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VTT stuff is much better now.

I’ve got news for Roll20, Foundry and EncounterPlus DMs, as well as some news about Brazenthrone. Let’s take it one at a time.

Roll20

I started using a new script to allow you to automatically make walls for your maps. It’s called Universal VTT Importer and it’s better for a few reasons: first, it makes both walls and doors. Second, it works with Dungeondraft, so I can make proper walls for you instead of the janky ones with all the dots.

As a guy who draws his own maps by hand on paper, I didn’t expect that I’d ever have a need for Dungeondraft, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, the wall commands you need are with the VTT files for the oasis map (in the “Newest Patron Content” folder). There are also instructions on how to use them. Follow my instructions, not the ones in the link above. I did some of that stuff for you.

Foundry

I finally got around to cleaning up the public Foundry module and, uh… that thing really had some problems, huh? Sorry about that, but they’re all taken care of. The grids all line up, the walls are all aligned properly and I took care of a bunch of other little things that I noticed.

Mostly, the problem was that I didn’t make some of my older maps with VTTs in mind and it caused issues. I won’t bore you with the details. I did take a few maps out because they would be an enormous pain to get their grids aligned, but these were almost all from my early black and white days. In other words, they were crap. I made the effort for anything good, like Finbarr’s Marsh and Neuschwanstein. Still, if anyone was planning a massive, five-year campaign around Burdock’s Trading Post, I do apologize.

Here’s the manifest URL for the public module. You’ll have to uninstall the old one and install this, but in the future, I’ll make them updateable. For patrons, the Wahat Al-Hasan Oasis is now in the patrons’ module. The manifest URL is in the Table of Contents.

EncounterPlus

The best news is for you. I’ve converted both of the Foundry modules into EncounterPlus modules. This took some work, since the converter is very particular about everything being a certain way. Missing image file? Something out of place? Oh hell no! Call the whole thing off, ABORT, ABORT! I ran the converter, got an error message, fixed the problem, ran it again, got another error, fixed that problem and, after doing this about seven million times, I finally present to you: the public EncounterPlus module.

Everything in the public Foundry module is in here. 66 maps, ~275 tokens and a few dozen journal files. There’s also a patrons’ module, which is in the patron content drive, in a folder in the VTT section.

One word of warning: I haven’t tested that the public module works yet. I don’t have a Mac and I can’t run E+, but the patrons’ module has been tested and it should be fine. Also, I need to thank Matt C. for helping me with this. It would not exist without him. If the public module is confirmed as working, I’m going to send it to the E+ devs to give out to anyone who wants it.

Brazenthrone

The following is something I’m really going to regret saying later. Still, here goes:

I’ve been thinking about doing the walls and doors for Brazenthrone lately and I’m feeling like it’s hard to justify not doing it. It’s an insane task, but, I mean, it’s tens of hours of work for me that saves other people a combined total of hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. So… I’m going to do it. God, that was really hard to type.

The thing is, I need to do this in a way that enables me to not go completely nuts. So, the plan is to do it a bit at a time. I’m thinking I’ll spend one day on it between maps. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but– like Brazenthrone itself– it’ll get done eventually.

I’ll release it in the form of Universal VTT Importer commands for Roll20 and modules for Foundry and EncounterPlus. I’ll do FantasyGrounds if I can find a converter, but I haven’t seen one yet. Most of it will probably be for patrons, but I’ll make some of the really crazy stuff– like the Great Hall– public. No one should have to draw the walls for that monstrosity. Well, except me.

Anyway, I’ll spend a day on this after I get done with the next map. We’ll see how it goes.

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Wahat Al-Hasan Oasis

I did quite a bit of research for this map, particularly on Middle Eastern architecture and furnishings. It isn’t based on any real place, but it was inspired by the Masjid Wazir Khan in Pakistan and the Buland Darwaza in India.

As I was skimming through the various reference material I used here, I came across something largely unrelated, but ridiculously awesome: zamburaks. This is a small cannon mounted on a camel. Not pulled by a camel, mounted on the camel. It’s a camel with a cannon turret on its back and I swear to god it was a real thing that people did. My players are in the middle of a frozen wasteland at the moment and I want to stop everything and drag them out to a desert just so I can have them get shot at by a camel cannon.

I’ll resist the urge to do that, but maybe you don’t have to. See the stables in the map there? *Slaps roof* This bad boy can fit six zamburaks in it. I am just saying.

Next up is last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a village for an amphibious people, located on a hill that is submerged during high tide. An inn at the top of the hill is the only structure permanently above water. I’ve got a lot of ideas churning around for this one and I think it’ll end up being pretty interesting. Anyway, let me know what you think of the map! Or zamburaks.

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The Fortified Oasis – Work-In-Progress

Here’s the first floor of the oasis, almost finished. The other two floors are also nearly done, so I should have this finished in a couple days.

This floor doesn’t have many of the rugs I mentioned earlier, which are mostly on the level above. There’s one room with seven rugs. It’s like Discount Carpet Warehouse in there. And the hookah room has five. Yeah, there’s a hookah room. And I sincerely apologize in advance for whatever happens when the stoner in your group gets there.

Okay, just wanted to show you how it was coming. Back to work.

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Several Small Things

I’ve got the next map– the Fortified Oasis– fully penciled and ready to ink. But before I get started on that, I wanted to mention a few other things I got done:

Anyway, that’s all. I’m gonna get back to work on the oasis. I was up drawing until pretty late last night because, as it turns out, if you draw a million rugs on a map, you then have to come up with designs for a million rugs. It does look pretty cool, though. I think you’re gonna like it.

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The Brazenthrone Codex, Third Edition

I know some of you may have an instinctually negative response to hearing about a switch from second to third edition, but I promise you, this third edition is not a downgrade from the second that will slowly grow worse and take twenty years to rectify.

This is the complete Codex with all the expanded annotated maps and DM notes from Brazenthrone, along with a few drawings I included for the sake of fanciness.

While making this, I was slightly surprised to learn that I still remember how to draw a person! There was a time when I drew a lot of those, but it’s been a while. I think I did respectably well, anyway.

Anyway, this wraps up Brazenthrone. The response has been overwhelming, which I’m really happy about. Hopefully it opens up doors for people to do things they couldn’t otherwise, or inspires them to write epic adventures in the city.

Next, we have four maps remaining from the Great Vote: the fortified oasis, the floating market, the aarakocra village and the Deepspire. Those will be the next four maps, aside from one or two Cartographic Congress maps. I’m going to draw the fortified oasis first. It’s been a while since we’ve been to the middle east and I’ve been looking forward to drawing this for a long time.

I’m also going to get the Foundry module and the Roll20 VTT stuff sorted out and updated with the Old Palace. Let me know what you think of the new codex!

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The Dwarven City of Brazenthrone is finished.

I’ve been an artist for my entire life and this is easily the best thing I’ve ever drawn. I wish I could show it to 12-year-old me. He would’ve gone wild. To be honest, he and I aren’t that different, although I’d say I’m at least 10% more mature.

The last two years have been quite a journey and I want to thank my patrons for joining me on it– or maybe I should say taking me on it. They deserve a lot of credit for this. I made Brazenthrone, but they made Brazenthrone happen.

This is a map that could only exist through crowdfunding and that was part of the idea from the start. No publisher will ever commission an artist to make something like this and the amount of work involved– around 2500 hours– is prohibitively high for a hobby project. But they covered my rent and bills and put food in my fridge for two years, giving me the ability to work on this and other maps full time, which is the way this gets done. That’s how you make a Brazenthrone.

But, while my patrons financed the drawing of this map, it isn’t just for them. It’s for the rest of the community as well. It’s for the teenage DMs, the broke college student DMs and the older DMs who are having a rough time at the moment. I don’t want anyone to be unable to use Brazenthrone on account of money and I want to make sure the resources to use it are available.

For that reason, I’m making the Brazenthrone Codex– containing all the DM notes and expanded annotated maps– free for everyone. I’m also giving out a collection of all the maps. They were all free already, but some of the older web versions didn’t work well with VTTs, so I replaced them with 35px VTT versions that will. You can download all that here.

Alternatively, you can just load the map above, enter a grid size of 728×1176 and watch your computer’s exhaust vent spew flames like it’s trying to reach low earth orbit. Let me know how it goes.

The Brazenthrone Codex does need an update and I’m going to add all the maps and DM notes that aren’t included in about two days. I’m also adding a few small illustrations and giving it a cover. I was planning on giving this stuff out as a Christmas present to the community, but then I started typing and… well, you’re getting it early. It’s from my patrons, too. I picked it out, but they paid for it.

So, let’s talk about what’s next. I want to map out an entire campaign setting. In a way, that’s what Brazenthrone is, but this is different. The setting is a small sea in the Underdark called “The Black Loch” and it will be much, much bigger than Brazenthrone.

Unlike Brazenthrone, however, there will not be a map of every square inch of it. Instead, there will be a map of the region with all the notable locations marked. Things like a kuo-toa village, a duergar outpost, a drow city, abandoned structures, some islands with ruins, caves, maybe something underwater. For each location, I’ll draw a 5′-per-tile battlemap, so your players can explore the loch and, wherever they go, you have a map. There will probably be 15-20 locations in all, depending on how many good ideas I come up with. I can’t promise an exact number, but I can promise that, when I run out of interesting places to add, I’ll put the pencil down. I won’t waste time drawing filler.

There’s already one map I’ve decided will be a part of the Black Loch: The Drow City of Vlyn’darastyl. This is probably the only part that will get a city map instead of a battlemap, but I may make a battlemap of a specific building or two there.

Before I get started on that, I’ll be drawing the four remaining maps from the Great Vote, which are listed in this post (1,3, 4 and 5). The last one– The Deepspire– will also probably be a part of the Black Loch.

So, that’s the plan. If you’ve been with me on this journey, I hope you’ll come along for the next one. And if you’re just finding all this for the first time, you didn’t get here late. This may be the end of Brazenthrone, but it’s the beginning of everything else.

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Brazenthrone – The Old Palace

Here are the annotated version and the DM notes. All the patron content for this map is free to everyone and you can download it here.

This is the last chamber of Brazenthrone, but the map isn’t finished yet. It’ll be finished when it’s all put together in a single image, so we can sit back, look at the entire city and wonder why anyone would ever do such a thing. I’ll give a whole big speech and everything, it’ll be great.

It shouldn’t take longer than a day or two, depending on how many times it crashes Photoshop. Making this thing crashed it at least a dozen times, but I think I know a better way of doing it. Hopefully it works, because there’s a LOT to add to that.

I do have some bad news, though: Roll20 seems to have gotten an update and the Walls API script I was using to give you maps with the dynamic lighting set up doesn’t seem to work anymore. And, since I was making the Foundry version by exporting the Roll20 version, I can’t do that either. I’ve found another script to replace it (written by the same person) and I’ll get you some walls for this once I’ve got a minute to sit down and work out how to use it. EDIT: Nevermind, the script just needed to be restarted. I’ll make the VTT stuff in a few days.

I haven’t forgotten about EncounterPlus either. But first, I REALLY want to finish up Brazenthrone. Here’s what I’ve got left to do:

  • Put it all together
  • Update the Brazenthrone Codex with the rest of the maps and DM notes
  • Make some art for the Codex. Not maps, drawings. Whatever I can sketch in a day or two to make it look nice, maybe give it a cover.

After that, I’ll get on that VTT stuff and we’ll talk about what’s coming next. Well, I’m gonna start putting this stuff together so we can see what two years of drawing a map gets you.

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Here’s the first floor of the Old Palace.

There are two more levels of Brazenthrone‘s Old Palace, both of which are nearly done. I’ll have it all up in a day or two, but I thought I’d give you a look at the first floor since it’s finished.

The large room at the upper center is the throne room. The Brazen Throne was removed and currently occupies the new throne room in the High King’s Palace. The symbol on the floor is the Brazen Hand and represents the royal Brasshand Clan. It’s an older and slightly different version of the symbol that can be seen in the new palace.

The other symbol represents the Kingdom of the Twelve Mountains, the nation that Brazenthrone is the capital of. The runes around the edges spell out the motto of the Twelve Mountains: “Many Clans in Peace, One Clan in Strife.”

Anyway, that’s all. I’m gonna finish up the rest.

 

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The Thronebrazing Kit – Also, the Foundry Module is now online.

Do you use Foundry? Are you dissatisfied with how small Brazenthrone is and wish you could make more of it? If you answered no to both, there’s nothing here for you, feel free to go about your day.

Foundry first. Here’s the manifest URL so you can install it the grown up way: http://modules.milbysmaps.com/MMPublic/module.json

That’s all.

On to Brazenthrone. I was asked about making assets to allow people to create new chambers of the city. I said, sure, I can put a few things together for you. Then I just went completely overboard and, next thing I know, I’m clipping stuff out of a dozen different maps, saying, “Better get that duplex hammer, you never know if someone’s gonna need one of those.”

So, here’s 80 or so assets. These include the ones I made previously and some new ones. There are empty chambers, floors and walls that tile seamlessly and an assortment of various other stuff. It should be enough to let you smash something together in Photoshop, anyway. The person asking for these said he was interested in making a Dungeondraft asset pack out of them, so there are 256ppi versions for that as well. By the way, let me know if there’s anything else you need for that.

Okay, that’s all for now. I’m going to bed.

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Kasan-Tir Mining Outpost – “I like it but I’m not into the tunnel thing” Edition

Here are the tunnels to go with this.

There were two experimental things I did with this map and one of them seems to have gone over well, while the other didn’t. A few patrons let me know, which I appreciate, since it helps me make decisions about stuff like this in the future.

Anyway, I made an alternate version without the tunnels for the patrons’ edition maps in case anyone really didn’t like the original one and I figured I should give it out to non-patrons as well. My patrons seem to prefer this one and, in general, I assume that my patrons and non-patrons are likely to have similar opinions about my work. I’m not big on gating off content and I want everyone to have a version of this map they can use.

The other thing included here is the tunnels. These are a VTT token, but they’re printable too. The idea was that they could be placed in a hidden layer– either under the path or off to the side– then revealed when the players get in and make their way down into them.  Or, if you’re printing the map, you could cut them out as an overlay or keep them as a separate page.

Anyway, I hope this is more useful to you! I’m gonna try to get all those things I talked about in the last post done today, so I’d better get to it.