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Under the Observatory

Ye Olde Wizard’s Observatory – the traditional place where you are likely to find a stargazing seer. The tower comes equipped with the mandatory ground-floor orrery that makes it dangerous to stand around that room for too long unless you want to get smacked in the head by a flaming representation of the elemental plane of fire. The top floor is dedicated to the massive telescope that is mounted into the roof (and when the tower is in good repair can be rotated and angled up and down to e...

Unrol Kaz’ad Watch

A small dwarven watch in the Barrow Mountains, Unrol Kaz’ad used to house a small team of dwarven rangers who would patrol the traditional thirteen-and-a-half mile radius around the watch looking for signs of goblins, giants, and trolls in the region. With the encroachment of human pioneers into the region and the slow decline of the great dwarven kingdoms, Unrol Kaz’ad was sealed up and abandoned like many similar watches.

But all it takes is one nosey wizard with a knock spell to ...

April Backstage Pass Time!

Here's the maps coming out this month on the Dodecahedron. Once again this is entirely thanks to your support. You make this happen and I am incredibly grateful.

I'll admit I'm a bit anxious about releasing two versions of the City of Shells map as two different releases - but the colour one took me a full day and the detailed one took me three days, so I feel they should be fu...

Return to the Froghemoth Ruins!

These lands were not always swamps and jungles. The rivers were re-routed, the lands flooded, the forests allowed to become dense jungle all during the falling days of the great civilization that was here before.

In the jungles and swamps you can find many remnants of what is now called the Bullywug Empire (not because the bullywugs were in charge back then, but because they are nearly ubiquitous within the old ruins).

This ruined temple complex stands out because of the solid pyr...

Release the Kraken on the Sunken Tower!

Every month we go through our back catalogue of maps and YOU vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. In March all the choices were curated from maps of ruins found on the blog. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that this map was the top choice, getting three times the votes as any other map and getting half of the overall votes.

There are a number of stories as to why this tower is so deeply embedded ...

Last Chance for Dyson's Book of Swords

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1730454032/dysons-book-of-swords# 

[Dyson's Book of Swords - Kickstarter Link] 

I’m re...

Inside the Temple of Kuvartma

We explored the area around and on top of the Temple of Kuvartma with Tuesday’s map release – so today we head inside the temple and then to the understructures – including the passage to the inside of one of the pillars jutting out of the water. Again the awakened apes maintain the surface level of the temple as they do the outer structures – but they don’t use the stairs down to the lower levels of the structure.

The undertemple is home to a pair of ageless druids of the moo...

Temple of Kuvartma & the Demon Apes

Of the ruins explored this month on the blog, the Temple of Kuvartma and the surrounding shrines to the various demon apes in his entourage are in the best repair. A small tribe of awakened apes does their best to maintain the structures along the shore here, primarily focusing on the smaller shrines of the demon-apes and generally ignoring the main temple structure and the ancient 20 x 20 pillars in the water.

The main temple is dedicated to Kuvartma – a giant winged ape god of the m...

Ruined Athenaeum of Vicon

The hilltop Athenaeum of Vicon was abandoned and left to collapse when her worship fell out of fashion with the change in empires in old Zorisz. The goddess of visions, Vicon’s priesthood used this structure and the dry climate it was built in to store scrolls and codices recording the various visions and dreams attributed to her interventions over the ages. From major works such as the Prophecies of the Seven Worms and the Ravings of the Empress in Amber (and the many texts analyzing these...

Ruined Temple of the Twins

The local peoples worshipped the twin gods of Vullil & Raizil, bringers of rain and sun respectively. But with the arrival of the cult of the great sky god, the cults of Vullil & Raizil fell into disfavor and decline. Here a major temple to the twin gods still stands with heavy stone walls and much of the stone roof still intact – with an opening directly above the dais with the statues of the twins, allowing rain and sun into their sanctuary. A further pair of statues of the twins ...

Fortified Bridge Ruins

The stream running under these ruins was once much more formidable – blocking easy traffic for miles up and downriver. And thus these bridges were built and now abandoned. The all-stone construction of the northern bridge has fared much better than the southern span which was made of wood laid across a series of stone supports. The southern bridge was for general traffic and had wooden ramps leading up to it (over the stairs on the left side of the span and extending off to the right of the...

Assamvar Ruins - The Broken Guard

Along the shores of the Ironflow are a number of dwarven ruins – outposts and other structures built by the dwarves of Kuln. Some of these have been absorbed by the Black Mire, but most sit quiet and abandoned since the fall of the dwarven citadel – slowly falling to the elements and the strange creatures that escape from the Mire.

The Assamvar Ruins were once known as the Assamvar Guard – a watchtower built on a rocky island on the Ironflow. Now most commonly known as the Broken ...

The Goblin Warrens at Fort Redshield

Fort Redshield was badly damaged by a series of great magical earthquakes and abandoned soon thereafter. But it didn’t remain abandoned for long. The ruins have been home to various bandits and exiles over the years and have gradually fallen into worse and worse repair under the rough treatment of these groups and those who came here to “dig them out” of their lair.

But now… the word is that some small orange demons have been summoned here by some foul demonologist and have been...

Ruins of Brollmoreth

The crumbling spire of an old tower marks the ruins where Brollmoreth, Demon of Shallow Graves and Patron of Silent Children was once worshipped. It is said that the demon physically tore itself out of the stone here after a drop of Demogorgon’s ichorous blood was flung to the ground in an ancient battle.

In modern times, the worship of demons as gods is no longer an “accepted practice” and this temple to Brollmoreth was abandoned along with its worship. Remnants of the old temple...

Ruins of the East Gate of Steldin Dorg

The ancient Kale city of Steldin Dorg was reduced to naught but rubble in an assault that opened the last round of hostilities between the Kale and the People and set the stage for the final collapse of the already weakened Kale empire. Transplanar energies brought to bear here were barely contained and the magically-contaminated Dorg badlands are all that remain.

The great Dorg river was shattered, and much of it now flows under the badlands instead of following the old broken banks. T...

The Ruins of Shagunat Keep

Shagunat Keep was built on the ruins of a much older elven structure and now that the keep itself has fallen, the ruins present an interesting mix of elven and human stonework, especially underground. The stairs up the hill to the ruins are definitely elven, whereas the heavy stonework of the keep proper is mostly human.

Since the fall of the keep, it has been home to the occasional bandits or goblinoids until one group of bandits made the effort to clear the remaining stairs from the t...

Release the Kraken on the Geomorphic Halls!

Every month we go through our back catalog of maps and vote on which two should be re-released under the free use license. Today we are bringing back one of my companions to my many dungeon geomorphs – the Geomorphic Halls.

Ever since I started drawing Geomorphs, I’ve had the intention of making a dungeon that took advantage of them to have sections of the dungeon that change from visit to visit – visually based in part on the map of Lankhmar in the old Lankhmar D&D s...

The Great Kraken March!

Forget the Great Modron March...

The Kraken March sounds like a song or something... 

ANYWAYS, now that I'm picturing a Kraken "marching" through town playing the trombone, a marching drum, and a xylophone (oh! and a tambourine!) it is time to VOTE. 

Since this month's theme on the blog is all ruins maps, I've similarly chosen a selection of ruins for this poll. Which of ...

Release the Kraken on the Adventures around Jalovhec HexMap!

Here's a map from 2019 that we're re-releasing today.

Sprawling over the area where the Greenbeck river joins the Vhec is the trading centre of Jalovhec. A “point of light” in an area of dark forests, wastelands, and inhospitable low mountain ranges, Jalovhec is walled and well defended against predation by the locals and assisted by its trading partners.

The whole area around the city is ripe for adventure – the forests are home to strange creatures and foul humanoids, the ...

RUINS AND DEVASTATION! March Backstage Pass!

Here's this month's backstage pass collection.

This month's maps are all ruins. I'm also going to go through the archives so our selection for the Kraken releases are also ruins this month.

2022 Cave / Lair Geomorphs – Set 2

These cavern geomorphs are designed to mesh with the other few hundred geomorphs I’ve posted to the blog over the years, the many varieties of DungeonMorphs published by Inkwell Ideas, and of course the thousand or so more that are on DavesMapper.

The majority of the geomorphs in this set have water features – small lakes, a bridged pool, and a pair of pools with connections to other pools. We also have a two-tiered cave, a number of caverns connected by squared-off chambers with do...

Pyramid of the Prince in Silver

This stepped pyramid has no ground-level access, and in the ages since it was built no one has maintained the wooden stairs that used to lead to the entrances into the top tier. The stairs have rotted or burned away, leaving a sheer 15 foot climb from tier to tier. The doors at the top are stone with primitive rope locks inside them – one set has been worked until the rotten rope snapped, making access possible from the south face (although the doors are closed again, so this isn’t immedi...

The Arcane Sinkhole

Arcane waters have created a sinkhole above this cavern – one that has nearly consumed the ruins of an old homestead beside it. The old well at the homestead goes down to the arcane waters directly, but it is probably safer / wiser to head down using the stone stairs that seem to have formed of their own accord around the sinkhole that then lead into a damp cavern beneath.

The floor of the main sinkhole is scattered with debris from its formation, and narrow steps lead down from there...

Six More Crypt-o-Morphs (Set 2)

This set of six geomorphs is all centred around crypts and tombs and associated structures (like memorials, preparation chambers, mausoleums, etc) Each geomorph (of which there are six here, for those new to geomorphs) can be connected to each other geomorph either in a grid format as they are laid out, or offset where you move each column or row (your choice) over by five squares so the two exits on one face of the geomorph connect to two different geomorphs.

2022-02-23 23:13:43 +0000 UTC View Post