Category: Huge Maps

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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 Grotto – Also, the next big project: The Black Loch

Three maps in nine days feels like a pretty good pace. Although, to be fair, all three maps are actually part of a larger map of the Deep Spire. Which is, itself, part of an even larger map of the Black Loch. Speaking of which, I haven’t mentioned the loch in a while, so let’s go over it again for anyone who isn’t aware.

After finishing Brazenthrone, an enormous dwarven city that took two years to draw, I said I had plans for another huge project. That project is the Black Loch and it will involve mapping out an entire campaign setting.

The Black Loch is a small sea in the Underdark, maybe 100 miles (160km) across. My plan is to make a regional map of the loch, with around 15-20 different locations marked on it. There will be towns, caves, ruins and so forth. For every place marked on the map, I will draw a 5′ scale battlemap of the location itself.

Once it’s finished, you’ll have a map of an entire region of the Underdark and, for every place in that region your players might want to go, there will be a battlemap. If they head to the kuo-toa village, you have a map of that. The island with the ancient ruins? You have a map of that too. The duergar outpost, the underwater temple, the abandoned illithid settlement? Complete maps and DM notes for all of them, ready to go.

While I haven’t drawn the regional map of the Black Loch yet, there are maps of two of the locations that will be on it. One is the Deep Spire. The other is the The Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl, which is the only place that will have a city map instead of a battlemap.

I intend to draw the regional map of the loch in the next month or two. Once that’s finished, I’ll start working on maps of each of the locations. I don’t have a specific schedule planned, but I want to do at least one Black Loch location per month until it’s done. Like Brazenthrone, it’ll be a big project and I want to make steady progress, but I don’t want to draw it exclusively from start to finish.

Anyway, that’s the plan. It’s completely insane and it’ll be a ton of work, but that’s what makes it my kind of plan. I hope you’re looking forward to it.

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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, 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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The Deep Spire, 1st Level – Unfurnished

Here’s the “I’ve got my own ideas for this place” version of the map. I think I might start doing unfurnished versions for all of my bigger projects from here on. I know some people use my maps in sci-fi settings and some people would want to use this as an abandoned ruin, so I think the extra time spent to make something more suited for those uses is justified.

Anyway, there’s not too much more to say about it, so I’m gonna get back to work on the next floor.

Wait, one last thing: if you happen to need a map of a gnomish submarine base, this might be pretty good for that. Or there could be some pirate stuff going on in there. Or what if the gnomes with the submarine are the pirates? I don’t know, I’m just throwing stuff out there. Anyone got any other ideas?

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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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Another hard day’s work in the dynamic lighting mines

I got quite a bit done on the VTT walls and doors for Brazenthrone. Links to download this stuff for Roll20, Foundry and EncounterPlus are below. These maps are now lighting-ready and available to the public:

  • The Noble Quarter (4 levels)
  • The Old Quarter (3 levels)

Those maps, along with the ones I did earlier, will complete the public module. There’s now a patrons’ module as well, with the following lighting-ready maps:

  • Delvers’ Rest
  • The Grand Temple
  • The Iron Mines
  • The Old Mines
  • The Mushroom Farms
  • The Pits of Justice
  • The Underdark Trading Outpost

I think I can probably finish this up in one more session. Most of what’s left is small chambers and I don’t think they’ll be much trouble. Anyway, here’s where to download everything:

Roll20

Non-patrons can download the wall commands (which draw in the walls using the UniversalVTTImporter script) from here. They’re in the ZIP file. Instructions are included.

Patrons can download all the commands from the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the Roll20 Wall Commands folder.

Foundry

The public Brazenthrone module can be downloaded with this manifest URL.

The link for the patrons’ module can be found in the Table of Contents (pinned as the top post on my patreon page, visible to patrons only).

EncounterPlus

Download the public Brazenthrone module here.

The patrons’ Brazenthrone module is in the patron content drive. Open the VTT folder, then the EncounterPlus Modules folder.

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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.

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Brazenthrone – The Old Quarter – Third Level

With this done, the shattered wreck that is Brazenthrone‘s Old Quarter is now finished. Next up is last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a small castle on a floating island in the sky. Following that, we’re going back to Brazenthrone to do the Opaline Grotto (24 on this map). Then it’ll be the most recent Cartographic Congress winner, a city built on an active volcano. So, you know, Hawaii. Not really. Kind of, though.

I’ve got another bunch of tokens I made for my game as well and I’ll have those up in the next few days. There’s some town guards, pirates, mind flayers and a hill giant that one-shotted an NPC in my game the other week. The dude valiantly charges forward and says, “You take the goblins, I’ll handle the big guy!” And then that giant did to his head what Tiger Woods does to golf balls. Good effort, though, buddy. Good, solid try.

There are DM notes and hi-res print and VTT versions of this map available to patrons.

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Brazenthrone – The Old Quarter – Second Level

My computer finally died for good. I actually took it into a repair shop, which was a first for me. I’m usually the kind of geek who fixes his own computer. If it’s a software problem, I can probably work it out. If it’s a hardware problem on a desktop… maybe. But this was a hardware problem on a laptop, which put it ALL the way out of my league.

Turns out there was a short on the motherboard and, since my computer was an unusual make, it couldn’t be replaced. But I happened to have the money for another computer, so everything’s fine. The new one’s a desktop, though, which is taking me some time to get used to after around 12 years of laptops. Like, this keyboard is enormous and it makes so much noise when I type. And I have to keep this thing in the same place all the time? Sigh, fine.

On the other hand, I now have a monitor the size of a bus windshield, which is nice. I’d been meaning to get one for D&D anyway. I’m not installing it in a table or anything, but I think we’re going to be using digital maps from now on.

So anyway, the map. There’s one more level of the Old Quarter to go and I’ve got it drawn already, so I should have it done in a day or two. Talk to you then!