I draw the occasional D&D map

[Dyson Logos]

It should come as no surprise for anyone who has had to deal with the Obsidian Clan bugbears that Nagmer the Terrible meets anyone who requests to parlay with him in the most ridiculously ostentatious cavern setup he could arrange.

Nagmer’s throne cavern is a multi-tiered affair with a natural stone bridge over an underground river. The whole cavern is lit by a massive colony of well-fed fire beetles that crawl along the floor, walls and stalactites. Any discussion with Nagmer is usually conducted by yelling from the stone bridge as his guards block the way onto the north side of the cavern.

The vast majority of these negotiations end without any success, and a fair number end with Nagmer enjoying the envoy for dinner.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/16/throne/

 

[Satyrn]

I like it!



(The "I'd buy that for a dollar" quote is reserved for [MENTION=6733]Turgenev[/MENTION]'s thread since he, y'know, sells them for a dollar)

 

[Dyson Logos]

The Octopus Sorcerer has been researching and experimenting with some remains of the lost Aemril “technologies” in a cave on Farmrath Summit for the last seven years.

This wouldn’t really matter to anyone except that they are in possession of another Aemril artifact – the White Hadariel Staff. The staff is likely the only remaining key into Aemril sites and your employer has a lead on an unplundered vault in the Dhuurawa Wilds and wants either the Octopus Sorcerer to come along, or even better, that you just bring the White Hadariel Staff without the annoying “this belongs in a museum” octopus.

To meet with (or ambush) the Octopus Sorcerer, you will need to find the cave on Farmrath Summit and wrangle your way past the sorcerer’s guards, workers, and a few clerical staff to interrupt their studies and “acquire” the staff.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/18/octopus/

 

[Dyson Logos]

The Bitter Minotaur is a roadside inn along a major road within the relatively safe lands of the Satrapy. The roads here aren’t threatened by monstrous incursions and other foul beasts, but as they run through heavy forests they are still prone to a bit of banditry here and there. Thus the Inn serves as a resting point along the route instead of a defensive shelter.

The three-story Inn has a courtyard with wagon gates east and west to allow coaches to roll in, unload passengers and cargo, and then roll out to park the coaches outside the wall for the night. The inn features 21 rooms (a mix of singles and doubles) over two floors above the tavern, as well as a dormitory on the ground floor. The tavern serves food and light drink (ale and wine, but nothing stronger).

Because it is along a major road and almost exactly 1 day’s travel from the capital of the Satrapy, the Bitter Minotaur sees a significant amount of traffic with 2d10+1 rooms booked on the average night, and hires staff from many of the local farms in addition to the small staff that lives on site.

This map is heavily based on the map of the riverside Three Feathers coaching inn from the classic Warhammer Fantasy RPG adventure “Rough Night at the Three Feathers” (seriously, this adventure is incredibly fun - if you haven't played it yet, get a copy and run it now). It started out as a cleaned up version of that map for my online WHFRP campaign, but then sprouted a lot of extra details and a third story as well as a full wall making it a roadside coaching inn instead of a riverside inn.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/21/minotaur/

 

[Dyson Logos]

An exercise in pointless stonecraft, this castle sits abandoned and oft overrun by foul creatures. A dwarven folly – a structure built purely for the sake of building a structure – the castle cuts into and juts over a small canyon in the foothills of Tismar Summit.

When the dwarves left after building the folly, they locked the doors and forgot about it. To this day the front doors remain locked and require Voldrugg’s Key (or magic) to be opened – the current residents got in instead by climbing down on to the bridges over the small river canyon and eventually discovering the mechanisms that open the door on the upper level of the castle.

No one would care about the current residents of the folly if they hadn’t recently gathered a few competing tribes and raided a caravanserai where they looted and burned… and kidnapped the fourth son of Grand Duke Dietmar Stengel. The Grand Duke would really like his son back before they eat him.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/25/the-dwarven-folly-that-is-ruldroc-castle/

 

[Dyson Logos]

Catacombs of the Flayed Minotaurs

Beneath the buckled stone floors of the jungle ruins in the Tempest Gardens is a massive set of catacombs guarded by the eternal vigilance of fifteen deathless minotaurs.

Each minotaur has endured the ages imprisoned within these catacombs in their own way, but none are untouched by time or violence. And they are not alone – while they can barely stand each other’s company, many have surrounded themselves with a few creatures that provide them with entertainment, food, or just the comfort of sharing a living space with others – even if (as in one case) they are little more than psionic protoplasmic slime.

This map was drawn at ledger size (11″ x 17″) at a scale of 6 squares per inch. Part way through drawing it I decided it would be fun to stick in an “easter egg” like the classic Quasqueton map showing up in Undermountain – so I added bits of maps from B2, X1 and T1 as I went. Because the map is so big, it ends up being a very large file. The blog has the map available at 600dpi and 1200dpi, whereas the version posted here is 300dpi.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/28/megamap/

 

[Satyrn]

Has your hand recovered from the inevitable cramps from crosshatching that beast?

 

[robus]

Thanks for sharing all these Dyson, I've picked up a few for an adventure I'm planning that will fit perfectly. I'm also going to try my hand at redrawing some maps in your excellent style for an old adventure that I've foolishly promised to share (I just looked at them and thought, Dyson would not be impressed! )

 

[Dyson Logos]

Has your hand recovered from the inevitable cramps from crosshatching that beast?

After a decade of cartography, I don't get hand cramps from drawing. A light touch on the pen and the willingness to stop and watch Blake's 7 for a bit between sections does wonders.

Thanks for sharing all these Dyson, I've picked up a few for an adventure I'm planning that will fit perfectly. I'm also going to try my hand at redrawing some maps in your excellent style for an old adventure that I've foolishly promised to share (I just looked at them and thought, Dyson would not be impressed! )

I love knowing that my maps and ideas are being used for people's games.

And I'll be honest, I love all hand drawn maps.

 

[Dyson Logos]

In a fun twist, this month’s Release the Kraken voting has brought back a classic “joke” map from 2016 – the Tower-Faced Demon!

There are a number of dead gods, demons and other creatures long forgotten who’s planes of existence have ceased to exist and who now float around the astral, petrified with old age and lack of followers.

While most are just ignored, or used as the occasional stopping place or landmark in the infinite phlogiston, the Githyanki are famous for using them as bases of operations, cities, fortresses and so on.

At some point this structure was the head of something large and unpleasant. And at some later time, that head was broken off from the rest of the body and then slowly retrofitted into a small fortress.

Or, if you really want to go weird, get rid of the whole astral plane stuff, and this head fortress floats timelessly 333 feet above the surface of the world, travelling where it is commanded from the spires level of the uppermost tower. It transports a team of violent warlocks and their gnomish strike force, raiding the countryside and seeking untold sources of arcane power that they have become aware of through their dark patrons.

Either way, there are numerous entry points into the head. The mouth is a huge open-air gallery (although the teeth make it difficult to land most flying creatures and craft here), and there are entrances in the right nostril and right cheek, as well as at the tops of the two towers. Thus the inhabitants are always somewhat on edge, expecting attack to come from any side at any time.

They’ve been known to “accidentally” kill each other when surprised.

Tower McDemonFace here was started as a joke really… I posted my demon-faced tower and someone said that they wanted a tower faced demon instead. And one of my patrons asked for “A ‘dungeon’ that’s inside the body of a dead creature, god, etc.”

And here’s where all that wound up… Tower McDemonFace. Who has already become a demon lord worshiped in the Yellow City in a friend’s campaign.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/03/30/release-the-kraken-on-the-tower-faced-demon/