Category: Annotated – For Patrons

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The Pyramid of Sobek

If you’re looking for a slightly more classic pyramid, here’s the alternate “cool but can you dial that back just a bit” version.

Sobek is the Egyptian god of the Nile and is depicted here a few times. Fun fact: Sobek was history’s first dragonborn. A lot of people thought Wizards of the Coast came up with them in 4th ed. D&D, but the truth is, the Egyptians came up with them around 2500BC. True story, look it up.

The bottom level of the pyramid was inspired by Tutankhamun’s tomb, the red stone sarcophagus being a good example of that. Some of the upper levels, on the other hand, get a little less historical and a little more this guy. That may not be quite what everybody’s looking for, but that’s why I made the alternate version.

I spent some time looking at the insides of actual pyramids while drawing this. Not because I was trying to make it historically accurate, but because I wanted it to have a similar sort of feel. One of the pyramids I looked at quite a bit was the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the pyramids of Giza. I briefly considered designing this map around that, but that wasn’t going to work. I do still want to draw it, though, and I’ve decided I’m going to do that next.

Let me explain why. It’s not a perfect place for an RPG map, but it has some things going for it:

  1. It feels authentic, because it is. I think that counts for a lot.
  2. I want to draw it as it was before it was looted. This lets you give your players the experience of being the first people to break into the Great Pyramid and I think that would be pretty awesome.
  3. Breaking in without boring a hole through the side (which is what happened) would involve this: smashing a stone seal over the entrance, heading into a tunnel that leads deep underground, finding the entrance to a narrow passage concealed behind a wall, then climbing 150′ (50m) up that nearly vertical passage, which runs through a small, natural cave. There’s more, but are you intrigued yet?

I don’t know if this sounds as interesting to anyone else as it does to me, but I really think this could be an amazing experience and I’ve got a powerful urge to draw the place. In any case, it shouldn’t take that long.

Well, I’m gonna get started. I hope I didn’t talk up the next pyramid so much that people lost interest in this one. In any case, 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 Deep Spire: 3rd Level

Here’s the unfurnished version.

I haven’t written the DM notes for the Deep Spire yet, but I have been thinking about what will be in them. Particularly the lore.

My story about this place– and, of course, everyone is welcome to replace any or all of it with their own– is that it’s a community of exiles. Drow, duergar, deep gnomes and other underdark denizens who fled or were cast out of their own societies come here to live among the other undesirables.

Here’s a few of the ideas I’ve come up with for residents of the spire:

  • A duergar married to a mountain dwarf from Brazenthrone.
  • A friendly, outgoing deep gnome merchant who’s responsible for seven murders in his hometown.
  • A duergar paladin of Moradin, god of the mountain dwarves.
  • A completely sane and reasonable derro.
  • A male drow who fled his abusive family and fell in love with a human who was the most compassionate, caring woman he’d ever met. She’s actually a semi-notorious ex-pirate with a vengeful disposition, but she is very kindhearted by drow standards.

While the locals generally tolerate other races fairly well– a necessity for living here– language and culture have led to some parts of the spire being predominantly one race or another. The third level here is mostly duergar. There are quite a few of them in the spire, largely due to the fact that their strict societies reject anything but total obedience and conformity. And any sort of fun is basically illegal.

The levels above this will be predominantly deep gnomes and drow. The top level, which connects to the citadel, will be devoted to the guards. I’ve got some thoughts on who the guards will be and who’s in charge of the place, but it’s still pretty nebulous, so I’ll talk more about that once I’ve worked it out a bit more.

Anyway, I hope you like how it’s coming along. Let me know what you think so far!

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The Deep Spire: The Harbor Tower

Here’s the unfurnished version of this map.

This is a hollowed-out column of rock overlooking the entrance to the Deep Spire’s harbor. There’s not too much going on here. Some artillery, some guards’ quarters and, most notably, the jail. That’s where you go if you commit a crime and you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, they just take you to the top of the spire and throw you off. The Deep Spire only has two punishments:

  1. Death
  2. Get the hell out.

If you’re in jail, you were fortunate enough to get number two and they’re waiting for the next ship on its way elsewhere. Anyway, just something to keep in mind, especially if you have a player who has a high probability of peeing in the well.

Next up is the grotto, which I should get finished by tomorrow. I’ll be back with that soon!

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The Deep Spire, 1st Level: The Harbor

First, as usual, the accessories: a version without the ships and ship tokens. There are two versions of the tokens: one that will look good on this map but will look terrible on almost any other map, and an alternate version that will look terrible on this map, but good on most others.

This is the first of six levels of the Deep Spire. The next few will be much bigger, since the harbor doesn’t go all the way around the column and the other floors do. I’m not sure how long this will take overall, but I’ve got a lot of it planned out already and this has taken much less time than I expected it to, so I think it could be done in about a month.

I’ll have DM notes when everything’s finished, but, for now, let’s talk about what we’re looking at. The harbor is a big, open chamber underneath the spire. The ceiling isn’t that high– call it 25 feet (8m)– but this is in the Underdark, so no wind means no sails, which means no masts.

At the entrance to the harbor is a chain boom, like the one in Brazenthrone’s Underdark trading outpost. In the upper left is the gate leading into the spire. On the right are livestock pens. The residents don’t want pigs in the spire, but they do want bacon, so this is where they keep and butcher the animals. In the center, just inside the big support column, is a cargo elevator leading to the second floor. It’s raised and lowered by turning the two big wheels on the sides and is useful for hauling up crates of trade goods or players who failed their persuasion rolls at the gate.

You may have noticed that I changed the colors from what they were in the last post. I decided that using awful, crappy colors might not be the way to go and I decided to use good colors instead. I think that was the right call.

Also, I’m going to make unfurnished versions of all the levels of the Deep Spire. Since I draw everything by hand on paper, that isn’t as simple as turning the chairs off, but it won’t take that long either. I should have the unfurnished version of the harbor up within a day.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts on the map so far, let me know!

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A Dark Place

 

This is the most grim, surreal place I could come up with. While it’s meant to be an estate on the Plane of Shadow, I think it could be good for a nightmare or someplace in hell.

People always depict hell with fire and lava and, you know what? That’s just not scary. When I send my players to hell, I want them to be soaking their pants. Will a statue of an eyeless, obese man vomiting blackish liquid into a basin accomplish that? I don’t know, but I’d say it’ll make them more uncomfortable than molten rock.

I don’t have much of an explanation for the strange things in this map and I don’t think there needs to be one. This stuff doesn’t necessarily need to be interactable, it can just be decor. Personally, I wouldn’t give my players an explanation of anything here. This is a place you send your players when you want them to be scared and people are more scared when they don’t understand what’s going on. Whose head is this? You don’t know. What’s this dark liquid? You don’t know. What do these symbols represent? You don’t know.

And then there’s the top floor. I meant for it to look like reality was falling apart, but there are plenty of other things that might be going on there. I think having the party fight a giant, writhing mass of eyes and teeth would be a nice way to cap things off.

Anyway, next up is 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. I’m not sure how big this will be, but it’ll probably be close to what I’d call a megaproject. I’ll be posting it level by level, so you’ll get it one piece at a time until it’s finished. Once I’ve got it planned out a little more, I’ll have more details for you.

One last thing: before I got started on this map, I said that if it didn’t make Warhammer 40K look like My Little Pony, it would be a failure. That might’ve been setting the bar a bit high, but, well, how’d I do?

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

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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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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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Wahat Al-Hasan Oasis

I did quite a bit of research for this map, particularly on Middle Eastern architecture and furnishings. It isn’t based on any real place, but it was inspired by the Masjid Wazir Khan in Pakistan and the Buland Darwaza in India.

As I was skimming through the various reference material I used here, I came across something largely unrelated, but ridiculously awesome: zamburaks. This is a small cannon mounted on a camel. Not pulled by a camel, mounted on the camel. It’s a camel with a cannon turret on its back and I swear to god it was a real thing that people did. My players are in the middle of a frozen wasteland at the moment and I want to stop everything and drag them out to a desert just so I can have them get shot at by a camel cannon.

I’ll resist the urge to do that, but maybe you don’t have to. See the stables in the map there? *Slaps roof* This bad boy can fit six zamburaks in it. I am just saying.

Next up is last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a village for an amphibious people, located on a hill that is submerged during high tide. An inn at the top of the hill is the only structure permanently above water. I’ve got a lot of ideas churning around for this one and I think it’ll end up being pretty interesting. Anyway, let me know what you think of the map! Or zamburaks.

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Kasan-Tir Mining Outpost – “I like it but I’m not into the tunnel thing” Edition

Here are the tunnels to go with this.

There were two experimental things I did with this map and one of them seems to have gone over well, while the other didn’t. A few patrons let me know, which I appreciate, since it helps me make decisions about stuff like this in the future.

Anyway, I made an alternate version without the tunnels for the patrons’ edition maps in case anyone really didn’t like the original one and I figured I should give it out to non-patrons as well. My patrons seem to prefer this one and, in general, I assume that my patrons and non-patrons are likely to have similar opinions about my work. I’m not big on gating off content and I want everyone to have a version of this map they can use.

The other thing included here is the tunnels. These are a VTT token, but they’re printable too. The idea was that they could be placed in a hidden layer– either under the path or off to the side– then revealed when the players get in and make their way down into them.  Or, if you’re printing the map, you could cut them out as an overlay or keep them as a separate page.

Anyway, I hope this is more useful to you! I’m gonna try to get all those things I talked about in the last post done today, so I’d better get to it.

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Kasan-Tir Mining Outpost

This took a while to draw because I spent two days laying it out, then I decided it was crap and started over from scratch. Sorry for the wait, but it really was irredeemable garbage.

There’s some unusual stuff going on here and I’m wondering how you’re going to feel about it. First, you’ve got multiple levels overlaid on top of each other. There’s the winding path with arrow slits above, then the tunnels on the other side of those arrow slits below.

Mainly, this keeps the map a bit more compact. I try not to bloat the size of my maps too much because it’s always more of a hassle for people using them. If you’re printing it, there’s more to print and if you’re using VTT, the file size is bigger. And I don’t think this is giving anything away. The PCs can see the arrow slits and, I mean, what else would be on the other side?

The second unusual thing is the perspective shift. To me, this feels like the part that might be controversial. You’ve got a slightly angled view of things right up to the door. Then, once you enter the mountainside, it’s a fully overhead view.

This does a few things for this map. It makes the path seem more upward, it shows the arrow slits and it gives a nice view of the chasm. But, once we’re inside, it’s not doing anything for us anymore, so it changes to top-down. I’m curious what you all think about it. Let me know if you like it and definitely let me know if you hate it. We don’t have to do this again.

By the way, this is handled a few different ways in the patrons’ edition versions. In the 1-inch grid print version, the tunnels are a separate overlay, which seemed more practical for print. And in the VTT version, there’s something similar (the tunnels are a token/tile, basically). There’s also a VTT version like the image above. This map was a gamble, so I thought I’d hedge my bets.

There are a few more things. LIST MODE, ON MY MARK. ENGAGE.

  • There’s an explanation of the equipment on the upper floor in the DM notes. Non-patrons can refer to the DM notes for the Oreworks, which describes all the equipment here: a casting pit, converter crucible, puddling furnace and stamp mill.
  • The VTT versions of this map include a Foundry VTT module for the first time, which is kind of perfect, because there is literally a foundry in this map.
  • I’m going to try to get the patrons’ edition Foundry module hosted online so you don’t have to manually install it. Hopefully today.
  • I promised to get the dynamic lighting maps working for more platforms. EncounterPlus is next. I found a converter and I’m going to try it out.
  • I’m making some Brazenthrone assets. Nothing fancy, but they should make it easier to modify or create new chambers, because I’m only drawing one more.
  • Speaking of which, the next map will be Brazenthrone’s Old Palace (1 on this map). This is the final chamber of the city and I’ll do something cool with it.
  • Is that everything? I think so. Let me know what you think of the outpost!