Category: Temples

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!

Posted on

Templemore Village

Here’s the finished village of Templemore, built on the ruins of a great, ancient temple. My story about the place is that the temple was dedicated to a long-forgotten goddess of luck. While the residents don’t worship her (or even know who she is), she bestows her blessing of good fortune upon them nonetheless. So if the players show up at the tavern and start gambling with the old fellas at the corner table, things are likely to go very poorly for them.

There are variations of that story that could be fun, too. If you change the goddess and the blessing, there are a lot of potentially interesting scenarios that could become the seed for an adventure. Like, what if it’s the goddess of time and she stops the residents from aging. Or what if it’s the goddess of death and everyone rises from the dead after they die. Or what if the goddess is angry that they’re here and curses them instead. There are a lot of ways you could go with it if you want to get creative.

Next up, I’ll be drawing the Vatican Grottoes underneath St. Peter’s Basilica. These are a series of tunnels, chapels and tombs, including the tomb of St. Peter himself. This won’t take nearly as long as the main floor of the Basilica itself, but, as you can see in this picture, they went pretty hard on both the floors and the statuary, so it’ll take a bit longer than it would have if the Vatican had hired a cheaper contractor. Also, I want to add that I love statues of animals by sculptors who’ve never seen that animal in real life and the lions in that picture are a great example.

Anyway, I think that’s about it. I hope you like the map. Let me know what you think!

Posted on

St. Peter’s Basilica: Roof Level

Here’s another part of St. Peter’s Basilica finished. We’ve still got the grottoes and the Roman necropolis left to draw. And, of course, the rest of Vatican City. For reasons I explained here, I’ll be drawing in the backgrounds and surrounding buildings later. In the meantime, I hope the lack of surroundings doesn’t impede anyone’s ability to run adventures in the land of Catholicism.

By the way, I’m not planning to draw the roof levels of every building in the Vatican. I decided to draw this one because:

  1. There are numerous stairs to the roof.
  2. It’s a cool roof.
  3. The basilica is kind of the centerpiece of the Vatican.

But, like, I don’t think we need a map for the roof of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. If there’s another roof that’s worth drawing, I’ll draw it, but I’ll probably skip it for most places.

Next, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner, which is a medieval village built in the ruins of an ancient megastructure. I haven’t decided on the megastructure that the village is built on just yet, but it could be an ancient temple, a huge amphitheater or something like that. If you’ve got any ideas, let me know.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Let me know what you think!

Posted on

Saintsblade Abbey

Saintsblade Abbey is the home of an order of paladins, devout followers of the God of Doing the Right Thing. Here, these holy warriors train rigorously in the ways of battle. Because, on occasion, Doing the Right Thing involves caving people’s skulls in with a hammer.

I think this map could be good for an adventure where the party’s paladin returns home to deal with some catastrophe that befell his order. Maybe there’s heresy in the ranks, or a conflict with a rival church, or a schism that threatens to tear the order apart. Or maybe they put that idiot Thaddeus in charge (god, can you imagine). Plenty of possibilities.

I still need to catch up on the Cartographic Congress before I get back to the Vatican, so next I’ll be drawing a floating, arcane city, similar to the Netherese Enclaves of the Forgotten Realms. This will be a city map rather than a battlemap, so it won’t be as big a project as it sounds, but I think it’s a cool concept and I’ve been looking forward to it. After that, it’s back to the Vatican.

Well, that’s it for now. Let me know what you think!

Posted on

St. Peter’s Basilica – Annotated Version

As soon as I posted the basilica, I realized I had completely forgotten to make an annotated version, so here it is.

I only labeled the things I thought would be most relevant to people, but if you want to know more detailed information on every single altar and monument, let me direct you here. Also, hats off to whoever created that website, because this map would have been substantially less accurate without it.

Posted on

St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter’s Basilica is finished. Well, provisionally finished. I really do hate posting the map without the background and surrounding buildings, but it’s necessary for now and I want to explain why.

Since I’m drawing all of Vatican City, I will eventually draw each building, but I need to draw them separately, because, in my experience, drawing part of a building is a good way to end up redrawing it later. And the map above includes not only the basilica, but part of the sacristy, the Apostolic Palace and a tiny bit of the Sistine Chapel. So I need to finish those first, then add them to this map, then draw in the background around them. In the long run, this is what gets Vatican City done faster and I hope everyone is okay with that.

Next up, I’ll be drawing a map of Mesa Verde, an ancient Native American settlement carved into a cliffside in the Rocky Mountains. I’ll try to draw it as it was when it was occupied, which I should be able to do, since archaeologists seem to have figured out what most of the buildings were for.

Anyway, I hope you like the basilica and I promise you that the surroundings will be drawn in eventually. I gave the map a lot of extra love and I hope you feel it was worth the time and effort. Either way, let me know what you think!

Posted on

Vatican City – St. Peter’s Square

So the first part of the Vatican City megaproject is done. Well, kind of. One of the tricky things about drawing the Vatican is that there are parts of it I haven’t drawn yet in the background. In the top left is the Apostolic Palace and, at the bottom left, there’s a church called Santa Maria della Pieta. That stuff on the right is Italy. So I’ll have to remake this map with all the other stuff included once it’s done.

Also, St. Peter’s Square is huge. Like, this is actually one of the biggest maps I’ve ever made. That’s 199×160 tiles right there. You can fit multiple football fields inside it (either kind). The pope has a pretty big front yard.

The next part of the Vatican I’m going to draw will probably be St. Peter’s Basilica, the entrance to which is on the left. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little apprehensive about that. Because, you see, the floor of the basilica looks like this. Am I going to draw all that? Yes. Is it going to look really cool? Probably. Am I looking forward to it? No, I really am not. I’ll be honest with you: I’m a little scared. But it’s gotta be done and I’m going to do it regardless.

But first, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a dwarven fort built around a waterfall. There’ll be a lock for boats, a waterwheel or two, stuff like that. And after that, we’re back to the Vatican. Sound good? I hope so.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts or questions, let me know!