dysonlogos

Hello there, could I interest you in a Kraken?

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important kraken!

I also can't rhyme.

So, yeah, January 2018, Release the Kraken. Pick the map you would like to see re-released under a free commercial license - head to the link below to get in on the action!

https://goo.gl/forms/TeXvWZb3jdtgTUQU2

The Halls of Taqash Thesk

One thing you saw in a number of classic D&D adventure modules were crazy long hallways to break parts of the dungeon apart. Part of it was so we could have more wandering monsters. Part of it was so the rest of the place wouldn’t rise up when adventurers noisily executed the guys in room 3. And part of it was so you could slip in the occasional sloping passage so characters wouldn’t realize they had transitioned between dungeon levels (and thus difficulty levels). To accommodate those l...

Buried at Sea

Some people put a lot of effort into their tombs. Others get left in a niche, sometimes still in the same clothes they died in. In the case of one matriarch of the elven line of Tehnadi a tomb in the form of the hold of her favourite ship was cut out of the stone in her honour.

The care involved in the decoration of this tomb is remarkable, with the stone cut to look and feel like petrified wood boards and beams. On the same level as the great ship-tomb are a number of lesser tombs and niches ...

The Manticore's Teeth

The Manticore Peninsula wasn't named at random. Many explorers of the region looking for the ancient temples and treasures of the Tauvec have encountered the fierce beasts. The Manticores' Teeth is a cavern on a cliff face that peeks out over Hadrow's Woods where a small family of manticores are known to roost. The cavern is or particular note because of the two natural-looking pillars of stone that cut across the entrance (thus the "teeth").

The cave beyond isn't actually a natural cave, but ...

Carran Keep

Home to several extensive lineages of half elves, Carran Keep has become known as “half-elf city” to many living in other towns and cities in the region. The master of the keep’s lineage goes back to the days of the elven empire and the family has modified the slave tattoos of their elven clan lineage to a mark of pride (and made them significantly fancier and larger in the process). Family tattoos have become a fashion in the town, with about half the adult population now having their blo...

Third Story Run

“We saw the thief grab the map but he was away and out the window before anyone had a moment to react. The chase after him went from rooftop to rooftop and even across Thunder Lane before we forced him down into a courtyard where Ehrik repeatedly dunked his head into a small fountain to try to find out where along the way he had managed to ditch the map.”

After a few too many games of Assassin’s Creed, or just lovely flashbacks to the starter adventure scene in the original Warh...

Heart of Darkling - The Cove of Coals

The Cove of Coals is one of the last points of interest before reaching the Darkling Lake. At a confluence of the Darkling River and the Goblin Rill are ruins reminding travellers that these underground waterways have been in use for untold ages.

The structures here are of an imported (or transformed) volcanic stone, a glass-like black stone that reflects and distorts light, giving the place its name from the red glints and reflections of explorers’ and travellers’ torches.

Voyagers ...

January 2018 Backstage Pass

Thanks for the support everyone! Here's this month's backstage pass collection of maps in a 20 meg zip file!

I'll post the first one tomorrow and keep on posting them until we run out of January!

Christmas Kraken 4 - Javelin Hill

With all the weirdness and rushing around this month between Patreon and Christmas, I didn’t put up the usual poll to decide on what old maps would be re-released under the Release the Kraken process this month.

So instead I’m releasing one every day (except the days I normally release maps) for this week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday). These have all been drawn from amongst the oldest maps...

My Private Jakalla - Map 1R

Finally, with this 18th map in the “My Private Jakalla” undercity map set, we arrive at one of the physical borders of the city itself – the as yet unnamed river.

Along the river we have a sewer outlet, a secret exit of the thieve’s guild, and one of the city’s cistern systems (which are all upriver of the sewer outlets). One of the benefits of the Ditlana system in Tekumel (where cities or portions of cities are torn down and rebuilt ever 500-1000 years) is that you can correct for ...

Christmas Kraken 3 - Queen Hazren's Shrine

With all the weirdness and rushing around this month between Patreon and Christmas, I didn’t put up the usual poll to decide on what old maps would be re-released under the Release the Kraken process this month.

So instead I’m releasing one every day (except the days I normally release maps) for this week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday). These have all been drawn from amongst the oldest maps...

Christmas Kraken 2 - Epherin's Keep

With all the weirdness and rushing around this month between Patreon and Christmas, I didn’t put up the usual poll to decide on what old maps would be re-released under the Release the Kraken process this month.

So instead I’m releasing one every day (except the days I normally release maps) for this week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday). These have all been drawn from amongst the oldest maps...

The Juicer

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 the main chamber of the juicer could handle 16 myconids easily, and if you had someone to really pack them in it would probably "juice" two to three dozen at a time.

Honestly, with how foul Myconid Juice tastes, I'm sure it was used for something else when it was built. One of the local pech claims it was used by illithids to juice larg...

Christmas Kraken 1 – Perrol on the Mount

With all the weirdness and rushing around this month between Patreon and Christmas, I didn’t put up the usual poll to decide on what old maps would be re-released under the Release the Kraken process this month.

So instead I’m releasing one every day (except the days I normally release maps) for this week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday). These have all been drawn from amongst the oldest maps...

Vigilance Trail

Here is a somewhat rough and quick map of the Vigilance Trail as it comes down from Raven’s Pass in the Eastern Diamond Range. Not many use Raven’s Pass anymore – the major towns on each side of the pass have mostly died out and most trade now runs south of here to take advantage of routes through Yoon-Suin and the City of Copper Bowls.

Vigilance Trail still sees a few travelers every month – rarely even enough for banditry to be successful along the route. That said, someone has been ...

Thunderhead, the cloud city

Not all towns and cities are built along rivers, trade roads, and bays… Some boast the most spectacular scenery they can find, and in Thunderhead’s case, if the scenery isn’t good enough, the whole city travels to somewhere with even better views.

Thunderhead is built on magically resistant and strong “cloudstuff”. Once the domain of cloud giants and their kin, the city is now mostly populated by humans with a smaller population of avariels along with a number of aarakocra clans that...

Prior's Hill

Eight massive standing stones loom around Prior’s Hill. Grasses never grow tall here, and according to those willing to track their travels through the forest, the druids’ paths all eventually lead to this one place.

On the right nights, with the right rituals, you can open the portal on Prior’s Hill and climb down the stairs to the black dungeons below.

The 1200 dpi version of the map can be downloaded for free thanks to your support at 2017-12-15 20:22:58 +0000 UTC View Post

Rosnar Hill

The patriarch of the cult of the White Archons retired to a tiny little thorp built up around a small bridge over an almost equally small river. He spent a small sum on fixing up the old church where he was first inducted into the order of the White Archons, and a significantly larger sum on a small tower on a hill overlooking the river and the thorp.

The town took on his name and became Rosnar Hill and is growing ever-so-slowly. The central point in town, just west of the river and attached t...

Griffinwatch

Griffinwatch got its name from stories that the hilltop where it sits was once home a nest of griffons. Once a watch fort on the border between elven and human lands, Griffinwatch became redundant as the wars pushed back the elven empire and when many fortresses were moved primarily underground to defend against dragon strikes and elvish sorcery. Lord Brannen of Korse was the founder of the structure, and his body is buried under one of the watch towers along the wall – supposedly with some of...

Pillars of the Temple of Rains

At the edge of the Falleck Promontory overlooking the Dry Badlands of Korush, a series of bizarre (and probably unnatural) stone pillars reach 60 feet up from the dry floor of the land and support a series of small bridges that in turn lead to the ruins of the Temple of Rains. Some say rebuilding the temple will bring water back to the badlands, but most believe the temple was built here in the first place because water is so rare.

Thanks to your support, this map is available as a 1200dpi dow...

Heart of Darkling - The Bandit Tower

This access point to the Darkling River comes from a small tower on the surface that is currently run by a moderately successful group of bandits. They combine classic banditry with adventuring and trade, as well as letting select people know that they have a link to the underworld that manages to avoid the drow at the Weeping Outpost that they can then use to their commercial gain.

The leader of the bandits, Keth Shihuk (an old elven mercenary), tries to keep the banditry to a low level, main...

December Backstage Pass

Here's the backstage pass for this month - well, except for one map.

I was pushing pretty hard through the month on the #mapvember challenge, and didn't get around to drawing the next section of the My Private Jakalla project. I'll get it done this week sometime for an end of month upload, but it won't make it into any of the backstage passes.

Thanks again for your support everyone, YOU make this possible.

Release the Kraken on Stariphos Bay!

Our second kraken release this month is Stariphos Bay - a lovely little city map I drew back before I started using technical pens. It was a wee little 4x6 drawing when I first made it, so it doesn't upscale all that well to full-page size.

Thanks to you, it is now available for commercial and personal use with new screen layers added (the water, and the black fortifications) from the blog post at 2017-11-30 19:12:30 +0000 UTC View Post

My Private Jakalla - Map 1Q

While much of the maze of old structures, basements, and temple substructures in the undercity is technically the domain of “cults” of the various gods of order and change, there are some areas that are either ignored and in ruins… or in this case have been taken over by a small cult of one of the Pariah Gods.

Nestled beneath the streets of the fine city, the Pariah Gods cult’s ritual space is at the lower left here, and they access the area via a secret door from a building basement i...

Brinkman's Cave

The clear waters of the Yashek Rill flow out of the hills south of town. If you follow the small river about two hours into the hills you come to where it flows out of a large tumble of rocks at the base of Purloined Hill - and if you insist on following it further into those rocks, you will find yourself in Brinkman's Cave.

Sages say that Brinkman's cave is a leftover of a much earlier human settlement - that there are sections of the caves that have obviously been shaped by human hands and p...

Release the Kraken on the R-AN (NorthCott) Sociological Research Domes

[Like all Release the Kraken posts, this map is a freebie, not charged as a creation on Patreon]

Every month that we maintain funding over the Kraken mark we sift through and vote on what map or maps will be re-released under the commercial use license. This month we start with the R-AN (NorthCott) Sociological Research Domes which I named after a friend of mine, Ryan Northcott.

I picture using this map as the starting point for a classic Gamma World campaign – where the...

Headquarters

 “We found this place just sitting there in the wasteland… and wastelands being wastelands, we moved in because it was fairly defensible and gave us some cover from the storms and sun. But for some reason… every… single… villain… wants to take the place over, move in, and run their evil army from here. Running a small anarcho syndicalist commune from a giant skull is a lot more perilous than you’d think!”

This map gave me a lot more trouble than I would like to admit. ...