Category: Underdark

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The Deep Spire, 1st Level – Unfurnished

Here’s the “I’ve got my own ideas for this place” version of the map. I think I might start doing unfurnished versions for all of my bigger projects from here on. I know some people use my maps in sci-fi settings and some people would want to use this as an abandoned ruin, so I think the extra time spent to make something more suited for those uses is justified.

Anyway, there’s not too much more to say about it, so I’m gonna get back to work on the next floor.

Wait, one last thing: if you happen to need a map of a gnomish submarine base, this might be pretty good for that. Or there could be some pirate stuff going on in there. Or what if the gnomes with the submarine are the pirates? I don’t know, I’m just throwing stuff out there. Anyone got any other ideas?

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The Deep Spire, 1st Level: The Harbor

First, as usual, the accessories: a version without the ships and ship tokens. There are two versions of the tokens: one that will look good on this map but will look terrible on almost any other map, and an alternate version that will look terrible on this map, but good on most others.

This is the first of six levels of the Deep Spire. The next few will be much bigger, since the harbor doesn’t go all the way around the column and the other floors do. I’m not sure how long this will take overall, but I’ve got a lot of it planned out already and this has taken much less time than I expected it to, so I think it could be done in about a month.

I’ll have DM notes when everything’s finished, but, for now, let’s talk about what we’re looking at. The harbor is a big, open chamber underneath the spire. The ceiling isn’t that high– call it 25 feet (8m)– but this is in the Underdark, so no wind means no sails, which means no masts.

At the entrance to the harbor is a chain boom, like the one in Brazenthrone’s Underdark trading outpost. In the upper left is the gate leading into the spire. On the right are livestock pens. The residents don’t want pigs in the spire, but they do want bacon, so this is where they keep and butcher the animals. In the center, just inside the big support column, is a cargo elevator leading to the second floor. It’s raised and lowered by turning the two big wheels on the sides and is useful for hauling up crates of trade goods or players who failed their persuasion rolls at the gate.

You may have noticed that I changed the colors from what they were in the last post. I decided that using awful, crappy colors might not be the way to go and I decided to use good colors instead. I think that was the right call.

Also, I’m going to make unfurnished versions of all the levels of the Deep Spire. Since I draw everything by hand on paper, that isn’t as simple as turning the chairs off, but it won’t take that long either. I should have the unfurnished version of the harbor up within a day.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts on the map so far, let me know!

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The Tusk

Last month’s winning Cartographic Congress proposal was by Bryan, who suggested a hanging wizard’s tower. That idea became the Tusk.

There were a few different ways to go about this, but I decided to go with the weirdest. The path to the entrance spirals up a stalagmite, then over a bridge and up the bottom tip of the Tusk itself. After that, the stairs go inside, then later back outside again, ending at a wide stone platform covered in magical glyphs.

Is this a practical layout for a home? Not especially, but I think there are a few things that justify it. First, I envisioned this as the home of a powerful wizard, for whom time and space aren’t huge concerns. The ability to fly and teleport makes the stairs a lot more of a problem to guests than to the occupant.

Second, it makes it harder for people without those abilities to get in and get to the top. Which is a legitimate precaution, because that’s probably what your party is trying to do.

Third, it prevents your party from just taking the stairs straight to the top. I did consider a spiral staircase going all the way up, but… I mean, look: there are parties that will explore the place and run into the various encounters you’ve set out for them, and then and there are parties who will just go straight to the top. They know that’s where the wizard is. Fantasy roleplaying games have been around since 1974 and, in that time, not one DM has ever put the wizard on the ground floor of the tower. This layout makes the party open a few doors at least.

And fourth, I just think it’s cool. I think about practicality a lot when I draw maps, but I think I’m allowed to take a break from it every now and again.

Next up is Brazenthrone‘s Iron Mines, one of three chambers left to draw in the two-year-long megaproject. I’m not sure what my plans are for it, but maybe some inspirational music will help me envision something.

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

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Brazenthrone – The Old Mines – Everyone’s Edition

Here’s the annotated version and the DM notes. You can download all print and VTT content for this map from my patreon here or from Google Drive.

Last month, I was making all the patron content for my new maps available to everyone (for reasons explained in this post). I’m going to continue doing so until at least May 18th, which is the date for the end of the lockdown in Ireland (where I live). I hope these maps have been helpful to those of you who have had to bring their games online (and everyone else).

Anyway, this map is Brazenthrone‘s old mines, the city’s disused and sealed-off iron mines. What went wrong? They dug too deep and too greedily? Disturbed a sleeping dragon? No, they tunneled into an underground stream and flooded the place. Eventually, various critters tunneled their way in from outside and made it their home, leading to the dwarves sealing the whole thing off.

But maybe somebody left their lunchbox inside and your party has to go in and get it. Or maybe there’s an aboleth in there doing some kind of psychic nonsense and someone needs to put some lemon juice on that sucker and toss it on the grill. There’s some ideas in the DM notes.

Next up is more Brazenthrone. I’m going to do a residential district because there’s quite a few of them left to draw and I don’t want to end up with everything else finished and 8 residential chambers to draw in a row. Well, I’d better get started!

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The Library of Gravenhollow – Everyone’s Edition

 

Here’s the annotated version, an alternate version and the DM notes.

Gravenhollow is an unmapped location in the 5E D&D module Out of the Abyss. It’s a place where space and time work differently and a person can travel from one place to another just by thinking about where they want to be.

Since there are quite a few peculiarities of Gravenhollow that make this map a lot less useful than it could be to DMs wanting to use it for something else, I made an alternate version as well with a few changes. It’s not exactly standard fare either, but, should you need a map of a strange, mystical place full of crystals, obelisks and other weird crap, it might get the job done. Worth a thought if your party might be headed to Limbo anytime soon.

Thanks to Fraz-Urb’luu who proposed this map to the Cartographic Congress! Next up is Brazenthrone. A whole lot of it. Let’s kick it off with Gnomestown and see where the mood takes us from there, shall we?

As I’ve been doing all month, I’m giving away all the patron content for this map for free. You can download it from the patreon here or from Google Drive.

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The Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl – Everyone’s Edition

 

First, the annotated version, the DM notes and this other version.

This was a slightly unusual map for me. When I say I’m drawing a “city map,” it usually means something like Brazenthrone or Finbarr’s Marsh. Drawing an exterior-only city had me a little worried, since the last one I did was this piece of white-hot garbage. God, that’s embarrassing. But I think Vlyn’darastyl is big step up from that.

So, Vlyn’darastyl is a drow city that’s accessible by airship, which isn’t a characteristic shared by many other cities two miles underground. But the Great Breach– a 300′ (100m) hole in the roof of the cavern leading to the surface sea above– makes this possible. There are more details in the DM notes above, but if you’ve got any other questions I didn’t cover, feel free to ask.

Thanks to Senator Matt for proposing this map to the Cartographic Congress! He and I were talking about an idea I had for the future which I’d like to let you in on.

At some point, I want to make a map of a small Underdark sea. That sea is the Black Loch, which the map above shows only a small corner of. I want to make a larger, region-sized map of the whole loch with 10-12 locations marked: maybe a kuo-toa village, a duergar outpost, a few islands with some ruins, a series of caves, maybe something underwater, stuff like that. Then I’d draw maps of each of those locations at a 5′ scale, so you’d have this map of a whole region and, wherever you wanted to take your players in that region, you’ve got a map of it ready to go.

When Matt proposed a city next to an Underdark sea, I thought that seemed like a good addition, especially since the Great Breach makes the area more accessible for DMs whose parties aren’t currently below ground. But– to be clear– this is the only part of it I’ll be making for a while. This is a big project and I’m not going to be starting on it until Brazenthrone is finished, which will be a while still. But I thought I’d share that with you and see if anyone had any thoughts.

As I said when I posted the last map, all patron content is free to everyone this month. You can download it from this post or from Google Drive.

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Drow Surface Raiding Outpost

 

This is my idea of what a drow outpost for raiding the surface might look like.  Built into a cliffside, it has only one entrance to the surface, which is a narrow tunnel in the roof of a small cave, accessible only by a rope ladder, which would normally only be deployed when drow are coming or going.

The cottage above the cliff would have been built by the drow as well.  Although they have no use for the building itself, they would need a way to vent the smoke from their cooking fire without drawing attention to the presence of their outpost.  By running the house’s chimney directly to their vent shaft, they can make it look like the house is producing the smoke.  Of course, this will not pass close inspection because the house itself has no fireplace or occupants.  That might be useful as a way to allow the PCs in your game to discover the outpost.

Anyway, I hope you like it!  I’m giving out the annotated version for free on this one: