Category: Temples

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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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The Black Nail

The Black Nail is a demonic tower that’s been driven into the ground. There’s a bunch of bizarre stuff on each floor, all of which leads down to a giant hand holding a large, stone chest at the bottom. The chest probably contains a demon, artifact, magic item or something pertinent to your campaign. Let me suggest you go one of two ways with this:

  1. There’s a demon/monster/enemy in the chest, or
  2. The hand holding the chest is the monster and it attacks once the players open it.

Or you could do both. I put some suggestions on what to do with the other rooms in the DM notes, so patrons may want to check those out.

Next, I’m going to make a variant of this map for patrons. It’s nothing too elaborate, so I should have it done in a couple days, but I think it might be useful to some of you. Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that. 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: A Town Built on the Ruins of an Ancient Amphitheater

Well, this place turned out a bit bigger than I expected, but I think it was worth the effort. I’ll be drawing a map of the underworks next, which won’t be nearly as elaborate as this level, but will have some interesting stuff going on. It’ll also give this place an entrance.

As you can see, some of the amphitheater’s tiered seating still exists, making it clear what this place used to be, although most of it has been leveled off and built over. The walls of the ancient city that this was once a part of are scattered around nearby and were probably picked apart to build the town.

As I said, I’ll be drawing the lower level of Circensis next (and I’ll have DM notes for patrons with that). Then, it’s back to the Vatican. Anyway, this town-built-on-an-amphitheater seemed like a popular idea, so I wanted to ask how you think I did with it. Let me know what you think!

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St. Peter’s Basilica – The Reliquary Lodges

This is the last part of St. Peter’s Basilica, which means all that’s left to draw is… *checks notes* everything else in Vatican City. Not a problem.

These small rooms were built into the large columns around the basilica’s main dome, each with it’s own balcony. Here’s a photo. Each one contains a notable relic: the True Cross, the Spear of Longinus (aka the Spear of Destiny), St. Veronica’s Veil, and the Head of St. Andrew. Here’s a picture of the spear, which is kept in a crystal vase. And here’s a picture of the Head of St. Andrew, which is kept in a container that I think we can all agree is very head-shaped and very normal.

The next map of the Vatican will be the sacristy, since it’s adjacent to the basilica, but first, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: a village built inside the ruins of a huge amphitheater similar to the Colosseum. I’m thinking of circular tiers of houses around the sides, a market in the center, Maybe some sewers, cisterns and shady stuff in the underworks.

I’m pretty into this idea and I expect it to be a fairly large map. Not quite a megaproject, but a lot bigger than Templemore Village, which was a similar sort of idea. Anyway, if you’ve got any suggestions or interesting ideas about it, by all means let me know. I’ll be back once I’ve got something to show you. Until then!

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The Vatican Necropolis

There’s an insane story about the Vatican Necropolis that I read while doing research for this map and I’d like to share it with you.

So, St. Peter’s Basilica was said to have been built directly over the grave of St. Peter, the first pope. His grave was well below the basilica, however, and was not accessible.

Then, in the 1940s, Pope Pius XII decided he wanted to open the Vatican Grottoes to tourists. There was a problem, though: the ceilings were too low. They couldn’t be raised because there was a basilica on top of them, so the floor had to be lowered. Workers were sent in to dig every room two feet deeper and put in new floors. And, in the middle of this, one of them broke through to something below.

The ancient, Roman tombs they found were considered likely to contain the tomb of St. Peter, so the pope sent a group of archaeologists to get in there and archaeologize the place. A priest named Ludwig Kaas, who had no education or experience in archaeology, was assigned to oversee the excavation.

Eventually, an archaeologist named Dr. Margherita Guarducci found St. Peter’s tomb. It was directly under the central altar of the basilica, it was lined with marble and there was graffiti that said it was him. Bingo. The only problem was that there were no bones inside. Dr. Guarducci wondered why they were moved and where they might be now. They started testing bones from the necropolis. Is this St. Peter? No, that’s a woman. How about this? No, that’s a teenager. This? That’s a sheep.

Ten years later, while talking to one of the basilica’s maintenance guys, Dr. Guarducci found out where the bones went. Apparently, Father Kaas had been going into the dig site at night, taking out any bones he found and putting them in boxes. Without telling anyone. They’d been in a storeroom for a decade and Father Kaas never said anything. For ten years, he watched people search the necropolis, test remains and painstakingly examine the site for clues about where St. Peter’s bones might be. And this dude said absolutely nothing. And then he died.

And that’s how the bones of St. Peter were discovered by archaeologists. In a box in a closet.

Next, I’ll be drawing a castle sitting over an elaborate cave system, containing a meeting place for the local thieves’ guild. It should be a useful map for adventures where the players are going somewhere that’s normal on the outside, but shady on the inside. Secret gangs, cults, conspiracies and so on. Have you seen Hot Fuzz? That sort of thing.

After that, I’ll be drawing the last part of St. Peter’s Basilica, which is the reliquary lodges. They’re small and won’t take more than a couple days.

All right, that’s about it. Let me know what you think!

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The Vatican Grottoes

For me, the Vatican Grottoes are one of the most interesting parts of Vatican City. From St. Peter’s Basilica, you can enter through the stairs in front of the central altar, as well as the stairs in the four large columns around it.

There are mainly two things in the grottoes: tombs and chapels. The tombs are mostly those of former popes, but you’ve also got a cardinal, a queen of Cyprus, and a few others down there. A lot of the chapels are dedicated to nations, specifically: Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Mexico. I’m not sure what it takes to get your country a chapel in the Vatican Grottoes, but it must be pretty difficult if Italy didn’t make the cut. I’m just saying, they’re pretty Catholic and they’re literally across the street.

Below the grottoes, there’s one more level: the Necropolis. This is a group of ancient Roman tombs that were rediscovered in the 1940s. This will be the next part of the Vatican I’ll be drawing.

Before that, however, I’ll be drawing the next Cartographic Congress winner, an infernal fortress that guards the banks of the River Styx, with watchtowers overlooking the river and lots of rusty, bloody bulwarks, cages, etc. So, that’s certainly something to draw in between maps of the Vatican, haha. Well, I’m gonna get started on that. Let me know what you think of the grottoes!