Greyhawk's Underdark

[Maldin]

For Greyhawk DMs who are interested in starting (or who already have) an underdark campaign...

The latest update to my website is a regional-scale, layered PDF map of the underdark beneath the World of Greyhawk and accompanying descriptions, combining the GDQ Queen of the Spiders adventure series, the Night Below campaign setting, and the locations described in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (a highly underrated 1E sourcebook to which all later underdark supplements owe a lot). If you are thinking of running an underdark campaign in Greyhawk - using any of the underdark sourcebooks published for any edition of D&D - this regional-scale map could place it all in geographic context. For example, the Drow of the Underdark 3E sourcebook by our very own Ari Marmell/aka Mouseferatu could easily be used to flesh out Area 28 of my map. I haven't seen the new 4E Underdark book yet, but I'm sure parts of it can be retrofitted to this as well.

Do click on the link to download the PDF. The map jpg image on the webpage really is just a glorified thumbnail for the layered, high-resolution map.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Maldin]

An update on my Greyhawk's Underdark page...

There have been people on some of the boards who asked about depth information, and a way to understand the relationship between the different levels a bit better, so I created a cross-sectional view of the area with elevation/depth and added it to the webpage. Check it out! Keep in mind that the profile has a huge vertical exaggeration, and represents approximately 300 miles of horizontal distance.

If you've downloaded the pdf, turning all of the layers off, then turning each of the individual levels on and off in turn (and looking at two at a time) should give a good idea of how they relate to each other. I can tell from my site logs that alot of people viewing the page don't download the layered pdf - which is the key point of the page.

If anyone has any questions at all about any part of it, ask away!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Cyronax]

Maldin,

I've been a lurker on your website for years. Greyhawk is the world I really dug my teeth into as a teenager (in the late 90's -- circa the Greyhawk AOL days).

I loved your take on the Underdark. Great content and great artistry/presentation. I was especially impressed by the layered effect you put into your Underdark pdf. I have worked with such features before, but didn't know adobe allowed them as well.

C.I.D.

 

[Maldin]

Thanks, Cyronax! I'm glad you've found my site useful and enjoyable.

At some point soon I'll update my "Guide to RPG mapmaking" webpage and add a bit of discussion on making layered maps. The layers were created in Photoshop with transparency and exported as individual PDFs for each layer. The PDFs were then merged as layers of a single page using a plug-in for Acrobat Pro. The older version of Acrobat Pro that I have cannot build layered PDFs on its own. I don't know if the newest version can do it on its own or not.

Denisk aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

 

[Maldin]

For those people interested, I've updated the Greyhawk's Underdark section of my website with a redrawn index map from the classic D-series of modules written by EGG, and have begun using it as the index map for new fan-created encounters from the Dragonsfoot Collaborative Project "Mapping the Depths of the Earth" which is developing the remaining locations from the original map. There is a high-resolution version of the index map available, and the new encounter areas are available as PDFs. Only a dozen are ready now, with a few more coming up soon, however check back in the future as people complete their encounters and I post them to the website. You'll also find more information there about the DF community project itself.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, mysteries, magic, mechanics, and more!