the 1500s, the Netherlands were ruled by the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs were an astoundingly inbred German noble family with faces that were about 85% chin. For some reason, they were the rulers of the Spanish Empire.

The people of the the Low Countries didn’t want to be ruled by German people, Spanish people or inbred people, let alone a combination of the three. They wanted self-determination, a republic and the right to worship the protestant version of God. So, in the mid-1500s, the Dutch Revolt began.

The Spanish Empire ruled Spain, part of Italy, Austria, and– you know the countries that speak Spanish today? All of those. It was a daunting enemy, but the Low Countries had one thing going for them: stupefying amounts of money. And they planned to leverage that to win.

One of the things the Dutch spent that money on was Fort Bourtange. Since the Spanish were allied with the Holy Roman Empire, they’d need a way to protect the Dutch land from the Deutschland. One of the main roads to Germany passed through a marsh, so the leader of the revolt, Willem van Oranje, ordered the construction of a fort across it.

Building a star fort with forty buildings, a crownwork, four ravelins and two moats is an expensive operation. But not only did they build it, they built it on a sandbar in the middle of a marsh.

Fort Bourtange was such an obvious deathtrap that not many people were inclined to order their armies to assault it. But, about 100 years after its construction, Bernhard von Galen, the Prince-Bishop of Münster, came along to give it the old college try. During a parley before the attack, he told the fort’s commander, Captain Protts, he had 200,000 guilders for him if he’d surrender Bourtange. Protts famously responded by telling von Galen he had 200,000 bullets for him and his men. Von Galen decided to send his soldiers to go receive them, which resulted in a crushing defeat for his army. He then went on to besiege the nearby city of Groningen, which he also failed at.

In later years, the fort began to transition into a village, where the soldiers of the garrison lived with their families. Then, in the 1800s, the fort was turned into a village for local farmers.

Well, this map was a ton of work, but I hope you like it! I’m going to make a roof-level version of the fort next, which should only take a couple days, then I’ll be moving on to the next map. I plan to make a big push on getting some Black Loch maps done over the next few months as well.

Anyway, let me know what you think of Fort Bourtange!

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

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Delaro’s Manse

Here’s the unfurnished version.

Hey look, I drew a reasonable-sized map! 34×55! I knew I could do it! Don’t get used to it, though, the next two maps I’m drawing are a 13-floor tower and this.

Delaro’s Manse is a part of the Black Loch, marked on the map as “Secluded Manse.” Delaro Montalos is one of the few humans living in the underdark sea. He’s a wizard who came to the loch to conduct research into an extradimensional gateway he created.

Normally, in a D&D setting, the term “extradimensional” refers to planar travel, but that’s not the case here. Delaro isn’t going to the inner planes, the outer planes, or anywhere else described in Planescape. He’s going outside of that, to another multiverse altogether.

I imagine this place as a completely different reality with laws of physics that bear no resemblance to our own, but I think there are a few other ways to play it. The most interesting, to me, is having Delaro’s gateway lead to our world, at some interesting point in time. You could drop your party into the middle of the Second World War, or the French Revolution, or the Wild West. You could have your party appear in a city under siege by the Mongol horde, or in the capital of the Incan Empire as the conquistadores are about to arrive. Hell, you could drop your party into the middle of modern day Tokyo. There are tons of possibilities if you want to go that route.

I feel like a lot of people are going to want to use this map for things other than the Black Loch, so I’m going to make an alternate version, which I think I can get done tonight. I’m just going to get rid of the stalactites and put some grass in there, so the place isn’t explicitly in a cavern. It won’t take long and it’ll keep some DMs from having to say, “I told you it was on a grassy hill, stop asking questions.”

Anyway, I’m gonna get on that. Let me know what you think!

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

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Gamblers’ Key – A Pirate Fortress and Casino

Here’s the unfurnished version of this map.

Gambler’s Key is a pirate lord’s fortress with a casino in the front and a loading bay for pirates to drop off their plundered cargo in the rear. It’s sort of the opposite of a mullet: a party in the front, business in the back. Well, I guess it depends which side you consider the front, but… whatever, let’s not overthink it.

Ryan, who proposed this map to the Cartographic Congress, asked me to make a token of this as well. Basically, the token is for inserting the island onto a sea map in which the party’s ship is 1-2 tiles in size. Anyway, you’re all welcome to it as well and you can download it here.

The other week, I talked about drawing a map of Fort Bourtange, a star fort in the Netherlands. I want to get that started fairly soon, so here’s the plan: I want to get a Black Loch map drawn this month, so I’m going to do that next. I’ll be drawing the “secluded manse,” which is the home of a powerful wizard living on the island of Driders’ Rock.

After that, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a floating, thirteen-level tower dedicated to magical experiments and research with a dock for airships. And then I’ll be drawing Fort Bourtange. I’d like to get started on it around the beginning of next month, but we’ll see how long the other two maps take. Sound good? I hope so.

Anyway, let me know what you think of Gamblers’ Key!

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

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The Halls of the Awakened – Unfurnished

Here’s the unfurnished version I promised. Instead of talking about it, I’d like to share something completely useless with you. I was looking through the 5th Ed. Monster Manual today and I noticed that there were a TON of entries starting with D. The D’s start on page 46 and end on 122. Anyway, I did what any crazy person would do and I got out a calculator. There are 76 pages of D’s out of a total of 304 pages of monsters, meaning that 25% of the monsters in the Monster Manual start with the letter D. And what’s the game called? That’s right… D&D.

*head explodes*

A few months back, I said I was going to draw some more tokens and I intend to start on that. The reason I hadn’t before is that I was a little behind on things, mostly as a result of the Cobalt Flotilla taking a bit longer than I’d anticipated. Anyway, I’m now caught up and I’ll get started on those today. Hopefully, I’ll be posting them tomorrow, then another batch every month or so.

After that, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: “a pirate lord’s fortress with a casino and underground lair hewn out of granite.” That proposal won the vote by the biggest margin I’ve seen in a long time, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s a thing a lot of people would like a map of. It’ll be like the Mont Acceaux Casino, except you don’t get kicked out for throwing up all over the floor.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work. Let me know what you think of the map!

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The Halls of the Awakened

 

The Halls of the Awakened is a cultists’ lair hidden deep in the Black Loch. If you’re interested in my version of the lore, I’ve written a giant wall of text about it in the DM notes here. I’ll have an unfurnished version of the map for you tomorrow.

A bad guy lair with an entrance inside a cavern isn’t anything new, but I intentionally made the caverns here pretty big. As the party makes their way through, it gives them time to get a little paranoid. And to start asking questions, like, “Is this the right place?” And, “What if that person lied to us?” And, “What if this is a trap?” It creates some tension and makes them feel like they’re someplace dangerous, which is the mood I like to create in a dungeon.

If you read the lore I wrote about this place in the last post, it has a lot to do with psionics. I expect most people will probably use this map for something else, but, in case you’re interested in inserting the Architects of the Awakened into your game, I wrote some ideas for psionic powers into the DM notes.

Of course, you can use the rules for the unofficial Mystic class if you want, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a psionic NPC. What am I looking for? Darth Vader. No, seriously. If I’m introducing a powerful force the players are unfamiliar with, I want it to scare the hell out of them. I want them to get telekinetically flung across the room like a rag doll. I want to have stone walls flying at them and ceilings coming down on their heads. I want stuff to happen that isn’t in the Players’ Handbook.

If you throw a fireball at the party, they know what that does. “It’s fine, no big deal, we’ve got the HP to handle it.” But when you tell someone they can no longer breathe? They don’t know what that does. There are rules, of course, but they don’t know what they are because I made them up. The unknown can be pretty scary, especially for experienced players who aren’t used to surprises.

Anyway, I’ll get the unfurnished version of this up tomorrow, along with the updated Black Loch map that has the location marked on it. I’ll also talk about what’s next. Until then!

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The Tigers’ Nest Monastery

Some monasteries make wine, while other monasteries make bread. This monastery makes bareknuckle kung-fu killing machines. Or, as they’re known in D&D, monks.

As a DM, having a monk in the party can be a little difficult. Not because there’s anything wrong with the class, but because coming up with useful loot for a monk is tough. They’re like warriors who don’t want magic weapons or armor, but they’re not spellcasters, so they don’t want wizard and cleric stuff either. Bracers of Defense are good and so is a Ring of the Ram, but after that, what do they even want?

One solution that’s worked for me is giving monks abilities instead of items. Have someone teach them the “Iron Palm” and give them +1 on all their unarmed attacks. It’s basically a magic weapon for a character that doesn’t use weapons.

This kind of thing can be good for druids who spend all their time shapeshifted, too, since they’re also pretty hard to find presents for. With druids, I’d present it as the blessing of a nature spirit or something, but the idea is the same. You can do this with other classes as well, but the rest tend to be a lot easier to please.

Next up, I’ll be drawing a map for the Black Loch. This is a new addition that isn’t marked on the map: The Architects of the Awakening. They’re a duergar cult that were the villains of my last campaign and they’ve got a fairly complicated story. The very short version is this:

The duergar race have the psionic essence of the mind flayers within them, but their psionic abilities are nowhere near those of the illithids. A duergar priestess believes she can awaken that essence in her people, granting them the same power the illithids have. She has found a way to do it, but she and her followers must act in secret, as her methods would be considered a heinous abomination by every living thing on earth, the duergar included.

I’ll make a separate post about it in a day or two that explains their story in more detail if you’re interested. Until then, I hope you like the Tigers’ Nest. Let me know what you think!

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

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The Benthic Academy: An Undersea Ruin

Here’s another version of the map with air pockets in some of the rooms.

When I draw a ruin, I like to trash the place. I don’t want it to just be a building with holes in the walls, I want it to look like a hotel room the Rolling Stones spent the night in in 1976.

In this particular map, however, some parts are less trashed than others. That’s because the Benthic Academy is a college of magic– or, at least, it was until whatever disaster swept it under the waves. Unlike most places, the academy has magical wards holding some of it together, particularly the library (on the right), the faculty rooms (bottom center), and the dean’s residence (upper left).

The wards were meant to prevent cracked walls, broken windows and leaks, but they’ve done such a great job that, even after years underwater, a lot of the academy is still in one piece. Depending on which version of the map you use, they may have even caused a few of the upper-level rooms to retain air pockets.

If you might be using this map, I’ve got a few suggestions. First, I’d recommend considering your party’s underwater capabilities when planning encounters. Keep in mind that most melee weapons roll with disadvantage underwater. And, even if your players stop to re-equip themselves at Tridents-R-Us, you may need to consider how dependent they are on any magic weapons they won’t be using. If that Hammer of Hit Point Obliteration is doing a lot of work, you may want to dial the enemies back a little. Also, remember that Lightning Bolt and Fireball aren’t really on the menu anymore.

Second, I’d start the party out on the roof level. Since they’re swimming down into this, that’s the first thing they’ll see.

And finally, if the spellcasting PCs can’t cast Water Breathing enough times to  get the whole party down there, just put a few potions of water breathing into the loot of the adventure before this one. Don’t worry, handing out suspiciously convenient water breathing potions before an underwater quest is an ancient DM tradition.

Next up, I’ll be drawing another map from the Black Loch: the surface entrance. This isn’t a stairway, it’s a series of waterfalls, and it’s probably the quickest way into the Underdark from the surface. Is it the safest way? Probably not, but that’s your party’s problem. Also, since this entrance presumably leads down from a river on the surface, it allows for the possibility of traveling to the Underdark accidentally. And the best part: it’s one-way.

Anyway, I’m gonna start sketching that out. Let me know what you think of the Benthic Academy!

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

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Hyphis – A Myconid Colony

For those newer DMs who may be unfamiliar with the race: myconids. TL;DR: Mushroom people. No, not like Toad from Mario Brothers. But also, yes, kind of like that.

There are two things I want to specifically point out about this map. The first is the middle floor. The brown room. That’s compost, which is what myconids consume for sustenance. What are they composting? Well, they’re by the water, so it’s probably mostly fish. Which means that room is covered, wall-to-wall, with decomposing fish. Imagine the smell of a fish market. Now imagine that the fish are completely covering the floor. Now imagine that all those fish have been putrefying for a month. YUP.

In game terms, what this means is: saving throws vs. immediate projectile vomiting with the force of a shotgun blast. That’s always a good time to be the DM. If you’re on a VTT, see if you can find a sound effect for this. And be sure to check the tanky PCs’ character drawings, because if Paladin Fancypants is sporting a closed-face helmet, he is now both sick AND drowning. If that’s not a memorable D&D moment just waiting to happen, I don’t know what is.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the giant mushroom running through all 3 levels of the map. My lore for it (and, of course, feel free to ignore it) is that it’s an 800-year-old sentient mushroom that the myconids made friends with. It can see and hear anything that happens in the vicinity of its spores, which, at this point, can be found almost everywhere in the Black Loch. So, it’s kind of an oracle. It’s called the Red Warden and nobody, itself included, knows what it is or where it came from.

In any case, it could be a source of information, should your party need it. A good place to come to get some answers if you don’t mind walking through rotting seafood and puking like a drunken 14-year-old. It’s fine, the top floor will be a nice bit of eyebleach. They’ll love it.

Anyway, next up is the Benthic Academy, the underwater ruins of an ancient college of magic. After that, I’ll probably draw another map from the Black Loch.

Well, I hope you like Hyphis! Let me know what you think!

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

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The Château de Chenonceau

God the French make some cool stuff. “Let’s just build it over the river.” Sure, why not, here’s money, let’s do it. Amazing.

While I was researching this place, I learned a bit about the castle’s most famous resident, Catherine de Medici. She was the queen of France in the mid-1500s, who later ruled the country as Queen Regent after her husband died. She was also a woman who liked to party and, by all accounts, she threw a GREAT one. There’s actually a wikipedia page specifically about her parties. Parties that happened 500 years ago. Let me go ahead and quote that for you:

Catherine arranged entertainments that lasted for several days, including fancy-dress jousting and chivalrous events in allegorical settings. On Mardi Gras, the day after the banquet in the meadow, knights dressed as Greeks and Trojans fought over scantily clad damsels trapped by a giant and a dwarf in a tower on an enchanted island. The fighting climaxed with the tower losing its magical properties and bursting into flames.

Sure, you know, typical Saturday for me too. She also put on the first fireworks display in France, as well as– at least once– a party where the food was served by topless women. Keep in mind that this was the 1500s. At a time when they would light you on fire if they thought you were a witch, this lady was running strip shows. Wild.

Anyway, I know a lot of people were looking forward to this map, so I hope it’s everything you were hoping for! I’m planning to do some more historical maps before too long, but next I’m going to return to the Black Loch. I’ll be drawing the myconid colony next, then I’ll be drawing the next Cartographic Congress map: the underwater ruins of the Benthic Academy, an ancient college of magic. After that, I’ll probably be getting back to the Black Loch again, since I want to make some more progress on that. In any case, I’ll be drawing more of the loch over the next couple months.

Well, I’m gonna start drawing some mushrooms. Let me know what you think of the Chateau!

An annotated version of this map and DM notes are available to patrons.