Category: Cartographic Congress

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Caergyd Point

Caergyd Point was inspired, in part, by Conwy Castle in Wales. “Caergyd” is my attempt at a made-up Welsh castle name. All I really know about Welsh is that there are several castles with names that start with “Caer” and that a lot of Welsh words have a Y in them. This is the culmination of those two pieces of knowledge. Hopefully it’s passable.

This map was largely designed to be an ideal castle for a party to buy or otherwise acquire. To that end, it’s got a lot of things a party would want in a castle: a smithy for repairing equipment, a laboratory/study for the wizard, a chapel for the cleric, a kennel for whatever filthy creature follows the ranger around, a secret room, a tavern, a trading post to unload loot, and several empty rooms for the party to do what they want with.

There’s one more part of this map to finish: the sea cave underneath. I decided to make it separate in order to keep the map from being too huge. It’s about half-finished already and I should have it up tomorrow.

There are only three things in the cave: a dungeon, storage space, and a parking spot for a ship. Still, for parties that do a lot of sailing, it’ll be pretty useful. Or if you want to use this place as a pirate fort. Or if you want to have the party storm the castle to kill the bad guy, but leave a way for them to escape. I guess it opens up a few options.

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap that last bit up. Let me know what you think!

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Palazzo di Nettuno – Not-Quite-As-Serene Version

So, Palazzo di Nettuno means “Palace of Neptune” (or at least Google Translate says it does), although that name is a bit more fitting for the other version of the map. Whatever, it’s fine. This one can be a reference to the planet.

Next, I’ll be drawing another map from the island of Tir Thelandira. This will be a sacred cave of the elven druids. I picture it like this: a cavern with an opening in the roof, through which light pours in.  In the center lies a mossy pool surrounded by intricate knotwork engravings. This pool is used as an oracle by the druids, who gather here to seek advice from their goddess.

There may be a bit more to it, but that’s what I’ve got for now. If anyone has any ideas that might make it a bit more interesting, by all means let me know!

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The Green Eye Oasis

The Green Eye is a village and caravanserai built around a small oasis in a sinkhole. The place has everything a traveling merchant needs: camel parking, a room for the night, baths, a tavern and a provisioner. Oh, and water. Merchants need that to live. I mean, everybody does, but merchants do too.

I think this would be a really great place for a battle, especially if the party was inside the village while getting attacked by archers around the edges of the sinkhole. That’d create a really nasty situation, since the place is kind of… what’s the word? The opposite of defensible. It’s an easy place to attack. Making the party fight their way out of here could be an interesting challenge.

Next, I’ll be getting to work on the second map for Tir Thelandira. I’ve got a few different maps planned for the island, but I really want to draw Oakenhold next. Oakenhold is a giant tree fortress which serves as the wild elves’ capital. This will be the first time I’ve ever redrawn a map. If you want to get an idea of what it’ll look like, here’s the original. I’m fairly confident that the new version will be better than that. It certainly won’t be in black and white, anyway. I’ll also write some lore for Tir Thelandira to go along with it and I’ll make some more concrete plans for the rest of the island as well.

All right, hope that sounds good to you! Let me know what you think of the oasis!

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The Two Palms Tavern

Well, I decided to draw a palm tree on the map and call it the “Two Palms Tavern” after all. I’m not proud of having drawn a dad joke into the map, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time. I won’t make a habit of it, I promise.

The vote for the second civilization of Tir Thelandira is still open and I wanted to give patrons another chance to cast a vote before I end it in a few days, so if you haven’t cast a vote, please do! Once it’s decided, I’ll write some lore for the winner and start getting to work on the maps.

Next, I’m going to draw a few maps based on an idea I’ve been sitting on for a long time. The maps will be secret rooms. Not maps with secret rooms, just secret rooms connected to nothing. They’re meant to be used along with some other map that you wish had a secret room, but doesn’t. I’ll make versions with different entrances so you can have it behind a wall or under a trap door in the floor.

These will be small maps with 1-2 rooms and they should only take 2-3 days each. I’ve got three secret rooms in mind: a hidden prison, a psycho killer murder cellar, and a cultists’ shrine/summoning circle. Those seem like they’d be fairly useful, but if you’ve got any better ideas, let me know. I might draw more later depending on what you all think of these.

Anyway, that’s it for now. If you’re celebrating a holiday soon, I hope you have a great one! Relevant holiday greetings to one and all!

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The Barre Sinister: A Spelljammer Pirate Tavern

I’ve made some fairly strange maps, but we might have a new champion today. The Barre Sinister is a tavern built on a giant, stone hand… in space. I also made a version with just the hand, which is arguably weirder. I suspect at least one of you has a use for that.

If you don’t play Spelljammer and you’re wondering how this place could possibly exist, allow me to explain the first rule of Spelljammer: Never ask questions about how things work. They just do. That’s a very important rule. No one’s trying to play Spelljammer with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Of course, not everyone is running a campaign in which the players can escape the gravitational influence of their planet, so I’m going to make an island version of this map next. That shouldn’t take long, since I mostly just need to change the background and draw a bit of land around the hand. Maybe I’ll throw a palm tree on there, who knows. Wait… would that constitute a pun in this situation? Maybe I’d better not.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that and I’ll be back with it in a day or two. By the way, if you’re the person who actually has a use for the empty space hand, I’d love to hear what you plan to do with it!

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The George and Dragon Inn – A 17th-Century Coaching Inn in Southwark, London

This map is based on a historic inn in Southwark, London. The establishment’s original name was The George and Dragon, although it’s known today as The George Inn. Personally, if it was up to me to abbreviate the name, I’d have kept the Dragon part and sent George packing, but I suppose that’s not the way the owners decided to go with it. They did keep the dragon on the sign, at least.

The George and Dragon was originally a coaching inn, which is an inn designed to accommodate stagecoach travelers, with large stables and space for carriages. Not many coaching inns survived the transition from stagecoaches to train travel, but The George was fortunate enough to be close to London’s railroad, which enabled it to stay in business. Lucky guy, that George.

I’ve gotten quite a few comments and messages with ideas about Tir Thelandira and the second civilization that will be living on the island. Tomorrow, I’ll start working your ideas into 3 or 4 different proposals, which I’ll put up for patrons to vote on.

Each of the proposals will be inspired by things you suggested and will probably contain suggestions put forth by several people. I won’t be able to work everything in, but I do appreciate all of your contributions. Some ideas, like an aquatic civilization, won’t make it onto the ballot, but I do absolutely want to include those in this world eventually.

Anyway, I’ll get those ideas fleshed out and post a vote in the next day or two. After that, I’ll be drawing the Barre Sinister, which is a Spelljammer-themed map that isn’t actually a spelljammer. It’s a tavern floating on a giant, stone hand that floats through space. So that should be a little something different. For those of you whose parties aren’t capable of generating enough Delta-V to reach a place like that, I’ll be making a sea version of the map as well.

All right, hope that sounds good. Let me know what you think of the map!

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Murud-Janjira: An Island Fortress in Maharashtra, India

I made an annotated version of this map, which was only possible with the help of Aditya, who translated the only labeled map of this fort I was able to find, which was in Hindi. I’m very grateful for the help and the least I can do is pay it forward and give the annotated version away to everyone.

Murud-Janjira was built in the 1400s and was only taken by force once. The Maratha Empire assaulted it about a dozen times. They climbed the walls, they tried to dig their way in, they even built a fort nearby called Padmadurg to use as a staging ground for an attack. None of this succeeded. The Virgin Padmadurg was no match for the Chad Murud-Janjira.

So how was it taken? With booze. Let me explain. The fort was built by Ram Patil, the Admiral of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Once it was finished, Patil and the Sultan had a little falling out, Patil stopped taking the Sultan’s orders and they unfriended each other on facebook. The Sultan appointed a new admiral named Piram Khan and ordered him to take back the fort.

So Khan dresses up as a merchant and sails to the fort. He says he’d like to leave some crates of silks and wine inside for safekeeping. You know, temporarily. “Sure,” says Ram Patil, “You can leave your booze and loot with us. We’ll be happy to hang onto it for you. You know, temporarily.”

So they start bringing in the crates and Khan decides to throw a little party for Patil and his men for doing him this favor. At this point, you have to imagine that Ram Patil thinks he’s talking to the dumbest man alive. Still, Khan cracks open a few casks of wine and everyone spends the evening getting drunk. Later that night, once Patil and his men are completely hammered, Khan goes back to those crates they brought in earlier and starts opening them up to let out the soldiers hiding inside.

You can probably guess where it goes from here. They attack the drunken garrison and take back the fort. The moral of the story is that sometimes thinking outside the box means literally getting into a box.

Anyway, I’m gonna go to bed. I hope you like the map!

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The Generalife: A Palace of the Alhambra

I visited the Alhambra a few years ago and, before I went, I was considering drawing a map of the place. When I got there, I realized how completely insane a task that would be. Here’s the entire Alhambra complex. This map– the Generalife– is the little thing in the top right. I’ve drawn a four-level map of Mont-St-Michel and I’m pretty sure the Alhambra would take longer than that did.

To give you an idea of how big this place is, there are six other palaces in the Alhambra. And if that sounds crazy, there used to be two more. If you plan to be in Spain, I highly recommend going to see it. There are a lot of castles in the world, but only a few of them will make your head literally, physically explode and this is one of them.

Next up, I’ll be drawing the Great Bombard spelljammer I promised a few months back. It’s basically an enormous cannon with a ship wrapped around it. You could call it the A-10 Warthog of spelljammers. I’ll make a seafaring version as well for those running monoplanetary campaigns.

After that, I’ll be drawing Akshardham Temple, a Hindu temple in New Delhi. When someone builds something that looks this good from the top down, I basically have to make a map of it.

Okay, that’s it for now. I hope you like the map! Let me know what you think.

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The Chronomancer’s Tower

There are a lot of possibilities for this map, but I feel like the most interesting would be for this thing to be a time machine. You turn a few wheels, set some dials and you’re off to the future. Or the past. This could allow the party to get some ancient, lost artifact or talk to that one guy who knew that thing the party wants to know but has been dead for 2000 years.

Alternatively, you could just completely jump the shark and send the players to Stephen Hawking’s dinner party for time travelers. That idea might not be for everyone, but I thought I’d throw it out there. It’d be pretty funny if you’ve got a group that would get the joke.

Next, I’ll be finishing up a few things for the Black Loch. I made a list of everything left to do in this post, but I’m going to start by making the final version of the Black Loch region map, replacing the generic place names with the proper names.

Then, I’ll be tackling everything else on the list, which means I should be posting something here almost every day for the next week or so. After that, I’ll get started on the last Black Loch map. All right, I hope that sounds good. I’m gonna get some sleep and get started in the morning!

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The Sewer’s Terminus

So there are two unusual things about these sewers. First, they run through the ruins of an ancient dwarven settlement, which makes them a little more interesting to explore and gives a little space for things to happen.

And second, the sewers don’t flow out into a lake or a river. They flow down. Maybe into more dwarven ruins. Maybe into the underdark. Or maybe the sewage flows into the groundwater that the people in the city above drink from. That’s the circle of life. For dysentery.

Anyway, I think this would be a good map for an urban adventure or an entrance/exit to the underdark. Just remember: if anyone falls down in the water, make them save to avoid a disease. Roll a three? That’s the worst case of Valderian Bat Herpes the apothecary has ever seen.

Next up, I’ll be drawing one of the last 3 locations in the Black Loch: the Submerged Ruins. I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet, but I think it’ll be something that used to be above the water, but was drowned when the Great Breach opened. Anyway, I’ll figure it out.

Well, that’s it for now. Hope you like the map!