dysonlogos

Vikhelm's Outpost - Hrangveld

Vikhelm and his kin were not welcomed to the land. Instead they fought for every inch of land they settled, building small fortresses and defensible homes to watch over their farmland and made sure to include gardens within their walls to be able to feed them at least minimally should the farmlands be taken.

The most visible of these fortified villages is Hrangveld, generally known to those who don't live there as Vikhelm's Outpost. A great house sits atop a sheer man-made hill looking do...

The Jade Catacombs

Carved from a cliff face of soft matte green stone, the Jade Catacombs are well-known to sages and adventurers, and rightly feared.

The magics of this place have transformed the resident trio of medusas into something ever so slightly different. They are green, semi-transluscent, and even their touch is deadly poison. Fortunately they cannot spend much time away from the Jade Catacombs, for the magical energies that transformed them is also required to keep them alive.

Unfortunatel...

Backstage Pass - Season 3 - Number 9

A little early for September, here's the latest Backstage Pass. Last month's pass didn't quite reach to the end of August so this pass includes two maps that are being posted in August plus the majority of the maps that will be posted in September. 

Missing from this pass is the next installment of My Private Jakalla which I'll have done and posted by the end of September. 

Also, don't forget to get your vote in on the Release the Kraken piece for the first week of September:&n...

My Private Jakalla - Map 1B

Last week I posted the first map of a massive undercity project I am taking on. The goal is to produce a large set of maps that interconnect to produce something akin to, but very much different in style from, the original Jakallan Underworld map that M.A.R. Barker used in his Empire of the Petal Throne games.

While the first map in the”My Private Jakalla” set was primarily influenced by the classic Jakallan Underworld map combined with my own personal idioms and stylings, this second...

Release the Kraken - Episode 5

Whoa! It is somehow nearly the end of August!In the next few days I'll be putting up the next Backstage Pass (since the last one didn't quite cover all of August's releases). In the meantime, we need to decide which of the back catalog maps needs to go out under the free commercial license.

So, get your voting trousers on, if you wear such things, and head over here to vote on the map to be released. One vote per patron (and you need to be signed into a google account to make said vote).

Chambers of the Vanished Queen

We hadn't seen the Queen of Isthen for seven days and seven nights, and thus we finally braved her ire and broke down the doors to her quarters. They were disorderly and bloodied and the mahogany bookshelf holding her most prized codexes and scrolls was pulled away from the wall exposing a passage down beneath the main chambers of the castle.

What we would find there, beneath the throne room and guards quarters, would mark us forever. Prowling through those rooms was a bloodthirsty creatu...

Holy Crap! The Official Dungeons & Dragons Colouring Book!

Thanks to YOU, I've had a huge breakthrough. For the first time, my work is gracing the pages of an official Dungeons & Dragons book. A publisher in Europe contacted me in the spring about using some of my commercially-licensed maps in an adult colouring book they would be releasing. We talked about attribution and commercial rights and I signed off giving them the go-ahead.

I found out this afternoon when the books arrived that this wasn't just ANY adult colouring book. This is the o...

My Private Jakalla (map 1A)

In the classic Empire of the Petal Throne setting, the original author and man behind the DM Screen (Professor Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker) ran a huge megadungeon under the main city of the setting (Jakalla). The Jakallan underworld was a massive structure that took up a desk-pad-sized sheet of 10 square per inch graph paper.

While I’ve done some work fiddling with the original map of the location (thankfully the Tekumel Foundation has a lovely 600dpi scan of the original map in quest...

The Tube Car Station

This map is a companion to the map of the Octagonal Station that I posted back in May. The Octagonal Station at first feels like an old temple of some kind, but at the back of the structure is an old elevator that goes deep underground. For most adventurers this will mean nothing, as the elevator is ancient and the technologies to make it work have long ago lost power. But with the right tools, tricks, or know-how, a group of explorers might make the platform descend...

Part way down ...

Ascent of the Scarlet Queen

The Ascent of the Scarlet Queen looks out over the west shore of Green Shallows Lake. The red stone cliff face has obviously been roughly worked by ancient hands leaving an ascending path along the face of the cliff, past a set of arrow slits and to a pair of brass doors decorated in the likeness of the Scarlet Queen barring the way forward.

The Scarlet Queen is a repeating motif throughout the areas behind the doors – appearing in various paintings and carvings, and also as a statue in...

Release the Kraken! The Three Tombs of Acker

Your votes have been counted and this month's release under the RELEASE THE KRAKEN initiative is the Three Tombs of Acker from way back in 2013.I've released the original version that I posted in 2013, as well as an updated version that includes a grid.

Grab them both from the blog post at http://wp.me/psUVp-2km

Vault of the Granite Ogre

Deep growls and grinding noises come from these stairs leading down beneath the old watch tower a few leagues down along the shore of Green Shallows Lake. A constant draft brings the smell of stone, earth, and a hint of rot.

Within the chambers there are uncountable signs of violence – broken and rusted weapons and armour, shattered bones, smashed doors and furniture and statuary. Brown stains show where bleeding bodies were dragged ever deeper into the vault.

The ceilings are ta...

The Grand Library of Coruvon

While the city of Coruvon is best known for its arena and as a staging area for explorations of the Black Mire and the dwarven citadel of Kuln, it is also home to the Grand Library of Coruvon, a 30 foot tall structure of white stone containing the collected works rescued from Kuln during that city’s fall.

While the library is best known for the repositories of dwarven knowledge (and possibly the truenames of several shipminds of the ancient dwarven earthships), it is also home to a ...

Beneath the Temple of Three Dragons

We razed the Temple of Three Dragons little over forty years ago. Our villages have been free of the depredations of the fell monks and clerics of the order as well as their three masters or pets since. And now you come to this place seeking the treasures of the order, actually hoping to find evidence that one or more of the Three Dragons may have escaped elsewhere with its treasure.

Your explorations are unwelcome, our villages are closed to you. May the remnants of the order feed your o...

Backstage Pass - Season 3 - Number 8

I just finished uploading most of the maps for this month's releases to the blog (I'll have to fill in a few holes as the month progresses - I got a bit busy with other work last month). 

I've broken the pass into three zip files.

• Backstage-Pass-August-2016 has the new maps I've uploaded today.
• Backstage-Pass-August-2016-Addendum has the maps that are being posted this month but were uploaded last month and included in last month's backstage pass.
• ...
  2016-08-03 16:38:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Quick August 1st Update

Those of you at the $1 and up level may have noticed that the material posted to the blog last month didn't exactly match the Backstage Pass in July. Things happened that resulted in a quick shuffle of the maps to be posted so I could release the maps from Adventure Most Fowl at roughly the same time as the release of the adventure in question.

Then I went camping for the last week of July.

So, there will be a backstage pass going out for August, but both the backstage pass and the first...

Wygralak's Hole

The stony plains of Hesten are pierced here and there with deep near-vertical holes that reach down up to a few hundred feet and are almost all partially filled with stagnant water. Tales of antiquity tell us that these holes were created by drops of acidic blood sprayed from the near-mortal wounding of the godling Askullag when he was struck through the heart by the spear of Wygralak the Slayer. Unfortunately for Wygralak the Slayer, one of these droplets also struck him clear in the cen...

Two smaller ruins

I occasionally draw maps of structures that are small enough that I feel awkward posting them as maps to the blog (mainly because I don’t want to feel like I’m short changing my patrons). So here are TWO small maps that I’ve drawn recently that are ready for your game.

The watch tower hasn’t been maintained since it fell in a border skirmish a generation past. Except for the missing door and the debris fallen in from the stairwell, the ground floor is in excellent shape. Th...

The Hidden Tomb

Many celebrated the death of the Warlord of Atun. Many others feared that he would not remain interred for long and sought to destroy and desecrate his remains. Eventually (after a series of adventures involving the theft, bisecting, separating and eventual rejoining of his corpse) those faithful to his vision, aided by those who felt the world was better off just forgetting about him entirely, finally buried him quietly with wards to prevent others from finding the corpse.

Less th...

Let's Get Kraken!

Ok, 69 commercial maps are now available from the blog, so let's get the voting started on what map will become #70!

As with previous months, head on over to the link here (you'll need to be logged in via google) and pick one of the eight selected maps to become the next map retroactively released under the commercial license via the Release the Kraken initiative.

http://goo.gl/forms/ULxwo...

The Village of Kith

Village maps are eternally useful – they seem to be the standard for beginning adventures, providing a place of refuge, commerce, and intrigue without overloading the players with thousands of NPCs to interact with.

The Village of Kith is exactly that kind of village. A small collection of homes built up along a road that in turn was built along a dry stream bed – which of course means that in exceptionally wet years, the town has to deal with flooding along the roadway pushing...

Released! The Temple Complex Ruins!

Running a bit late like last month, I've released the map that won the voting for last month's Kraken release by a landslide (gathering more votes than the other 7 maps combined).

So we have released the Temple Complex Ruins under the free commercial license, bringing the total number of maps released to 69!

Wednesday I hope to have the next set of maps ready to be voted on.

2016-07-19 06:51:51 +0000 UTC View Post

A Hex Most Fowl

I definitely don’t draw enough hexmaps – this is something I realize as soon as I do draw one. Especially at the six-mile-hex scale like this one.

I printed the basic hexes off myself from incompetech's hex paper so I would have a base hex that works for me, and to make the 6 mile hex really work right, I used one mile hexes as the subhex size (although I would probably use half-mile hexes next time).

On a normal hex map, this would be a single hex with woods and p...

Cartography in Action

Here's a quick time-lapse video I made recently of me "hard at work" on another map. 

This video was basically a test to see how my webcam handles the job... I've got to work on my setup for better lighting and play with the settings on my camera to improve video quality, but while I was messing around with the existing setup at my workstation, I figured I could release this short time-lapse video of me at work on a small map inspired in part by photos of Al Khazneh at...

Ginger Hall

A couple of weeks ago I sat down in a Google Hangout with a couple of beers and a bottle of blended Irish whiskey (2Gingers – I heartily DO NOT recommend it). I aimed my camera at a blank piece of graph paper and started to draw straight to ink with no pencil work first.

And I drank. Quite a bit.

And yet, the finished map looks pretty decent! At one point I asked the people in the hangout what I should add to the map and next thing I knew I was adding in an under...

Under the Dome of the Copper Sun

Twisted things grow under the dome of the copper sun...

Illuminated by the eternal glow of the copper sun embedded in the ceiling of the dome, foul things have taken root. The glade seems healthy and abundant, although the orange lighting makes everything look a little brassy. The trees are healthy, the grass lush, and birds sing - a distinct difference from most underground lairs.

But the only healthy thing under the copper sun is the water that flows through the dome. The large...

Emberpike Hall

Obscenities have taken over where noble men once battled against the oppression of the Kale empire. Something is said to have entered into Emberpike Hold’s water supply, hidden deep within Emberpike Hall, and the once-noble Fellen clan have abandoned their fiefs and the old hold structures outside the hall were put to the torch by parties unknown (although the destruction is commonly attributed to the Fellen clan itself, gone mad due to the contamination from below).

Emberpike...

The Vansho Reliquary

The Paladin Vansho may have been an oathbreaker and fallen from the path of his noble benefactor, but none can claim he wasn't blessed by some entity that gave him the might and motivation to strike down several lords of other worlds in his quest to break free from the bonds of outsiders. After his death, split asunder by a soul-feeding blade wielded by unknown assassins, the Vansho Reliquary was founded on the site where his body refused to be reanimated. Within the reliquary are not onl...

Backstage Pass - Season 3 - Number 7

Not quite a full backstage pass like most months - I haven't drawn all the maps that are going up this month yet so here are all but two of this month's maps which I'm in the process of bulk uploading to the blog as we speak.

Dugan's Hold

Cut into the old quarry hills east of Javelin Hill are a pair of stone faces that glower sternly at those who come this way. The faces are of the Sorceress of Javelin Hill who's name has been forgotten, and her husband Jethrun Dugan who was the reeve of Javelin Hill. Between the faces are a set of doors, now in poor repair, that lead into Dugan's Hold.

Built a generation later than the faces were carved, Dugan's Hold was a small military command base cut out of the stone of the...