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The Roost

This is the map chosen by patrons in the Black Loch Conclave: a drow outpost in the roof of the Black Loch. This map is complicated to say the least, so let me break it down for everyone.

The Black Loch is a small sea in the underdark. There’s a large hole in the roof of the loch’s cavern, leading up to a sea on the surface. The hole, known as the Great Breach, is about 100 meters wide, with water constantly pouring down the sides.

The falling water does not fill the breach completely, however. There is enough space for an airship pilot– a talented airship pilot– to maneuver a vessel down the center. Not many places in the underdark are accessible by airship, but the Black Loch, very unusually, is.

So, this map is a surveillance outpost located at the bottom edge of the Great Breach. It’s used by the drow to track the comings and goings of airships. The drow also have a hangar here, in which they keep their own airship, known as the Duskfall.

TL;DR: It’s a spy outpost at the bottom of a giant waterfall in the underdark, where the drow keep their airship. I hope that doesn’t sound as insane to you as it does to me.

Anyway, you may have noticed that this map has a map of an airship inside it. I’m going to take a day or two to make a separate map of the airship next. You may need it if you bring your players here, because, let’s be honest: they’re going to steal it. Seriously, no matter who your players are or what kind of game you’re running, your party has a one hundred percent chance of stealing that airship, or at least trying to. I honestly can’t imagine a party that wouldn’t. Still, if that’s a problem for you, it can always be a broken airship.

Well, that’s about it. Out of twenty ideas for a new location in the Black Loch, this is the one you chose. I hope you all like what I did with it. Anyway, let me know what you think!

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Black Loch: The Drow Outpost in the Ceiling (Work-in-Progress)

So, I’m in the middle of coloring the drow outpost in the ceiling of the Black Loch. I decided to put the outpost on the edge of the Great Breach, which led to some interesting ideas. And now, the drow have an airship. In a secret hangar. On the edge of a giant waterfall. In the underdark.

You know, completely normal stuff.

Well, I’m gonna get back to it. I should have it all done in a few more days.

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The Black Loch Conclave has ended. Here are the results.

After several rounds of voting, a new location for the Black Loch has been chosen: Kenneth’s proposal of a drow outpost built into the ceiling of the loch, allowing them to keep an eye on the passing ships below. I love the idea and I think it’ll make a great addition to the setting.

Of the twenty new locations proposed, the outpost is the only one that will put a new dot on the map, but it isn’t the only one that will affect the loch. Quite a few of your ideas have inspired me in ways that will affect how I draw the remaining locations. Let’s go over them:

Grimlocks

The proposal that came in second was a shipyard run by deep gnomes. When Leo proposed it, my first thought was, “Oh my god… I forgot to put a shipyard in the loch!” I decided that, if this proposal didn’t win, I’d work the idea into the grimlock settlement.

Basically, a team of deep gnome engineers builds ships using grimlock laborers. The grimlocks, who are paid in meat, have come to realize that they get more meat by building ships than they did by hunting. So, the gnomes are rich, the grimlocks are fat, and whoever the grimlocks used to eat are still alive. Everyone’s very happy with the arrangement. Continue reading “The Black Loch Conclave has ended. Here are the results.”

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Skatha’s Rest

Skatha’s Rest is the location marked “Travelers’ Ruin” on the map of the Black Loch. The specific travelers who come here are a clan of orog raiders called the Tideborne, who spend most of their time at sea or plundering coastal settlements.

Skatha’s Rest is an old ruin the Tideborne occasionally stop in at to hang out and drink. These folks throw the kind of party that you need to pass CON checks to make it to the end of, so it could be a fun pit stop for your players to make, especially if they’re sailing on a ship with Tideborne crew.

Okay, a couple things. First, the final vote of the Black Loch Conclave is still open. If you’re a patron and you haven’t voted yet, you’ve got one last chance to do so. The two finalists are a deep gnome shipyard and a drow outpost built into the ceiling of the loch. Tomorrrow morning, I’m going to wake up, have a cup of coffee and start drawing whichever map is ahead.

Also, I’m going on vacation early next month. This is really weird for me, since I hardly ever take a day off, but I’ll be away for a little over a week. A few years ago, I spent over three months drawing a map of Mont-Saint-Michel and I finally get to go see the place. While I’m in the area, I’m also going to visit the Chateau de Chenonceau. Yeah, I’m that much of a geek. I draw castles and stuff all day, then I go on vacation to see the castles I drew. It’s legal and you can’t stop me.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll post again tomorrow once the vote ends, but until then, let me know what you think of Skatha’s Rest!

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The Corruption: A Journey Deep into the Heart of Crazy Town

Let’s talk about what this map is intended to be and what I think you should use it for instead. This is a fortified dwarven steelmaking facility that has been infected by the Far Realm. The hellish, alien dimension is slowly pervading reality from below, where the barrier between the realms has weakened the most.

That’s cool and all, but hear me out: hallucinogenic drugs. The party is sent to an abandoned steelworks to recover an advanced dwarven steelmaking crucible. The party will expect that there must be orcs or something living there, but there aren’t. There’s nothing, they can just walk in and get it.

But here’s the thing: on the way, they accidentally ingest some kind of powerful, mind-altering substance. Maybe they fill their waterskins in a creek the locals call the “Stream of Visions.” Maybe the local mushrooms just put out a lot of spores this time of year. In any case, the party consumes a Hunter S. Thompson quantity of hallucinogens without realizing it and strolls into the empty steelworks.

As they begin to explore, the psychotropic substance kicks in and things turn into Fear and Loathing in the Forgotten Realms. There’s stuff coming out of the walls, monsters everywhere, it’s just insanity. At the bottom, they fight some sort of heinous, demonic beast that just flat out wipes the party. Everyone dies. And then they wake up on the floor. Pounding headache, but no monsters. Everyone’s alive. When they make it back to the nearby village, someone’s like, “Oh, no one told you not to drink from the stream? Oopsie.”

The end. That’s what I’d do with this map, anyway. I like playing mind games with the players and this is one I don’t think they’d see coming. I can’t promise they’ll like it, but I’d say they’ll remember it.

Next up, I’ll be drawing the Travelers’ Ruin from the Black Loch. It’s an abandoned building occasionally used by passing sailors to meet up and have a few drinks before getting on their way. After that, I’ll be drawing whichever map wins the Black Loch Conclave, which should be finished fairly soon.

Anyway, that’s it. Let me know what you think of the map! And if you’ve got any other ideas for it, I’d love to hear them.

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My wife drew this map.

I’ve been drawing fantasy maps for a living for about 3 1/2 years now and, in my house, there is exactly one map framed and hanging on the wall. It is this map. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. This might be my favorite map ever.

For context, this is a map of all the places in North America that my wife could identify. It’s important to mention that she’s from Ireland and she was VERY hung over at the time. So, you can laugh at her knowledge of American geography, but only if you know whether Limerick is east or west of Dun Laoghaire. And you have to know how to pronounce Dun Laoghaire.

So, let’s talk about the map. At the top, we have Canada, or rather, CANADA, which is looking good. Below that, we’ve got Ohio, along with Lake Erie above it. Not the most famous place, but it’s where I’m from. Then we’ve got fLorida further down, capitalized in the traditional way. Then, at the bottom, there’s Mexico, which looks pretty solid. Note the possibly-unintentional Baja Peninsula.

Along the west coast, things get interesting. You’ve got an unlabeled California and Oregon, along with a tiny… I’m not sure. Possibly some sort of Canadian Mini-Florida? In any case, she drew an X on it, so there’s apparently treasure.

I’m not sure how useful this map is for RPG purposes, but I put a grid on it just in case. I also made a hex version because, you know, why not.

Well, I hope you like this as much as I do, although I’m not sure that’s possible. This map makes me unspeakably happy.

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The Streets of Vlyn’darastyl – Roof Level

I never know what to say when I post the roof level of a map. “Hey, here’s a useful, but slightly less interesting version of the last map I made!” Whatever, let’s talk about the Black Loch instead.

The loch is about 2/3 of the way done so far and, lately, a lot more people have been messaging me about it. The same thing happened when I was 2/3 of the way through Brazenthrone. The reason is that a lot of people are starting to use it. What I’ll be drawing next doesn’t matter as much when your future campaign is going to be there. But when your current campaign is there, it becomes a lot more relevant.

So, I wanted to list the unfinished locations here, along with whatever I’ve got planned for those places. Also, this is roughly the order I’ll be drawing them in:

  1. Travelers’ Ruin – A ruined structure on the coast of Cairnhollow Isle. The Tideborne orogs from the Deep Spire dock here to hang out and drink from time to time.
  2. Drow Settlement – A small drow community.
  3. Ancient Crypt – No specific plans yet, except that there will be at least one box with a dead person inside it.
  4. Grimlocks – A grimlock settlement.
  5. The Blind Colossus – A huge, eyeless statue standing in the middle of the loch. It will have an interior.
  6. Aboleth Lair – The lair of an aboleth named Psor’il and its minions.
  7. Submerged Ruins – No plans yet.
  8. Duergar Outpost – A small outpost built by the duergar to conduct trade and keep an eye on the loch.
  9. Fortress Ruins – The burnt-out ruins of a fortress near the Isle of Ash.

In addition to the above, there will be one more map that has yet to be decided on by the Black Loch Conclave. I’ll draw it whenever the final vote has ended, which means it’ll probably be first or second.

Anyway, that’s about it. If you’re running a game in the loch right now, I hope things are going well and I’d love to hear what your party has been up to!

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The Streets of Vlyn’darastyl

This is a battlemap for the Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl. It’s mostly meant to be a backdrop for encounters your party might have in the city, but I figured I’d throw a tavern, a shop and a small market in there to give it a little extra utility. By the way, these buildings don’t actually correspond to anyplace on the city map, so don’t go crazy trying to find them. Hopefully no one did that before reading this far.

I’m going to draw a roof-level version of this map as well, which should only take a day or two. After that, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress, the Infected Citadel. This is a small, dwarven hold that’s been tainted by the Far Realm. Things will look fairly normal at the top, but, as you descend, it starts to get stranger and stranger, until reality just completely breaks down at the bottom. Like, the floor becomes a thick mass of worms writhing around giant horse eyeballs. And there’s an eight-eyed fish head sticking out of the wall. Or something like that, I don’t know.

Honestly, I have no idea how I’m going to draw this place, but I’m very much looking forward to figuring it out. I promise you that it will be full-on crazy time.

Anyway, I’m gonna go post the last five proposals for the Black Loch Conclave. Let me know what you think of the map!

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Eel’s Maw Stronghold

The kuo-toa get no respect. I don’t mean from lorebooks, I mean from DMs. When you’re writing an underdark campaign and you need a powerful empire, who do you think of? The drow, sure. The illithids, of course. Maybe the duergar. But the kuo-toa? No, those are trash enemies for random encounters. I mean, sure, sometimes they play a significant role in a story, but they hardly ever take center stage.

Well, the kuo-toa of the Black Loch aspire to a little more than jumping out of the water and getting decapitated by your half-orc barbarian. They’ve got plans to take over the loch and subjugate the other races. Including your precious drow.

The plan is crabs. Siege crabs. Crabs the size of your house with carapaces a foot thick. Walls don’t save you from that. Soldiers don’t save you from that. Running for your life? That might do it.

The kuo-toa have been breeding siege crabs in the caverns below the Eel’s Maw Stronghold for decades and, as soon as the next brood reaches maturity, they’ll be ready to kick things off. The kuo-toa intend to move up in the world, or at least wreak enough havoc to take everyone else down a peg or two.

Next up, I’ll be drawing another map from the Black Loch. This will be a battlemap for the drow city of Vlyn’darastyl. It’ll be a few streets with some houses and shops. Nothing too fancy, just something that’ll make a good backdrop for encounters in the city. I don’t expect it to take too long.

By the way, I thought I’d give away the DM notes for this map, so you can download those here. Also, here are some siege crab tokens and a trebuchet token I made.

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

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Two Things

First, if you’re a patron, I need you to break a tie in the Cartographic Congress. The vote has been 10-10 for several days now, so I’m opening it up to all patrons. It’s time to finish this.

Second, there are a few streamers who have been using my maps lately and I wanted to mention them in case anyone was interested. I get a huge thrill out of seeing videos of people using my stuff. I don’t know, it’s like my map is on TV.

Anyway, DM Filly is running a Spelljammer campaign on Twitch called “Dragonfly” and he’s using my Dragonfly map. I was actually watching his campaign before he started using it and, the first time he did, I swear to god, I did exactly what Leo is doing in the picture above. Here’s links:

Also, Andyisyoda is a Minecraft streamer who’s been building some of my maps on his stream. He recently built Five Arches and, before that, Finbarr’s Marsh.

If anyone else out there is streaming their game and wants to use my maps, you are welcome to do so pretty much unconditionally. If you already are, feel free to post a link to your stream/youtube/podcast/etc in the comments.