D&D General Maps, Maps, Maps! Dungeons, Ruins, Caverns, Temples, and more... aka Where Dyson Dumps His Maps.

[Dyson Logos]

The Chokecherry Islands

Beyond the Mulberry Sea the oceans become wilder and mainly uncharted except along the sealanes between The City of Flowers in the Autumn Lands and Winterspire and Letath on the far shores. Not far off the routes are the Chokecherry islands. They are rarely visited except to resupply along the voyage, or by the smaller traders that ply the routes – the settlements here don’t really qualify as cities to most traders.

There are five islands in close proximity in the chain. “The Twins” to the north, a pair of smaller islands with no established names (they just appear as “Chokecherry Islands” on most charts and maps, although the locals call the smallest jungle-covered island “rot grub island”), and the southern island which is usually called “Mossport” even though that town is the smallest settlement on the islands.

The islands were once home to a major trading empire whose ships plied the oceans in all directions. But all that remains of those days are ruins of ancient cities, some sinking into the swamps, others crumbling into the ocean, and the Pale City using maybe five percent of the old buildings that predate it.

Ship traffic usually avoids the northern of the twin islands, skirting around the desolate “Pale City” for one of the friendlier towns of Crown Port, Mossport, or River Town. The latter of these is the biggest settlement on the islands, and is built on the edge of what was once a citadel for giants. The Giant’s Tor stands as a backdrop to the town with its Brobdingnagian structures, and the river is bridged by a massive stone bridge that once held the traffic of giant feet over the river. All that remains of the giants is a small enclave of degenerate hill giants on the volcanic island across the bay.

I’ve also included a version of the map with notation about the sites to be explored or avoided for intrepid adventurers and merchants.

The Chokecherry Islands

The Chokecherry Islands (300 dpi promo) Beyond the Mulberry Sea the oceans become wilder and mainly uncharted except along the sealanes between The City of Flowers in the Autumn Lands and Winterspi…

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[Dyson Logos]

Ironspire Island

On the western side of Loblolly Lake is a small island clearly visible from the shore because of the rust-red tower that seems almost as big as the island itself. The rust-red rocks of the tower have given the island the moniker of Ironspire – not really all that creative, and definitely not indicative of the actual materials involved (and honestly, it is only a three-story tower, not much of a spire either).

While it is in active use currently (by Counselor Terk’s “operations division”, a squad of adventurers and mercenaries that handle issues that the city can’t address directly), it is a pretty wet and miserable place, especially once you descend into the lower levels. Most of the island is about twelve feet above the beaches at the level of the lake – and close investigation of the cliffs of the island will find a small “sea cave” along the east side that doesn’t seem to go very far under the island. It actually links to a series of tight underwater passages that eventually lead to the cistern under the tower.

Whether or not there is a boat tied up on the stone bollards in the water south of the island, there are foot prints on the southern beach and an obviously well-trod trail between the beach and the door into the tower. The tower itself is made in two parts – a square tower with battlements that juts into the lake (the walls of which extend down the height of the cliffs into the lake proper), and a hexagonal tower with a peaked slate roof that reaches up a level above the square tower.

The interior of the tower is fairly simple, with one room in each of the two portions of the tower on each floor until we descend underground. The ground floor consists of a “welcome” hall where visitors are greeted (often with arms) and a room with an open centre looking down on the level below and spiral stairs up and down the tower.

The second level of the tower contains two rooms used for sitting, reading, playing games, eating, and most other social activities by the inhabitants. Both are pierced in many places by arrow slits, and there are murder holes above the front entrance.

The next level is reached by a ladder in the hexagonal structure that opens to a trapdoor on this level. Here the hexagonal tower has multiple curtained windows and several tables used by the resident alchemist for their experiments – the longest table on the south-east side being a small garden bed for rare herbs and ingredients. This level is the rooftop of the square tower, where a few of the operators spend their time on nice days.

The first level beneath the towers has some storage and serves as a larder and pantry for the rest of the structure. While cooking is usually done on the second level of the hexagonal tower, grabbing a snack usually involves coming down here and searching through barrels of apples and such. The rest of this level is pretty empty, with stairs down to the cistern in the south, and the spiral stairs to the underwater level of the tower.

This lowest level of the tower is perpetually damp and mouldy. The south side is the cistern, where the tower’s emergency water supply is fed from the lake outside. The north side is a set of three wet and unpleasant rooms, and a fourth used by the two very clever scrags that are full members of the operations division, but generally kept under wraps.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 7,200 x 10,800 pixels in size (24 x 36 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares that works with the furnishings as presented) – so resizing it to either 1,680 x 2,520 or 3,360 x 5,040 pixels, respectively.

Ironspire Island

 

[Dyson Logos]

Bareface Canyon Mine

Bareface Canyon is a small box canyon in the badlands roughly a day’s travel from the city. About a hundred years ago a rebellious dwarf came to the canyon and “evicted” the small clan of bugbears lairing in the caves on the west side with extreme prejudice and then started a small mining operation opposite the bugbear caves. The dwarf was obviously an exile from his kin, and went by the ridiculous moniker of “Grimbold”… and due to his shaving of his beard he was more commonly known as Bareface.

Grimbold kept his small silver mine working for about a decade before giving up and moving on (or perhaps being killed by the kin of the bugbears he had evicted). And the box canyon has been generally quiet since then – occasionally used by bandits and exiles as a temporary home but it is either too far from the city or too close to the city for either type of inhabitants and they too move on.

Unbeknownst to the locals though, Bareface Canyon has become the unlikely home to a small cult of assassins in service to Solicitor APHAZROS, Demon of Lost Stones, Distant Relations, and Murder Paid For In Copper. (It’s a strange portfolio, but someone had to take it). They chose this location because it is almost exactly 41,217 steps from the gates of the city (a combination of APHAZROS’s magic numbers of 41, 21 and 7). The once again removed the new clan of bugbears that had taken up residence here, and used magic and pickaxes to add the structure deep in the caves on the northwest side – a small temple to their demonic patron. The rubble from their work was added to the existing piles of tailings from Grimbold’s old silver mine (but any decent miner can immediately tell that the very new stones from the older stones that date back to the mining operation).

And what brings adventurers here? Obviously if they catch wind of the cult of Solicitor APHAZROS most groups will want to deal with it (and some might want to join it). However, there is also an old diary of Grimbold Bareface’s that details where in his mines he hid a few gems that he stole from his old clan before leaving in exile. And there are these weird deaths involving the various bugbear clans in the region, each bugbear being found with a single copper piece pinned to their foreheads…

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 9,600 x 12,000 pixels in size (32 x 40 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares) – so resizing it to either 2,240 x 2,800 or 4,480 x 5,600 pixels, respectively.

Bareface Canyon Mine

Bareface Canyon Mine (300 dpi promo) Bareface Canyon is a small box canyon in the badlands roughly a day’s travel from the city. About a hundred years ago a rebellious dwarf came to the canyo…

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[Dyson Logos]

Beneath the Black Cairn

“The Black Cairn” is the name the locals give the ruins of Bormomble Bastion, razed and forgotten generations ago leaving only some stonework remnants, a few walls, and an ancient doorway into the haunted depths below.

More recently, another entrance has been made, as portions of the underground structure collapse, producing what appears to be a sinkhole amid the ruins that leads deeper into the dungeons. The dungeons themselves provide few hints as to their original purpose – they are multi-tiered and have a number of strange rooms that are quite frankly difficult to explain. A circular chamber with a two-foot-deep lower tier in the centre; a chamber with massive statuary heads on each side leading to the doorway; another with four small columns and a three-foot-deep, one-foot-wide “trench” through the middle of it; and a set of alcoves that feel like they would be tombs, but which have stone tables in them.

There is also a secret passage that connects to three points in the structure, and a small room. This is where the belief that the ruins are haunted comes from – a solitary sorcerer lives within the secret area currently as they prepare to mount a second expedition into the lost depths below. Their first expedition ended in disaster and they are the only survivor. Now they wait for a new team of help to arrive in response to their sendings and guard the area jealously.

The corridor that leads to the Lost Depths is secured by a heavy iron door with a large rusty lock built into it. The lock shows signs of recently being used, and the sorcerer in the secret chamber guards the large brass key jealously.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 7,200 x 10,800 pixels (24 x 36 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 1,680 x 2,520 pixels or 3,360 x 5,040 pixels, respectively.

Beneath the Black Cairn

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak “The Black Cairn” is the name the locals give the ruins of Bormomble Bastion, razed and forgotten generations ago leaving only some stonework remnants, a few w…

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[Dyson Logos]

The Ruined Temple

Deep in the Delaver Jungle is an old temple dedicated to Regent Azaselse, demon of fecundity and unchecked growth. As the Delaver Jungle grew up around the temple, the congregation slowly declined and moved on – after all, the unchecked growth of the wild jungles were a success, and the strange mutations of the local troglodytes made them more and more dangerous…

The doors to the temple interior are all locked and sealed to keep others out, but the years have not been kind to the rest of the structure. Many of the main worship area’s crystalline windows are shattered, and one of the heavier crystal windows on the east side has been pushed through by a huge carnivorous plant.

The chambers beyond the main worship area are a mess. Years ago the local troglodytes managed to get in via the window where the carnivorous plant is now and dug around much of the building searching for tools and weapons they could use. Breaking the taboos of the church kept only the bravest of the troglodyte warriors away, and even they would not dare to descend the stairs into the lower reaches of the building.

Later explorers climbed in through the broken windows, but could not get through the sealed portals and were unwilling to risk the plant beast. Attempts to break through the secret door using the massive pews as a battering ram proved ineffective and they abandoned their pursuit of treasure.

The area below the temple has been intentionally left blank – a place where any other dungeon can be placed.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 9,600 x 9,600 pixels (32 x 32 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 2,240 x 2,240 pixels or 4,480 x 4,480 pixels, respectively.

The Ruined Temple

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak Deep in the Delaver Jungle is an old temple dedicated to Regent Azaselse, demon of fecundity and unchecked growth. As the Delaver Jungle grew up around the temple, the con…

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[Dyson Logos]

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map F

The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits to the south of map E and to the east of map A. The goal of the Autumn Lands is to produce a series of commercial-use hexmaps that can be used in their entirety, or just one map for a specific adventure. There’s no set scale for these maps, and the items on the maps are not to scale with each other so we can see points of interest like towers, cities, and caves. If you really need a scale for this and don’t want to pick one yourself, go with six miles to the hex.

For this series, I’ve been working with the style I started putting together a couple of years ago where the rivers run along the hex borders – this allows for river travel to be great for exploration as you can see the hexes on each side of the river as you go. This encourages exploration-style games to stick to the rivers a lot, much like explorers did in the real world.

This map covers the southwest portion of the valley that has been at the heart of the inland maps released so far. Here the barrier mountains that surround the valley become easier to traverse with several passes leading through them before they descend into the badlands seen in Map A. This region is dominated by badlands along the valley edge, and the northern extent of the DrownedWoods in the southwest.

There are a few settlements in this region, all on the far side of the mountains. A city sits on the lake on the south side of RiverPass, and a small farming village is on another tributary of the river as it descends from the mountains. Along the roads here there are a caravanserai, a small settlement built up around a large roadside inn, and an isolated fortified city that does not welcome visitors – looming over the road that passes nearby but never opening its gates for travellers.

Other points of interest include a rocky spire with the carving of a massive snake climbing it (or perhaps an actual petrified giant snake of gargantuan scale); the edges of the mushroom jungle in the northeast; a barren single-hex plateau in the DrownedWoods; a ziggurat of immense scale in the northwest; and a two-hex long ravine with the remnants of an ancient city along the bottom and built into the walls.

I've also attached a map compiling all six of the released maps so far:

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map F

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map F (300 dpi promo, no commercial license) The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits to the south of map E and to the east of map A. The…

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[Dyson Logos]

The Crumbling Gate

The old ruins between Redwick Bush and Mournstead would be completely unnotable and irrelevant except that the farmers’ path between the towns passes right through them.

Besides the crumbling wall and gate through it, the main element of the ruins are the three towers – two are reduced nearly down to their foundations, while the largest crumbling stone structure looms over the wall as if it were to fall upon the path at any moment. While the smaller towers had long-rotted away wooden floors between the levels, the larger tower had stone floors and a heavily reinforced stairwell that has kept it standing far longer than the rest of the ruins.

To adventurers walking along the path, this is almost the perfect setup for an ambush, and many will be unwilling to cross through the gate, instead looking for another way around. The ruins are easily avoided on foot, but navigating a wagon or cart through the rough lands around the ruins will be difficult and potentially damaging. Fortunately, this road is well travelled, so really… what are the odds that some group of monsters or bandits have moved in? Or worse, some bandit monsters?

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 13,200 x 10,200 pixels (44 x 34 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 3,080 x 2,380 pixels or 6,160 x 4,760 pixels, respectively.

Crumbling Gate

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak The old ruins between Redwick Bush and Mournstead would be completely unnotable and irrelevant except that the farmers’ path between the towns passes right through t…

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[Dyson Logos]

Treasure Room in the Goblin Warrens

The Grak’Thar Clan of goblins are the current residents of these twisting and looping caves tucked deep beneath the roots of ancient, twisted trees. The walls are rough and jagged, adorned with crude drawings and symbols that tell the goblins’ history and beliefs. Here and there, bioluminescent fungi cast an eerie, otherworldly glow, illuminating the damp, musty corridors. The air is thick with the scent of earth, goblin waste, and decay, punctuated by the occasional scurrying of unseen creatures.

The warren was established generations ago by a cunning goblin chieftain named Grak, who sought refuge from encroaching human settlers. Legend has it that Grak, with the help of her shaman, invoked ancient magics to entwine the tunnels into the hillside and roots of the great twisted tree above them.

The caves serve not only as a home but also as a fortress against invaders. Adventurers and rival tribes have attempted to penetrate the warren, and the warren’s history is marred by tales of brutal battles, with the bones of the fallen left to lie as grim reminders.

Surprisingly close to one of the entrances to the warrens is a small deep cavern that serves as the clan chieftain’s treasure room. The entrance to this cave is hidden behind a secret door buried in the roots of the tree above. The location of this cave and the methods of opening the secret passage are passed down by the chieftain to her children only shortly before her death – the only other goblin who knows of the treasure cave is the clan shaman who also passes the secret down to their apprentices.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 9,600 x 9,600 pixels in size (32 x 32 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares that works with the furnishings as presented) – so resizing it to either 2,240 x 2,240 or 4,480 x 4,480 pixels, respectively.

The Treasure Room in the Goblin Warrens

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak The Grak’Thar Clan of goblins are the current residents of these twisting and looping caves tucked deep beneath the roots of ancient, twisted trees. The walls are ro…

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[Dyson Logos]

Circe’s Palace

I was setting up for a game of the Agon RPG (where the PCs travel from mysterious island to mysterious island, face the challenges there, and then move on trying to get home) when I remembered the old RoleAids Wizards book and one of my favourite sequences within – where the AD&D party becomes part of the Odyssey and arrive at Circe’s Island. The main thing I loved was the extensive random table to see what capricious naughty word the gods bless / curse the party with each day. This is a redesign / redraw of Circe’s Palace from that adventure, originally drawn by James Clouse.

Circe’s Palace is an exercise in movie-pastiche-Greek design. A palace constructed entirely of massive stone columns with the main hallways having no roof over them. Between the columns are billowing shimmering gossamer walls of fish scales given to Circe by her mother Perse, the ocean nymph. The curtains are sheer during the day, and opaque at night – further they are immune to fire and even the sharpest blade cannot cut them. They may look light and pointless, but they will prevent anyone unauthorized from moving through the palace except along the open paths through the main chamber, along the grassy halls, and through to Circe’s personal areas on the north side of the palace. The gossamer walls are impenetrable except to Circe and her 129 daughters and granddaughters for whom they part with but a brush of the hand. The entrance to the palace is also sealed off with these same curtains at night, keeping strangers and thieves in the night at bay.

Behind the palace are many animal pens – the largest is for the many goats kept here, with other pens for swine, peacocks, jackals, wolves, sheep, weasels, rabbits, skunks, mules, swans, and oxen. Of course, these animals are not natural, but are adventurers and sailors who landed here and were judged unworthy by Circe and turned into the animal type that most suits them. In time, these animals will be served up as a feast for the next group of sailors to arrive on the islands, or perhaps used to feed the many solitary lions on the islands that are Circe’s remaining sons.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 16,500 x 14,400 pixels (55 x 48 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares that make sense with the furnishings shown) – so resizing the image to 3,850 x 3,360 pixels or 7,700 x 6,720 pixels, respectively.

Circe’s Palace

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak I was setting up for a game of the Agon RPG (where the PCs travel from mysterious island to mysterious island, face the challenges there, and then move on trying to get ho…

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[Reynard]

View attachment 393046

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map F

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map F (300 dpi promo, no commercial license) The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits to the south of map E and to the east of map A. The…

dysonlogos.blog

I decided to use this map for my D&D 2024 sandbox campaign. During session 0 last night, me and my players were scrolling around examining every nook and cranny. it is a great map, full of wonder and inspiration.

Thanks @Dyson Logos