dysonlogos

Beneath the Temple of the Worm (Catacombs Level 1)

Beneath the basements of the Temple of the Worm are the catacombs that significantly predate the temple proper. This level of the catacombs is interspersed with small tunnels that were probably home to pipes for moving air or water when they were originally built. The pipes are long gone, but the narrow 2-foot-wide passages remain and are secured with fine grates in an attempt to keep the rodents and other pests from crawling out of them.

These catacombs are broken into two sections con...

Beneath the Temple of the Worm (Basements Level 2)

Today we descend deeper under the Temple of the Worm. The small temple in the city is less than half of the total space of the temple. When the cult of the temple was ascendant in the city, the old temple was much larger and more ornate, and these levels were built up over the ruins of the old temple, connecting it with the catacombs below.

As the city grew buildings were torn down and built up time and again, until everything was built on a foundation of structures that came before the...

Beneath the Temple of the Worm (Basements Level 1)

Last month we explored the main structure of the Temple of the Worm. This month we are going to head underneath it – where much of the work of this temple is done. As a temple to the god of death and the effort to keep the intellect alive after the “soul” has departed, a lot of the structure is underground where undead are unlikely to come into contact with the regular populace.

The west side of this level is accessed via the stairs from the libraries in the northeastern wing of t...

The Cinereous Basilica

The church in the heart of town has gone through many worshippers and worshippees over the ages, and still has a dark reputation (thus the name). Originally the structure was built as a temple to the Zoriszian god of mercy, of whom the priesthood allows no representations. With the fall of Zorisz, several heretical offshoots of the church appeared in the outlying regions and this unassuming basilica was home to one of the darker sects that delivered this mercy to the unwashed and the refugees...

The Riddle of Steel

Back to the shops along the intersection of Market & Random. I’m drawing up individual floor plans for a number of shops, stores, vendors, and businesses along a single market block. As I draw these, I also have the overhead views drawn out on a map of the city block as I go, so when the series is complete you can use them on their own, or as a fully mapped out block of shops.

This is our ninth shop on the street, across from Hammerhead Loans and south of Red’s Leather Works. It...

The Autumn Lands – Map B

The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This is the second map in the set, situated to the right / east of Map A. 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.

This portion of the Autumn Lands focuses on the densest cluster of islands in the Mulberry ...

The Autumn Lands – Map A

The Autum Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. I’ll be posting a series of interlocking hexmaps that I drew over the next few months. 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 this series, I’ve been working with the style I started putting togethe...

September Backstage Pass

Greetings Patrons!

Here is this month's backstage pass - 10 new maps of dungeons, megadungeons, temples, catacombs, and a pair of hexmaps!

Thank you again for your support, you make these maps possible.

RELEASE THE AUGUST KRAKENS!

And let's wrap up the Patreon releases for August with our final patron-exclusive - this month's Kraken releases.

This month's voting settled on the Pyramid of the Prince in Silver (with half the total votes), and the humorously named "Shut Your Gobhole!"

As patrons of my work, you receive commercial-use licensing for these maps.

August 2024 Cartography Collection

Here's all of this month's maps compiled with the descriptive text into a pair of PDFs - both in spreads and individual pages. This is one of the Patron perks for your support - in about six months this package (combined with the backstage pass from the beginning of the month) will be put up for sale on DriveThruRPG.

2024-08-31 01:45:43 +0000 UTC View Post

Return to the Champion's Retreat

The Champion himself had this dungeon constructed, a strongpoint where he could succour those he was sworn to protect. The entrances to the retreat are three caves that are meant to represent his willingness and ability to confront even death itself. Two of these end in traps, one enters into the retreat itself (and a secret door in one of the trapped caves also leads into the retreat – meant primarily to be an emergency exit, not an entry).

But when the amazons arrived on the shores ...

Scavengers’ Deep Map 10

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...

August Kraken Poll

It is time to vote on which maps from the archives will be re-released under the commercial use license exclusively for patrons to use.

I've pulled a list of ten to vote from this month:

https://forms.gle/1rKMadPUGW1FxAEc9

Longboat Mountain – Reflecting Lake

Continuing up Longboat Mountain from the Drop Falls, the climb takes another reversal in direction (and an increase in grade of the ascent) at the reflecting lake (location D on the Longboat Mountain overview map). The stream running down to the Drop Falls and then over the edge to Silver Lake pools into a pair of large ponds here (honestly not big enough to earn the name “lake”).

The area around the lake is a small bowl with significant tree and brush coverage.

But climbing o...

Halls of the Violet Sorcerer

The Halls of the Violet Sorcerer extend deep into Montauppes Mountain – with the main entrance along Stonerich Pass right before Gravel Bend (and the secret entrance being much further along Stonerich Pass). The paired entry doors have long been reduced to one sealed stone portal, the other buried under rubble and the weight of the mountain above it. Inside, the chambers are arranged in small clusters with extensive halls between them.

I’ve left the exact length of the passages up t...

Graxworm Map 14 – “Foundries” 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, not quite at the lungs but at some of the ma...

Graxworm Map 13 – Industrial Facilities

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, not quite at the lungs but at some of the ma...

Temple Of The Worm – Upper Levels

We return to the Temple Of The Worm from earlier this week with these two upper levels of the temple structure. This level is reached via three sets of stairs in the upper-right portion of the ground floor map – one leading into the upper level of the administrative part of the temple, and the other two leading into the upper mezzanines above the main fane, looking down on the primary ritual space (and the great death worm that is blindly writhing there now).

This is still a small tem...

Temple of the Worm

A manifestation of the god of death has been summoned within this relatively minor temple to its worship. Someone managed to break one of the seals of death and a massive death worm, a demon of the dead, now squirms in the main fane.

The temple itself is not a major one in the city or of the faith in question – a small structure (for a temple) of brown stone with a polished copper roof. The temple is significantly asymmetric, and in a roughly horseshoe shape with a wall enclosing the ...

Building 8 – Leather Worker

Back to the shops along the intersection of Market & Random. Based on a Patreon request from Mark Clover, I’m drawing up individual floor plans for a number of shops, stores, vendors, and businesses along a single market block. As I draw these, I also have the overhead views drawn out on a map of the city block as I go, so when the series is complete you can use them on their own, or as a fully mapped out block of shops.

This is our eighth shop on the street, sandwiched into the s...

Iseldec’s Drop – Levels 20-23

We are finally at the deepest parts of Iseldec’s Drop. This section is over two hundred feet below the fortress on level 19 and is only connected to the levels above via the shaft (the barrel for some planetary-scale defence system?). And even these final levels are difficult to travel between. Again, down the shaft proper hangs that long and heavy hemp rope from many levels and hundreds of feet above. The rope down here is sodden, soaking up water from the base of the shaft.

Level 20...

August 2024's Backstage Pass is here!

August is here, and I've got a new set of ten maps for you!

Two of this month's maps include alternate versions - where I removed details from one of the weirder or more detailed rooms to make it more useable for those who don't want a giant death worm in the middle of their temple map or strange Escheresque 3D rooms.

Thank you again for your support!

RELEASING THE KRAKEN!

Here we go!

This month's Kraken first choice was of zero surprise to me - as soon as I put the Spiral Crypts up on the list for release, I knew it would make it through, and I wasn't disappointed.

As one of the older maps that was inked on paper, there is no gridless version of this one.

The other map that came out on top is the Well of the Wyrm, which for the first time has...

This month's Cartography Collection PDF (July)

With the last map of the month up this morning, it is time to put together the monthly PDF collection!

This is a Patron-exclusive release that will be released for $4.99 on DriveThruRPG (along with this month's backstage pass) roughly six months after it is released here. I'm reall...

Scavengers’ Deep – Map 9

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...

Cartography Collection - May 2023

Still working through the back catalogue. The plan is to have all of 2023 done soon, and hopefully all of 2022 before autumn.

Graxworm Leg Gate

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 explore one of the secrets of the Graxworm – Graxtown in the mouth of the Graxworm hig...

Surprise Cartography Collection #2 - June 2023

Ok, these will start being a lot less of a surprise as I continue to post collections of older work from 2023 and then 2022 over the next month or two, but here's the Cartography Collection PDFs for June 2023.

Surprise Cartography Collection: July 2023

I'm working my way through the back catalogue of maps and putting together the monthly Cartography Collections like I've been doing since last autumn.

This is the first of these from the backlog, dating back a full year to July 2023. As my patrons, this is a gift to you, and as I continue working further back through my files, I'll keep uploading new collections sporadically for you as...

Graxworm Map 11 – Leg Gate Overview

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 explore one of the secrets of the Graxworm – Graxtown in the mouth of the Graxworm hig...