A small asymmetric square tower, Brentil Tower stands alone overlooking Banrior Chasm where the hordes of modronic rats once came crashing into these lands.
Currently secured and locked down by the the Sorcerer Lord Iosselmon, barring the use of magics to break in, the only way to unlock the doors are the magical keys distributed to the lieutenants of his Red Rangers.
On the nights of the new moon, you can sometimes see the luminous form of someone pacing in the enclosed balcony on the upper floor of the tower. It is said that Iosselmon’s Red Rangers don’t just use the tower to rest on their tours, but that they have to come here in order to feed whoever or whatever is prisoner up there.
This small “dungeon” is home to a circle of elementalists who focus on water magics (who call themselves the Blue Warlocks). Excavated and expanded upon from a small cave that linked to an underground river, it now serves as workshops, training and teaching space, and as the repository of a small library of elemental lore.
As the name suggests, the waters here are magical in their own right – the Blue Warlocks use these waters to both enhance their magics and potions, as well as in the research into new spells and items. One of the original Blue Warlocks linked the source of the river to the elemental plane of water as well as a trickle of energy from the positive energy plane.
Home to the elven bandit Illsong and their dozen-or-so fellows, the Hollowstone camp sits atop (and cuts into) a small rocky promontory in the False Loch Woods.
HollowStone is slowly developing into a small fortress. If Illsong remains untroubled in their occasional banditry and adventuring pursuits, HollowStone will gradually be built up into a potent little keep with its shadow extending over much of the False Loch and perhaps into the bordering principalities.
For now through, the camp is a mix of magically-cut passages through the natural stone paired with defenses built out of the tailings from the excavations and some “wall of stone” spells.
Raised by a talented Wizard-Noble of old Phalorm, the Seven Spires is a small ornate castle made of seven overlapping towers set on the edge of the Neverwinter woods.
The small castle was used officially as a research space for the wizard-noble, but also served as an escape from court politics in the young war-based nation of Phalorm, and as a watch point over the growing orc menace in the region. Being fairly close to the settlement of Neverwinter, ties were maintained with that growing settlement and information about the movement of the orcs was exchanged.
The Seven Spires were unfortunately built on a dirt plain where bedrock was too deep to dig down to. In time this means the spires are doomed to slow collapse as the weight of the towers presses down and outwards on the foundations.
Whether or not Phalorm survives the orc hordes it was meant to defy (it doesn't, the orcs destroy it less than a century after it was founded), there is only so much time before the years will do the orcs' work for them and the towers begin to collapse upon themselves. Less than 900 years later, the seven spires will look more like a jagged collection of broken teeth than the castle as shown here.
“You have in your possession a sword and a shield together with a rucksack containing provisions (food and drink) for the trip. You have been preparing for your quest by training yourself in swordplay and exercising vigorously to buildup your stamina.”
The very mountain is menacing – it seems to have been savaged by the claws of a massive beast. Not an actual volcano, the top of the mountain is covered in strange red vegetation that gives it its name.
This is the setting of the first of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone – The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I got a copy of this book some time in 1982 and fell in love with the rich detailed illustrations of Russ Nicholson throughout and the mix of RPG game elements into a choose your own adventure book.
Through dozens of playthroughs, I only actually finished the adventure once – I even have an instinctive routing through the dungeons following the right-hand path to the bridge over the river – but I have thoroughly explored the passages and rooms leading up to that river. It was on the other side of the underground river that my adventures routinely went wrong.
Last month, I finally sat down with the old tattered book and gave it another run – this time marking every choice, every room, and every passage. It took me a day to complete this map of the southern half of the dungeons – everything up to the underground river.
Now I just need to map the chambers on the other side, and the maze between them and the warlock himself…
“The Warlock himself was a sorcerer of great power. Some described him as old, others as young. Some said his power came from an enchanted deck of cards, others from the silky black gloves that he wore.”
Once you have crossed the underground river (across the rickety bridge, by boat, or swimming in piranha and crocodile infested waters), the areas under Firetop Mountain feel… different. Where the earlier portions contained many guards, once you get past the immediate structures around the beach, the dungeons become winding, confusing, and home to wandering patrols. Many secret doors here are one-way affairs and dead-ends often have teleport traps instead of secret passages…
It is thus a great relief to stumble into the final caves, only to discover that before you even face the Warlock in order to get to his treasure, you must deal with a fierce dragon that lairs in the cavern.
Through dozens of playings of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain, I only got through the maze a few times before giving up (often because I was playing it at school during a break). You could navigate the rest of the book without a map, but if you failed to map this section, you were effectively wandering blind – doubly so if you made the mistake of triggering one of the teleportation traps.
So last month I finally sat down and navigated every bend, dead-end, secret door, nook, and cranny of the maze. In my head the maze was small – maybe 1/4 the size it appears here. But getting the corridors to fit together well ended up stretching them out significantly until the north side map was nearly as big as the (much more densely populated) south side.
Once the source of a small river that ran through these badlands, these caves are still home to the river, but it remains underground now instead of working through the nooks and crannies of the slate fields.
Broken up into multiple elevations throughout, these caves have been home to beasts and men alike seeking water and refuge from the badlands. Now they are home to Mohkath, a reclusive mantisfolk necromancer. He uses the space to study and is attended to (and defended by) a very strange assortment of animated giant beetles and skeletal constructs.
Some locals are happy to have a potent wizard nearby, even if it is a creepy one. They bring Mohkath offerings of food and skeletal remains in order to try to curry his favour in case they ever need his intervention in local affairs. But most are wary of a necromancer living nearby – and more than a few would sleep much better at night should someone take care of the whole “bug necromancer” issue.
Mayer’s Fort is a small mountain village backed by a fierce stone walled keep. Initially a small mountain keep for a retiring adventurer, the addition of a monastery outside the keep walls slowly encouraged a small village to build up around the keep and across the river on the grassy verge.
Mayer’s Fort lacks an inn or tavern, and instead social life in the small community centres around the open garden at the monastery (the H-shaped building in the bottom middle of the map) and the bakery across the road from it.
With only 150 people, and a nobleman’s keep here, there are very few visitors that need a place to stay who don’t either already know someone in town (that they have probably come to trade with), or who have high enough social standing to seek the lord’s hospitality.
On the other hand, the town is high-brow enough to offer a magic shop (not where you buy magic items, but where you can get spell components, foci, and the other things that wizards, druids, and clerics shop for), a bookbinder, and an illuminator – all based out of the monastery and the building just southeast of it.
Lets set the time machine for 2014 and grab an old city map for the first commercial re-release of 2019. Welcome to Cliffstable on Kerstal – a small city that has gradually grown up where the Brown Goblin River meets the Kerstal.
The original name of the settlement goes back to when a single horse breeder maintained a stable on the raised cliff area in the south-eastern shore. Travellers and traders would come by the Cliff Stables to acquire excellent and affordable horses. While there is still a small horse trade in the region, the city is more of an agricultural and trading community in the current era.
There are two open-air markets in the city – Hillside Market in the north within the walls of the city proper (which often has a very festival-type atmosphere and sells all sorts of handcrafts, foods and treats) and Citadel Market on the cliff itself which deals more in livestock, grains, and larger trade goods.
This map was the result of waiting for two different medical appointments in one day. It was drawn in one of my little (4″ x 6″) dollar store mapping books using a Sakura Micron 005 pen. It’s very very small.
As you head north along the Brown Goblin river it cuts deeply into the badlands, making it very difficult to cross. Boat traffic becomes prohibitive also because of the speed and roughness of the river up north. Karst Ford marks the last point where a boat can travel upriver - a ford where the river has cut through the local dolomitic stone leaving a path of hard stone that pedestrians and careful horse riders can cross while the river runs swiftly through runnels underfoot.
Overlooking Karst Ford is an unusual ruined "palace". One side has raised open stone structures that appear to be meant to serve as decorative "gardens" or similar, with the structure itself being some nonsensical series of halls and small rooms centred around a circular chamber that was maybe the base of a tower at one point.
A few efforts have been made over the years to use the structure as a garrison or guard post along the river, and the circular chamber still has wooden scaffolding within it leading up to the ruined upper level of the structure - probably intended to be used to reconstruct a wooden watch tower over the palace.
Thank you for these! Mapmaking/dungeons are one of my weak points as a DM, and getting inspired by your maps have helped make my towns and dungeons much more interesting!
Up in the hills is a small crater-like depression with a mostly smooth floor and a pair of heavy metal doors that lead to some place in the hillsides.
The doors open twice every 6-9 months. Once to allow the Blue Golem into the crater to begin its wandering, and once again exactly 10 days later when the Blue Golem returns.
The Blue Golem walks the lands nearby seemingly at random for those ten days – usually just walking from one place to another and then moving on to the next. On rare occasion the golem stops to collect something small and place it in a box build into its shoulder. Usually this is a plant or a small animal, but of course tales include it kidnapping children or seeming to want specific body parts from those that come too near.
You, sir, are a nerd hero. Thankyou so much for these maps/adventures. As someone who is readying to DM for the first time these are very helpful sources.
At the end of Rose Lane is Rose Point Manor – home of the last of the elven line of Heare and their three servants. Keeping with the name, the manor house has a number of rose bushes around it and the window shutters are painted in a rose motif.
The original manor was a much grander affair, but burned down nearly 200 years ago. The new manor was built over the same foundations, and if you were to find your way into the basement, the stairs down are still cracked and charred from that night when most of the line of Heare was lost.
The new manor is almost entirely made of stone – even the elegantly painted window shutters are made of thin slate, and much of the furniture is made of iron and steel. The elven lord of the house, Krennheon Heare, is somber and keeps much to themself, spending most of their time in study and contemplation of the arcane and the past greatness of their lineage. Occasionally guests are admitted to the manor to discuss matters of history or arcane legend – usually in the sitting room with the bay windows at the front of the structure, and occasionally back to the dining room where ancient brandies are shared over even more ancient tales.
The cellars of Rose Point Manor still show the damage from the fire that destroyed the original manor house. The stone stairs and sections of the walls are scorched and cracked from the heat. The extended subterranean structures beyond are untouched, but long ignored.
The pair of iron doors that lead to the catacombs are both rusted and long unused – the first is in exceptionally bad shape having held the fire back on the night that most of the line of Heare was lost. The locks are seized and will take significant oiling and care to make them work again.
The basement contains the usual things you expect to find in such a place – odds and ends from the manor above, a rack of wine, a few pieces of old furniture, and some supplies for potential repairs. Other spaces of note are a small side room set up as a sort of memorial shrine to the bloodline of Heare concealed behind a bookcase, and the manor’s cistern.
The lower catacombs were used as a family crypt and a secret chamber beyond the rough catacomb tunnels is decorated with carvings of deeds and people from the long line of Heare.
I’m often asked about the scale of the maps I post. In truth, I don’t include a scale on my maps because either it is pretty obvious (when drawing houses and similar structures – where a square is 3 to 5 feet), or more likely because I want the end user to pick a scale that works best for them. In the inner workings of my head, you can assume that I’m thinking at a scale of 10′ per square when drawing most of my maps as that is the traditional scale for D&D maps which is where I cut my teeth.
But for the Temple of the Mad Titan, 10 feet per square just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s crank this one up to 20 or maybe even 50 feet. A structure of Brobdingnagian proportions, the temple is made of almost inconceivably large blocks of stone and rests atop a massive cloud. At the heart of this immense structure is the throne of the mad titan.
But he is rarely found there – but always nearby. He is bound to the throne by magical chains that give him some freedom of movement within the structure, but not quite enough to get to the massive entrance and thus he is trapped here with freedom always just in sight. Some days he stands in the great hall in front of the heart chamber and raves against his captors and the world. On bad days he will hide behind the throne or in one of the nearby alcoves, hiding from the light of day and the fresh air.
I’m playing in an awesome Neoclassical Geek Revival RPG campaign right now called “Age of Myth” where we are one of two PC groups competing to achieve the “victory conditions” of the game setting – in this case to form a kingdom by first uniting three iron age clans into a tribe, and then uniting three of these tribes into a kingdom. (The last campaign we played was also competitive, and while our group was the first to discover the location of the end-point of the campaign, we were beat to actually recovering the Eye of Set by the other group.)
The game takes place in Cromspoint, pictured here. I BELIEVE that Zzarchov is creating the hexmaps for these campaigns using a random map generator, and adjusting it to his taste. This is my interpretation of the campaign map as it stood in year 11 of the campaign (we are just starting year 13 next session – we have one session per season, 4 sessions per year).
I won’t add much more detail about the campaign, and what we are doing in it, as at least one member of the other group will be reading this.
Heck yea! this rocks!
A small asymmetric square tower, Brentil Tower stands alone overlooking Banrior Chasm where the hordes of modronic rats once came crashing into these lands.
Currently secured and locked down by the the Sorcerer Lord Iosselmon, barring the use of magics to break in, the only way to unlock the doors are the magical keys distributed to the lieutenants of his Red Rangers.
On the nights of the new moon, you can sometimes see the luminous form of someone pacing in the enclosed balcony on the upper floor of the tower. It is said that Iosselmon’s Red Rangers don’t just use the tower to rest on their tours, but that they have to come here in order to feed whoever or whatever is prisoner up there.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/07/brentil-tower/
This small “dungeon” is home to a circle of elementalists who focus on water magics (who call themselves the Blue Warlocks). Excavated and expanded upon from a small cave that linked to an underground river, it now serves as workshops, training and teaching space, and as the repository of a small library of elemental lore.
As the name suggests, the waters here are magical in their own right – the Blue Warlocks use these waters to both enhance their magics and potions, as well as in the research into new spells and items. One of the original Blue Warlocks linked the source of the river to the elemental plane of water as well as a trickle of energy from the positive energy plane.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/10/arcane-waters/
Home to the elven bandit Illsong and their dozen-or-so fellows, the Hollowstone camp sits atop (and cuts into) a small rocky promontory in the False Loch Woods.
HollowStone is slowly developing into a small fortress. If Illsong remains untroubled in their occasional banditry and adventuring pursuits, HollowStone will gradually be built up into a potent little keep with its shadow extending over much of the False Loch and perhaps into the bordering principalities.
For now through, the camp is a mix of magically-cut passages through the natural stone paired with defenses built out of the tailings from the excavations and some “wall of stone” spells.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/14/hollowstone/
Thank you for this awesome resource and making sure one D is well represented!
That's what happens when you wear a helmet your whole life!
My house rules
Raised by a talented Wizard-Noble of old Phalorm, the Seven Spires is a small ornate castle made of seven overlapping towers set on the edge of the Neverwinter woods.
The small castle was used officially as a research space for the wizard-noble, but also served as an escape from court politics in the young war-based nation of Phalorm, and as a watch point over the growing orc menace in the region. Being fairly close to the settlement of Neverwinter, ties were maintained with that growing settlement and information about the movement of the orcs was exchanged.
The Seven Spires were unfortunately built on a dirt plain where bedrock was too deep to dig down to. In time this means the spires are doomed to slow collapse as the weight of the towers presses down and outwards on the foundations.
Whether or not Phalorm survives the orc hordes it was meant to defy (it doesn't, the orcs destroy it less than a century after it was founded), there is only so much time before the years will do the orcs' work for them and the towers begin to collapse upon themselves. Less than 900 years later, the seven spires will look more like a jagged collection of broken teeth than the castle as shown here.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/17/the-seven-spires/
With full credit to Mike Schley for the original Cragmaw Castle map upon which this is based. I love that map and found it really inspirational.
“You have in your possession a sword and a shield together with a rucksack containing provisions (food and drink) for the trip. You have been preparing for your quest by training yourself in swordplay and exercising vigorously to buildup your stamina.”
The very mountain is menacing – it seems to have been savaged by the claws of a massive beast. Not an actual volcano, the top of the mountain is covered in strange red vegetation that gives it its name.
This is the setting of the first of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone – The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I got a copy of this book some time in 1982 and fell in love with the rich detailed illustrations of Russ Nicholson throughout and the mix of RPG game elements into a choose your own adventure book.
Through dozens of playthroughs, I only actually finished the adventure once – I even have an instinctive routing through the dungeons following the right-hand path to the bridge over the river – but I have thoroughly explored the passages and rooms leading up to that river. It was on the other side of the underground river that my adventures routinely went wrong.
Last month, I finally sat down with the old tattered book and gave it another run – this time marking every choice, every room, and every passage. It took me a day to complete this map of the southern half of the dungeons – everything up to the underground river.
Now I just need to map the chambers on the other side, and the maze between them and the warlock himself…
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/21/firetop-mountain/
“The Warlock himself was a sorcerer of great power. Some described him as old, others as young. Some said his power came from an enchanted deck of cards, others from the silky black gloves that he wore.”
Once you have crossed the underground river (across the rickety bridge, by boat, or swimming in piranha and crocodile infested waters), the areas under Firetop Mountain feel… different. Where the earlier portions contained many guards, once you get past the immediate structures around the beach, the dungeons become winding, confusing, and home to wandering patrols. Many secret doors here are one-way affairs and dead-ends often have teleport traps instead of secret passages…
It is thus a great relief to stumble into the final caves, only to discover that before you even face the Warlock in order to get to his treasure, you must deal with a fierce dragon that lairs in the cavern.
Through dozens of playings of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain, I only got through the maze a few times before giving up (often because I was playing it at school during a break). You could navigate the rest of the book without a map, but if you failed to map this section, you were effectively wandering blind – doubly so if you made the mistake of triggering one of the teleportation traps.
So last month I finally sat down and navigated every bend, dead-end, secret door, nook, and cranny of the maze. In my head the maze was small – maybe 1/4 the size it appears here. But getting the corridors to fit together well ended up stretching them out significantly until the north side map was nearly as big as the (much more densely populated) south side.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/24/and-the-warlock/
Once the source of a small river that ran through these badlands, these caves are still home to the river, but it remains underground now instead of working through the nooks and crannies of the slate fields.
Broken up into multiple elevations throughout, these caves have been home to beasts and men alike seeking water and refuge from the badlands. Now they are home to Mohkath, a reclusive mantisfolk necromancer. He uses the space to study and is attended to (and defended by) a very strange assortment of animated giant beetles and skeletal constructs.
Some locals are happy to have a potent wizard nearby, even if it is a creepy one. They bring Mohkath offerings of food and skeletal remains in order to try to curry his favour in case they ever need his intervention in local affairs. But most are wary of a necromancer living nearby – and more than a few would sleep much better at night should someone take care of the whole “bug necromancer” issue.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/28/dry-river-caves/
Mayer’s Fort is a small mountain village backed by a fierce stone walled keep. Initially a small mountain keep for a retiring adventurer, the addition of a monastery outside the keep walls slowly encouraged a small village to build up around the keep and across the river on the grassy verge.
Mayer’s Fort lacks an inn or tavern, and instead social life in the small community centres around the open garden at the monastery (the H-shaped building in the bottom middle of the map) and the bakery across the road from it.
With only 150 people, and a nobleman’s keep here, there are very few visitors that need a place to stay who don’t either already know someone in town (that they have probably come to trade with), or who have high enough social standing to seek the lord’s hospitality.
On the other hand, the town is high-brow enough to offer a magic shop (not where you buy magic items, but where you can get spell components, foci, and the other things that wizards, druids, and clerics shop for), a bookbinder, and an illuminator – all based out of the monastery and the building just southeast of it.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/31/mayers-fort/
Lets set the time machine for 2014 and grab an old city map for the first commercial re-release of 2019. Welcome to Cliffstable on Kerstal – a small city that has gradually grown up where the Brown Goblin River meets the Kerstal.
The original name of the settlement goes back to when a single horse breeder maintained a stable on the raised cliff area in the south-eastern shore. Travellers and traders would come by the Cliff Stables to acquire excellent and affordable horses. While there is still a small horse trade in the region, the city is more of an agricultural and trading community in the current era.
There are two open-air markets in the city – Hillside Market in the north within the walls of the city proper (which often has a very festival-type atmosphere and sells all sorts of handcrafts, foods and treats) and Citadel Market on the cliff itself which deals more in livestock, grains, and larger trade goods.
This map was the result of waiting for two different medical appointments in one day. It was drawn in one of my little (4″ x 6″) dollar store mapping books using a Sakura Micron 005 pen. It’s very very small.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/01/release-the-kraken-cliffstable-on-kerstal/
As you head north along the Brown Goblin river it cuts deeply into the badlands, making it very difficult to cross. Boat traffic becomes prohibitive also because of the speed and roughness of the river up north. Karst Ford marks the last point where a boat can travel upriver - a ford where the river has cut through the local dolomitic stone leaving a path of hard stone that pedestrians and careful horse riders can cross while the river runs swiftly through runnels underfoot.
Overlooking Karst Ford is an unusual ruined "palace". One side has raised open stone structures that appear to be meant to serve as decorative "gardens" or similar, with the structure itself being some nonsensical series of halls and small rooms centred around a circular chamber that was maybe the base of a tower at one point.
A few efforts have been made over the years to use the structure as a garrison or guard post along the river, and the circular chamber still has wooden scaffolding within it leading up to the ruined upper level of the structure - probably intended to be used to reconstruct a wooden watch tower over the palace.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/04/strange-ruins-at-karst-ford/
Thank you for these! Mapmaking/dungeons are one of my weak points as a DM, and getting inspired by your maps have helped make my towns and dungeons much more interesting!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Up in the hills is a small crater-like depression with a mostly smooth floor and a pair of heavy metal doors that lead to some place in the hillsides.
The doors open twice every 6-9 months. Once to allow the Blue Golem into the crater to begin its wandering, and once again exactly 10 days later when the Blue Golem returns.
The Blue Golem walks the lands nearby seemingly at random for those ten days – usually just walking from one place to another and then moving on to the next. On rare occasion the golem stops to collect something small and place it in a box build into its shoulder. Usually this is a plant or a small animal, but of course tales include it kidnapping children or seeming to want specific body parts from those that come too near.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/07/vault-of-the-blue-golem/
You, sir, are a nerd hero. Thankyou so much for these maps/adventures. As someone who is readying to DM for the first time these are very helpful sources.
You have truly created a great resource for the community by sharing your talent. Thank you for your creativity and skill.
At the end of Rose Lane is Rose Point Manor – home of the last of the elven line of Heare and their three servants. Keeping with the name, the manor house has a number of rose bushes around it and the window shutters are painted in a rose motif.
The original manor was a much grander affair, but burned down nearly 200 years ago. The new manor was built over the same foundations, and if you were to find your way into the basement, the stairs down are still cracked and charred from that night when most of the line of Heare was lost.
The new manor is almost entirely made of stone – even the elegantly painted window shutters are made of thin slate, and much of the furniture is made of iron and steel. The elven lord of the house, Krennheon Heare, is somber and keeps much to themself, spending most of their time in study and contemplation of the arcane and the past greatness of their lineage. Occasionally guests are admitted to the manor to discuss matters of history or arcane legend – usually in the sitting room with the bay windows at the front of the structure, and occasionally back to the dining room where ancient brandies are shared over even more ancient tales.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/11/rose-point-manor/
The cellars of Rose Point Manor still show the damage from the fire that destroyed the original manor house. The stone stairs and sections of the walls are scorched and cracked from the heat. The extended subterranean structures beyond are untouched, but long ignored.
The pair of iron doors that lead to the catacombs are both rusted and long unused – the first is in exceptionally bad shape having held the fire back on the night that most of the line of Heare was lost. The locks are seized and will take significant oiling and care to make them work again.
The basement contains the usual things you expect to find in such a place – odds and ends from the manor above, a rack of wine, a few pieces of old furniture, and some supplies for potential repairs. Other spaces of note are a small side room set up as a sort of memorial shrine to the bloodline of Heare concealed behind a bookcase, and the manor’s cistern.
The lower catacombs were used as a family crypt and a secret chamber beyond the rough catacomb tunnels is decorated with carvings of deeds and people from the long line of Heare.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/14/beneath-rose-point-manor/
I’m often asked about the scale of the maps I post. In truth, I don’t include a scale on my maps because either it is pretty obvious (when drawing houses and similar structures – where a square is 3 to 5 feet), or more likely because I want the end user to pick a scale that works best for them. In the inner workings of my head, you can assume that I’m thinking at a scale of 10′ per square when drawing most of my maps as that is the traditional scale for D&D maps which is where I cut my teeth.
But for the Temple of the Mad Titan, 10 feet per square just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s crank this one up to 20 or maybe even 50 feet. A structure of Brobdingnagian proportions, the temple is made of almost inconceivably large blocks of stone and rests atop a massive cloud. At the heart of this immense structure is the throne of the mad titan.
But he is rarely found there – but always nearby. He is bound to the throne by magical chains that give him some freedom of movement within the structure, but not quite enough to get to the massive entrance and thus he is trapped here with freedom always just in sight. Some days he stands in the great hall in front of the heart chamber and raves against his captors and the world. On bad days he will hide behind the throne or in one of the nearby alcoves, hiding from the light of day and the fresh air.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/16/temple-of-the-mad-titan/
I’m playing in an awesome Neoclassical Geek Revival RPG campaign right now called “Age of Myth” where we are one of two PC groups competing to achieve the “victory conditions” of the game setting – in this case to form a kingdom by first uniting three iron age clans into a tribe, and then uniting three of these tribes into a kingdom. (The last campaign we played was also competitive, and while our group was the first to discover the location of the end-point of the campaign, we were beat to actually recovering the Eye of Set by the other group.)
The game takes place in Cromspoint, pictured here. I BELIEVE that Zzarchov is creating the hexmaps for these campaigns using a random map generator, and adjusting it to his taste. This is my interpretation of the campaign map as it stood in year 11 of the campaign (we are just starting year 13 next session – we have one session per season, 4 sessions per year).
I won’t add much more detail about the campaign, and what we are doing in it, as at least one member of the other group will be reading this.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/02/18/adventures-in-cromspoint/