Category: Island/Sea

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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 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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So, I forgot to post this. It’s the floating market, except with nothing floating and no market.

Also, there’s boat tokens, in case you liked the boats, but you didn’t like where I put the boats and you want them to be somewhere else. Or on another map.

I made this a couple weeks ago and I thought I’d posted it, but I just realized I hadn’t. Sorry about that, but here it is now. I thought this map might be more useful to some people with an empty river and it only took a few hours to make, so I did. And then I completely forgot about it. Oops.

Anyway, I’m working on the map of an estate on the plane of shadow and it is easily the most unsettling map I’ve ever made. There’s a fountain of black liquid pouring from the eyes of a stone head. There’s a bed covered in teeth. And there’s a room where reality is falling apart.

The Shadowfell is a strange and alien place and I want this map to reflect that. It’s not the flaming abyss of damnation, exactly, but it’s definitely not just some place where it’s hard to see. It’s kind of a Diet Hell. I want this map to be a place your players don’t want to be and, unless they are really into H.R. Giger, I don’t think they will.

Well, just thought I’d give you an update on how that’s coming. I’m gonna start inking it tonight and I should have it done and posted in a few more days.

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The Floating Market

Everybody having a good holidays? I hope so, but if not, remember that 2020 is almost over, which is a cause for celebration by itself. And, with tomorrow being New Year’s Eve, it’s completely acceptable to drink your way across the finish line.

This map kind of feels like something someone else drew. It’s a completely reasonable size, it’s almost all outdoors and the map takes up the entire image with no convenient place to put a title. I mean, I did draw this and I remember doing it, but… how do I put this? It’s like watching a movie with Liam Neeson in it and he doesn’t kill a single person the whole time. It’s not bad, necessarily, but it feels a bit strange.

By the way, floating markets aren’t a thing I made up. They used to be fairly common in Southeast Asia and there are still a few around today. It’s a very practical idea if you think about it. How do you get your stuff to the market? On a boat. Where do you sell it from once you get there? How about the boat? Then how do you get home? Throw the boat in reverse and you’re on your way.

I considered drawing a bridge across the river, but I decided against it. That might seem like a strange choice, but I think it’s actually better without one. If the players need to cross, they’ll have to figure out how. There are plenty of possibilities if they aren’t in a hurry, but if they are, they might have to do something crazy, like jump from boat to boat. It’s a recipe for chaos, and chaos makes for interesting encounters. That’s my thinking, but if you have any other thoughts about it, I’d love to hear them.

Anyway, next up is a mind flayer dreadnought, which is a spelljammer warship. After that, I’ll be drawing an aarakocra village. But, as I promised earlier, I’ll be taking a day to work on the dynamic lighting for Brazenthrone first. This has been going much more quickly than I thought and I suspect it’ll be done by the end of January.

Well, I’d better get started on that. Let me know what you think of the map!

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Drowning Hill – Roofs

Sorry, this took me a bit longer than expected because holiday stuff. Anyway, VTT versions of Drowning Hill with walls and doors are in the patrons’ Foundry module and the patrons’ EncounterPlus module.

If you downloaded the free module for Foundry or EncounterPlus more than 3-4 days ago, you should grab the new one (you can update the Foundry module). They’ve both been fixed up and all the maps and walls should be in good shape.

This is especially true with the EncounterPlus module, which required a little more attention. If you use EncounterPlus, you have Matt C. to thank for that, by the way. Since I don’t have a Mac and can’t run E+ myself, I was flying blind while trying to fix the errors and I wouldn’t have known what worked without his feedback over the last month or so. I’ve already said this quite a few times, but here’s one more: Thank you!

As I mentioned before, I’m going to spend one day between maps doing the VTT walls and lighting for Brazenthrone. After that, I’ll be starting on the floating market map. Until then, have a good holidays!

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Drowning Hill

Here’s the non-annotated version and the DM notes. This is pretty far from your run-of-the-mill village and I think I owe everyone an explanation of some of the things that are going on here.

Drowning Hill is a village meant for an amphibious race. The name is a fairly literal description of the place, since most of the village is submerged by high tides. With the place being underwater on a fairly regular basis, it’s not an ideal location for people who are particularly picky about whether they’re breathing a gas or a liquid.

I could talk more about the various races that might live here, but all my thoughts on that are in the DM notes. Also, it just recently occurred to me what a perfect aboleth lair this would be and now that’s the only thing I can see. A big, clairvoyant fish hiding under his cult of drooling lackeys.

You might be wondering about Nina’s Inn. Why Nina? Well, the idea for this map came from the Cartographic Congress, and the person who proposed it, James, asked if I’d name the inn after his wife, so I did. Although, in the DM notes, I may have… sort of implied that she’s a fish cultist. Let’s hope James married a woman with a good sense of humor.

I tried some new things with the color here and I’m pretty sure this is the best I’ve ever colored anything in my life. So I might keep doing that. If you’ve got any thoughts about it, let me know.

The next map won’t take long. I’m going to make another version of this with roofs on it. Everything’s already drawn and I might have it done by tonight. After that, I’ll be drawing a floating market, one of the last three maps from the Great Vote. Anyway, let me know what you think!

 

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I’m an idiot. Here’s the actual alternate version of Whiskey Point.

The previous “alternate version” of Whiskey Point was identical to the regular version. I guess I saved the wrong file without noticing. Sorry about that. I especially apologize to anyone who was staring at the two files, trying to figure out what the difference was.

Anyway, I just noticed this, so I’m posting the actual alternate version. The difference is at the top floor of the lighthouse. If it still doesn’t look different, reload the page. You may have the old file cached.