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South Sewers Hideout

Between the streets of Waterdeep and the many dungeons (and a whole other city!) below it are significant extents of sewers used to move sewage and storm water from the city to the sea. Many of these sewers link to basements of homes throughout the city – although in many cases these basements have been sealed off from the buildings above in attempts to reduce issues with vermin, smells, and of course thieves.

Many thieves use the sewers as an underground byway – much safer than try...

[Patreon Exclusive] Strange Stones

One of these days I should update my Patreon page to mention these Patreon-Exclusives, eh?

Inching in just before the end of the month, we have another Patreon-Exclusive piece from the Dodecahedron. This combines and rewrites a number of random tables of mine, and adds some new ones and a bunch of new art I drew to bring you a booklet format PDF for generating standing stones, stone circles, menhirs, orthostats and so on.

As I'm sure you've come to expect, this PDF is stuff I coll...

Adventures around Jalovhec

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 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 wastelands were once home to elder civilizations, and th...

the Demon Pillars of Iv

Many enjoy living next to l’Étendue Sombre, or the Dark Desert – a fragrant desert of dark sands and slowly shifting dunes where the faint smell of anise suffuses the dry air. Those used to life in colder and wetter climes find the border cities around l’Étendue to be therapeutic. The desert itself is less pleasant though – a land where even magical rains fail to fall. Once someone is more than a day’s travel from the nearest of the border cities, there is no sign of life remainin...

Drowning Point

Drowning Point is, aptly enough, sinking into the lake.

A small community built up around a river outlet, Drowning Point is watching the buildings built closer to the water being taken by the rising waters. Not that the lake itself is rising rapidly, but the land here is definitely in the slow process of settling down, taking the village with it.

This slow sinking isn’t uniform – leaving many of the standing buildings with broken foundations and the small fortification at the ...

Falcon's Rest

Built into a small plateau in the east hills, the Falcon’s Rest is a shrine to a small local deity that is usually interpreted to be an incarnation of the great hunter, or a version of the god of thieves.

After travelling to to the many stars to meet the gods themselves in the form of a great falcon, the godling came to rest at this place, drank from the stream that begins here, and wandered off on yet another great quest.

The shrine in this sacred place is entirely decorated in...

The Gnoll Pit

The Ashknuckle gnoll tribes divide the area around the Absent City into their various tribal territories – but they share a common set of ruins that they use occasionally for the punishment of prisoners and the entertainment of their leaders.

An ancient fighting pit is under the ruins – probably originally a training grounds for religious warriors, now converted into an execution pit for the varied gnoll tribes. In the centre of the ancient pit the floor has given way to deeper ruin...

Let's release some September Krakens!

It is time to pick out a few maps from the back catalog to re-release under the free commercial-use license. I've picked out ten maps that I'd be comfortable bringing out and seeing in commercial works - but you have to decide which ones will make the cut.

https://forms.gle/XacyYo4ZH77BKYrp8

Smuggler's Lodge

Smugglers repurposed the old Hornberger House a few decades ago – essentially in response to the political shifts on the mainland increasing protectionist taxes on a number of imported goods – particularly liquors and steel arrowheads. The last of the Hornbergers lived out their final days prisoners in their own home, surrounded by smuggled goods.

The house isn’t the largest of places and sometimes just about every square foot of it is stuffed with contraband waiting for the right...

Gauntlet of the Flintcrowned Ghouls

There is a wise soothsayer who lives in small house in a grotto under Deep Echo Forest. It is said that the house was there even before the forest, and has slowly sunk into the ground. A sinkhole now leads down to it, but the soothsayer isn’t the only inhabitant of the area who’s lifespan has been extended…

A dozen “kings” patrol the area also, as well as those who would serve them. These ghouls wear crowns of iron set with flint and jealously guard the path down from the Deep...

Gardens of the Absent City

In the ruins of the Absent City are a number of sites that are still maintained by the silent caretakers. One of these is the sunken gardens by the Palace of Rains which in turn lead into a whole section of the undercity that survives intact beneath the ruins.

Some of the areas directly attached to the gardens are obviously old offices and maintenance structures and have debris within and the occasional interlopers from the ruins above. But deeper into these catacombs they become remark...

September Backstage Pass

I just put the finishing touches on the last map for September (see my Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed), so here is the backstage pass containing all nine maps to be released this month!

Shieldrick's Tower Inn

Converted from / attached to an old watchtower from the Siege of the Mad Kings era, Shieldrick’s Inn is a small tavern set in a pastoral landscape of rolling hills and farmland.

The inn serves mostly as a tavern for a few of the local farmers who congregate here to exchange information on harvests and prices in town and only deals with the occasional traveller (one or two a week on average). The “Inn” part of the name is purely that the Shieldricks gives travellers free use of the...

Patreon Exclusive - Dyson's Delve 2019

It is done! 

The 2019 reissue of the classic mini mega dungeon from the early days of my blog. Dyson's Delve is an 11 level dungeon with all new maps that is exclusively presented here for your enjoyment.

I'm proud of this reissue of the classic Delve, and plan on releasing it commercially next summer (the plan is to print off a bunch of them to send along to various conventions - an...

2019 Geomorphs - Set 6

Nearly a decade of geomorphs on the blog. So let’s do one more set of four that I put together for the new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas.

Clockwise from top left we’ve got:

• Dungeon entrance via an old tower.
• Cavern entrance.
• Underground pool and small mushroom cave.
• General dungeon chambers and partially collapsed area.

And of course, while these geomorphs work great with each other (and the thousand or so compatibl...

2019 Geomorphs - Set 5

Nearly a decade ago I spent most of a year drawing and posting geomorphs to this blog. This year’s Kickstarter for a new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas brought me back to drawing them again… with the slight stylistic improvement of a decade of experience. This is the fifth set of geomorphs I’ve drawn in this style.

Clockwise from top left we’ve got:

• Multi-tiered caves.
• Barracks / Guard rooms.
• Small shrine.
• Dungeons & tor...
  2019-08-27 19:24:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Return to Dyson's Delve - From Top to Bottom

We return to the maps of Dyson’s Delve with maps of the very top and bottom of the mini mega dungeon.

The upper ruins are only hinted at in the original Dyson’s Delve – the assumption in the adventure is that the party sneaks in using the hillside cave, dodging the goblin-infested tower on the hill. Here we finally have a map of this area. The ground level is all that remains of an old watch tower. The upper levels have fallen away and most of the stone was carted away by farmers ...

Return to Dyson's Delve - Levels 9 & 10

This is the final month of redrawing Dyson’s Delve – today we get levels 9 & 10 of the redraw, and later this week I’ll be releasing the final level (11) as well as the all-new surface level of the mini mega dungeon.

At the end of this month, a PDF will be released to all patrons of the blog on Patreon (regardless of backer level) with the new version of Dyson’s Delve.

Level 9...

The Temple Walk

Colloquially known as “God Alley”, the Temple Walk is a set of courtyards and walkways winding between 13 different shrines, temples, churches and reliquaries to various deities and godlings of the city. Not all the deities of the city have shrines here, and few of the larger faiths are represented – the area is too tight and confined for the churches with larger congregations, and the temples here gently push away any of louder cults in the area.

Because of the narrowness of some...

Rosewood Street Sewers

The sewers under Rosewood Street are large and open compared to most in the city. Built out of much older structures that were repurposed ages ago, the sewers are a mix of utilitarian and overly ornate.

While most sewers are made of brick, clay, or masonry – a few feet wide and tall enough to walk down (especially if you are shorter than the average human), much of the structures under Rosewood are of old stonework with vaulted 8-12 foot ceilings. Parts were once the basements of a mu...

The Red Descent

If you are going to build a secret temple to a pariah god that is not intended to be worshiped at, why not go whole hog and build it at the bottom of a deep and nearly inaccessible desert cave?

Dedicated to a god of betrayal, none would worship here regularly (for fear of being in turn betrayed by other worshipers for their faith in this pariah god). Instead the site sees the occasional "solitary" pilgrimage - small groups trek across the desert and climb down into the red rock cavern t...

The Old Turnip Inn

We don’t know why we call it the Old Turnip… it’s just always been the Old Turnip. Well, I guess about 30 years ago it was the Old Turnip Eatery and Inn, but that didn’t last.

You can tell it is old just walking past. The windows are out of square now as the building has settled over the years, and it still has a small outbuilding for horses from when this was the East Gate district, before the new curtain walls were built under Geoffrey the Bold’s rule.

With only two fi...

The Phoenix Diadem

Portals between worlds are crafted from potent materials in places where the energies of the world intersect with that of other places. Sometimes these ‘ley lines’ are conveniently found where the sky meets the earth and the portals can be built on the surface of the world itself.

But more often they meet in places deep or high. And thus we build “dungeons”.

The Phoenix Diadem is such a place – built beneath the world and linking it to other places. But it is not just a ...

August Backstage Pass

Woo! The August backstage pass is here. Because I'm releasing geomorphs 4 per release and levels of Dyson's Delve 2 per release, this pack has something like 17 maps? I lost count. A bunch.

Plus there are two more maps that MIGHT hit the blog this month depending on outside factors which aren't in the backstage pass - so I'll make sure to announce that they weren't in the pass when they do come...

Release the Kraken on the Guildhall of the Ancient Masters

Every month we go through our back catalog of maps and the many patrons over on Patreons vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. For older maps I also work on upgrading the quality of the scan where possible. Today we turn the spotlight on the Guildhall and Temple of the Ancient Masters.

Much of the daily life in Archsford, the City of Glass, is managed by the Council of The Ancient Masters – a collective guildhall representing all the major guil...

Patron Exclusive Colour Maps!

I've been trying to work a bit with colour on some of my maps as I've had a lot of requests for this over the last decade. I'm practicing techniques and having the occasional rough spot where I just want to throw away the piece I'm working on because it looks weird and blobby when I sit back and take in the whole piece at once and see the colour variations. 

But, I'm going to keep trying.

In the meantime, as a thank you for your support through Patreon, the results of these e...

The Frogs' Reliquary

Even bullywugs have saints, holy frogs, and sanctified leaders and allies. They aren’t common, and they are revered. This bullywug reliquary dates back to the rule of the Verdant Administrant and The Empire of Gold.

The reliquary itself is collapsing into a much deeper dungeon. It can be entered from the jungle entrance in an old bullywug temple, or by climbing up out of the deeper levels below. But getting into the reliquary proper to acquire the holy relics within requires collectin...

Release the Kraken on the Crypt of the Smith

Drawn back at the end of 2015, I've upped the resolution on this map and am re-releasing it today.

The Smith’s Reliquary was crafted from heavy blocks of stone banded together with huge bands of steel that wrap around the structure like the hoops on a barrel. These bindings have rusted through the two hundred years this reliquary has stood, discolouring the stone of the building as well as the walkway and the cobbled street that passes along it.

The central chamber within is the...

2019 Geomorphs - Set 4

Nearly a decade ago I spent most of a year drawing and posting geomorphs to this blog. This year’s Kickstarter for a new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas brought me back to drawing them again… with the slight stylistic improvement of a decade of experience.

Clockwise from top left we’ve got:

• Shrine / Temple complex with secret reliquary.
• Forge / Workshops
• Magic Pool
• Crypts / Tombs

And of course, while these geomorphs...

Return to Dyson's Delve - Levels 7 & 8

Once again we return to my classic “Dyson’s Delve” with another pair of maps from my 2019 redraw of the mini mega dungeon. This entry brings us to the mid-deep levels of the delve, where we find evil cultists and a second entry point into the dungeon.

Level 7 is a change from the earlier levels of the dungeon – instead of a mix of creatures and dungeon denizens trying to get along, this...