Category: Annotated – Free

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The Great Pyramid of Khufu, depicted before it was looted.

Here’s the non-annotated version and here’s another non-annotated version without the treasure.

I didn’t draw this because it’s the most famous pyramid in the world, I drew it because I genuinely think it’s fascinating. But exactly what is fascinating about it is hard to convey in a map alone, which is why I made the version above to explain it. There’s a mysterious tunnel that leads nowhere. There’s a set of three granite slabs that were dropped down to seal the burial chamber. There’s a narrow, vertical passage with a hidden entrance. And it runs through a cave.

I think this would be a great place for an adventure. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just have somebody tell the party it’s there and it’s full of treasure, then have them figure out how to get inside. Personally, I think it’d be fun to let the players think it’s just a fantasy map. Then, after the session is over, tell them they just looted the Great Pyramid. Yeah, in Giza, the big one. Yep, that’s what that was.

Well, I’m not drawing another pyramid next. Instead, I’m going to draw the regional map of the Black Loch. I expect this to change over time as I come up with new ideas and develop the lore of the place, so think of it as the Black Loch v1.0. It’ll have a bunch of locations marked on it, which should give you an idea of what it’s going to look like as it comes together. Any changes I end up making will probably add things rather than subtract them, so I’d say you can probably expect to see maps of whatever is there.

Anyway, I hope you like the map! This concludes our Egyptian tetrahedral mausoleum double feature.

There are DM notes for this map available to patrons.

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The Deep Spire: All Levels

Here are the non-annotated version and the unfurnished version. Also, here are the DM notes in case you missed the last post.

Sorry, this took a bit longer than I expected, mostly due to the Photoshop-crashingly large size of the image file. As soon as the stores open back up, I’m buying a new computer. I bought my current one when my previous machine died and it’s still kicking, but it’s time for an upgrade. I haven’t bought anything other than food in almost a year, so as soon as the stores open back up, I’m going to the local indie computer place with the name that probably sounded super hi-tech in 1989 and I’m gonna tell them I need a machine that will literally melt a hole through my desk the second the video card starts running. I’m “supporting local businesses,” or at least that’s my excuse.

Anyway, there are a couple more things I still need to make for this, including some multi-floor maps. You can use this one with all the floors, of course, but I’m going to make some maps with three levels each as well. I think I can get all that posted later today.

Well, I hope you like the Deep Spire! It was a month’s work, but I think it’s a pretty good start to the Black Loch. Let me know what you think!

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The Deep Spire: 6th Level and the Citadel

Here are the annotated version and the unfurnished version. And here are the  DM notes.

The last part of the Deep Spire is done and so are the DM notes, which… well, they started off as “notes” but, by the end, they were somewhere between a “lengthy screed” and a “borderline manifesto.” Anyway, they go pretty deep into the history of the spire and the people who live there.

For those disinclined to read them, the TL;DR is this: a clan of orog raiders called the Tideborne settled the place, a drow noble house rescued the orogs from disaster and moved in, then they opened the place up to settlers and traders to make money.

If you’re not familiar with orogs, they’re The Other Underdark Race. I like them for when I want an NPC who isn’t a duergar, drow or deep gnome, but I also don’t want them to be some weird crap like a cloaker or whatever. Orogs are basically orcs, except better. They’re Orcs 2.0. They’re bigger, as smart as humans and have sophisticated, well-organized societies.

Of course, they’re not any less into the raiding scene than orcs are, but, to be fair, that’s a very practical trade in a society where everyone is the size of Andre the Giant.

Anyway, the DM notes will give you plenty to read, so I’ll leave the post at that. There’s a few more things to make for the spire, including some tokens I mentioned previously and an assembled map with all of the spire in it. I’m going to make an annotated version of that as well, which will have a little more flavor to it, now that I’ve got more of the lore figured out. It shouldn’t take more than two days, so I’ll be back with that soon. Hopefully a few people will have made it through the DM notes by then, haha.

All right, back to work!

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The Deep Spire: 5th Level

Here’s the annotated version and the unfurnished version.

This part of the Deep Spire looks a little different from the rest. I’ll talk about why in the DM notes, which will be coming with the next map, but I’ll explain it a bit here.

So, this part of the spire is occupied entirely by a drow noble house: House Vaerixas. They were once the ruling house of the city of Vlyn’darastyl, but they now live here in exile.

As with most drow cities, the dominant deity of Vlyn’darastyl was Lolth. But, unusually, the deity revered by their ruling family was not. For ages, House Vaerixas worshipped Eilistraee, the drow goddess of freedom and beauty, instead. While the other nobles may have preferred a ruling house that was more in line with the others, they had grown accustomed to it and, for their part, House Vaerixas made no attempt to impose their goddess or her rules on the rest.

Then the Matron Mother died and her daughter Ysri took her place. While the old matron was devoted to her goddess, Ysri Vaerixas was a zealot. Under her rule, the will of Eilistraee would never be denied or compromised. After abolishing slavery– an institution abhorrent to Eilistraee– the other houses rose up against Ysri, forcing her to flee with the surviving members of House Vaerixas.

They came to the Deep Spire, occupied at the time by a gang of raiders in need of protection from a coming assault. Ysri made their leader an offer: she would establish a home in the spire and an arrangement of co-rulership would be created between her house and the bandits. In exchange, the renowned and feared Darksong Knights of House Vaerixas– paladins of Eilistraee– would stand in their defense. The bandit leader reluctantly agreed and their agreement has stood ever since.

Many things have changed in the spire since then, but Ysri’s burning need for retribution has not. She resides in the spire for now, but she doesn’t plan to forever.

So, the story of the spire is coming together. You are, of course, free to tell your own, but I feel like a map this big needs to have some lore in order to make it easier to use for those DMs who don’t have the time to worldbuild it all from scratch.

The next map will be the last part of the spire and will include the floor above this, as well as the citadel, which you can see here. After that, I’ll put the whole thing into one big image. I didn’t think that’d be a usable size for VTTs, but I just found out that Foundry can handle maps up to 50MB. Like, 50 megs. Fifty. Holy crap. So, I’ll make a VTT version of that as well.

Also, I’m in the process of fixing up the public Foundry module. There’s nothing new in there, but I’ve been tidying it up, so you may want to update it if you’re using it soon. There’s more tidying to do and I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

Man, I can’t wait for the other VTTs to catch up to Foundry’s file size limit. I’ve got 50MB ideas and, if you give me a 50MB canvas, I am just going to take my foot completely off the brakes. We will be on the autobahn to Crazy Town.

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The Deep Spire: 4th Level

Also, here’s the annotated version and here’s the unfurnished version.

Higher and higher we go! I usually crop my maps closer to the edges, but I want to leave in all of the background so you can see the lower levels spiraling below. It should be fine, since this is only 44×43 anyway, which is fairly small as my maps go.

This level of the Deep Spire is predominantly inhabited by deep gnomes and has a gemcutter’s workshop, a tinkerer and the spire’s second tavern, where the locals drink. The tavern is hidden away from the main walkway in order to keep the visiting sailors from finding the place.

There’s also has a big, open plaza, which is a good spot for an encounter that requires a little more space than you’d find in most of the spire. And it’s still located conveniently close to the edge, meaning your players can chuck the enemies over the side. Or, if your players are being all “Phoenix Wright, Rules Attorney,” you can have the enemies chuck them over the side. Plenty of exciting possibilities.

The next level will be the drow neighborhood, which will have, among other things, the estate of a drow noble house living in exile. The last level will begin with a gatehouse, which guards the barracks on the other side and the citadel beyond that. I’ll probably just make the 6th level and the citadel one single map, so there will be two more to go.

Well, despite my repeated requests, this map refuses to draw itself, so I’d better get back to it!

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The Deep Spire, 2nd Level

First, here’s the annotated version and the unfurnished version.

There’s a bunch of stuff I want to tell you about this, so let’s get started. This is the trade district of the spire. Most of the shops are here, the tavern is here… basically, this is the part of town where traders come to do business and get sloppy drunk before heading off.

The annotated version is sort of a first draft and I intend to make another one with every floor included once it’s all done. I don’t plan to change much, but I want to add some flavor. I’ll give the tavern a name, stuff like that. By the way, if you’re wondering about the unmarked rooms, they’re residences.

Two other parts of the spire are visible here, but will be getting their own maps. On the bottom left is the tower overlooking the harbor entrance, which you can see in this drawing of the exterior. On the right, underneath the bridge, is the grotto. Both of these are already drawn and will be posted here in a day or two.

This map has an unusual feature that might be a problem for some DMs, mainly those on VTTs. From here up, the levels of the map aren’t connected by stairs. It’s one big spiral all the way to the top, which means you could potentially have an encounter on one level that spills over onto the next one. And no one wants to have to switch between maps that much.

Ideally, you’d plan your encounters to take place away from the transition between levels, but you know how players are. Sometimes they’ll just pick a fight with some rando and you’ve got to roll initiative when you weren’t expecting to.

Anyway, I think I have a solution to this: tokens. Big tokens with about 1/4 of the next floor on them. In Foundry, these would be “tiles,” but it’s the same thing. You can just overlay part of the next floor onto the current one and any fight that spills over can be handled without switching maps. You could even place them in advance and hide them, to be revealed if necessary. I think they should make things easier, but if you have any thoughts about it, let me know.

As I said, I’ve got the tower and the grotto maps ready to color and I should have them done in a day or so each. I’m gonna get to work on those. Hope you like the spire so far!

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Drowning Hill – Roofs

Sorry, this took me a bit longer than expected because holiday stuff. Anyway, VTT versions of Drowning Hill with walls and doors are in the patrons’ Foundry module and the patrons’ EncounterPlus module.

If you downloaded the free module for Foundry or EncounterPlus more than 3-4 days ago, you should grab the new one (you can update the Foundry module). They’ve both been fixed up and all the maps and walls should be in good shape.

This is especially true with the EncounterPlus module, which required a little more attention. If you use EncounterPlus, you have Matt C. to thank for that, by the way. Since I don’t have a Mac and can’t run E+ myself, I was flying blind while trying to fix the errors and I wouldn’t have known what worked without his feedback over the last month or so. I’ve already said this quite a few times, but here’s one more: Thank you!

As I mentioned before, I’m going to spend one day between maps doing the VTT walls and lighting for Brazenthrone. After that, I’ll be starting on the floating market map. Until then, have a good holidays!

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Drowning Hill

Here’s the non-annotated version and the DM notes. This is pretty far from your run-of-the-mill village and I think I owe everyone an explanation of some of the things that are going on here.

Drowning Hill is a village meant for an amphibious race. The name is a fairly literal description of the place, since most of the village is submerged by high tides. With the place being underwater on a fairly regular basis, it’s not an ideal location for people who are particularly picky about whether they’re breathing a gas or a liquid.

I could talk more about the various races that might live here, but all my thoughts on that are in the DM notes. Also, it just recently occurred to me what a perfect aboleth lair this would be and now that’s the only thing I can see. A big, clairvoyant fish hiding under his cult of drooling lackeys.

You might be wondering about Nina’s Inn. Why Nina? Well, the idea for this map came from the Cartographic Congress, and the person who proposed it, James, asked if I’d name the inn after his wife, so I did. Although, in the DM notes, I may have… sort of implied that she’s a fish cultist. Let’s hope James married a woman with a good sense of humor.

I tried some new things with the color here and I’m pretty sure this is the best I’ve ever colored anything in my life. So I might keep doing that. If you’ve got any thoughts about it, let me know.

The next map won’t take long. I’m going to make another version of this with roofs on it. Everything’s already drawn and I might have it done by tonight. After that, I’ll be drawing a floating market, one of the last three maps from the Great Vote. Anyway, let me know what you think!

 

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The Brazenthrone Codex, Third Edition

I know some of you may have an instinctually negative response to hearing about a switch from second to third edition, but I promise you, this third edition is not a downgrade from the second that will slowly grow worse and take twenty years to rectify.

This is the complete Codex with all the expanded annotated maps and DM notes from Brazenthrone, along with a few drawings I included for the sake of fanciness.

While making this, I was slightly surprised to learn that I still remember how to draw a person! There was a time when I drew a lot of those, but it’s been a while. I think I did respectably well, anyway.

Anyway, this wraps up Brazenthrone. The response has been overwhelming, which I’m really happy about. Hopefully it opens up doors for people to do things they couldn’t otherwise, or inspires them to write epic adventures in the city.

Next, we have four maps remaining from the Great Vote: the fortified oasis, the floating market, the aarakocra village and the Deepspire. Those will be the next four maps, aside from one or two Cartographic Congress maps. I’m going to draw the fortified oasis first. It’s been a while since we’ve been to the middle east and I’ve been looking forward to drawing this for a long time.

I’m also going to get the Foundry module and the Roll20 VTT stuff sorted out and updated with the Old Palace. Let me know what you think of the new codex!

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The Dwarven City of Brazenthrone is finished.

I’ve been an artist for my entire life and this is easily the best thing I’ve ever drawn. I wish I could show it to 12-year-old me. He would’ve gone wild. To be honest, he and I aren’t that different, although I’d say I’m at least 10% more mature.

The last two years have been quite a journey and I want to thank my patrons for joining me on it– or maybe I should say taking me on it. They deserve a lot of credit for this. I made Brazenthrone, but they made Brazenthrone happen.

This is a map that could only exist through crowdfunding and that was part of the idea from the start. No publisher will ever commission an artist to make something like this and the amount of work involved– around 2500 hours– is prohibitively high for a hobby project. But they covered my rent and bills and put food in my fridge for two years, giving me the ability to work on this and other maps full time, which is the way this gets done. That’s how you make a Brazenthrone.

But, while my patrons financed the drawing of this map, it isn’t just for them. It’s for the rest of the community as well. It’s for the teenage DMs, the broke college student DMs and the older DMs who are having a rough time at the moment. I don’t want anyone to be unable to use Brazenthrone on account of money and I want to make sure the resources to use it are available.

For that reason, I’m making the Brazenthrone Codex– containing all the DM notes and expanded annotated maps– free for everyone. I’m also giving out a collection of all the maps. They were all free already, but some of the older web versions didn’t work well with VTTs, so I replaced them with 35px VTT versions that will. You can download all that here.

Alternatively, you can just load the map above, enter a grid size of 728×1176 and watch your computer’s exhaust vent spew flames like it’s trying to reach low earth orbit. Let me know how it goes.

The Brazenthrone Codex does need an update and I’m going to add all the maps and DM notes that aren’t included in about two days. I’m also adding a few small illustrations and giving it a cover. I was planning on giving this stuff out as a Christmas present to the community, but then I started typing and… well, you’re getting it early. It’s from my patrons, too. I picked it out, but they paid for it.

So, let’s talk about what’s next. I want to map out an entire campaign setting. In a way, that’s what Brazenthrone is, but this is different. The setting is a small sea in the Underdark called “The Black Loch” and it will be much, much bigger than Brazenthrone.

Unlike Brazenthrone, however, there will not be a map of every square inch of it. Instead, there will be a map of the region with all the notable locations marked. Things like a kuo-toa village, a duergar outpost, a drow city, abandoned structures, some islands with ruins, caves, maybe something underwater. For each location, I’ll draw a 5′-per-tile battlemap, so your players can explore the loch and, wherever they go, you have a map. There will probably be 15-20 locations in all, depending on how many good ideas I come up with. I can’t promise an exact number, but I can promise that, when I run out of interesting places to add, I’ll put the pencil down. I won’t waste time drawing filler.

There’s already one map I’ve decided will be a part of the Black Loch: The Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl. This is probably the only part that will get a city map instead of a battlemap, but I may make a battlemap of a specific building or two there.

Before I get started on that, I’ll be drawing the four remaining maps from the Great Vote, which are listed in this post (1,3, 4 and 5). The last one– The Deepspire– will also probably be a part of the Black Loch.

So, that’s the plan. If you’ve been with me on this journey, I hope you’ll come along for the next one. And if you’re just finding all this for the first time, you didn’t get here late. This may be the end of Brazenthrone, but it’s the beginning of everything else.