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Longboat Mountain – Beneath Goblins Hill

Until recently the ruins atop Goblins Hill were abandoned – the goblins stayed in the dungeons below and most people knew better than to explore them as there were goblins down there. But the recent influx of goblin kin (displaced from their previous home by a rampaging bulette) has pushed them from the dungeons into the ruins and caves.

The dungeons are a fairly simple single-level complex with stairs down from the smaller tower on the north side, and a ladder down from the larger to...

November Cartography Collection

As I'm going to be out and about most of tomorrow (and I always go offline for the weekends), I figured I should give you the compiled map PDF now. The final map in here (Beneath Goblins Hill) will go up on the blog and Patreon tomorrow morning.

This is a patron-exclusive release for about six months ...

Longboat Mountain - Goblins Hill

A diversion off of the main trail up Longboat Mountain leads to old ruins on the prominence above Red Eagle Tower. Known as Goblins Hill, these ruins were part of the fortifications that include Red Eagle Tower – but these fortifications were torn down unknown ages ago, and a small tribe of goblins has been living in the dungeons beneath them for a few generations.

In the last couple of months, this tribe has been bolstered by another related tribe that was ousted from their own terri...

Post-Apocalyptic Urban Encampment

Societies rebuild even after the worst disasters. When everything goes to shit, we see both the best and worst in our fellow people. While some fall to the base instincts of “might makes right”, stealing, raiding and subjugating their fellow survivors – the social nature of humanity and the benefits of teamwork result in groups settling down wherever they can to find shelter, produce food, and protect one another from the raiders and jerks.

This group has taken over a neighbourhoo...

The Hall of Champions

Two hours walk south of the city, long past where the farmers’ fields have already given way to olive orchards, and the olive orchards are giving way to the wilderness, the Hall of Champions has been excavated into the stony side of a large dusty hill.

Massive caryatid columns bracket the entry into the hall – showing two exhausted warriors with much of their equipment at their feet as they attempt to hold up the entrance lintel. Within are larger-than-life statues of many great cha...

Haronin’s Folly

His mind shattered by rituals contacting strange intelligences of other planes, the wizard Haronin became reclusive and bizarre – not suddenly, but in a gradual unraveling that became more and more apparent as the years went by.

Their once-imposing stature reduced to a shadow of itself, much of it concealed behind long unkempt hair, Haronin retreated to one of their many small follies and bolt holes in the badlands. In this particular instance, their madness manifested as a strange pa...

Scavengers’ Deep – Map 13

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven com...

The Greywater Temple

One of the streams feeding this cavern pool runs grey with clay sediment, giving the location its name. A small temple to a dark god has been built in the back of the cave. There is a small twisting cave that leads to a sealed door into the back of the temple, but the main entrance are above the three sets of stairs that lead up to the frontage of the temple proper, flanked by statues of paladins of the faith.

The existence of the temple is a guarded secret among those who know of it �...

Griffon Tower Dungeons

The dungeons beneath Griffon Tower are a bit of a task to get to, as there are no ground floor entrances to the tower and thus one needs to get to the tower top, and then climb down through the five floors of the tower proper before coming to the underground portions.

The first two of the dungeon levels are the basements of the tower proper, extending the basic floor plan of the lower levels of the tower. The first of these, like the ground floor of the tower, is mostly storage. The sec...

Griffon Tower

Not a lot of towers have a landing “bay” for a griffon on a level below the rooftop, so whatever the plans of the original builder might have been, this one is now known as “Griffon Tower”. The structure itself is actually only accessible from the roof or the level 5 landing pad – the elevated entrance on level 2 of the east side of the structure is a fake to confuse attackers. If one lacks the ability to fly or climb in, there is a crane on the tower roof that can be extended out t...

The Autumn Lands Map D

The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits above Map B and to the right of Map C (the map that connects the Autumn Lands to the Midsummer Lands). The goal of the Autumn Lands is to produce a series of commercial-use hexmaps that can be used in their entirety, or just one map for a specific adventure. There’s no set scale for these maps, and the items on the maps are not to scale with each other so we can see points of interest like towers, cities, and caves. If ...

November Backstage Pass

Here is this month's backstage pass!

For the new patrons, at the beginning of every month I put together this zip file containing all the maps that will be published during the month (without write-ups, as I haven't written them yet). This is offered as a patron-exclusive release, which will get bundled with the end-of-month PDF collection of maps and posted for sale six+ months after release.<...

Cartography Collection - October 2024

Here is this month's Cartography Collection - assembling all ten maps released this month into a single PDF for your archival pleasure.

This is a patron-exclusive release for about six months - after which it will be bundled with this month's backstage pass and put up for sale on DTRPG.&...

Scavengers’ Deep – Map 12

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven com...

Frothanger’s Garden

Frothanger’s Garden is a small dungeon set into a hill in the Thornwilde – hidden by it’s creator from the prying eyes of the world. This small sanctuary was the cherished domain of the archdruid Frothanger, who wielded their power across the planes. This small garden was a place where they could store and grow rare and magical flora from across the multiverse.

The magics invested into the garden have kept it flourishing long after Frothanger and their circle had moved on from thi...

Longboat Mountain – The Cold Stones

The trail up Longboat Mountain splits in several places – the first is between the Silver Vale and the Drop Falls where another path takes travellers along the west face of the mountain towards Red Eagle Tower. The second split occurs up past Reflecing Lake where the main path follows the stream coming down the mountain from the valley at the top, but a side branch heads up to a relatively flat area set with standing stones of Brobdingnagian proportions (the largest being 25 feet across and...

Graxworm Map 15 – Lungs Detail

The Graxworm is a massive dead dragon of mythic scale, several miles long and large enough to contain a town in the mouth. Creatures have set up here to “mine” the massive corpse for its valuable materials – leather, scales, ichor, tendons, and more. Practically every bit has some value to someone, and in the long term the expectation is that nothing will remain, not even the massive bones. Today we are deep within the corpse of the graxworm – sections of the lungs reached via Corpseg...

Blackspear Outpost Overrun

Something powerful smashed through this small dwarven fortress. You can trace its path from the southern of the front doors to the outpost, up the flights of stairs to the “hall of friends” and then south and east through a wall, more doors and to the warking’s audience chamber. Here the path continues, smashing the warking’s throne, and then through the secret passage behind it. It isn’t hard to figure out where this beast caught up with the dwarf it sought, for the trail of destru...

A Roman Fantasy Town

Drawn for an upcoming novel by Jason Tondro, this started out as an isometric map of a Roman settlement for a setting with more magic (and a lot more necromancy) than the real world and slowly morphed into more of an illustration of the same. It still works as a map but is significantly more fiddly and detailed than what I normally draw for such items.

The basic shape and structure of the settlement are based on the ruins of an actual Roman settlement in Spain. Some liberties were of co...

Ruins of the Waste Treatment Facility

The remains of a waste treatment facility draw attention, but rarely does anyone stick around them for long. Massive pipes lead here from different parts of the ruined city, coming out of the sewers and leading to these ruins. Some follow to find out if the pipes once carried water (hoping for a source of water, or to turn it back on somehow), others just to find out where they lead, and a few to prey on those in the first two categories.

The machinery was long ago stripped for parts to...

Wit & Wisdom Apothecary

The tenth shop in our small shops series of businesses at the intersection of Market & Random - this tiny structure is home to a herbalist and many, many of their herbs.

This shop is run by a surprisingly young vendor considering the name and the stereotype of elder women as the collectors and masters of herbs and poultices. The vendor generally remains in the structure – coming out if strictly necessary, but otherwise only seen in the mornings and evenings as they string up low v...

Crypts & Worms

Beneath the ruins of the temple are the catacombs of the honoured dead. Or in this case, the somewhat desecrated dead. The crypts were partially looted by brave thieves before they were chased off by the suddenly restless dead. But something has really stirred the dead again, and some are even found lurking in the ruins of the temple above now.

A purple worm has travelled through the area seeking a nesting space, and has smashed right through portions of the crypts…

The crypts a...

The Autumn Lands - Hex Map C

The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This is the map that connects the two together – sitting just north of Map A of the Autumn Lands and connecting to the Midsummer lands along the north edge. There’s no set scale for these maps, and the items on the maps are not to scale with each other so we can see points of interest like towers, cities, and caves. If you really need a scale for this and don’t want to pick one yourself, go with six miles to the hex.

For t...

October's Backstage Pass!

It is fall already? I didn't even get half my summer stuff done.

But I did draw a bunch of maps!

Here's the package of the 10 maps being released on the blog this month - we explore a new Graxworm location, some standing stones on Longboat Mountain, travel deeper into the Scavengers' Deep, visit a Roman settlement, connect the Autumn Lands to the Midsummer Lands, and have a few more piece...

September Kraken Releases

This month we had a weird mix of maps, including one that SHOULD be a two-parter. As that got the second most votes for the month, I'll skip the poll next month and release both of those maps as October's releases.

In the meantime, here are your Patron-Exclusive commercially licensed maps for September 2024:

Ashlord's Fall & Odrek's Orchard

2024-09-30 21:25:06 +0000 UTC View Post

September 2024 Cartography Collection

Alright! September is almost over, autumn is here, and we've got the Patron-Exclusive PDF of this month's map releases ready for you!

 
I try to release one of these every month as a patron exclusive - and the plan is to combine them into one bigger PDF at the end of the year and put it u...

Where do we release the Kraken in September?

Every month I out together a list of maps eligible to be re-released exclusively to patrons under the free commercial use license.

So which of these maps would you like to see in future products?

https://forms.gle/AB1vvogEvXvLGuPi7

Scavengers’ Deep – Map 11

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven com...

Kong Koffee Ruins

On the outskirts of the major ruins of the city, on the border near the now-lost remains of the suburbs, a solitary concrete structure stands in a parking lot slowly being overtaken by trees and grasses. For whatever reason, this cinderblock-constructed coffee shop survived whatever destroyed the other buildings in the area – both the explosions and the wear of time.

Laying in the parking lot, sad and cut off at the knees, is the mascot of this source of refreshments – a great ape h...

Beneath the Temple of the Worm (Catacombs Level 2)

Deep beneath the basements of the Temple of the Worm are the lowest tier of catacombs that significantly predate the temple proper. Like the level above, there are numerous tiny shafts / tunnels that interconnect between the chambers and the upper level of the catacombs. These catacombs are definitely from a temple of the same death god as the current temple, but significantly predate the structure – back to a time when that temple had much more political clout and was a much larger and mor...