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I will send you instantaneous telegrams.

While I’m not generally a big fan of social media, I am a big fan of getting more feedback on my work, so I recently made an Instagram account.

I probably would’ve done this sooner, but I don’t actually own a smartphone. Yes, I know, I am the world’s youngest 90-year-old man. Still, if you want to see fantasy maps posted from a phone emulator on a desktop by a person who began using Instagram in late 2021, go ahead and follow me.

Also, I have one question for people who didn’t start using Instagram yesterday: is it okay to post pictures sideways, or do people hate that? Some maps only fit that way, but if it’s considered obnoxious, I’ll stop.

Okay, I’m gonna go color the thing in the picture.

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Gamblers’ Key – A Pirate Fortress and Casino

Here’s the unfurnished version of this map.

Gambler’s Key is a pirate lord’s fortress with a casino in the front and a loading bay for pirates to drop off their plundered cargo in the rear. It’s sort of the opposite of a mullet: a party in the front, business in the back. Well, I guess it depends which side you consider the front, but… whatever, let’s not overthink it.

Ryan, who proposed this map to the Cartographic Congress, asked me to make a token of this as well. Basically, the token is for inserting the island onto a sea map in which the party’s ship is 1-2 tiles in size. Anyway, you’re all welcome to it as well and you can download it here.

The other week, I talked about drawing a map of Fort Bourtange, a star fort in the Netherlands. I want to get that started fairly soon, so here’s the plan: I want to get a Black Loch map drawn this month, so I’m going to do that next. I’ll be drawing the “secluded manse,” which is the home of a powerful wizard living on the island of Driders’ Rock.

After that, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a floating, thirteen-level tower dedicated to magical experiments and research with a dock for airships. And then I’ll be drawing Fort Bourtange. I’d like to get started on it around the beginning of next month, but we’ll see how long the other two maps take. Sound good? I hope so.

Anyway, let me know what you think of Gamblers’ Key!

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

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Gamblers’ Key is almost done.

This is the finished first level. I’ve been giving this map some extra love, but the rest is almost done too. I’ve gotta finish up a few more details, draw a sideview, and write the DM notes, but I should have it all done in about two days. Also, I hope you like that water, because that is probably the best-looking water I’ve ever drawn.

Okay, back to work.

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Gamblers’ Key (Work-in-Progress)

These are the lower two levels of the pirate fortress/gambling hall I’m working on. All this is underground. There’s a third level above this showing the top of the island and the buildings above ground, but I ran out of room on my desk.

On the bottom floor, you’ve got storage, sleeping quarters and facilities for receiving stolen goods. Then, on the left side of the floor above, you’ve got the gambling hall. And on both levels, there are a variety of places to fire cannons from in case the cops show up.

Anyway, I’m gonna get back to coloring this. Hope you like it so far!

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A Message for Streamers. Also, I’m drawing this.

If you stream your game, YOU HEREBY HAVE MY PERMISSION to use my maps in your streams. I’d have said this earlier, but I wasn’t aware until recently that a lot of people think it’s illegal or unethical to do so without permission. In any case, I want to make sure any streamers out there know where I stand on it.

This does not come with conditions. You can use my maps whether you are making money from your stream or not. You can use them whether you are a small streamer, a large streamer, or literally Matt Mercer. You do not have to be a patron, nor do you have to interrupt your game to say, “This map has been brought to you by Milby’s Maps,” or anything like that. Just use them and have fun. I’m good with it.

Okay, so the picture above is a place in the Netherlands called Fort Bourtange. It was built by Willem van Oranje during the Eighty Years’ War, in which the Low Countries fought for their independence from the Spanish Empire. I’ve been thinking about drawing a map of this place for at least a year or two, but I recently decided to make it the next historical map. I’m not sure when I’ll get started, but I’m hoping to find time for it by the end of the year.

Anyway, that’s about it. I’m gonna get back to drawing the pirate fortress. If you’ve got any thoughts on any of this, let me know!

Photo Credit: Dack9, Wikipedia

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Tokens and an Updated Black Loch Map

 

Here’s the updated Black Loch map.

All this stuff is free for everyone. You can download it here.

So, these are the tokens I drew. I’d say you can figure out what most of these critters are, although you may have some questions about the half-orc with a mustache and a combover holding a cup of coffee. That’s Stan– short for Stanislaus, not Stanley– and he’s my character in a game I’m playing in.

You know your dad’s friend from work? That’s Stan. He’s a strange sort of RPG character, but the campaign he’s in involves flying around the solar system in a spelljammer searching for dragonballs, so he’s less weird than you’d think. And one of the other PCs is a railway maintenance robot, so there’s a case to be made that Stan isn’t even the weirdest one in the party.

Anyway, I know nobody else needs Stan’s token, but I thought I’d throw him in there just in case. I’d rather you have Stan and not need him than need Stan and not have him.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m gonna get started on the next map.

Oh, one last thing– if you’re new here, I made around 300 more tokens you can also have. Feel free to share them if you know anyone who’d want them.

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The Halls of the Awakened – Unfurnished

Here’s the unfurnished version I promised. Instead of talking about it, I’d like to share something completely useless with you. I was looking through the 5th Ed. Monster Manual today and I noticed that there were a TON of entries starting with D. The D’s start on page 46 and end on 122. Anyway, I did what any crazy person would do and I got out a calculator. There are 76 pages of D’s out of a total of 304 pages of monsters, meaning that 25% of the monsters in the Monster Manual start with the letter D. And what’s the game called? That’s right… D&D.

*head explodes*

A few months back, I said I was going to draw some more tokens and I intend to start on that. The reason I hadn’t before is that I was a little behind on things, mostly as a result of the Cobalt Flotilla taking a bit longer than I’d anticipated. Anyway, I’m now caught up and I’ll get started on those today. Hopefully, I’ll be posting them tomorrow, then another batch every month or so.

After that, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: “a pirate lord’s fortress with a casino and underground lair hewn out of granite.” That proposal won the vote by the biggest margin I’ve seen in a long time, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s a thing a lot of people would like a map of. It’ll be like the Mont Acceaux Casino, except you don’t get kicked out for throwing up all over the floor.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work. Let me know what you think of the map!

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The Halls of the Awakened

 

The Halls of the Awakened is a cultists’ lair hidden deep in the Black Loch. If you’re interested in my version of the lore, I’ve written a giant wall of text about it in the DM notes here. I’ll have an unfurnished version of the map for you tomorrow.

A bad guy lair with an entrance inside a cavern isn’t anything new, but I intentionally made the caverns here pretty big. As the party makes their way through, it gives them time to get a little paranoid. And to start asking questions, like, “Is this the right place?” And, “What if that person lied to us?” And, “What if this is a trap?” It creates some tension and makes them feel like they’re someplace dangerous, which is the mood I like to create in a dungeon.

If you read the lore I wrote about this place in the last post, it has a lot to do with psionics. I expect most people will probably use this map for something else, but, in case you’re interested in inserting the Architects of the Awakened into your game, I wrote some ideas for psionic powers into the DM notes.

Of course, you can use the rules for the unofficial Mystic class if you want, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a psionic NPC. What am I looking for? Darth Vader. No, seriously. If I’m introducing a powerful force the players are unfamiliar with, I want it to scare the hell out of them. I want them to get telekinetically flung across the room like a rag doll. I want to have stone walls flying at them and ceilings coming down on their heads. I want stuff to happen that isn’t in the Players’ Handbook.

If you throw a fireball at the party, they know what that does. “It’s fine, no big deal, we’ve got the HP to handle it.” But when you tell someone they can no longer breathe? They don’t know what that does. There are rules, of course, but they don’t know what they are because I made them up. The unknown can be pretty scary, especially for experienced players who aren’t used to surprises.

Anyway, I’ll get the unfurnished version of this up tomorrow, along with the updated Black Loch map that has the location marked on it. I’ll also talk about what’s next. Until then!

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The Lore of The Architects of the Awakening

The Architects of the Awakening are a duergar cult who were the villains of my previous campaign. They’re also the subject of the next Black Loch map and they have a fairly complex story. My group broke up before I got the chance to tell it all, so I’m going to write it out here in case any of you find them interesting enough to use in your own game.

For a TL;DR, check the end of the last post.

First, we need to talk a bit about duergar history. The duergar were a clan of dwarves who were enslaved by mind flayers for several thousand years.  They eventually rose up against their masters and won their freedom, but their hatred for the illithids never faded.

Some time later, a duergar queen named Duerra launched a war on an illithid city, capturing the residents and performing experiments on them to discover the secrets of their mental powers. She is said to have found the source of their psionic essence and to have infused it into her own people. This tale is more legend than history, but, for the purposes of this story, it is the truth.

It is indisputably true that the duergar possess more of a talent for psionics than most races, but, despite having the psionic essence of the illithids within them, their powers are nowhere near those of their former masters. The question of why this might be is one that the duergar have never really asked. But, about 100 years ago, a priestess named Astali, a follower of Deep Duerra– the aforementioned queen who later became a goddess– started asking it. And she was determined to find an answer.

Continue reading “The Lore of The Architects of the Awakening”

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The Tigers’ Nest Monastery

Some monasteries make wine, while other monasteries make bread. This monastery makes bareknuckle kung-fu killing machines. Or, as they’re known in D&D, monks.

As a DM, having a monk in the party can be a little difficult. Not because there’s anything wrong with the class, but because coming up with useful loot for a monk is tough. They’re like warriors who don’t want magic weapons or armor, but they’re not spellcasters, so they don’t want wizard and cleric stuff either. Bracers of Defense are good and so is a Ring of the Ram, but after that, what do they even want?

One solution that’s worked for me is giving monks abilities instead of items. Have someone teach them the “Iron Palm” and give them +1 on all their unarmed attacks. It’s basically a magic weapon for a character that doesn’t use weapons.

This kind of thing can be good for druids who spend all their time shapeshifted, too, since they’re also pretty hard to find presents for. With druids, I’d present it as the blessing of a nature spirit or something, but the idea is the same. You can do this with other classes as well, but the rest tend to be a lot easier to please.

Next up, I’ll be drawing a map for the Black Loch. This is a new addition that isn’t marked on the map: The Architects of the Awakening. They’re a duergar cult that were the villains of my last campaign and they’ve got a fairly complicated story. The very short version is this:

The duergar race have the psionic essence of the mind flayers within them, but their psionic abilities are nowhere near those of the illithids. A duergar priestess believes she can awaken that essence in her people, granting them the same power the illithids have. She has found a way to do it, but she and her followers must act in secret, as her methods would be considered a heinous abomination by every living thing on earth, the duergar included.

I’ll make a separate post about it in a day or two that explains their story in more detail if you’re interested. Until then, I hope you like the Tigers’ Nest. Let me know what you think!

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