Category: Island/Sea

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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 Island of Tir Thelandira

People seem to like the wild elves, so I drew up a map of the island they’ll be living on. The elves will occupy the left side of the island and their yet-to-be-decided neighbors will be on the right. I don’t know what’s going to be happening on that little island at the top, but we’ll figure something out.

My wife has asked me to name the elven ruler after her and I told her I would. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we’re getting a Queen Stacy or Queen Kathleen. My wife is named after Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the Irish sea god Manannán mac Lir, the lord of the Tuath Dé and ruler of Tír na nÓg. So I think her name should fit the theme pretty well here.

Anyway, I thought I’d post this to see if it inspires any more ideas on who the elves might be sharing the island with. There have been some excellent suggestions and I’m planning to compile them into a vote before too long, but I want to give everyone another chance to propose some more ideas. I feel like the other civilization will probably be relative newcomers to the island, but they don’t have to be.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts on the neighboring civilization, let me know in the comments or shoot me a message!

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Frog’s Haven Crannog

In the last post, I talked about my plans for the first island of the as-yet-unnamed big project. There will be two civilizations living on the island, one of which will be a kingdom of wild elves.

Over the past century, the wild elves have been shifting from a tribal, nomadic society to a settled one. While the elves have become better at building large structures of timber and stone, their skills at architecture are still well behind those of other civilizations. To reflect this, many of the wild elves’ settlements will be inspired by Iron Age Celtic buildings from Ireland and Scotland. Here’s a breakdown of what I have in mind:

Crannog – A crannog is a man-made island with one or more houses on it. The island was often surrounded by a wooden palisade and had either a narrow causeway or a path of stepping stones leading to the shore. Crannogs were most common in Ireland and Scotland. Frog’s Haven will probably be the only one.

Broch – A broch is an old style of Scottish towerhouse, which looks like this. I think I’d draw this fairly similar to the one pictured, perhaps with some farmland around the walls. I’d also give it a slightly more elven, tribal look.

Motte and Bailey (or something similar) – A motte and bailey is an old style of wooden castle, which looks like this. I’d probably use a more elaborate version of the design and I’d make it more of a walled village rather than a fort. Again, it’d have an elven style to it as well.

Oakenhold – This is one of the first maps I ever posted. I’ve never redrawn a map, but I want to redraw this one and I want it to be the seat of power for this wild elven civilization. I’ll change plenty about it, but it’ll be the same basic design. This is where the king or queen lives.

That’s the plan so far. There will probably be other locations as well, but I want to get your opinions on these ideas first. If the response is largely negative, I’ll come up with something else. If it’s positive, I’ll get started on a map of the island and we can start figuring out where things are and who the elves are sharing the island with.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the Celtic wild elves. Positive or negative, I really want to hear your opinions!

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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 Black Loch is Finished.

I’m giving away the Patrons’ Edition stuff for this map to everyone. You can download it all here. When I drew those cave and tunnel maps earlier, I was thinking about giving those away, but I decided I should give you a good map instead. So here it is.

With Charwall finished, the Black Loch is finally done after a year and a half. It’s been a huge amount of work drawing around 30 maps and 100 tokens and writing lore for it all, but I feel pretty good about it and I hope you like how it all turned out.

I want to say that I’m truly grateful to all the patrons who have supported this along the way. It felt like an incredible honor to be given the ability to spend two years drawing Brazenthrone and it’s no less an honor to have been able to put another year and a half into making the Black Loch as well.

Moreover, I’m grateful to be able to have your support for this despite the fact that I’ve given away usable versions of all the maps for free. I’m fairly sure that costs me money. I have no idea how much, but my rent gets paid and I’m not going to stop doing it. I feel very fortunate not to have to.

Well, it’s 9am and I’ve been up all night, but let me mention a few things before I go. I’ve updated the Black Loch Codex and the History and Lore Overview with Charwall. Remember when I made a post titled “The Black Loch: History and Lore Overview – FINAL UPDATE FOR REAL THIS TIME“? Okay, that was a lie, but this is the final update for real. Like, really real. Actually, legitimately very real. Anyway, it’s in the codex and you can download the new version here.

Well, that’s it for now. It’s been quite a journey and I hope you like where it all went. I’ve got another one in mind and I’ll tell you all about it in a day or two. Until then!

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The Black Loch Overview Map

Okay, here’s the final version of the Black Loch regional map with all the proper location names written in. There’s no Patrons’ Edition version of this map, I’m just going to give everyone all the stuff I made for it. You can download it here.

There’s a blank version of the map in there as well, so if you want to change the names, move things around, or hide some of the locations from your players, you can.

Okay, I’m gonna finish updating the Black Loch History and Lore Overview. I should have that done tonight or tomorrow. Until then!

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Cinderfork Foundry

Cinderfork Foundry is a duergar armorsmithing operation built around an exposed magma vent. Is that safe? No, it’s not. But pumping a bellows is hard work and it’s nice to have a pool of molten rock do the job for free. Well, it’s free if you don’t count the expense of a few people dying because a tectonic plate jiggled a bit, squeezing 80 tons of magma into the room. But of course you don’t count that. Or maybe you do. Look, I’m not an accountant.

If you use this map, remember that it’s insanely hot in there, especially the top floor. You could make an encounter here a little more interesting by giving the party exhaustion penalties, which increase every few rounds. It’d make the players really feel the environment, while also giving them an incentive to get things done fast. You might also want to think about how much damage you’re gonna hand out to anyone who gets chucked into the magma, because, chances are, someone’s going for a swim.

Next up, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: an ancient clock tower with a chronomancer’s workshop below. I’ve looked into some real clock towers for inspiration and I have to say, there are some actual clock towers that are a lot wilder than anything I’d have ever come up with. Here’s a clock tower in Bern, Switzerland. Now, let me read you a description of that:

Every hour, a performance involving automated figures is set in motion by the astronomical clock. A dancing jester rings two bells and cues a parade of bears, Chronos turns over an hourglass and opens his mouth, and a gilded rooster raises its wings and crows to start the show.

So, I think we can all agree that Switzerland wins. Congratulations to Switzerland, you win at clocks. Forever.

Anyway, I’m not sure I’m going to do anything quite that crazy, but hopefully I’ll manage to come up with something that doesn’t put the Swiss to sleep. After that, I’ll start on the last few things I need to take care of with the Black Loch, which should be finished later this month.

Well, I’m gonna go find out what the inside of a clock tower looks like. If you’ve got any suggestions for clocks I should have a look at, let me know!

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Clogwyn Prison

Clogwyn Prison was once a dwarven prison in the Black Loch. It used to be above the water, but a giant hole opened in the roof of the loch and the surface sea above started pouring water in. This hole was called the Great Breach and the rise in sea level it caused put quite a few places underwater.

This was inconvenient for some, but less so for others. For the coven of sea hags that moved into Clogwyn Prison afterwards, it was pretty fantastic. And you have to imagine that the kuo-toa were, at worst, fine with it.

I think Clogwyn would be a pretty interesting place to pass by on a ship. It’s the kind of thing you might not need to hook a party into exploring, since they’re probably going to be pretty curious about why the roof of a building is sticking up out of the water. Just make sure they found a few potions of water breathing on their last adventure if they’re going to need them.

There are only two locations left to draw in the Black Loch: the duergar outpost and the fortress ruins. I’m going to draw the duergar outpost next, but before I draw the last map, I want to get everything else done first. Because there are a few other things to do to finish the Black Loch and, when I draw the last map, I want that to be the last thing left.

So I’m going to take care of the other stuff first. This includes:

  1. Updating the History and Lore of the Black Loch with all the new locations and characters.
  2. Drawing tokens of all the characters and creatures of the loch that weren’t in the first batch.
  3. Updating the regional map of the Black Loch with the proper names of the locations (now that they all have proper names).
  4. Drawing some simple maps of caves and tunnels. These aren’t specific locations, just maps to use as backdrops for encounters around the loch.
  5. Making a Black Loch Codex with all the DM notes and annotated maps in one collection for patrons.

All of these are small tasks. A day or two each, at most. I think I can get all of it done, along with the last two maps, before the end of next month. Then I’ve got a new spelljammer to draw, as well as an Indian temple. And, of course, with the Black Loch done, we’ll need to talk about the next big project. I’ll fill you in on the plan and you can let me know if you think it’s worth spending the next few years drawing.

Well, I think that’s it. If you’ve got any thoughts on any of that, let me know!

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The Sanctum of Psor’il

Here’s an alternate version without the worm.

For a number of reasons, I don’t draw monsters in maps. It might look like that’s what I did here, but… it is and isn’t a monster. Allow me to explain. Psor’il, the aboleth who resides here, is trying to bring a creature from a bizarre, hostile dimension into the Black Loch.

To allow it to cross over, the aboleth’s minions are making a substance called “schismic flux,” which weakens the barrier between dimensions. They’ve weakened it quite a bit, but not enough for the creature to pass through. So, at the moment, the creature is stuck in between planes. And it’s visible in this world, but it’s not tangible yet. In other words, the monster is scenery. Weird, scary scenery, but not a monster. Yet.

I’m very curious what your opinions on it are. I was trying to make this place as strange as possible and that was one of the things I came up with. I also made a version without the worm in case anyone objects.

Next, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: a sewer system with tunnels that cut through ancient, dwarven ruins, leading deep into the earth. After that, I’ll be back to the Black Loch to draw one of the last 3 locations.

Anyway, I’d love to know what you think about the map. And I know it’s kind of a strange one, so if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask!

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The Blind Colossus

The Blind Colossus is a huge, eyeless statue in the Black Loch. Sailors who have seen it think it depicts a human, which is a strange sight deep in the underdark.

The truth is that the Blind Colossus was built by a tribe of humans called the Ardyeni, barbarian raiders who were driven underground thousands of years ago. They lived in the Black Loch for over a millennium, building a city and several outlying towns in the deep reaches of the loch. They are the ancient ancestors of the race known as “grimlocks.”

There’s a long story about how this happened in the DM notes, but I’ll try to summarize it for everyone. A few hundred years after the tribe was driven into the underdark, an Ardyeni mage created a device to speak to the gods. It sort of worked.

The Ardyeni king spoke with an entity named Bylir, who wasn’t a god, but a being from the Far Realm. The best explanation I can give is that Bylir is the sort of thing H.P. Lovecraft would write a story about. Not a god, not a demon, but very powerful. Definitely not your friend.

Anyway, the Ardyeni started to worship this thing. Bylir gave them blindsight, which let them see in the darkness. Then Bylir took their eyes away. Then it began demanding blood sacrifices. And finally, after a few centuries, Bylir gave them to an aboleth as slaves.

Several thousand years later, the device used to contact Bylir still survives inside the Blind Colossus. The descendants of the Ardyeni survive as well, but have changed a lot and are no longer considered human. Many of them still serve the aboleth, who lives in the ruins of their ancient civilization.

Speaking of which, the next map will be the lair of that aboleth. It’s one of four more maps left to draw for the Black Loch and I’ve got some interesting ideas for it.

Anyway, I think the Blind Colossus came out pretty well, but it’s a fairly unusual map and I’m curious what people think about it. If you’ve got any thoughts, let me know!