Category: Large Maps

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Vatican City: The Sistine Chapel – Lower Level

The undercroft of the Sistine Chapel is a bit less picturesque than the floor above. In the late 1800s, it was mostly used for storage. 50 barrels of wine, 20 crates of incense, 7 tons of communion wafers, that sort of thing.

I’d like to give a shout out to Paul-Marie Letarouilly, who drew some excellent floor plans of the Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace and the Vatican Galleries. He’s been dead for 170 years, but his work will save me a huge amount of time and headaches on this project and the man deserves a mention. Also, look at that cape. God, we gotta bring capes back.

I need to get caught up with the Cartographic Congress maps again, so I’ll be drawing two in a row next. The first is a sprawling palace complex, with centuries of new construction concealing disused rooms and hidden passageways. I’m imagining it as a place that could make a good dungeon. After that, I’ll be drawing an orphanage that’s used as a hideout by a secret organization. Maybe I’ll call it “Kults for Kids” or something. After that, I’d say we’ll be back to the Vatican.

All right, that’s it for now. Hope you like the map!

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Vatican City: The Sistine Chapel – 2nd Floor

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that not a lot of people spend hours and hours studying the interior of the Sistine Chapel in detail and pay zero attention to the ceiling. I can now count myself as one of the strange few who have.

The Sistine Chapel is the long, horizontal room with the red and green floor. That floor is so intricate that it was basically impossible to draw. Let me show you what the actual floor of the Sistine Chapel looks like. Sorry, but I can’t draw that. And if I tried, I’d end up in a padded room. Do you see that rectangle in the bottom left corner? What color is that? What color am I supposed to make that? What color am I supposed to make any of this? Anyway, I hope you understand. I tried my best.

I’ve got the lower level of the chapel about halfway colored, so I should have that for you pretty soon. In the meantime, let me know what you think!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 3rd Floor

There’s remarkably little information out there on a lot of the non-public parts of the Vatican and that includes some of the sacristy. One of the few things I read about the uppermost floor is that there were apartments and a salon there and that’s how I depicted it. I also saw a photo of one of the terraces (where the gardens are in the map above) with a bicycle on it, so I suspect there might be people living there now. Either that, or people are really paranoid about bicycle theft in the Vatican. Actually, that’s not too hard to imagine. Rome is, like, 50 meters away from here, after all.

Anyway, that’s the sacristy done, so I’ll probably be drawing either the Sistine Chapel or the Apostolic Palace next. But first, I need to get caught up with the Cartographic Congress maps, so I’ll be drawing a few of those next. First up is a fortified lighthouse based on the Tower of Hercules in Spain. After that, I’ll be drawing a great, demonic tower driven into the ground like a giant nail, with only the top floor sticking out. That’s a high-concept kind of map, which I always like. Hopefully, I can come up with some suitably disturbing stuff to fill it with. Fingers crossed.

Well, I believe that’s it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions about the sacristy or anything else, let me know!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 1st Floor

Here’s the first floor of the sacristy finished. It’s occupied by the Vatican Archives and the workshops of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, which is the organization responsible for the maintenance of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Okay, I’m gonna get back to work on the third and final floor. Be back with that before long!

By the way, If you want to see the rest of my Vatican City maps, you can find them all here.

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Circensis: The Underworks

Here in the lower level of Circensis, there are some crypts, guard posts, a stable and a few other things. There are also a few disused chambers where the town’s poorest residents sleep.

I added a small tunnel leading into the underworks from the house in the upper left, which I thought might create some interesting possibilities. Maybe the party has to sneak into or out of the town and meets a group of smugglers who know about the passage. Or maybe a group of raiders finds out about it and sneaks in under cover of night. You may not have a use for it, but it’s there if you do.

With Circensis finished, I’ll be getting back to the Vatican. I’ll be drawing the Sacristy next, which is just south of St. Peter’s Basilica. This is where the passages at the bottom of the basilica map lead. Sacred relics were (and are) kept here, as well as the treasury. It also contains the workshops of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the group of maintainers and restorers responsible for the upkeep of the basilica.

All right, that’s about it for now. Hope you like how Circensis turned out!

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Rindlestone Hall

This map isn’t quite a real place, but it’s strongly inspired by one. Peveril Castle in Derbyshire, England is located over a cave called Peak Cavern, or “the Devil’s Arse.” According to legend, this cave “was where thieves’ cant was created by a meeting between Cock Lorel, leader of the rogues, and Giles Hather, the King of the Gypsies.”

Now, if you’re like me, you just heard a bunch of stuff you didn’t think existed outside of D&D. Thieves’ Cant is a real thing? And there’s a King of the Gypsies?! And– wait, rogues? What else are you hiding, England? Are paladins real, too? Can Anglican priests cast spells? Do your druids shapeshift? I WANT ANSWERS DAMMIT.

Okay, okay, I’m calm. Look, I just wasn’t expecting to learn that rogues and Gypsy Kings were inventing real-life Thieves’ Cant in a cave underneath a castle. I thought the most D&D thing in English maybe-history was Robin Hood and this kind of blows that away. Wow.

So, next up, I’ll be drawing the last part of St. Peter’s Basilica: the reliquary lodges. These are located inside the four main columns around the center of the basilica, so they’re pretty small and should only take a couple days to finish. I’ll say more about them when I’m done.

All right, I’m gonna get to it. See you soon!

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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!

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The Stygian City: Bottom of the Pit

So, here we are at the bottom. Remember that circle-and-star symbol I’ve been drawing on the floors throughout this dungeon? Yeah. This is what that’s about.

So, the Stygian City is finished, but it’s not. For patrons, I’ll be drawing a few alternate bottom levels, which will include an underwater aboleth lair, a vault for some kind of artifact or entity, and a gateway to the underdark (or Hell or wherever). I’m also going to draw one where the bottom is just full of trash and debris, because I think that’d be pretty funny. What did you expect to find down there? A giant monster?

In my last post, I talked about an idea for the next megaproject. Just to let you know, the response was overwhelmingly positive, so that will be happening. I want to finish up the alternate levels of the Stygian City first, so it’ll probably be a couple months before I get started, but I’ll get to it before long.

I’m also going to make a Stygian City Codex for patrons, a brief overview of each level for non-patrons and there are a few more things I want to add to the DM notes.

But before all that, I’ll be drawing the next Cartographic Congress map, the Palace of Thorns. This is the palace of a dark fae lord, which is covered in vines and thorny overgrowth. I don’t know how I’m going to draw this place just yet, but I’ll figure it out.

Anyway, I hope you like the way I finished out the Stygian City! Let me know what you think.

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The Stygian City 16, 17 & 18: The Myconid Village

The next batch of floors in the Stygian City includes a myconid village on the 16th level, an ancient oracle on the 17th and a center for magical research on the 18th. The next three floors will be the last and will include the thing that lies at the bottom of the pit: Ghanya. I’m also going to draw three or four alternate bottom levels for patrons, but that’s it for the canonical Stygian City.

To a large extent, I’ve been writing the lore of this place around building players up for a horrifying revelation when they reach the bottom and discover that people dug this giant hole and built a city around it so they could feed themselves to a monster. So I’ve really been looking forward to drawing the freakish monstrosity at the bottom of the pit and I’ll be doing that before long.

First, though, I’ll be drawing a map of a village carved into the sides of a river canyon with windows and balconies dotting the rock faces and rope bridges strung between the sides. It looks cool in my head, which usually means it’ll make a good map.

Anyway, if you’ve got any questions or thoughts about the map, let me know.

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The Black Ziggurat

This map was heavily inspired by the Great Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu in Iraq. If you’ve ever seen a picture of a ziggurat, that’s probably the ziggurat you saw. I designed this primarily as the headquarters of an evil organization, but it could be used as a temple, cult lair or just a dungeon in the desert.

I made a bunch of alternate versions of this place for patrons, one of which was unintentional. Here’s how that happened. I was trying to make a version where the ziggurat was floating through the astral plane and I figured I’d do it by changing the colors. I’d make the sand blue so it’d look like nebulous waves of… you know, astral stuff in the background. My thinking was, it wouldn’t look like sand anymore since sand isn’t blue. Then I got up, grabbed a cup of coffee and, when I sat back down, I realized I had just made a night version of the map.

Anyway, I also made a proper astral version and another version without most of the interior (which is more accurate to the Ziggurat of Ur). Then there are unfurnished versions with and without the statues. Hopefully this fulfills all your ziggurat-related needs, whatever they may be.

Next, I’ll be drawing a ruined mage’s tower. I’ve got some ideas about how to make this place interesting, but let’s see how they look on paper. It’s definitely not going to be just a big cylinder, though. The world has plenty of maps like that. Once that’s done, I’ll get back to drawing more of the Stygian City.

All right, that’s it for now. Hope you like the map!