Category: DM Notes – For Patrons

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Hackett’s Pass Blockhouse

This map is a good place for an on-the-road encounter. It probably starts with the party traveling through the mountains and finding themselves in front of the gates here. Then, somebody tells them they need to pay a toll if they want to pass.

Now, in real life, people would see two options in this scenario: pay the toll or turn around and leave. But in D&D, nobody ever even considers the second option. The choices are to pay the toll or to kill every single one of these punks. And, unless the toll is very reasonable, I’d usually bet on option 2. Killing a few dozen people in order to avoid forking over a hundred bucks is just another day at the office in the Forgotten Realms. In any case, it’s a fun encounter to throw at your players in the middle of a long journey. And once in a while they do surprise you.

Next, I’ll be drawing a map of a multi-level waterfall city in the jungle that extends from the top of the falls, across multiple cliff outcrops and down to the bottom. This will be a city map (like this, for example), not a battlemap like Vayl’s Firth. I’m way outside my comfort zone with this– which I like– but it makes me a bit nervous going into it. So let me grab a pencil and see if I can figure out how to draw this place.

Well, that’s about it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions, by all means let me know!

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The Necropolis of Khamos

I won’t claim that this is a perfectly accurate depiction of Egyptian tombs, but I did do some research on the Valley of the Kings and other necropolises and I tried to capture the general spirit of the layout.

The middle tomb on the left is a good example. The stairs lead down from the entrance into a room with a deep pit. This is called a “well chamber” and most tombs in the Valley of the Kings had one. A little past that is a room with a ship in it. You might think no one would be buried with an entire ship. And you might be wrong about that. Keep in mind that these are the people that built the biggest thing in the world for a funeral.

The Egyptians took funerals seriously. These folks didn’t just order some flower arrangements and give speeches about all the nice things grandpa did back in the day. They built grandpa a temple, ornately painted the walls, filled the place with luxuries, then put him in four lavishly-decorated coffins, each a bit larger than the last. How many coffins are your relatives in? One? Pathetic.

Well, this is the second of two tomb maps in a row and it’s time to move on to other subject matter. Next, I’ll be drawing a large, indoor market on the side of a steep hill. It’ll be inspired by Seattle’s Pike Place Market, but in a middle ages kind of style. No Starbucks, no Sunglass Hut, no parking lot. I’ll try to make it a unique marketplace for a major city. A good place to do some shopping and get into a fight.

Well, that’s it for now. If you’re a patron and you’re thinking about using this map, check out the DM notes for a list of suggestions for traps to use here. And if you’ve got any questions or thoughts about the map, let me know!

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The Kernsridge Barrows

These barrow mounds are a great place for your party to fight some undead and score a few “graveyard souvenirs.” Some of these tombs are meant to be the graves of common people, while a few are for leaders or nobility, and others are the graves of warriors.

The warriors’ graves contain the weapons wielded by the deceased, which were interred alongside them. That might seem like a strange choice, given that metal weapons were valuable and they were usually only found in the tombs of important people. But that’s one place where real life and fantasy settings diverge. Like, a lot.

In most fantasy settings, metal weapons aren’t rare at all. Take the Forgotten Realms, for example. Everyone who wants a sword has a sword. Goblins have swords. Kobolds have swords. Swords aren’t valuable, they’re trash. When your players kill bandits, do they even bother to take the weapons? And if they do, are they like, “Ho-lee hell boys, we’re rich!” Nah. Just more swords. A few axes. Leave ’em.

This isn’t true of all settings. In Dark Sun, finding a metal sword is like finding a magical sword. When you’ve been beating monsters to death with a rock tied to a stick for months, finding an actual blade is a big deal. But in most settings, a non-magical weapon is practically litter. Anyway, that was my thinking here.

I hope you like tombs, because next up is more tombs! I’ll be drawing an underground tomb complex in the style of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, with hidden passages, animated statues, traps and places for undead guardians. After that, we’ll be moving back to the realm of the living.

Well, I’m gonna start doing some research on the Valley of the Kings. If you’ve got any interesting ideas for the map, let me know!

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The Lost Library

Personally, I’m of the opinion that, in fantasy RPGs, a ruined, abandoned library is much better than a regular library. Hear me out. So, either one can be a place the players go to find information, but in a ruined library, much more interesting things can happen. There might be monsters. There might be traps. There might be some crazy old guy that’s been living in there for the past 20 years. Maybe one of the bookshelves is a mimic. There are lots of possibilities.

But what’s really going to happen at a regular library? The party might get told to keep it down? Most RPGs don’t really have “library mechanics,” where you roll to see if you can effectively navigate the complexities of the dewey decimal system. Plus, it feels kind of weird when the arcane lore the party needs in order to defeat the ancient lich god turns out to be publicly available information. “Oh, so lots of people know that you need a mithril hammer engraved with dwarven runes to destroy his phylactery.” Maybe it’s just me, but that feels a little awkward.

Next up, I’ll be drawing an orcish/barbarian burial ground. I’m imagining a number of small crypts and barrow mounds, plus maybe one larger one. I think it should be a pretty useful map, since nearly all D&D parties do a bit of grave robbing now and again. And, hey, barbarian tombs are worth looting too. They may have been poorly educated and unhygienic, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t buried with some good stuff. It’s worth a look, anyway.

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I’m back! Vayl’s Firth is Finished!

  

You can download all these maps here.

It’s been over a month since I posted for non-patrons, but, as promised, here’s the complete city map and the upper levels.

If you want to become a patron, there are individual maps of all the islands, plus unfurnished versions, annotated maps, DM notes, a Foundry module and various other stuff. There’s a lot. It took me three hours to upload all the patrons’ edition maps. Admittedly, I’m on a trash-tier internet connection at the moment, but still.

For anyone who can’t afford that, every part of the map is here for you to use and I hope you enjoy it.

With Vayl’s Firth finished, I’m going to get caught up on all the Cartographic Congress maps that have been chosen since I started drawing this. And then, at some point, I’ll get to work on the next megaproject: The Vatican.

Well, that’s about it. So, what do you think of Vayl’s Firth? I hope it lived up to your expectations. In any case, let me know what you think!

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The Dragon’s Lair in Devil’s Chimney

This is the volcanic lair of a red dragon and its minions. Since this isn’t a particularly safe place to live for anything that isn’t immune to fire, those minions are probably something like:

  • Fire giants
  • Efreet
  • Salamanders
  • Firenewts

I could also see this being the home of any of the above without the dragon, since these races would all probably be big fans of volcanofront property.

As promised, I’ll be starting on the river delta city megaproject next. From my experience in drawing very large maps, I’ve learned that planning a project in detail saves time in the long run, so I’m going to start off by laying out the whole city in advance. I’ll plan out the islands, what’s on each, where the bridges, roads and buildings are, etc. Once I’ve got that sketched out, I’ll get started on drawing everything piece-by-piece, putting it all together and getting it colored.

I expect this to take around 2 months, but it could be a bit more or less. I’ll keep you updated with regular work-in-progress posts along the way so you can see how it’s coming and so I can get your feedback as I go. Well, it’s time to stop talking about it and start sketching this thing out. I’ll be back with some sketches once I’ve got a layout I like. Until then!

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Temple of the Elements

The Temple of the Elements is dedicated to the four elemental forces. Did you ever see a show called Captain Planet? And did you ever wonder where Captain Planet was when the kids hadn’t summoned him? I don’t know either, but I feel like it might’ve been someplace like this.

So, I just moved and I now live in a small village in the country. This is my first time living in a rural area and it’s a little different from what I’m used to. My house has three different methods of heating. The internet speed is… not good. And my yard contains 15 junk cars, a busted tractor and three shipping containers (not a joke). Also, there is one store in the village and it’s a post office that sells milk, eggs and butane canisters. This isn’t going to affect the maps in any way, but I wanted to ask if anyone else is living in a more country situation than me. Because this really feels like getting thrown straight into the deep end. And any country living pro tips would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, next up is a dragon’s lair carved into a volcano with buildings for its efreet/fire giant minions. Thanks to the patrons that broke the tie on that vote, by the way. After that, I’ll get started on the river city megaproject.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m gonna see if I can figure out how to switch my stove from heating the house to cooking food. Wish me luck!

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Spelljammer: The Living Ship

Sometimes the druid or the ranger gets to pick the spelljammer and you end up with a Living Ship. The most notable feature of this vessel is a treant rooted into the deck. Since the ship and the treant are fused together, the treant can repair hull damage and keep the air envelope clean. And, in the event of enemy boarding, it can rip the heads off anything dumb enough to come near it. And, now that I think of it, the treant can clean out the privies, too. Humans do poop plant food, after all.

I know a lot of you play old-school Spelljammer and may be wondering what book this is from. It’s actually a new vessel from the 5th edition Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. It’s a bit different from other vessels and, for DMs whose last campaign started in a Dragonfly, this’ll give you the option of changing things up a bit in the next one.

For patrons, I made a seafaring version of the ship and I’m going to make another one without the treant as well. This ship is a little boring without the treant, but sometimes you need a boring starter ship for your party. They have to earn that ship of the line. Anyway, I’ll have that up in a day or two.

Okay, I’ll see you then. Let me know what you think of the map!

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The Ironclad Raider

The ironclad raider is probably a ship best suited for one of four things:

  • The big bad guy in a naval campaign, who you want the party to have to run away from (because if they roll well and sink him in session five, what then?)
  • Gnomes
  • Dwarves, if your dwarves are into boats
  • That one kingdom in your setting that’s way more technologically advanced than everyone else

When I drew this, I tried to capture a bit of that “brought to you by the designers of the cybertruck” look that early ironclads had, but a touch less derpy-looking. And let’s be honest: early ironclads were super derpy. The mid-to-late 1800s truly were the awkward teenage years of naval warfare.

I made a few alternate versions of this map for patrons, including ballista-armed and unarmed versions, as well as a version of the ship sailing on lava. This map came from a Cartographic Congress proposal and the original idea was for a ship that sailed on the elemental sea of fire. I think the water version will probably be more useful to most people, but hey, if patrons vote for a lava ship, I’m gonna deliver a lava ship.

Speaking of patrons voting on ships, I posted a vote to decide on the next spelljammer map and patrons chose the Living Ship. This is from the new 5e Spelljammer book and it basically looks like a sailing ship with a treant growing out of it. I’m drawing that next and I’ll make a seafaring version as well for DMs running monoplanetary campaigns.

Anyway, that’s it for the moment. If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about the ironclad, let me know!

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Alverfjord

So, I mainly see Alverfjord as three things potentially:

  1. A village where a land-dwelling race lives alongside an aquatic race (such as sea elves, tritons, merfolk, etc). This was the original idea.
  2. A village whose residents are covertly controlled by someone living below. This could be an aboleth, a group of illithids or a coven of sea hags.
  3. A village whose residents are secretly up to some shady stuff, which they do in the tunnels below. Maybe this is a cult or some kind of criminal activity, like smuggling, fencing pirate loot or running ye olde meth lab.

For patrons, I’ll be making a low-tide version of this map, which should be up tomorrow. Most of the underground level is dry in that version and I suspect it’ll be better for people who want to use this for option #3 above.

Also, thanks to everyone for the feedback about the Vatican megaproject! The response was overwhelmingly positive, so I will be drawing that later this year. First, however, I’ll be drawing the river delta city project, which I should be able to start on in the next few months. I want to get a few maps drawn first, but I don’t think they’ll take too long. One of those is a spelljammer and I’ll be holding a vote among patrons to find out what kind of vessel you’d like to see. I haven’t drawn one in a while and it’s probably time.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. I’ll be back with the low tide version for patrons tomorrow. Let me know what you think of the map!