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A little bit of Backstage Pass for y'all

I was sitting at my girlfriend's workplace yesterday evening, waiting for her to finish for the night, and I was whiling away the time with pen and paper in hand. I posted a phone photo of the piece in progress, but the final won't be making it up to the blog any time soon, so I figured I should give you all a sneak peak at Ross' Cave - known to the local residents as "the Labyrinth".

Zaelen's Hive

Zaelen is a zealous and insane cleric of community. He was originally a con artist who masqueraded as a small-town priest until he saw the power of community in action as the town came together under the banner of the church to fend off attacking barbarians. As a true cleric of the faith, he tried to build up communities to get people to work together, but always he ran into the problems of people not getting along, communities fracturing, and the issue of “individuality” being a problem wh...

Holy Support! And Care Package Info!

When I wrote up the goals for this Patreon campaign, the $120 rent goal was added in jest. Heck, the $60 inebriants goal was a joke too, but by the time I had posted it, I knew we were going to break that target. Then we made it. Now we're inching closer to the $150 mark. So I figured it was time to both thank you all for the help (and my goodness you've helped) and to give you the run down on how I was going to handle the care packages. Roughly once a month I'll be running off to Staples and...

Gedak's Temple

This week's Friday Map was inspired by one of the first patrons of the Dodecahedron - Mark Gedak of Purple Duck Games. A temple set above and around the bubbling lakes of magma in an ancient volcano... You can read more about the map at the blog post

BackStage Pass #3 - January 2014

Hey hey! It's time for another BackStage Pass view of the upcoming maps on the Dodecahedron. Here are 9 of the maps that will be appearing in the next four weeks or so. A mix of urban maps, dungeons and caves, all for your enjoyment and exploration! http://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/stariphos-bay-production.jpg 2014-01-15 23:01:23 +0000 UTC View Post

Ravenson's Landing

A small freshwater stream to resupply at, a small community that sits on the stream, a small tower to watch over it all, and a small cave in the woods, concealing big secrets.

The Temple of Poor Parenting Decisions

This is one of those maps that I won't be offended if someone renames when they write up an adventure using it. The name just showed up at 3 am while I was drawing.

The Delve of Dread - First Level & Surface

There is a second map at the blog post - this is the "proof of concept" for the Delve of Dread megadungeon. The goal is to have a 20 page or so megadungeon map that also includes geomorphs at a few locations.

Maker's Hall

Where I discuss my love of secret doors and give you a map where the secrets allow for a much less linear method of getting through the adventure.

Backstage Pass Methodology

Backstage Pass Holders - this message is for you. In the past two months I've handed out the backstage pass material using two different Patreon delivery methods. The first went out as a PM using the Patreon PM system. This was somewhat awkward as I had to PM each group of backers above the $1 line with a copy of the PM. The second went out to the Patron Stream set so anyone over the $1 mark could access the post. If you missed it it is hiding down there from December 11th. I'm hoping to c...

Skyrae's Oubliette - a "nice" small dungeon

The Breached Fortress of Anoros

Found partially complete, I finished this map in almost the opposite fashion as it's sister-map, the Three Tombs of Acker. Instead of expanding the map that I found into a full dungeon level of twisted architecture and strange tombs, I stripped this one down by drawing in collapsed areas wherever the map was incomplete.

An-Nayyir's Pyramid - Side View

I haven't put up a side-view dungeon map in a while. An-Nayyir's Pyramid doesn't just conceal the tomb of An-Nayyir, but is also connected to deeper secrets beneath the land.

The Legendary Map Legend!

The Three Tombs of Acker

A full-page map that was triggered by a memory of the entrance to the Tomb of Horrors. The Three Tombs of Acker also demonstrates dungeon design with multiple entrances and routings to get to most places in the dungeon.

An Adventure! Trouble at Imp Brucke

Even though I said in my campaign that you would likely be sponsoring me twice for maps used in adventures (once for the map, once for the adventure), Trouble at Imp Brucke actually uses two maps, neither of which has been posted to the blog before. So enjoy! Tomorrow the PDF version will be available on RPGnow as a Pay What You Want issue of Dyson's Dodecahedron. As Patrons, feel no guilt in paying nothing for the PDF!

The thorp at Appletree Pond

A small farming community built by a large pond, if the community were to grow much bigger it would overwhelm and contaminate the water supply - keeping the town nice and small for the time being.

The Caves of Cairn Dubh

A long history of use and misuse means little when the caves have now been infested by the likes of Shill Herapt and the foul demons she commands.

Backstage Pass - December Scans

I spent part of the morning scanning and cleaning up maps for upcoming blog posts. But instead of waiting for the blog posts to go up over the next month or so here's direct links to the maps in question. http://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/three-tombs-of-acker-production.jpg 2013-12-11 19:58:19 +0000 UTC View Post

Hellrim Tower

The Ruins of Hellrim tower sit above a dungeon... but which dungeon? Perhaps Dyson's Delve (as described in the post), but who knows what depths are to be explored beneath these beast-infested ruins?

[City / Town] The Fortress at Hawksford

The goal of this map was a small city built around an old fortification that is no longer actively needed. The city has overwhelmed the northern fortifications, and the curtain wall is no longer there, just a series of large towers in the middle of the city blocks as a reminder of the mighty fortress.

Opening Month down, rewards & updates!

Now that the first month of Patreon is behind us and we are heading into the first *full* month, I'll be sending out rewards and achieving my goals: 1. $5 patrons will receive free copies of Dyson's Delves and Magical Theorems in the next week or so. 2. As soon as the money clears to paypal and then to my bank account, I will acquire new art supplies and post a report on them. 3. See above, but replace art supplies with alcomahol. 4. I'm mostly done two adventures and am currently working ...

[Dungeon] Aberbec's Descent

Dungeons based around a large pit are a theme that I find coming up again and again when I'm drawing and writing. There's something dark and iconic about the long spiraling descent around the edge of a big open area leading into darkness.

Canada is getting cold!

I'm sitting here working on revising my adventure for Pete Spahn's Brave the Labyrinth issue 3 and freezing my tuchus off. I look forward to the beginning of December bringing in some Patreon funds so I can acquire a personal heat source for my early morning writing sessions. Then I have to bundle up and head out into the cold Canadian wilderness to scan the maps I drew for Alexander Macris. I was foolish and drew them on paper larger than the size of my scanner and should have scanned them a m...

[Town/City] Pendershire

I enjoyed drawing this and it's sister map (Axebridge). They have roughly mirrored designs, one defending from the sea, this from the land. Thanks Patrons, this map is here because of you!

Kobold's Run

There are often times in an adventure (of my own design or a commercial one) that I want to "stretch" a scene a little. I use a collection of small maps with one entry and one exit point for situations like this, so I can add the area in question between two other areas. Sometimes I work in the opposite direction, and replace a large chunk of dungeon from an existing design with a smaller chunk like this one.

Parson's Rock

Ruins. So many adventures start in them. These are actually based on an old collapsed house I found in the woods once, where the collapsed foundations had turned into a duck pond.

Maps in the Mail?

Based on my current calculations, it would cost me roughly $6.45 plus time and effort to mail off a monthly collection of maps printed on nice 24 lb parchment, linen and 25% cotton papers (printed in rich black on ivory, copper and blue papers) to people in the US and Canada. An extra $3 or so to ship internationally. This would be a 9x12 envelope with 8 maps held between two 110lb cardstock sheets (for protection). Time and Effort are the known unknowns in this equation. I'm trying to figure ...

Ooooops! Content vs Paid Content

So, it turns out that when I check something off as "Content", that isn't enough. There's a nice little drop-box sitting somewhere else on the screen when I make these posts that I have to set as "Paid" to actually get the system to note that this is a Patreon-supported map. So, I've reposted the maps of Axebridge and Malleth's Canyon as "Paid" AND "Content" (instead of just content). Sorry for any confusion.

Malleth's Canyon

This map exists in two versions - and as patrons you are doubly encouraged to let me know which one you prefer - with or without the tree screens.