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The Quiet Margose Tavern

The sign hanging from the tavern shows a matronly woman carrying a large mug of ale while holding a finger to her lips in the near-universal symbol for being quiet. But the tavern itself is rarely quiet – it is one of the few places in town with a dedicated stage for musicians and entertainers and thus attracts a boisterous if friendly audience.

The Quiet Margose is primarily made of wood, supported by 16 heavy stone pillars. The main structure is flanked by a covered biergarten on one side,...

Return to the Circle of Doom!

When I put the maps up for voting in May for the “Release the Kraken” project, I included an old favourite of mine, the Circle of Doom. But as I was getting it ready to post today, I gave it a good hard look and just didn’t feel comfortable releasing it. I drew the Circle of Doom in 2010 (maybe even late 2009) for a Labyrinth Lord campaign I was running at the time. I drew it in pencil.

Penci...

Backstage Pass Time!

June is here (Yay!)
It is now hot and sticky in my office (Boo!)
But I have lots of maps (Yay!)

Included in this backstage pass is the last map I posted in May (the Caverns level of Quasqueton) which didn't make it into the May backstage pass.

Return to Quasqueton - Map 3

The fortress/dungeon of Quasqueton was not completed before the residents marched off to war against the northern barbarians. While the main floors of the structure are almost finished, the in-progress nature of the structure becomes apparent when descending into the lower level which is still mostly natural caves that remain unworked for the most part.

Access to this level is either via the stairs int...

Sugar Shack Slaughter - Blood Maple Hollow

As Canadian as Maple Syrup!

This is the setting for the Sugar Shack Slaughter, one of the two adventures in “The Scenario from Ontario“. Written by the remarkably Kiel Chenier, “dungeon” of the adventure is a massive hollow maple tree and tunnels among its roots.

Hollow trees are a favourite “dungeon” environment of mine, so I not only enjoyed working on these, but have a number of alternate uses planned for them for my own campaigns. The main level can work as an ...

Releas the Kraken on Keegan's Temple Compound

Summer rapidly approaches, and the Kraken seeks new lands. Today we are re-releasing this map drawn in late 2015 under the commercial use license – so welcome to Keegan’s Temple Compound.

Temples and churches are a fairly common sight in a city, but few maintain a standing military force without having a massive structure or complex to house them in. In the case of Keegan’s Temple, the finances were not available to build a massive church / temple / armoury complex. Instead a smaller tem...

Sugar Shack Slaughter - Quebec City Regional Map

Quebec City, 1666, with magic of course.

This is the setting for the Sugar Shack Slaughter, one of the two adventures in “The Scenario from Ontario“. Written by the remarkably Kiel Chenier, the adventure takes place in the area around Quebec City presented here.

Each hex in the map is 1/4 mile across – so if sticking to good terrain an adventuring party could travel 24 hexes in a day. Which just goes to show how big modern cities are – the location marked “Maple Ooze” on the ...

Baraloba - Along the Hewbank

After cutting through the Badlands of Slate, the Hewbank meanders through the slate hills to the east of Baraloba. This stony environment has the Hewbank meander significantly and form into small lakes where small valleys present themselves between the hills.

Another of the old giant watchtowers sits overlooking farmer’s fields on the east side of this area, and another smaller druidic farming community is nestled between forest and lake in the middle of the hex, only a few hundred yards fro...

Baraloba - The Road to Sabre Lake

This hex sits to the lower-right of Baraloba and is mostly a forested hex cut through by the road that leads from Baraloba to the distant Citadel on Sabre Lake.

Along the road we run into a few classic items for a D&D game – there’s a large farm near Baraloba itself , a trail leading off to an abandoned logging camp to the north, and finally Strickson’s Auberge, a traveller’s inn roughly 9 miles outside of Baraloba (about three hours travel time). North of Strickson’s Auberge is ...

May we release the Kraken?

Sorry. Let's pretend that title was the pain talking, and not just my horrible sense of humour (I'm "enjoying" lovely kidney stones right now).

Anyways. Maps. Specifically, re-releasing old maps under the commercial license. I've selected ten maps to pick from. Do your picking!

https://goo.gl/forms/h6IRsHO3OhR7uFzG3

Maze of the Storm Witch

Cut into the foggy clefts of the Steaming Mountains, the Maze of the Storm Witch must be navigated (or the whole mountain climbed over) in order to reach the Pale Divide. Unnatural mists fill these passages, obscuring the already confusing twists and turns.

The maze is also specifically designed to prevent the most common method of exploring such a space – if an adventurer uses the “left hand rule” (or even the “right hand rule”) they will not find the way through, but will instead e...

Great Pyramid of Tauneskalis III, Grand Emperor of the Viridian Beacon (Part 2)

The upper levels of the Great Pyramid of Tauneskalis III are dedicated to worship of the divine family and observance of the great incandescent blue-green beacon that reminds all within the Blue Empire of their divine potence.

The main worship level of complex is dedicated to the history of the Empire and the Imperial Dynasties – with statues of the six emperors of the Tauneskalis family ...

Great Pyramid of Tauneskalis III, Grand Emperor of the Viridian Beacon (Part 1)

Emperor Tauneskalis III created the viridian beacon which to this day marks the centre of the Blue Empire. The Great Pyramid is the seat of this incandescent blue light, said to be the mark of his divine potence.

Standing 260 feet tall the pyramid is the base for the viridian light which in turn beams straight up into the sky, visible for hundreds of miles around as a needle-like green-blue line that stretches up to the clouds.

2018-05-08 18:52:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Vault of the Lapis Monk

Cut into the cliffs near Terrek’s Wall is a solitary sealed doorway. Beyond it is the vault of the famed Lapis Monk, entombed for long centuries. The vault has lain undisturbed for ages – the doorway secured both in construction and by magic.

But time has her way. A portion of the cliff face has fallen, exposing an internal passage within the vault. Trapped chambers lay in both directions to those who would explore via this new entrance – but since when did common sense and traps prevent...

Lockhart's Delve

Once the basement of a small fortified temple, Lockhart’s Delve has been home to a variety of creatures and groups since the destruction of the temple proper. Some maps of the old temple of the moon god show two entrances into the lower levels – one into the basements and another into the connected crypts. But some fifty years ago the crypt entrance was completely filled with stone and earth under the orders of Short Terog, an ogre adventurer who made this her home for a time.

Most recentl...

Release the Kraken on the Rhinoceros Containment Caves of the Iron Overlord!

Aie! It is already May and I’m still catching up on the backlog from April! Today we are bringing back one of the sillier named maps and re-releasing it under the free commercial use license thanks to the awesome crew that support my work through my Patreon campaign.

It is time to return to the Rhinoceros Containment Caves of the Iron Overlord!

The Iron Overlord (a sorcerer of some power who is never seen outside of his full plate armour) maintains this hillside structure where the rhi...

Backstage Pass - May 2018

Here comes this month's BackStage Pass!

It is a bit bigger than usual because of one map in the mix. Normally my maps are black and white and thus take up only about 1 meg of space per map even at 1200 dpi.

This month includes a map that has a LOT of greyscale, and the end result is that it is 10 megs in size. And there's two versions of it.

So this month's collection comes out at 32 megs or so.

Release the Kraken on the Ruins under Axehead Mound

It is the end of the month and time to head back into the older maps and dig up a few to re-release under the free commercial license, all thanks to the awesome patrons who support my cartographic wanderings via Patreon. Today we are bringing back “the Ruins under Axehead Mound” from four years ago. The versions being released today have been upgraded to 1200 dpi and an optional grid has been added.

My default assumption for old school dungeons is that you’ve come across the ruins of som...

April / May Patreon Update

Hey, wow, what a month!

As I've been hinting at a lot lately on my social media pages, I've been under a pretty serious work crunch for this past month and last. This has cut into my interactions with you, my patrons, and I ended up flubbing the Release the Kraken this month.

Good News:

This commission work is over on May 7th. So I've got about one more week of crazy hard work to do and then I'll be back to normal. At that point we'll put up the next Release the Kraken Poll, as wel...

Tertiary Passages into the Depths of the Earth

When travelling the depths of the underdark, there are passages and caves that most “civilized” denizens ignore because they are small, narrow, and fraught with obstacles. These “tertiary” passages sometimes make for useful escape or access tunnels and these have their connections to the primary and secondary passages concealed behind secret doors or other hidden access points.

Tertiary tunnels are usually about ten feet wide with ceilings between 8 to 25 feet with an average of 15 fee...

Secondary Passages into the Depths of the Earth

While most traffic into the depths of the earth tries to stick to the primary passages, there are those who wish to travel either to less-ventured places off the main passages, or those who wish to avoid running into major patrols of the various races down below.

Secondary passages are generally 20 feet wide and have fewer worked areas than the primary passages. The roof varies from 15 to 40 feet above the floor, with 25 feet being usual.

In addition to being smaller and less worked, sec...

Primary Passages into the Depths of the Earth

There are tunnels and passages that lead deep under the land to the ever-dark homes of the various so-called “deep races”. These descents are typically marked on the rare maps of these underlands as either primary, secondary or tertiary passages.

These passages lead on for miles and thus only their general routing is typically mapped, but of course, the underdark is not a place you wander expecting to never encounter anything or anyone. Thus we have sample sections of these passages mapped...

Return to Quasqueton - Upper Level

My revised map of the main level of Quasqueton (from the classic B1 module “In Search of the Unknown) just didn’t have enough space for all the rooms on that level even after reducing the amount of hallway space, and I wanted to keep it so you could access most rooms via multiple routes, avoiding other sections of the dungeon level if you need to.

So here’s the upstairs, containing two of the best-known rooms of the dungeon – the strange magical pools and the overgrown fungal garden. I...

Return to Quasqueton - Main Level

In Search of the Unknown is one of my favourite modules of all time. But there are times that the map annoys me as the main level is more hallway than rooms (and that’s with 38 rooms on that level). So today we get to explore an alternate version of that venerable dungeon.

I ended up splitting the main level of Quasqueton over two levels (the second will appear later this week). In the process I added a few new rooms to the dungeon layout and removed one or two.

I’ve also made a vers...

Stones of Salanan's Peril

As we weathered the storm anchored off of Cruuk’s Shore, it was impossible to not notice the constant cascade of lightning striking to the standing stones by the old ruins that the sailor’s insisted on calling “Salanan’s Peril”. The bright flashes would leave terrifying ghost images upon the eye of bearded folk engaging in bloody sacrifices within the circle.

The warlord Salanan didn’t built the structure that sits in ruins on Cruuk’s Shore, but the ruins bear their name because ...

Tower of the Marmoset Savant

The Marmoset Savant is a very small, very shy, marmoset wizard of moderate level and impressive knowledge. They are probably the shiest deus ex machina I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with.

As one of the land’s smallest sages and wizards, the Marmoset Savant is rarely found in the same home twice. Once they have divested themselves of important information to get the adventurers back on track to saving the kidnapped child / saving the kingdom / saving the world, they pack up their goods a...

The Oracle's Grotto

There was a time when there was an oracle within the walls of the city, one who could see through all things to seek answers and who could even see into the future. But that was when the city was young and the buildings sparse.

The small cave and hot spring where the oracle once lived is now the basement of a shrine to the oracle and the few prophecies that were recorded. The cave that housed the hot mineral water springs have been expanded into a large set of underground hot baths that are op...

Heart of Darkling - Shrines of Silver

This month’s addition to the Heart of Darkling takes us back up the Darkling to one of its tributaries and the Silver Shrines built upon it.

Inspired by dungeon architecture of Lord Kevin Campbell, these three shrines honour a set of underworld demigods unknown or at least worshiped under different names and forms on the surface. The main structure is a massive hemispherical dome built around the...

Backstage Pass - April 2018

It is now some-odd-time-of-the-morning o'clock and I've finally finished assembling this month's backstage pass!

So here we go, nine maps that will be appearing on the blog this month! Because of my intense commission schedule this month, there is a fair likelihood that we might not have a Backstage Pass for May - but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

My Private Jakalla - Map 1U

Well folks, this might well be the final map in the main level of the Undercity map. We’ve finally arrived at the basement of the Palace of the Realm where it sits on massive stone foundations jutting out into the river that defines the northern edge of the city. There are a few extensions that can be added onto the sewers around the edges of the map, but we’ll probably leave those so the map can be expanded upon for specific campaigns in the future.

The most prominent element of this map ...