I drew this map two years ago this summer – during the early days of my love affair with sharpies. It is specifically a bit of “dungeon shrapnel”, a chunk of dungeon map independent of the spaces & dungeon around it. It is one of several attempts to make a dungeon map that reflects my own and some close friends of mine’s experiences and feelings about depression.
There is a scale that is difficult if not impossible to deal with. There is darkness, sometimes completely out of...
2020-06-15 20:16:55 +0000 UTC
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Sprawling out in all directions from the Six Cities of Ency are the Ency Glowlands – areas that support only the strangest of life, monitored by the bright red inquisitor crocodiles and their ilk. As indicated by the name, large parts of the glowlands still glow at night, doubly so for those who can see beyond the limits of the traditional human genestock.
This particular section of the Glowlands is west of most of the Six Cities of Ency, and nearly due south (across the Hot Way River...
2020-06-13 19:49:02 +0000 UTC
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Upriver from Elverston Hold are the local swamps & marshlands (like most of the features in the area, they are just known as the swamps and marshes – the folk of Elverston all know what they are talking about. At the edge of the swamp are old elven ruins that were destroyed from within in the years leading up to the great war.
These ruins, now slowly being consumed by the marshland, have been used by bandits, troglodytes, a mercenary band of elves, and at least one hermit since th...
2020-06-11 20:13:22 +0000 UTC
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I was admiring the map of the Young Kingdoms in the Stormbringer RPG and I had just finished drawing the Malachite Coast map so I was inspired to work on a more traditional regional map – something I could use for my next campaign. Thus we have the Principalities of Black Sphinx Bay. This is honestly a lot bigger of an area than I usually map out before a campaign begins – I typically start smaller and slowly build up to something this size as the campaign progresses.
This whole reg...
2020-06-08 22:54:16 +0000 UTC
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The City of Copper Bowls does not license or permit alehouses or taverns within the city (and “rogue” teams of city watch have been known to accidentally burn down such establishments that are opened outside the walls). Teahouses, on the other hand, are permitted to sell medicinal tea-based draughts, often containing no small amount of liquor.
Guddur’s Wicked Teahouse is one of the larger teahouses, and one that pushes the limits of the concept of “tea based” and “medicinal...
2020-06-06 22:01:41 +0000 UTC
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Under the hills of Pantesh are a number of old springs that no longer bring water to the lands above. These days farmers dig deep wells to access the ancient waters, or they have moved to the rivers that frame this hilly land.
If you know where to look, if you can feel the shape of the land, you can find the remains of the old springs. Nazare Spell-Eater, a nut-brown druid from Seven Marches, found her way to this spring and summoned elementals of the stone and water to sculpt it into a...
2020-06-04 20:16:19 +0000 UTC
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Something strange is happening. Yesterday I got the Release the Kraken voting started on the first of the month, and here we are on the second and I'm releasing the Backstage Pass?
Have I finally got my shit together?
No... this is actually my way of reacting to stress. I procrastinate in the strangest ways. This is similar to procrasticleaning - instead of knuckling down to work on creat...
2020-06-02 20:50:52 +0000 UTC
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Once again, there are a LOT of new faces here this month! So thank you all once again for your support. Each and every one of you makes my continued work possible. Without your support I would be dedicating a lot more time to freelance work and that would force the free use maps on the blog into the background.
So, welcome to our monthly poll for the "Release the Kraken" initiative - a patreon ...
2020-06-01 21:32:57 +0000 UTC
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Every month we go through our back catalog of maps and we vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. Today we’re going back to a strange little isometric map I drew three years ago...
We never did figure out exactly who built “the juicer”. A clever contraption using the water pressure of the underground river next to it, we did discover that th...
2020-05-30 22:08:45 +0000 UTC
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This is the most demanded Patreon-Exclusive release I've had to date. At heart this is "just" a set of 7 different perfectly tiling hand-drawn hatching and floor patterns like the ones I use in all my hand-drawn dungeon designs so you can "fake" drawings like this for your own games.
I'll try to put together a video or two of the package in action (but for now we have the videos of the initial tests on Youtube - 2020-05-29 21:57:38 +0000 UTC
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The Malachite Coast is anything within a few days travel of where the Green Run decants into the Chimeric Sea. Nominally centred at the city of Kingshill on the edge of the coast, the Malachite coast was once the home of the Govred Empire – an advanced Bullywug Constitutional Monarchy that collapsed a few hundred years ago (a dozen generations ago for the fast-breeding and short-lived bullywugs).
As such, there are still bullywugs everywhere – they make up a tenth of the population ...
2020-05-28 19:55:42 +0000 UTC
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The minotaur was rarely capturing those sacrificed to it – which causes problems when those sacrifices return to town seeking revenge against those who tied them up and dumped them at the labyrinth. So the king summoned help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of sages was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The sages then returned to the palace saying to the king, “We have the solution, but it works o...
2020-05-25 19:52:54 +0000 UTC
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Every month we go through our back catalog of maps and the many amazing supporters of the blog over on Patreon vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. Today we’re going back to a town released last autumn – the sinking town of Drowning Point. I mean, seriously, what town is more likely to be threatened by the Kraken?
Drowning Point is, aptly enough, sinking into the lake.
A small community built up around a river outlet, Drowning Point is...
2020-05-23 20:40:18 +0000 UTC
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The stairs just opened into the land one day, and the miasma began to creep forth. Down beneath are twisted ruins that were not here before – a temple half-formed and then warped and destroyed. A stillborn abscess in the land where otherworldly gods would be worshiped and summoned.
I tried to draw this to feel not so much like a ruined temple, but the concept of a temple that was half-formed from diseased clay by someone not really sure of the process involved, nor the gods worshiped ...
2020-05-21 21:10:00 +0000 UTC
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The Forsaken Sepulchers, the Wretched Depths, and the Desolate Shrines combine into a single great “dungeon” known as the Winter Tombs.
This map is designed to be printed on a single ledger (11″ x 17″) page at six squares per inch. It is made available for your personal use in three resolutions at the blog post (the high resolution versions just aren't supported by any of the sites I'm posting this to).
First of course is the big one. 1200dpi – suitable for printing anyw...
2020-05-19 18:57:04 +0000 UTC
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Between and south of the Forsaken Sepulchers and the Wretched Depths are the Desolate Shrines. Old temples, shrines, and a monastery act as the centre of these ancient caves, lost tombs, and dark passages.
Connected by bridges over the underground rivers to the other areas down here, this area features several memorable features – the lakeside temple with stairs into the underground waters (and the strange pools in the chamber beyond), a small cavern monastery still occupied by troglo...
2020-05-18 20:15:53 +0000 UTC
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Wow! There are a lot of new faces here this month!
Welcome to our monthly poll for the "Release the Kraken" initiative. We reached this goal several years ago (can you believe we're approaching seven years on this Patreon?).
Every month I dig through the maps from the history of the blog that haven't been released under a free commercial use license (and that I would be willing / able ...
2020-05-17 19:55:16 +0000 UTC
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To the West of the Forsaken Sepulchers, connected to them by a single stone bridge across the underground river, are these wretched caves of mushrooms and rot, connected by the passages cut from the stone by the Sorcerer-Priests of Zorisz.
The natural caves are taken over by rot and fungus. When the tombs and temples were first crafted, the bodies of both slaves and enemies were dumped here, and the river brings organic riches from two nearby oases in the old Zorisz deserts. Built aroun...
2020-05-16 21:04:01 +0000 UTC
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Multiple tombs are cut into the black desert stone here, looked over by the crumbling ruins of a hilltop temple dedicated to ushering the souls of the dead to their final destination. The whole tomb complex was abandoned by the Zorisz Sorcerer-Priests in favour of the massive pyramid tombs that they summoned forth by the city of Zorisz itself. Since then, these tombs and crypts have been ravaged by time and ghouls alike.
More recently, the ghoul passages have been invaded by wererats, g...
2020-05-14 21:32:47 +0000 UTC
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Along the roads of the old empire are a number of fortifications that either date back to the empire itself, or to those who sought to claim these lands after the collapse. This particular fort was built directly on the old road, and you can find stones that were salvaged from the road itself as well as other old imperial structures mixed into the construction.
No part of the original structure remains in good shape. The gates have been replaced with thinner wooden gates after the old o...
2020-05-11 19:17:39 +0000 UTC
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There are ruins scattered in the Ebony Oaks from the War of Three Dragons – old forts, camps, and watch towers destroyed or abandoned since the war.
This old fort has been nearly razed – no standing wall is over eight feet tall and many sections have been completely grown over. The stairs leading down to the chambers beneath are open to the sky, and rainwater has filled the first chamber downstairs to a depth of a foot or two. A section of the lower chambers has collapsed, leaving a...
2020-05-09 21:32:57 +0000 UTC
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Tucked in between the Barrister’s Guild and a warehouse of the Twin River Coaching Company on South Wall Street, the Twin Norkers is a tavern with very mixed clientele and multiple rooms to serve them all in. It is a popular if quiet place for lunch, but in the evenings it can roar with all four serving rooms full of customers ranging from teamsters to coachmen and travellers to barristers and their well-paying clients.
The main floor is half stone construction (to about 4 feet) and t...
2020-05-07 18:41:26 +0000 UTC
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The cliffs of Shu-Qune on the Black Sphinx Bay make landings there difficult, but are riddled with small caves and passages. Most of these caves are a few dozen feet deep before they dead-end or form tight chimneys launching spray up the stony embankments above, but some either naturally pierce the stones, or have been modified by hand or magic to do so.
These caves were natural low-ceilinged caves that were then expanded in certain places to make them more easily passable and were once...
2020-05-04 21:28:22 +0000 UTC
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May's backstage pass includes the three parts of the massive megamap I drew last month as well as the three parts collected into one massive ledger-sized map at 6 squares per inch.
There's a lot of map coming this month, I hope you enjoy them!
2020-05-04 20:24:11 +0000 UTC
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Seever’s Mill is a fortified settlement on the Beckland River. The mill that gave the settlement it’s name burned down about 150 years ago during the Rampage of Sir Freel through the region. The last of the Seever family line died with the burning of the mill (with an axe in his forehead, mind you).
There are other mills about including two just outside of the city walls along the river. The last stretch of river inside the walls is well-dredged and deep with smooth masonry walls no...
2020-05-02 17:56:39 +0000 UTC
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The ruins under the Signet Heights are leftovers of the war with the elves – most were there to help produce materiel and magics to fight the elder foes. Many were sealed behind strange arcana or disguised by dwarven machinery and technologies.
The Pits of the Black Moon are hidden behind magical portals that appear in several places in the Heights. Each leads to the same stairway. The site was used as a gathering place for intelligence agents and generals as well as a dungeon for mid...
2020-04-30 17:59:58 +0000 UTC
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Attached to this post is a zip file of ultra-high resolution PNG files of compass roses / north indicators / doohickeys what tell you the direction that I've drawn this past month.
These are free for your personal use - for those times that you need an indicator on one of my other maps for instance, or for a map you are drawing yourself for your home games.
If you would like to use ...
2020-04-29 18:08:24 +0000 UTC
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Every month we go through our back catalog of maps you vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. This month the voting was overwhelmingly in favour of releasing this map from 2017 – the Holy City of Guerras-El-Essat.
Guerras-El-Essat is built up around a massive temple dedicated to the living (or unliving?) eight-armed vampiric deity-demon El-Essat who stalked the peoples living along the verge of the Blue Jungles since times beyond reco...
2020-04-28 18:06:34 +0000 UTC
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This natural cave in the base of the rock of Middenheim is almost exactly where the bodies of the poor are thrown down from the the city above. It should come as no surprise then that it became the lair of a necromancer.
I’ve been running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign for almost two years now, and we are approaching the climax of “Power Behind the Throne” which is set in Middenheim. When exploring this cavern inhabited by the remains of the dread necromancer Gurtelrose, I ...
2020-04-27 17:22:25 +0000 UTC
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There are a number of stories as to why this tower is so deeply embedded in the earth – tales of earth elementals trapping it by raising the land around it; of epic castings of transmute rock to mud sinking it; and of course that some potent deity smashed it into the ground as punishment (perhaps the wizard who first built the tower shouldn’t have named their latest spell “Thor’s Wimpy Comeback”?)
But here it is… all eleven remaining levels (some significantly less intact th...
2020-04-23 14:24:17 +0000 UTC
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