It’s been nearly six years since I posted my first geomorph to the blog as part of a series of 100 geomorphic posts (that since increased to who knows how many by the end). In the six years since then, my skills have improved dramatically.
When talking to David Millar of Dave’s Mapper, I took him up on a request to draw a new geomorph or two, and finished off by drawing up a full little dungeon made up of 12 geomorphs (2 standard ones, six half-morphs, and 4 corner quarter-morphs). They hav...
2015-04-24 19:17:22 +0000 UTC
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It's time for another backstage pass! Here are all the maps from the next four weeks of the Dodecahedron, minus one "super secret map" that will be posted on the day it is ready and can't be posted in advance because it might ruin the surprise.
2015-04-24 19:16:11 +0000 UTC
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I drew this weird little cave/dungeon for a friend. I think the best comment on it during production is that it looks like entrails splattered on the ground, ready to be read by some crazy old coot.
It works for me because it feels like a classic D&D game – it has a secret underground lake with a small island in the middle, as well as a secret underwater tunnel. It has a room with three pools / fountains. There’s weirdness and oddities including a cascading wall of fire blocking access ...
2015-04-21 14:14:48 +0000 UTC
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I’m working with Kabuki Kaiser of the excellent Mad Monks of Kwantoom and Ruins of the Undercity on his latest piece – Castle Gargantua. The theme of this is a castle in the scale of giants. But not the giants of classical D&D that can be up to 21-24 feet tall. No, these are the giants of legend – the giants of Jack and Beanstalk, giants that will carry a sack of cows.
Giants that build things using a 60 foot grid instead of a 10 foot grid. (Yes, I've actually posted a scale for maps ...
2015-04-17 14:20:04 +0000 UTC
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Cratered plains of salt cover the land to the alkali seas, pierced like nipples by spikes of basalt, obsidian and glasslike metamorphic rock. The craters collect the rains and are home to base creatures and the snail lords. Sorcerer kings of the crater states, the snail lords watch over the salt flats, occasionally reaching out to extend their crater state’s power, or their own.
Scholars write about civilizations that came before, but who would believe that any others than the mighty snail lo...
2015-04-14 14:13:27 +0000 UTC
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Every now and again I go to my patrons at the $2.50 level and up and ask for ideas for upcoming maps. I don’t guarantee that they will get done or even incorporated into a map, but sometimes one just jumps out and grabs my imagination like a great big hand.
Like this great big hand.
How about a dungeon built into a giant stone hand rising out of the earth?
That’s what Simon Forster suggested and it took me about four hours to draw it from beginning to end. It just… grabbed me. It also l...
2015-04-10 14:41:09 +0000 UTC
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Prince Eluwerr’s palace was still under construction, the marble of the great fountain still covered under the artist’s tarp when the invaders arrived. The prince was captured and put to the stake. The first to move into the palace were a pair of opportunistic merchants who began selling off the various stockpiles of construction material. But soon they were joined by others and now the Palace Market is a regular stop for those seeking unusual wares.
The first two maps on the blog are of th...
2015-04-07 14:26:51 +0000 UTC
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Two updates for the Patreon Campaign for April.
First of all, a huge thank you to everyone for getting us here. In the past 60 days we've seen over $100 in additional pledges which meant not only starting to produce maps under a full commercial license that anyone can use, but releasing three maps under that license last month and I expect to release four maps under the commercial license this month!
You have made a huge change in my ability to continue to produce these maps. Thanks to you I p...
2015-04-04 18:22:47 +0000 UTC
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Ah, city maps. They are some of my favourites, and some of my most hated works. A good city map makes me want to run a game immediately when I see it, but takes me three times as long to draw as any other similarly-sized map (maybe due to all those little boxes I sit and draw for hours at a time?)
Named for the massive wooden bridge that spans the Merrow River in the heart of the city, Alderbridge is better known for its more recent and impressive span – “Kurroth’s Crossing”.
Made by d...
2015-04-03 15:18:01 +0000 UTC
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And here we are with the final map of “The Upper Levels” of the Dyson Mega Delve. Added in on a whim when I was working on the Dwarven City levels, the Harpy Tower climbs up above the rest of the dungeon and seals the deal as the 31st map of the set.
Climbing up over 2,000 feet above the dwarven city it watches over, this tower has become home to a clamour of harpies who have taken over most of the easily accessible levels of this mighty tower.
When reading the map, the levels are set out ...
2015-03-31 16:40:34 +0000 UTC
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This is a free post, not a "content" post that is charged to Patrons
Now that the Dyson Mega Delve is just one map away from being complete, I took all 12 contiguous maps from the lowest level of the Delve and put them together into a single map that is almost exactly 3 letter-sized pages in size.
2015-03-28 16:39:20 +0000 UTC
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And we are back to the Dyson Mega Delve for those two last maps to complete “The Upper Levels”. This is map number 30 of 31 in the set, and once the last one goes up I’ll put together a page here on the blog that links to all of the maps as well as the node map to make it easier to navigate the whole thing.
The ruins of Bryn Mynnyd date back untold ages, and the city has been looted repeatedly by adventurers of all stripes. In the end, all that’s left is a few farmers who have moved bac...
2015-03-27 14:35:55 +0000 UTC
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And here we go with another backstage pass folks! This post is going out to everyone backing at the $1 or higher level and if you look up there at the top of the post (under the Backstage Pass graphic) you will find the little blue boxes that are the maps themselves for this pass.
While there are 8 maps in this backstage pass, there are a total of 16 files because some maps exist in multiple versions (including 4 versions of the Palace Market).
2015-03-27 00:55:46 +0000 UTC
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Not much is left of Crovet’s Tower. But the stairwell to the dungeons beneath was cleared of rubble by holy templars of the church seeking stolen relics a decade ago, and since then who knows what strange beasts (or worse – human cultists!) may have turned this into their home?
This is my last isometric map for a while, as I return us to our regularly-scheduled top view maps for the foreseeable future (well, at least the next two months). Isometric views will probably appear on the occasi...
2015-03-24 13:19:47 +0000 UTC
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Ancient temples fallen to ruin hidden deep in the jungle. Sounds like the setup for any number of pulp adventures and one I haven’t drawn nearly enough of (although I’ve run a fair number of adventures over the years with this exact premise… or the “twist” of it being an ancient palace instead of a temple).
I’m not sure how well I got my mental image across in this map in the end. The idea is that the front-most two buildings on the left are two stories tall with their lower stories...
2015-03-20 13:29:38 +0000 UTC
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One of the first maps I posted to the blog was the Lair of the Frogs. Unfortunately I have long ago lost the original drawing of the map, as well as the hard drive that had the only high resolution scan of it (back then I was posting low resolution scans to the blog with the eventual hope of publishing a book with the high resolution versions).
So I elected to take another stab at the map and see what could be done in an isometric perspective. The end result isn’t great, but at least it is in...
2015-03-17 12:02:42 +0000 UTC
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The nomad tribes are rarely united and even more rarely build anything resembling permanent constructions. The trade city at Leaping Falls, for instance, was entirely made of tents prior to foreign investment and construction in order to maintain trade alliances with the various tribes.
Thus Jebbal’s Tor stands out on the plains, a small stone tower attached to a stone recreation of a traditional round house, both sitting on a low hill, squatting over miles of flat herdlands.
Jebbal’s Tor ...
2015-03-13 12:49:43 +0000 UTC
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"I have sent many adventurers to the Prismatic Fortress, supposed home of the Archmagus Mekeri.
While some have returned, even bearing the partially completed map shown below, none can even explain the contents of even the first chamber of their explorations… It is as if the fortress defends itself not with traps or guards, but by attacking the minds and memories of those who breach its walls."
I drew this map just as I was finishing up the various dwarven city maps for the Dyson Mega De...
2015-03-10 12:07:14 +0000 UTC
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While there will always be wizards who are popular due to their fireworks and other magical manifestations, there are others who find no solace in civilized society. Necromancers, demonologists, witches and practitioners of foul arts.
This small hillside excavation is the lair of such a wizard, witch or warlock. One who keeps generally to themselves, along with perhaps an apprentice or a skilled swordsman along with a few additional toughs who can handle most problems should they arise.
This i...
2015-03-06 13:31:31 +0000 UTC
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There is a stout tower along the Akkedis Trail that is decorated with massive white chunks of stone along its battlements. To those who pass through its shadow on the trail it has become known as either the Crown of Teeth, or the Titan’s Teeth.
It is said that the “teeth” were pulled from the ancient corpse of a primordial titan of wind and sight. The same tales would claim that the teeth confer some of the titan’s powers to those who stand atop the tower, granting the ability to see in...
2015-03-03 16:08:02 +0000 UTC
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And the Backstage Pass is back!
Here are seven maps that will be getting posted to the blog over the course of March. The remaining two maps for the month are going to be the two last maps of the Dyson Mega Delve (which aren't drawn yet!)
The goal going forward is the keep ahead of my cartography like this so I can not stress about having maps ready in time to post to the blog, and to be able to keep the Backstage Pass running for the rest of 2015.
If you are having problems finding the maps ...
2015-03-01 19:24:16 +0000 UTC
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Buried in the crypts and tombs under the ruins of Bryn Mynnyd is the Church of Silence (known be the few outsiders who know it exists as the Death Cult of Bryn Mynnyd or the Assassin’s Cult of Bryn Mynnyd). This group isn’t a “Mwah ha ha ha, look at my undead minions!” type cult, but are more the “heh heh heh… Murder, murder and murder, my pretties” type of cult.
Ensconced in a massive tomb in the crypts, the assassin-priests of the cult have trained most of the creatures that liv...
2015-02-27 13:19:37 +0000 UTC
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We head back to the top-left side of the Dyson Mega Delve node map for the next three maps (although the last of the three may be delayed by a week or two as I post commercial-licensed maps at the beginning of March).
The Crypts are carved out of old mines under the necropolis of Bryn Mynnyd. Many niches and alcoves have been dug into the walls of the old mines to house the many dead here. The whole expanse smells of dampness and death, with old bones occasionally underfoot as likely as old sto...
2015-02-24 13:46:33 +0000 UTC
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Today we return to (and complete) the Giant Citadel. There’s a valley in the mountains that is avoided by sensible people and even adventurers (who are notoriously not in the sensible category most of the time) because it is home to a Stone Giant warlock of immense girth and supposedly immense power. Regular trade caravans run here however in order to meet his appetite for food and drink to complement his own herding operations that provide him with most of his meat. After all, keeping him fed...
2015-02-20 16:28:03 +0000 UTC
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Another break from the Mega Delve? How can this be?!
Sometimes the need to draw a specific map rears its head and I have no choice but to allow the pen to draw what needs to be drawn, regardless of how it fits to my plans.
I received four pads of isometric graph paper from my girlfriend for Christmas (three letter-sized and one ledger – which is too big for my scanner). These pads keep shouting at me from my stack of mapping paper that they need to be drawn on. Over the next few months I’l...
2015-02-17 13:39:23 +0000 UTC
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To the east of the Hematite Mines and south of the Dwarven Outpost we arrive at the Giant Citadel. Originally listed in the node maps as a single map, I realized I really wanted this node to be about “big” – so large halls, large chambers… and thus more than one map.
I’ve also got a love for little caves and cracks in big areas, so I included to sets of passages that are entwined into the area – the caves that lead here from the dwarven outpost to the north. In this case one set (th...
2015-02-13 14:05:00 +0000 UTC
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Thanks everyone, it's been a ride and a half. In November of 2012 I was so poor I couldn't afford internet. Two years later I am one of the top 100 Patreon campaigns of 2014. Thanks to you, I pay my rent every month, and also manage to keep myself in food and drink.
And this week we broke the final goal line for the campaign!
The full description of how I'll be handling the licensing and funds now that we've crossed this $300 mark is posted on the blog. It works best with the graphics there, s...
2015-02-11 20:27:10 +0000 UTC
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When the dwarves loaded up their Earthships and abandoned the city above, they intended to take all the clans that lived here with them. But in the months leading up to their departure there were disappearances from the city. Religious fanatics, young idealists, and some struck by pure greed from their time in the mines were among those who went missing.
These self-exiled dwarves hid themselves away in the deep mines where they built a small outpost to live in. In the years right after the depa...
2015-02-10 14:38:16 +0000 UTC
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A little bit down the river from the Home of the Muck Dwellers is the Water Temple – where the Frog Priests cultivate their mutant frogs and worship foul gods of the depths.
Guarded by a few elite mercenaries of the fish-people, and only rarely visited by any of the strange jellyfish beings from the node to the north, this node is almost entirely given over to the frog folk, their spawn, and a pair of spirit naga who have placed themselves as the intermediaries between the frog folk and their...
2015-02-06 14:13:46 +0000 UTC
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(Because I suck at calendars, this Tuesday's map is up on Monday!)
Now we head southwest from the Flooded Mines, along the Lost River to the home of the Muck Dwellers. The muck dwellers actually consist of a few different amphibian races who worked together to build these strange ovoid structures.
Currently, four different races make this area their home. They can be broken up into “fishfolk”, “frogfolk”, “mutant frogs” and “the jellies”. While they are seen as a single faction...
2015-02-02 15:39:26 +0000 UTC
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