Category: Annotated – For 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.

 

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The Cobalt Flotilla: The Ships

Turtle Ship
Barge
Drua

And the rest:

I don’t often post 11 maps in one day. It feels like a lot, even if I did make those 11 maps for the purpose of making one big map. Anyway, I hope everyone’s good on ships for a while, because after drawing all these, it might be a minute before I do another one.

In any case, I’d say everyone’s collection of ship maps just got a lot more diverse. You’ve got three Japanese ships, a Korean ship, a Filipino ship, a Portuguese ship, a Fijian ship, a few kinda-sorta Chinese boats and a Polynesian raft. Hopefully they make your seafaring campaigns a bit more interesting.

All right, next up is the Château de Chenonceau, a magnificent French castle built across a river. Imagine the Twins from Game of Thrones, except they were an only child. And a lot classier. I’ve been looking forward to drawing it since I found the floor plans and I’m going to get to work the second I stop typing.

Well, I hope everyone likes the flotilla! It took a lot longer than I expected, but I think it turned out really well and there are a lot of possibilities for how to use it. Overall, I’d say it was worth it and, hopefully, most of you agree.

One last thing: I’d like to apologize for mentioning Game of Thrones. It’s been two years since season 8, but for some of you it may still be too soon. Stay strong, we’ll get through this together.

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Ollin’s Borehole – Unfurnished

I don’t have too much to say about the unfurnished version of Ollin’s Borehole, but I have a ton to say about the next map, so let’s talk about that instead.

The Cobalt Flotilla is a home for a nomadic, seafaring community. It consists of a number of vessels, large and small. Now, the thing that makes the flotilla unique is when they come together. They tether their ships to each other, lay out planks and rope bridges to connect them and form a sort of island where they can all get together to trade, make decisions as a group, and so on.

To make it more interesting, I decided that I wanted all the ships to be really different. There will be some European-style ships, of course, but a lot of European ships tend to share a similar basic shape and layout and I wanted to draw some REALLY different ships in there. So I did some research and I found a few. Where did I find them, you ask? Asia. Allow me to introduce some highly interesting ships you may not be familiar with:

  • Atakebune – A Japanese warship, largely used as boarding vessels. (Wikipedia)
  • Turtle Ship – A Korean warship with a completely enclosed upper deck, covered with spikes to deter boarders.
  • Karakoa – A double-outrigger raiding ship from the Philippines.
  • Drua – A double-hulled ship for Fijian chieftains.

I’m also going to include some riverboats, rafts, longboats and smaller vessels to give it even more variety.

Also, I’ve decided to draw the ships separately. I’ll make a map of the assembled flotilla tethered together, of course, but drawing them separately means I can make maps of each individual ship as well so you can use them independently. And I’ll make tokens of the ones that are too small to warrant their own map.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know what was happening. I’m gonna go draw some boats!

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Ollin’s Borehole – An Abandoned Deep Gnome Mining Outpost

Ollin’s Borehole is a sapphire mine in the Black Loch. Well, it was a sapphire mine until some duergar bandits found the place, smashed their way in and killed everyone. Since then, it’s just been another hole in the ground. But, as holes in the ground go, I think this one is pretty interesting.

I wrote… let’s call it “the framework of an adventure” for this map. I’m hesitant to call it an adventure because there are a few things missing from it, most notably the monsters. I left them out because I wanted to make it flexible for parties of any level. So, if your players are level 2, this place is full of kobolds. If they’re level 10, it’s full of umber hulks. You get the idea. I also don’t specify the amount of loot to be found, largely for the same reason. Basically, I left out the stuff that I’d typically change when running an adventure that was made for parties of a different level than mine is.

Anyway, it’s called “The Lost Sapphires” and it’s in the DM notes. I’m curious what you all think of it, so I’m giving it away to everyone. It’s nothing complicated, just a single-session dungeon run, but it’s an easy way to get your party into Ollin’s Borehole. I can’t promise you’ll love it, but I can promise it will explain why there’s a big pile of beds at the bottom of the pit.

And I can promise that you will have a 15-minute argument about how much those beds should mitigate falling damage if your party’s rules lawyer lands on them. I apologize for that in advance.

I’ve got an unfurnished version of this map on the way, which I’ll have for you tomorrow. After that, I’ll be drawing the Cobalt Flotilla,  a floating community made up of a bunch of ships lashed together, forming a big, wooden island. And then I’ll be drawing a historical map, the Château de Chenonceau. It’s one of those places that’s straight out of a fantasy map, except people actually built the thing in real life. As inspiring as I found it, it seems like the least I could do is draw a map of the place so it can have a few more battles.

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