milbysmaps

Hyphis - A Myconid Colony

For those newer DMs who may be unfamiliar with the race: myconids. TL;DR: Mushroom people. No, not like Toad from Mario Brothers. But also, yes, kind of like that.

There are two things I want to specifically point out about this map. The first is the middle floor. The brown room. That's compost, which is what myconids consume for sustenance. What are they composting? Well, they're by the water, so it...

Hyphis - A Myconid Colony - Patrons' Edition

For those newer DMs who may be unfamiliar with the race: myconids. TL;DR: Mushroom people. No, not like Toad from Mario Brothers. But also, yes, kind of like that.

There are two things I want to specifically point out about this map. The first is the middle floor. The brown room. That's compost, which is what myconids consume for sustenance. What are they composting? Well, they're by the water, so it...

The Château de Chenonceau

God the French make some cool stuff. "Let's just build it over the river." Sure, why not, here's money, let's do it. Amazing.

While I was researching this place, I learned a bit about the castle's most famous resident, Catherine de Medici. She was the queen of France in the mid-1500s, who later ruled the country as Queen Regent after her husband died. She was also a woman who liked to party ...

The Château de Chenonceau - Patrons' Edition

God the French make some cool stuff. "Let's just build it over the river." Sure, why not, here's money, let's do it. Amazing.

While I was researching this place, I learned a bit about the castle's most famous resident, Catherine de Medici. She was the queen of France in the mid-1500s, who later ruled the country as Queen Regent after her husband died. She was also a woman who liked to party ...

Château de Chenonceau (Work-in-Progress)

These are the lower two levels of the Château de Chenonceau. The two floors above these are also finished and the whole thing is ready to be colored.

When I draw real places, I do a lot of research and I think it pays off. One of the most interesting things about this place wasn't in any of the floor plans I found, old or new. I actually discovered it from 2021-07-04 18:57:01 +0000 UTC View Post

The 34th Cartographic Congress Runoff

Round Two. Ding.

Senator Shawn proposes a mountain monastery clinging to a cliffside with a waterfall running past.

Senator Wyatt proposes the Bastille, the fortress-turned-prison in Paris that was stormed during the French Revolution.

Senator Bryan proposes an underwater laboratory that is the lair of an aboleth or Deep One, with experiments and tubes, slime and ugly lights.

The 34th Cartographic Congress Vote

Senators, we have eight fine proposals for this month's vote. I'm in the middle of drawing out the Chateau de Chenonceau right now, so I'll present your candidates and get back to it:

Senator Shawn proposes a mountain monastery clinging to a cliffside with a waterfall running past.

Senator BasketMC proposes a driders' lair in a web-filled cave.

Senator Fraz-Urb'luu proposes a demonologist's tower. The abode of this master of demons is designed to keep his summoned beasts com...

The Cobalt Flotilla: The Ships

I don't often post 11 maps in one day. It feels like a lot, even if I did make those 11 maps for the purpose of making one big map. Anyway, I hope everyone's good on ships for a while, because after drawing all these, it might be a minute before I do another one.

In any case, I'd say everyone's collection of ship maps just got a lot more diverse. You've got thre...

The Cobalt Flotilla: The Ships - Patrons' Edition

I don't often post 11 maps in one day. It feels like a lot, even if I did make those 11 maps for the purpose of making one big map. Anyway, I hope everyone's good on ships for a while, because after drawing all these, it might be a minute before I do another one.

In any case, I'd say everyone's collection of ship maps just got a lot more diverse. You've got thre...

The Cobalt Flotilla: Oscar Mike

Here's the flotilla on the move. They're keeping a pretty tight formation, but this is a pretty big map as it is and, if I spread the ships out much more, it would have ended up with a grid size of OMGxWTF.

Some of you might end up using the flotilla and you may want to run a naval battle. I say "may," but, I mean, let's be real: it'll happen. Anyway, I've got you covered with the Cobalt Flotilla Showdown Map. Good guys on the top, bad guys on the bottom. Unless the flotilla are the bad...

The Cobalt Flotilla: Oscar Mike - Patrons' Edition

Here's the flotilla on the move. They're keeping a pretty tight formation, but this is a pretty big map as it is and, if I spread the ships out much more, it would have ended up with a grid size of OMGxWTF.

Some of you might end up using the flotilla and you may want to run a naval battle. I say "may," but, I mean, let's be real: it'll happen. Anyway, I've got you covered with the Cobalt Flotilla Showdown Map. Good guys on the top, bad guys on the bottom. Unless the flotilla are the bad...

The Cobalt Flotilla

Whew, okay! So, this is the thing I've been drawing over the last few weeks. When I started this, "an island made of ships" seemed like a simple enough idea. But, as it turns out, you need a lot of ships to make an island and ships kind of take a while to draw, so it turned into a bit of an accidental megaproject. Still, I don't know about you, but I think it was worth the effort.

I suspect a lot of people will have questions about where the sleeping quarters are, so let me talk about t...

The Cobalt Flotilla - Patrons' Edition

Whew, okay! So, this is the thing I've been drawing over the last few weeks. When I started this, "an island made of ships" seemed like a simple enough idea. But, as it turns out, you need a lot of ships to make an island and ships kind of take a while to draw, so it turned into a bit of an accidental megaproject. Still, I don't know about you, but I think it was worth the effort.

I suspect a lot of people will have questions about where the sleeping quarters are, so let me talk about t...

The Cobalt Flotilla (Work-In-Progress)

These are the upper decks of the flotilla. The three levels below this are pretty close to finished as well, so I should only need another couple days to get it done. I hope no one was expecting this to be a reasonable-sized map, because it definitely will not be.

Okay, I've gotta go to sleep.

I made a slight miscalculation.

The other day, I said I'd be coloring and releasing these ships one at a time. At some point, it occurred to me that that's insane and that it'd be much faster to color them all together and post the separate maps afterwards. So I put all the decks of all the ships into one image to do that and... well, this is what that looks like.

The main thing I'm trying to say is that this might take a little longer than I'd originally expected. That's 17 ships and boats, with a combined 35 decks. ...

This is all of the ships.

Sorry for the crappy photo, the only decent camera I currently have access to is the one on my wife's phone and she's out of town.

This is all of the ships in the Cobalt Flotilla, crammed into one picture as best as I could. The plan from here is this: I'm going to color these individually and post the maps of the larger ships as they get done. After that, I'll finish coloring the rest, put them all together into one map and post that. And then I'll post the smaller boats as tokens.

The Cobalt Flotilla (Work-In-Progress)

As it turns out, drawing an island made of boats requires a lot of boats. I've got two and a half more pages of boats drawn on top of this. Two more and we should be good.

I think this is gonna be pretty cool. All right, I'm gonna go draw more boats.

The 33rd Cartographic Congress Runoff

There are three proposals making it to the runoff this month: the sun, the stone and the sea. Choose wisely:

Senator Anders proposes the Nuur al-Dini temple, devoted to a sun goddess. It will be similar in style to a grand mosque, with an ablution fountain, courtyard, hospital, congregation hall and a minaret to greet the rising sun.

Senator MacTorg proposes a small inn or fort built into a group of carved-out boulders.

Senator Jon proposes an old school of the arcane arts t...

Ollin's Borehole - Unfurnished

I don't have too much to say about the unfurnished version of Ollin's Borehole, but I have a ton to say about the next map, so let's talk about that instead.

The Cobalt Flotilla is a home for a nomadic, seafaring community. It consists of a number of vessels, large and small. Now, the thing that makes the flotilla unique is when they come together. They tether their ships to each other, lay out planks and rope bridges to connect them and form a sort of island where they can all...

Ollin's Borehole - Unfurnished - Patrons' Edition

I don't have too much to say about the unfurnished version of Ollin's Borehole, but I have a ton to say about the next map, so let's talk about that instead.

The Cobalt Flotilla is a home for a nomadic, seafaring community. It consists of a number of vessels, large and small. Now, the thing that makes the flotilla unique is when they come together. They tether their ships to each other, lay out planks and rope bridges to connect them and form a sort of island where they can all...

Ollin's Borehole - An Abandoned Deep Gnome Mining Outpost

Ollin's Borehole is a sapphire mine in the Black Loch. Well, it was a sapphire mine until some duergar bandits found the place, smashed their way in and killed everyone. Since then, it's just been another hole in the ground. But, as holes in the ground go, I think this one is pretty interesting.

I wrote... let's call it "the framework of an adventure" for this map. I'm hesitant to call it an adventure...

Ollin's Borehole - An Abandoned Deep Gnome Mining Outpost - Patrons' Edition

Ollin's Borehole is a sapphire mine in the Black Loch. Well, it was a sapphire mine until some duergar bandits found the place, smashed their way in and killed everyone. Since then, it's just been another hole in the ground. But, as holes in the ground go, I think this one is pretty interesting.

I wrote... let's call it "the framework of an adventure" for this map. I'm hesitant to call it an adventure...

Deep Gnome Mining Outpost (Work-In-Progress)

These are the upper two levels of the deep gnome settlement I'm working on. I decided it'd be abandoned after raiders sacked the place, since I think this would be much more interesting to explore as a dungeon than as a town. In any case, there'll be an unfurnished version as well.

I don't typically write adventures for my maps, but inspiration struck me with this and I have... let's call it the framework of an adventure for you. There are a couple details you need to plug in, but it's ...

The 33rd Cartographic Congress Vote

Honorable members of the Cartographic Congress, this month we have seven fine proposals for your consideration. There are a lot of really interesting ideas on the ballot and I really want to talk about some of them, but, since I always try to be very careful about doing anything that might influence the vote, I'll refrain. Anyway, it's a good month for the congress and, whichever proposal you choose, I think I can turn it into something good. Here are your candidates:

Senator Anders pro...

Two New Projects

For the Community

For as long as I've been posting my maps online, I've tried to support the RPG community as much as I can. Not just my patrons, but those who can't afford to support my work. Younger DMs, broke college students and so forth.  Anyway, I've decided to do a little more by making a gift for the community.

Over the last year, I drew about 300 tokens (2021-05-25 05:25:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Dragonfly-Class Spelljammer - "The Mid-Priced Toyota of Fantasy Spacecraft"

I've never run a Spelljammer campaign, per se, but I have run campaigns where some mild-to-moderate spelljamming did take place (including my current one). If you don't understand the appeal of the setting, let me try to explain it.

First, picture the show Firefly. Now, imagine that Kaylee is an elf. Imagine Wash is a wizard. And Shepherd Book is a priest of Tempus who always tries to solve people's issues by asking, "When was the last time you purified yourself in the holy flames of ba...

Dragonfly-Class Spelljammer - "The Mid-Priced Toyota of Fantasy Spacecraft" - Patrons' Edition

I've never run a Spelljammer campaign, per se, but I have run campaigns where some mild-to-moderate spelljamming did take place (including my current one). If you don't understand the appeal of the setting, let me try to explain it.

First, picture the show Firefly. Now, imagine that Kaylee is an elf. Imagine Wash is a wizard. And Shepherd Book is a priest of Tempus who always tries to solve people's issues by asking, "When was the last time you purified yourself in the holy flames of ba...

The Lair of Kaliphex

In case anyone is having a hard time understanding this complex labyrinth of a map, I made an annotated version to break it down for you. Hopefully that clears everything up.

There's an unfurnished version, too, in case you need a cave without a giant, golden head and huge piles of cash. I suspect your players will prefer the one with the money, but it's up to...

The Lair of Kaliphex - Patrons' Edition

In case anyone is having a hard time understanding this complex labyrinth of a map, I made an annotated version to break it down for you. Hopefully that clears everything up.

There's an unfurnished version, too, in case you need a cave without a giant, golden head and huge piles of cash. I suspect your players will prefer the one with the money, but it's up to...

The Casino de Mont Acceaux

So, this is the first casino I've drawn and I've got a question for the gamblers out there: is the carpet ugly enough? I don't know why, but "All Casinos Have Carpet That Hurts Your Eyes" is so consistently true, it could almost be a law of thermodynamics. Anyway, I gave it my best shot.

The Mont Acceaux isn't meant to be Vegas, I drew it with the Monte Carlo in mind. Actually, the ground level is v...