These are the 10th and 11th levels of the Stygian City. I’ll need a few more days to finish up the hag’s palace on the 12th level, so I’ll be back with that soon. Hope you like it so far!
The Stygian City – The Night Hag’s Palace (Work-in-Progress)
This is the 12th level of the pit, which has its own upper level just above the pen in the photo. There’s a lot going on here and I promise I’ll explain it, room by room, in the DM notes.
The short version of the story is that an ancient hag is living here with her derro minions and an assortment of demons, flesh golems and various other creatures and she’s trying to wake up Ghanya, the entity living at the bottom of the pit (info on that here).
Anyway, I’m gonna get back to work and get these colored. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions about any of this, let me know!
The Stygian City (Work-in-Progress)
These are the 10th and 11th levels of the giant pit megadungeon. I’m still working on the 12th. These three floors are the domain of an ancient hag named Black Hazel. Her minions reside on the 10th and 11th and she lives in the old palace on the 12th.
There’s going to be some insane stuff on the 12th level. There’s a workshop for making flesh golems with a room full of body parts next door. There’s also a pool filled with some kind of writhing biomass. And, of course, there’s also a room containing the hag’s collection of Completely Normal Stuff™. I think you’ll like it.
Anyway, I should have that drawn and inked in a few more days. Until then, let me know what you think so far!
The Stygian City: Goblin Village, Spiders’ Nest and Temple
The 7th level of the pit is home to a clan of goblins, who get by on a healthy diet of giant bats, giant spiders and mushrooms (which are basically a vegetable). Below that, the 8th level is overrun with spiders and in dire need of a treatment that only Dr. Flamethrower can provide.
Then there’s the 9th level. Most of this floor is a giant temple to Ghanya (the deity of the people who built the pit). But there’s a smaller group of rooms that are disconnected from the rest. This was once a tomb, but is now the residence of a vampire named Khrani, who sleeps here during the day, then flies out with the bats at night. Compared to the rest of the pit, her rooms are pretty nice. Just because you live in a literal hole in the ground doesn’t mean you can’t live in a nice hole in the ground.
For patrons, I’ve updated the DM notes quite a bit. There are new entries for these three levels as well as a new section with suggested creatures to populate each level with. When this is finished, the DM notes are going to be… not quite a campaign, but as close as I’ve come to writing one for any of my maps. Have a look and let me know what you think so far.
Next, I’ll be drawing the Black Citadel. This is going to be a ziggurat that serves as the lair of an evil organization. Imagine the party is finally heading out to confront the National Association of Sinister Wizards and, after an arduous journey, they finally arrive and they see this. No need to double-check the address, that’s definitely the place. Even the word ‘ziggurat’ sounds sinister. Ziggurat.
Anyway, I’m gonna get started on that. Once it’s done, I’ll be getting back to the pit. Speaking of which, tell me what you think so far!
The Stygian City – Spiderwebs (Work-in-Progress)
I am incredibly proud of how these spiderwebs turned out and I don’t care who knows it.
The Stygian City – 7th, 8th and 9th Levels (Work-in-Progress)
These are the next three levels of the Stygian City and, as you can see, they’re a lot bigger than the previous floors. From left to right, they’re a temple, a spiders’ nest and a goblin village.
I’ve had a few new ideas since I wrote up the original plans. One of the bigger additions is an underground river that runs through the city. Kuo-toa have found their way there and moved into that level and the one below it. I’m not sure where this will be, but probably around the 15th-18th floor. I’ll probably put them near the myconid colony to give them a rival (and because they both like it damp).
I’m also moving the prison closer to the bottom because I want players to learn a few key things about this place. (Read the History of the Pit before this if you haven’t already). These are the main bits of information for players to learn as they descend, in order:
- A goddess named Ghanya told people to dig this pit. She promised that they would find a gateway to paradise below.
- Holy crap they built a whole city in this pit.
- Unlike other deities, Ghanya spoke to these people often. They heard her voice clearly in their minds and she taught them things and gave them instructions.
- Once they dug down to the gateway, they sent people through when they became 50 years old. The reason is unclear.
- Some people didn’t want to go through the gateway and Ghanya said they should be arrested and sent in anyway. (This is what the prison was for).
- At the bottom, the players learn that the “gateway” is just a giant monster that tricked these people into letting it eat them.
- Also, that circle-and-star symbol that’s carved into the floors all over the place isn’t just a symbol. It’s a visual depiction of the mouth of the creature at the bottom.
I’m trying to give the players enough information to intrigue them, but keep the discovery at the end (6 and 7) a surprise. What do you think? Should I change any of that or reorder it? If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas, let me know.
The Stygian City: Caves and Catacombs
The next three levels of the Stygian City are finished! As promised, I updated the previous levels with the lower level windows. I also renamed all the previous levels. I’d originally named the first three floors 0, 1 and 2, but I realized that it would take less time to change them to 1, 2 and 3 than it would to answer questions about that for the next several years.
For patrons, I updated the DM notes with an overview of the history of the pit and how it came to be. I made a copy of this story for non-patrons as well, which you can find above. I’m very curious to know what everyone thinks about it. In any case, this whole place is designed to be very flexible, so if you’ve got a better idea of what to do with it, you can tell your story instead.
Next up is a drow academy of war, where drow males can go to become useful for something other than reproduction or being beaten for the entertainment of others. There’ll be an arena, training areas, maybe even a classroom where students come to study Drow Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. After that, I’ll probably draw another few levels of the pit.
Well, I hope you like how it’s coming so far! Check out the DM notes and let me know what you think of the story. And if you’re not a patron, check this post tomorrow and I’ll have a copy for you too.
The Stygian City: Caves and Catacombs (Work-in-Progress)
The next three levels of The Stygian City are drawn and ready to color.
I realize that this “city” doesn’t look much like one yet. But I promise it will, starting with the levels after this. The upper floors were carved out when the builders were still mostly living on the surface.
By the way, when I post this, I’ll update the DM notes with an overview of the history of the pit, so you’ll have a basic idea of what this place is and why it was built. It’s kind of horrible and I hope you’ll like it.
I changed some things. What do you think?
Shortly after I posted the first part of the pit, I decided that I hated the colors. And, when you’re planning to draw another twenty or so maps with those colors, that’s a problem. So I made some adjustments and partially recolored the underground levels. I think the colors for the surface were basically fine and, besides, the rest is going to be underground.
So, what do you think?
The Stygian City: Into the Pit
Our gigantic dungeon starts here, in a small village called Ekersfield. The villagers live in and around the top of the pit, mining iron ore from the level below. This is the nice part of the pit. The welcome center, if you will. Past this point, most of the pit’s inhabitants get a lot less friendly.
So, there’s an unusual problem with this project and its kind of unavoidable. See, the map above is finished… but it’s not. If you look at the uppermost level, you can see the windows in the sides of the lower levels of the pit. But on the bottom level, there aren’t any. That’s because I haven’t drawn the maps below this yet and I don’t know where they’ll be. So I’m going to have to update these maps after I draw the next ones. Which will also have to be updated later. And so on. A bit of a pain, but no big deal.
For patrons, I’m also making modular versions of the maps. These are individual floors which can be rearranged as you like. Here’s how they work: first, the lower level windows won’t be shown on the sides of the pit. And second, all the stairs descend counter-clockwise. The stairs won’t always be in the same place, but they’ll always move in the same direction and, if you want, you can rotate the map to get them close to each other. With only three floors, that isn’t super relevant just yet, but there will be a day when there are 20+ floors and it will be then.
Thus begins another very large project. They always seem too big to ever get done, but they always do. Brazenthrone took two years to draw, but it got finished. The Black Loch took a year and a half, but it got done too. I think this will take less than a year, but we’ll see. In any case, it’ll be done one day and, hopefully, you’ll like it. But for now, how’s it looking? Off to a good start?