Category: DM Notes – Free

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Brazenthrone – The Oreworks – Third Level

And here’s the last level of the Oreworks. Is there much here on the third floor? No. Is there a hole through which your players can drop someone into a blast furnace? Yes sir, there is.

Honestly, I think the real potential of the Oreworks is that there’s all kinds of dangerous stuff sitting around that can make a fight here a lot more interesting. Furnaces, molten metal, an assortment of smashing machines… there are a lot of hilariously terrible ways to die here. Something to think about.

Anyway, next up is a mountaintop airship port. A place to gas up the ol’ flying machine, make some repairs, sell off some loot, have a few drinks and get in a fight. It’s not going to be nearly as much like a truck stop as I’m making it sound. After that, it’s back to Brazenthrone. I’m not sure what I’m doing next, but it’s not the Old Palace. I’m saving that for last to make sure it ends on a high note.

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Brazenthrone – The Oreworks – Second Level

Here’s the second floor of Brazenthrone‘s Oreworks. Not too much going on, but now you know what those horses are walking around in circles for. Also, the Miners’ Guildhall isn’t just a bar, even though it is mostly a bar.

I’ve actually got the third level done as well, I just need to make the VTT and print versions and so forth. I’ll have it up later tonight. All right, I’m gonna grab something to eat and get on that.

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Brazenthrone – The Oreworks – Ground Level

First, here’s a few things:

This is the first of three levels of Brazenthrone‘s Oreworks. This took a bit of research to draw, since– like most people– I wasn’t all that familiar with the processes and equipment involved in pre-modern ore processing and steelmaking.

It took some reading, but I got the basic idea and there’s an explanation of all the equipment depicted here in the DM notes, which I’m giving out to everyone so you don’t have to spend half the day on Wikipedia just to understand this map. I’m not sure my explanation of this stuff is completely accurate, but it’s accurate enough for D&D purposes. If you’re a welder or a steelworker or someone else who actually knows about this stuff… I mean, I don’t think you’ll facepalm, but I also can’t guarantee you won’t facepalm.

There are a few different methods of steelmaking that I could’ve chosen for the dwarves of Brazenthrone, but I decided that they used a Bessemer Converter. Having been invented in the mid-1800s, this is somewhat advanced technology for a middle-ages setting, but dwarven steelmaking is meant to be advanced and, more importantly, I think it looks cool.

I’ve got the second and third levels of this mostly drawn and I’ll have them up in the next few days. After that, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a mountaintop airship port.

Well, I’ll be back with the rest of the Oreworks. There’s a lot going on in this map, so if you have any questions about it, just ask!

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Brazenthrone – Burke’s Hall

An explanation of who Burke was and why there’s a chamber of Brazenthrone named after him is in the DM notes, which I’m giving away to everyone. As with most of the other residential chambers, all the buildings in Burke’s Hall are houses, so there’s no annotated version.

Next up is the Great Garden, which I described in the last post. I’m still not completely sure what it’s going to be like, but I’ve got some ideas and I should be able to turn them into something cool. After that, we’re doing Brazenthrone’s oreworks (at 26 on the city overview).

The oreworks is the area outside the iron mines, where ore is stamped, smelted and made into steel. This is a map that’s going to take a little research, since I want to get things right and, like most people, I’m not especially well-versed in the details of the medieval steelmaking process.

Also, I’m making some more tokens for my game and I’ll post those once they’re done. I’m not going to lie, they’re some pretty weird stuff. The most normal thing might be an ice troll. The weirdest? A horse-drawn sleigh. Yeah, like Santa. Except the surprises in the back of this one are going to be mind flayers. My game is going to some strange places, haha.

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Brazenthrone – The Bloody Hall – Everyone’s Edition

 

Here are the DM notes. There is no annotated version, since all the rooms are residences.

The Bloody Hall is a residential district of Brazenthrone, located just south of the Common Quarter. It’s unique on account of all the residences here being in a single, large building formerly known as “Amber Manor.” There are more details in the DM notes if you’re interested.

Next up is the Hall of Iron, another residential district adjacent to the Common Quarter. After that, I’ll be doing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner, the High Temple of Mystra. Then it’ll be back to the mountain for the rest of the Brazenthrone maps I owe you. There’s not too much of the city left to go!

All the print and VTT content for this map is available on my patreon here or on Google Drive.

 

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Brazenthrone – The Old Mines – Everyone’s Edition

Here’s the annotated version and the DM notes. You can download all print and VTT content for this map from my patreon here or from Google Drive.

Last month, I was making all the patron content for my new maps available to everyone (for reasons explained in this post). I’m going to continue doing so until at least May 18th, which is the date for the end of the lockdown in Ireland (where I live). I hope these maps have been helpful to those of you who have had to bring their games online (and everyone else).

Anyway, this map is Brazenthrone‘s old mines, the city’s disused and sealed-off iron mines. What went wrong? They dug too deep and too greedily? Disturbed a sleeping dragon? No, they tunneled into an underground stream and flooded the place. Eventually, various critters tunneled their way in from outside and made it their home, leading to the dwarves sealing the whole thing off.

But maybe somebody left their lunchbox inside and your party has to go in and get it. Or maybe there’s an aboleth in there doing some kind of psychic nonsense and someone needs to put some lemon juice on that sucker and toss it on the grill. There’s some ideas in the DM notes.

Next up is more Brazenthrone. I’m going to do a residential district because there’s quite a few of them left to draw and I don’t want to end up with everything else finished and 8 residential chambers to draw in a row. Well, I’d better get started!

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Brazenthrone – The Gnomestown District – Everyone’s Edition

 

Here’s the annotated Patrons’ Edition and the DM notes. I’m still giving away all my new patron content for free while everyone is stuck inside. You can get it from my patreon here or from Google Drive.

Brazenthrone returns! This is the first of a number of Brazenthrone maps I’ll be drawing in a row. Gnomestown is pretty much what it says on the label: a small corner of the city where a lot of the gnomish residents live. Most of these would be deep gnomes, with whom the dwarves of Brazenthrone have a tight relationship.

The “Tavern in the Sky” at (5) is a good place to hang out if you’re three feet tall and everyone else in the city has a liver like a bank vault and casually drinks an amount of alcohol that would kill your entire family. If the name seems confusing, here’s the explanation from the DM notes:

The name of this tavern makes plenty of sense to deep gnomes, but almost none to anyone else. The gnomes‘ perspective is this: most deep gnome communities are miles below ground. While Brazenthrone is under a mountain, the city and it’s entrance are fairly high up in the mountains and the city is, in fact, at a higher elevation than most surface cities. Thus, it is– according to the deep gnomes– “in the sky.” To be clear, the sky is in no way visible from this location.

Next up is the Old Mines, east of the Noble Quarter. They’re long abandoned and blocked off from the city, which makes them sort of a “wilderness.” But, you know, maybe somebody forgot something in there and maybe your party needs to crawl on in and go get it. It’ll be fine. It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, of course it can, but… look, just get in the hole.

Before that, I’ll post another batch of tokens I made for my Roll20 game. Those should be up tomorrow. Until then!

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The Library of Gravenhollow – Everyone’s Edition

 

Here’s the annotated version, an alternate version and the DM notes.

Gravenhollow is an unmapped location in the 5E D&D module Out of the Abyss. It’s a place where space and time work differently and a person can travel from one place to another just by thinking about where they want to be.

Since there are quite a few peculiarities of Gravenhollow that make this map a lot less useful than it could be to DMs wanting to use it for something else, I made an alternate version as well with a few changes. It’s not exactly standard fare either, but, should you need a map of a strange, mystical place full of crystals, obelisks and other weird crap, it might get the job done. Worth a thought if your party might be headed to Limbo anytime soon.

Thanks to Fraz-Urb’luu who proposed this map to the Cartographic Congress! Next up is Brazenthrone. A whole lot of it. Let’s kick it off with Gnomestown and see where the mood takes us from there, shall we?

As I’ve been doing all month, I’m giving away all the patron content for this map for free. You can download it from the patreon here or from Google Drive.

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The Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl – Everyone’s Edition

 

First, the annotated version, the DM notes and this other version.

This was a slightly unusual map for me. When I say I’m drawing a “city map,” it usually means something like Brazenthrone or Finbarr’s Marsh. Drawing an exterior-only city had me a little worried, since the last one I did was this piece of white-hot garbage. God, that’s embarrassing. But I think Vlyn’darastyl is big step up from that.

So, Vlyn’darastyl is a drow city that’s accessible by airship, which isn’t a characteristic shared by many other cities two miles underground. But the Great Breach– a 300′ (100m) hole in the roof of the cavern leading to the surface sea above– makes this possible. There are more details in the DM notes above, but if you’ve got any other questions I didn’t cover, feel free to ask.

Thanks to Senator Matt for proposing this map to the Cartographic Congress! He and I were talking about an idea I had for the future which I’d like to let you in on.

At some point, I want to make a map of a small Underdark sea. That sea is the Black Loch, which the map above shows only a small corner of. I want to make a larger, region-sized map of the whole loch with 10-12 locations marked: maybe a kuo-toa village, a duergar outpost, a few islands with some ruins, a series of caves, maybe something underwater, stuff like that. Then I’d draw maps of each of those locations at a 5′ scale, so you’d have this map of a whole region and, wherever you wanted to take your players in that region, you’ve got a map of it ready to go.

When Matt proposed a city next to an Underdark sea, I thought that seemed like a good addition, especially since the Great Breach makes the area more accessible for DMs whose parties aren’t currently below ground. But– to be clear– this is the only part of it I’ll be making for a while. This is a big project and I’m not going to be starting on it until Brazenthrone is finished, which will be a while still. But I thought I’d share that with you and see if anyone had any thoughts.

As I said when I posted the last map, all patron content is free to everyone this month. You can download it from this post or from Google Drive.

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Thorren’s Cross: A Mountain Outpost – Everyone’s Edition

 

So, look, a lot of people are stuck indoors for a while and getting bored out of their minds. There’s not much I can do about that, but what little I can do, I want to. So I’m giving away all the patron content for this map for free and I’m doing the same for every map I make next month as well. I may keep doing it for longer, I don’t know. I just decided to do this five minutes ago and a month seems like as much as I should commit to on the spur of the moment. Anyway, hopefully it helps some people stay occupied for a bit. You can download everything from my patreon page or from my Google Drive.

So, the map: Thorren’s Cross is a small outpost in the mountains guarding a stone bridge. It could be garrisoned by soldiers or it could be a ranger outpost. I sort of had both in mind when I drew it.

The little caves on the bottom left are secret rooms. Instead of indicating them the normal way, I decided to leave them detached from the wall a bit in order to make them a little easier for DMs to hide.

Speaking of which: I made some alternate versions for you. Since not everyone will need the secret rooms, there’s a version without them. There’s also a version with the drawbridge raised. And if you don’t want the secret rooms but you do want the drawbridge raised? Well that’s too bad.

I’m kidding, I made one of those too.

Thanks to Senator Adrian, who proposed this map to the Cartographic Congress. I’ve got two more Cartographic Congress maps to draw before I’m all caught up from the backlog created by Mont-St-Michel. After that, we’re doing a big, fat chunk of Brazenthrone. Next up is a drow city on the edge of an underdark lake with a giant hole in the roof of the cavern that creates a huge waterfall from the surface sea above. Not many drow cities are coastal and accessible by airship. This one’s a little different.