Category: Small Maps

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The Barre Sinister: A Spelljammer Pirate Tavern

I’ve made some fairly strange maps, but we might have a new champion today. The Barre Sinister is a tavern built on a giant, stone hand… in space. I also made a version with just the hand, which is arguably weirder. I suspect at least one of you has a use for that.

If you don’t play Spelljammer and you’re wondering how this place could possibly exist, allow me to explain the first rule of Spelljammer: Never ask questions about how things work. They just do. That’s a very important rule. No one’s trying to play Spelljammer with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Of course, not everyone is running a campaign in which the players can escape the gravitational influence of their planet, so I’m going to make an island version of this map next. That shouldn’t take long, since I mostly just need to change the background and draw a bit of land around the hand. Maybe I’ll throw a palm tree on there, who knows. Wait… would that constitute a pun in this situation? Maybe I’d better not.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that and I’ll be back with it in a day or two. By the way, if you’re the person who actually has a use for the empty space hand, I’d love to hear what you plan to do with it!

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The Black Loch: Caves and Tunnels

I’m fully prepared to admit that these are some of the most uninteresting maps I’ve ever made, but that’s basically the point. There are plenty of interesting maps in the Black Loch, but sometimes that’s not what you need. Sometimes you just need a cave or a tunnel without anything special in it, because it’s random encounter time and the party will be fighting *rolls dice* …giant bats.

That’s what these are for. They’re not specific locations marked on the regional map, they’re for the places in between.

Of course, the Black Loch is a sea, so there will be plenty happening along the coast as well. For those encounters, there’s the Black Loch naval battlemap. While I originally made it as a backdrop for ship battles, I think it’s just as good for encounters on land as well. And it’s plain enough to be fairly reusable.

There’s only one thing to do before I get started on the last map in the Black Loch: draw tokens. I’m going to make tokens for all the various creatures mentioned in the lore, as well as the notable characters. I already made tokens for some, so I just need to knock out the rest.

Anyway, I won’t ask what you think of the maps because, let’s be honest, they might be the most boring maps I’ve ever drawn. But I hope they’re useful.

Well, I’m gonna stop typing and start drawing. I’ll be back with some tokens in a few days!

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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!

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The Duskfall: A map for DMs whose players stole the airship in the previous map.

You may recognize this map from the last map. It might seem redundant to make a separate map out of it, but your players are probably going to steal it from that map, so this might come in handy. Or maybe you just need a small airship for a party that hasn’t earned a big one yet.

I made a few different versions of this. The one above is the refitted version. The seats are replaced with hammocks and there’s a dinner table in the forward berth. This is for DMs whose parties end up using the Duskfall long-term.

After that, there’s the original version, a version with a Black Loch background, and the refitted version with a Black Loch background.

I did something unusual here and I’m curious what everyone thinks. I added a map of the airship on land to the bottom. It seemed like it might be useful, since a party with an airship will, occasionally, land it. And maybe they land in hostile territory and end up in a fight. Or maybe they leave the ship to go on an adventure and come back to find a bunch of brigands trying to steal it. I felt like there were a lot of situations where it’d be a convenient thing to have, so I thought I’d give it a shot and see what you think.

Next up, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress, the Silver Dragon Inn. This is an inn built over a set of cascading waterfalls, with a dragon’s lair concealed behind the falls. The innkeeper is actually the dragon in human form and the inn has a secret passage to the lair. This allows the innkeeper to turn from Clark Kent into Superman without letting anyone know they’re the same guy. “You get any trouble with bandits around here?” Nope. We sure don’t.

As I mentioned before, on the 4th, I’m taking a trip to Mont-Saint-Michel, the Chateau de Chenonceau and the Chateau de Breze and I’ll be gone for a little over a week. I don’t think I’ll be able to get the Silver Dragon Inn finished by then, but I’ll see how far I can get. I’ll make a post when I’m leaving.

Well, that’s it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts on how I did the airship, let me know!

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Coxton Tower: A Towerhouse in Moray, Scotland

Man, it’s been a while since I’ve made a map with only six rooms and I’d forgotten how fast I could draw something this small, haha.

Anyway, Coxton Tower was built in Moray, Scotland in the 1500s and this map is fairly accurate, with a couple of exceptions. First, it shows the tower on a clear, sunny day, which is a grossly inaccurate depiction of Scottish weather. And second, the size is off, which is intentional. An accurate map of Coxton Tower would have an interior about 3 1/2 tiles across. That’s a little tight for RPG purposes, so I doubled it.

Also, if you look at a photo of Coxton Tower, it’ll be a bit different from the map above. That’s because a staircase was built up to the second-floor entrance in the mid-1800s. I wasn’t sure whether to draw it with the staircase or the ladder, so I just drew it both ways. Here’s the version with the stairs.

There’s an interesting feature of Coxton Tower that I wanted to point out. It’s called a “yett” and, if you’ve never heard of one before, it may be because they’re mostly unique to Scotland. A yett is a metal gate, similar to a portcullis, but mounted on hinges so that it swings open like a regular door. It’s just behind the main entrance on the second level. You can see a photo of Coxton’s yett here.

Well, I hope you like the map! And yes, that is a deep-fried Mars bar on the kitchen table. I choose to believe that’s historically accurate.

Next, I’ll be drawing another map from the Black Loch. This will be the drow noble estate of House Cull’thaine, the ruling house of the city of Vlyn’darastyl.

After that, I’ll be drawing a new spelljammer map. I know a lot of DMs put their players in my Dragonfly spelljammer last year and are getting ready to upgrade the party to a big boy ship, so I’ll be drawing you an elven Man-o-War to fill that role. It’ll be a bigger, better-armed ship for a mid-level party. And, for those of you who are planning to keep the campaign going into the higher levels, I’ll draw you the late-game war machine your players dream about later this year.

Okay, back to work!

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The Grinning Widow: A Ship for the Seas of the Underdark

The Grinning Widow is a ship designed for the Black Loch. In an underground sea, sails aren’t going to accomplish much, so the Widow doesn’t have any. She’s a galley, powered exclusively by rowing, with a crew of 20 oarsmen who all look like they walked out of a “skipped leg day” meme.

For defense, the Widow is armed with a ram on the bow, as well as two ballistas, one of which is a little scarier than the other. You see, I’ve been drawing the “big crossbow” ballista in my maps for a while now, but I wanted to change things up a bit, so I started searching for different ballista designs. I found a few I liked, but then– out of nowhere– this thing struts into the room. Yes please.

I don’t know if it’s real and I don’t care. It’s awesome and I decided it was definitely going in the map. I made a token of it, too, by the way, as well as the other one. You can get them both here. Personally, I’d give it around double the range and damage of a regular ballista in the DM’s Guide, but require a 2-person crew to fire it every round. And give it +1 to damage if the party names it.

So, here’s a funny story from my game. A few years ago, my players spent some time on a ship like this one, down in the underdark. The orog crew ended up teaching them Orcish, which my wife’s elven wizard got quite good at.

Several months later, she’s with a different party, being confronted by orc bandits, and she uses her knowledge of Orcish to speak with them.  The bandits look at each other and burst out laughing, which leaves the party confused. Finally, the orc leader stops laughing and tells her he’s never heard an elf in a fancy dress speaking Orcish. And he never imagined that, if he did, she’d be speaking the filthiest Orcish he’s ever heard.

They end up eating with the orcs, who tell her that everything she says is heavily laced with curse words. She hadn’t realized it, but the orog sailors taught her to speak like they do, which is very crudely, even by Orcish standards. So she knows the language, but she can’t speak it without cursing. Fortunately, orcs don’t tend to be prudish about that kind of thing, but no one expects it from someone like her.

Anyway, next up, I’ll be drawing a mountainous island settlement. And after that, I’ll be coming back to draw something else from the Black Loch. Maybe the illithid ruins? We’ll see.

Well, I’m gonna grab some coffee and start sketching some islands. Let me know what you think of the Widow!

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.

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Delaro’s Manse

Here’s the unfurnished version.

Hey look, I drew a reasonable-sized map! 34×55! I knew I could do it! Don’t get used to it, though, the next two maps I’m drawing are a 13-floor tower and this.

Delaro’s Manse is a part of the Black Loch, marked on the map as “Secluded Manse.” Delaro Montalos is one of the few humans living in the underdark sea. He’s a wizard who came to the loch to conduct research into an extradimensional gateway he created.

Normally, in a D&D setting, the term “extradimensional” refers to planar travel, but that’s not the case here. Delaro isn’t going to the inner planes, the outer planes, or anywhere else described in Planescape. He’s going outside of that, to another multiverse altogether.

I imagine this place as a completely different reality with laws of physics that bear no resemblance to our own, but I think there are a few other ways to play it. The most interesting, to me, is having Delaro’s gateway lead to our world, at some interesting point in time. You could drop your party into the middle of the Second World War, or the French Revolution, or the Wild West. You could have your party appear in a city under siege by the Mongol horde, or in the capital of the Incan Empire as the conquistadores are about to arrive. Hell, you could drop your party into the middle of modern day Tokyo. There are tons of possibilities if you want to go that route.

I feel like a lot of people are going to want to use this map for things other than the Black Loch, so I’m going to make an alternate version, which I think I can get done tonight. I’m just going to get rid of the stalactites and put some grass in there, so the place isn’t explicitly in a cavern. It won’t take long and it’ll keep some DMs from having to say, “I told you it was on a grassy hill, stop asking questions.”

Anyway, I’m gonna get on that. Let me know what you think!

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.

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The Cobalt Flotilla: The Ships

Turtle Ship
Barge
Drua

And the rest:

I don’t often post 11 maps in one day. It feels like a lot, even if I did make those 11 maps for the purpose of making one big map. Anyway, I hope everyone’s good on ships for a while, because after drawing all these, it might be a minute before I do another one.

In any case, I’d say everyone’s collection of ship maps just got a lot more diverse. You’ve got three Japanese ships, a Korean ship, a Filipino ship, a Portuguese ship, a Fijian ship, a few kinda-sorta Chinese boats and a Polynesian raft. Hopefully they make your seafaring campaigns a bit more interesting.

All right, next up is the Château de Chenonceau, a magnificent French castle built across a river. Imagine the Twins from Game of Thrones, except they were an only child. And a lot classier. I’ve been looking forward to drawing it since I found the floor plans and I’m going to get to work the second I stop typing.

Well, I hope everyone likes the flotilla! It took a lot longer than I expected, but I think it turned out really well and there are a lot of possibilities for how to use it. Overall, I’d say it was worth it and, hopefully, most of you agree.

One last thing: I’d like to apologize for mentioning Game of Thrones. It’s been two years since season 8, but for some of you it may still be too soon. Stay strong, we’ll get through this together.

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Dragonfly-Class Spelljammer – “The Mid-Priced Toyota of Fantasy Spacecraft”

I’ve never run a Spelljammer campaign, per se, but I have run campaigns where some mild-to-moderate spelljamming did take place (including my current one). If you don’t understand the appeal of the setting, let me try to explain it.

First, picture the show Firefly. Now, imagine that Kaylee is an elf. Imagine Wash is a wizard. And Shepherd Book is a priest of Tempus who always tries to solve people’s issues by asking, “When was the last time you purified yourself in the holy flames of battle?” That’s basically Spelljammer. Oh, and the Firefly would probably look like an actual firefly.

There’s some freaky stuff out in space, too.  For example: a giant skull full of mind flayers that are torturing beholders. Or how about a clump of pirate-infested asteroids held together by a giant plant? Or, my personal favorite, a big old cloud of wild magic shaped like a boat. For the record, that last one gives you, the DM, license to do literally anything. “Siderion, you are now neon yellow. And your arm turns into a sheep.” What? Are you serious? “You fall down. The sheep is heavy.”

I’m not sure what I’m drawing next, but I’ve got a few things I want to announce about some stuff I’m planning over the next year and I’ll let you know in a day or two when I post about that. I don’t want to hype this up like it’s some huge thing, but I think most of you will be into it.

Anyway, I hope those of you running Spelljammer games approve of my choice of ship! I don’t think I’ll be doing another spelljammer soon, but I may draw another one later in the year. I’m thinking it’d be something a bit bigger than this. Like, the kind of ship your party graduates to after this one. Maybe an elven Man O’ War? If you’ve got any suggestions, let me know and I’ll keep them in mind. In any case, tell me what you think of the map!

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.