A Japanese Castle

Perched above the clouds is silhouetted a multi-tiered castle, its layered keep hidden behind yet more layers of walls. Could any army stand a chance here after that climb?

I visited Japan for the first time in 2017 and spent my time jumping from one castle to the next, only stopping for shrines, museums, and other historical sights along the way. I adore the architecture and the fantastical feel of it all, despite it being very much real. Since then I have drawn a modest collection of Japan-inspired maps, but I have always meant to draw a huge castle. 

It so happens that my players are currently storming a mountaintop fortress in my personal fantasy-Japan-themed campaign, so I bit the bullet and finally made it! 

In the lands of Wei these heroes have been seeking the ancient O-Daiko drums in order to perform a ritual and close a vortex-rift that is acting as a gateway for an army of extra-planar baddies. They have two already and now seek the third, and have tracked it to this fortress where it is possessed by a greedy lord.

The lord in question built this secluded mountaintop castle in order to pursue his studies in secrecy and solitude. He is well known in Wei as the sole craftsman of puppet-prosthetics (wood-and-rope limb replacements) and also as the man behind the Wooden Samurai that the neighboring daimyo employs – sleepless, unfeeling guards born from the processed souls of their prisoners of war.

Besides the puppet lord himself, these Wooden Samurai are the only creatures to reside in this frigid castle. They go about mindlessly sweeping, repairing, pruning, and otherwise keeping the place immaculate while their master goes about his secret business in the keep.

I'm sure that I will share more some time in the future, but my own players have only just infiltrated the place, so I must keep my secrets for now!

Additional Patreon rewards:

• Japanese Castle Assets
• Japanese Castle Map Variants

Below is a preview of said map variants and assets. There are night-time versions too! 

This map is an immense 32x44" so I recommend you either use it as a town map printed on on modest page or you play at a 0.5" grid scale like I have personally been doing. That said, the PDFs are at a crisp 300 DPI 32x44" size, so they are quite ready if you want to print out the whole thing. Do show us the photos if you take on this challenge, and godspeed!

I have shared a preview of my puppet-filled-fortress encounter. What else comes to your mind?

Thanks to Patrons like you this map is released under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.