"Maps" Blogwagon: Maps with Perspective...

Oop, gotta see what Prismatic Wasteland's been thinking about. Ah, "The Map is Not the Territory But It is the Topic"

Ooo... maps... always a favorite...

So, long ago on Ye Olde Blogge, I posted up what could be some appropriate content for this wagonload of bloggage. From the pages of a fortuitous Ebay find, I talked a bit about maps and illustrations of places that No Longer Exist, either by the actions of humans or nature...

There is something about having a couple of old topographic maps that memorialize a mountain that occasionally, and violently, reforms itself. Most recently, at a moment that we just happened to be able to witness it. 

Something that went from this:

Topo maps from Here

to this:

And as I mused before - What happens when our Party of Heroes(tm), bearing an old, faded map, crest the horizon, expecting to find Proportional Peak, on top of which the Gem of Plot Advancement resides...

... only to find the smoking Crater of Catastrophe. 

bummer.

Does an inaccurate or out-of-date piece of information (map) misinform or mislead the players/PCs to a dead end or hazard? Is the error of the map by ill-informed cartography or perhaps by ill intent? Did the GPS just lead you to drive into a pond?

Like rumors, perhaps maps should be suspect. Perhaps vague, if not downright misleading/incorrect. Maps that are an amalgamation of versions by wildly variable cartographers. A hodge-podge of landmarks, contradictory names, and scale errors. Omissions or obfuscations for personal or political purposes.

Do we really want to trust the scribblings and 'X' on this map? Where is it really going to lead us? 

Review: A Trio of Card Decks

Time to take a look at a few bits of Kickstarter loot that have been knocking around in my office:

First off, Crawl Cards: Overland, from BPB Games. I pledged at the $10 level for a POD discount coupon for the physical cards plus pdf. The supplement is a deck of 50 cards, each with six hexes. Hexes are color/graphic coded for terrain, along with features associates with one or more hexes (structures, settlements, monsters, unique terrain, etc.). Each card also has a brief description on the back for one or two unique features found within the six-hex area. The cards are designed for 5e, but are generally system agnostic in their descriptions.

Let's pull one. 

Card GO-07: "Blood Soaked Vale" The six hexes include three mountainous terrain, one swamp, on grassland, and two ruins/settlements (the hexes of interest).

Ooo. A mystery and the grumpy dead. Always a good start. Since the cards are meant to be used in sandbox style adventuring, the designers recommend drawing three cards and picking one that best fits as an adjacent region or continuation of a narration. 

(Draws three...)

The cards are titled "A Darker Path," "Radical Freedom," and "Rasekuhe." Cards 2 and 3 describe dwarven anarchists and a couple of farming and ranching communities, so the themes aren't particularly consistent with the original card. 

The Vestin Tomb, repurposing a Crooked Staff map

Oop, been awhile.  Away from keyboard, I suppose. Between work, the fact that my gym re-opened, and that it's time to go outside for adventuring...

Anyway, I have a folder full of maps that are in need of tales told, and I found one from a couple years back produced by Kristian Richards.  He produces a goodly amount of VTT content and printable 3d terrain for gaming locations and material, and is definitely worth a look.

Kristian interpreted the map on his own as Thorfinn's Tomb, a one-shot pamphlet dungeon. 

And here is my take on the space, a secluded shrine and tomb that currently has some unwanted visitors. I've borrowed liberally from Gavin Norman's Theorems and Thaumaturgy, a fine collection of three somewhat unpleasant arcane magic user subclasses and spells, with a few OSE and 1e bits and bobs attached.

Well, I should probably post this and get to doing some 'real' work on this warm Friday (predicted >100 this weekend and Monday locally). I have plenty more maps and notes that I want to get down on paper (er, computer) and hopefully share with the world.  

Stopping in at the Sweet Town of Treacle

I don't know why Treacle was given its name. It's just what's on the label... But the town has a dock, and smattering of buildings, and a few other structures of note. 

What I envisioned is a small "port" recently expanded and now under the eye of a magistrate or similar assigned by the regional authorities. Much to the disdain of locals, who enjoyed their quiet, unregulated dock...

Like Dawold, Treacle may be a good disembarkation point for adventures and explorations to points beyond. It has a few basic tradesmen and amenities, as well as a couple of potential sources of rumors and news (in the forms of inn notice board and occasional courier). And a bunch of potentially sketchy halfling refugees, who may make for somewhat effective henches...

Source

So step off the dock, take a look around, and maybe have a bath to freshen up. And perhaps stop by the local deity's temple and their rather stern curate.

Welcome to Treacle

Well, guess I'd better get to work building some backlog....  Dual review of a pair of similarly-named books upcoming...

A Brief Detour...

 A break from the regularly-scheduled program of recent small adventure postings to throw out a new village, this time by a new-to-me mapper and creator, Daniel's Maps.

The Village of Komico came across my Reddit feed, and I had to take a closer look. Daniel's architecture in this map is evocative of a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern setting of flat roofs, stucco and plaster exteriors and compact, multi-story builds. And it's built into the sides of a gorge or similar. 

Daniel added eight named locations on the map, and a bit of background in his own post. I took it as inspiration, but reinterpreted the town with respect to what I saw, as well as who the various NPCs became as I wrote. 

Source

I'm apparently sticking with a somewhat consistent town format, and I guess that includes the Deity of the Week. This one comes with the idea of an old god seeing a revival in popularity. The art inspiration comes from Hannes Bok, a mid 20th century illustrator of pulp and science fiction covers.

I'm having a good time with these, so we'll see how long this creativity lasts. One can never have too many towns for the PCs to hang out in, listen for rumors, or become nuisances. Also, low to mid-level characters need a base to work from, perhaps somewhere that they can rent or buy a residence to recover in and stash gear between forays into the world. No reason they can't have a cozy place to hole up in while they are leveling up for those future aspirations of stronghold construction and domain building.

The Village of Komico Welcomes You

Neuförde Needs a Bridge

Let's travel down the West Road a bit farther from Stoneash, and well inland of Dawold. 

Neuförde was on the cusp of growth when the spring floods undid those plans by uprooting the town's bridge, forcing trade and travel to other crossings. Understandably, most folks are eager to get the bridge rebuilt, but the summons for an engineer to supervise new abutments has gone unanswered. 

Neuförde is a bit larger than the prior two settlements, ranking as a hamlet. Basic provisioning and lodging is available with an established inn and trading post, as well as craftspeople suited for supporting a (hopefully) burgeoning river crossing and future market. The settlement's mayor, Johannes Stroemen, will take interest in any adventurers who visit the town, and may point them towards locales needing investigation or clearing. A pair of odd elves occupy a tower, but may be willing to offer some services in identification or other arcane practices. No temple yet, but a couple of missionaries have set up shop with hopes of constructing a place of worship once the building site is consecrated.

Map by Matt Jackson

And several halfings have recently set up shop in town. Creepy little buggers...

Today's deity was inspired by another early 20th century artist, Harry Clarke. Clarke's illustrations grace a number of fairy tale collections, Edgar Allen Poe stories, and a translation of Goethe's Faust. "Garond, the Judge" is inspired by a piece from an illustrated poetry collection titled "The Year's at the Spring." Clark's works have been used as illustration/inspiration pieces in other RPG products, and I first saw his work used in The Necropolis of Nuromen. 

Beware: Bridge Out Ahead

Stoneash, the next town down the road...

Next in my little collection of places and people comes Stoneash.

The thorp of Stoneash is mentioned in the Dawold Tower town descriptor as a next stop or a possible resource for PCs interested in reconstructing the tower (in the form of the local stonemason).

Map by Matt Jackson

In my imagined hex, Stoneash is approximately six miles up the road, and sits on a belt/trade road known locally as the West Road. The West Road connects the settlements in the area, and forms a rough boundary between local control and the "wilderness."

Like many small burgs, the residents of the town have aspirations, and although no particular threat or limiter has kept the town from growing, it seems that settlement and development has stalled. Perhaps there is some rumor or force keeping the town from recruiting more settlers, or a yet-to-be-determined threat has halted its growth. A recent tragedy has also robbed the thorp of one of its necessary crafts-people.

The town is a bit more established than Dawold, and has a few more resources and personalities to interact with. A guard-post implies some contact or oversight from the area hierarchy. The inn provides a place to lay over, and perhaps pick up some news or a spare hand. And there is the local clergy, with their own deity, again inspired by a Henry Justice Ford piece (For a fistful of other inspiration sourced from Ford's works, check out the Ford's Faeries project).

A note on "classed" NPCs in this and the other settlements: Where there are two classes denoted, the first refers to a suggested BX-type race-class category, with the second being the distinct class per other versions of Ye Olde Game, depending on how one chooses to interpret the various actors.

Stoneash Chamber of Commerce Welcome Brochure

"You have acquired the deed to a ruined tower" redux

So I haven't posted for a bit. But I haven't been idle. I was trying to work up a hex of a few small frontier towns and areas of interest. But it just wasn't gelling. So I have several locations to post. I'll trickle them out over the next bit - I've been having a difficult time sharing, not sure why. Let's just chalk it up to some winter malaise....

Anyway.

One of my favorite outcomes in Donjon's "Pickpocket Loot" random generator is the "Deed to a ruined tower." So much so, that it was the inspiration for my 2017 One-Page Dungeon entry. 

And lo and behold, Jackson had one floating about in his back catalogue. A tiny coastal settlement with the remains of a tower on the edge of town. 

So add a bit of a setup, and a collection of personalities inhabiting the thorp of Dawold. In the spirit of some of the original village modules, everyone has a brief description, a touch of personality or agenda, and a stash of coin, just in case the PCs decide to just rob the town. You never know.

I wrote this, and two other small settlements, with the intent of linking them along a frontier road. Interestingly, all three ended up with a theme of a frontier town whose development was stalled or inhibited due to some factor. In Dawold's case, the tower was to be the anchor for a small port and watch on a wild coast. A bad omen had put an end (maybe) to that aspiration, and with it, the settlement's growth. Not that at least a few of the residents don't mind the low profile.

I also made some notes and suggestions in case the PCs decide they really would like a tower with an ocean front view. After all, where's the fun in waiting until name level to have a killer pad? (The next town down the road is also referenced with respect to the tower build, stay tuned)

And, after I wrote up the three towns, I realized I'd made up a different randomly-named deity for each local preacher to honor. In the spirit of the Expanded Petty Gods project, it was a moment to write up someone new to worship. (Crap - just discovered that the original EPG project has been pulled from Lulu and DriveThruRPG over a potential copyright infringement. A shame - it was a great example of the group mind of G+ and a few people's dedication to move the project forward). That said, a piece of art from Henry Justice Ford served as inspiration for "Butia of the Field." Similar art and associated deities will follow with the other two towns.

Download your own ruined tower!

More to come...

Taking a Rest Stop at Longtooth

 Two post in two days? What madness is this?

Well, Shane made up a 'five-minute map' of a wide spot in the road named Longtooth (although "Village" is a bit of an optimistic appellation).  

And I figured I could do a five-minute (well, 45-minute) writeup to give a name and purpose for each of the residents.

So here it is.

A one-page village with descriptors of the occupants of each of the seven buildings. No stat blocks, just some quick and dirty whos and whys for some idea seeds. Somewhere for your PCs to take a break along the road, or perhaps they just stepped off the Longtooth ferry from points unknown to find themselves in this dusty huddle of buildings. 

Enjoy!

 

Witebörd Dungeön

Well, last week's foray into Steve's White City of the Death Monkey God saw Shamus get feared out of the room, Vicil reduced to 3hp, and Sumeh avert a hold spell (and pending disaster) by judicious use of longsword. We did get some gems and a human femur with a crystal that seems to act as a detect magic. A qualified success, then. 

Steve also posted up his whiteboard the following morning. Obviously working on some Very Important Manager Stuff. 

And when people leave maps around, I may pick them up and make an even bigger mess of them. 

And I needed a focused writing exercise: About 90 minutes of freewriting produced the first draft, with some half-assed editing and additions this AM. Was good to just walk through the space room by room and say, "OK, what's here and why?" Steve says he's going to kill/run his home group in it. So we'll see how that goes...

 DARE YOU ENTER THE WITEBÖRD DUNGEÖN

As a bonus, the adventure also includes some brief advice for Dungeon Project Managers. You're welcome. 

Oh, and Matt prettied up the map.

Come on in, the acid's fine...

Ok folks, doing it again - a sit-down straight through populating of another of Jackson's Quarantine Specials. Matt "helped" this time by filling in the hows and whys of the place, along with several suspiciously-named NPCs.

And that evocative pool of acid - no self-respecting evil lair should be without an extremely hazardous room. Written primarily with the OSE pieces-parts and the baddies get a hopefully fun collection of cherry picked spells to assail the hapless with...

Not much more to say but, "watch your step."

What's in The Tombs, Jackson?

Jackson has been busy cobbling together some excellent maps on 'vintage' notebook paper for folks to keep themselves entertained during our communal isolation.

A few days back he posted this bundle of joy:

http://www.msjx.org/2020/04/qa04-tombs.html

with the teaser,

"You traveled the gorge, met Tomlin and he mentioned that farther along the gorge there is rumored to be some tombs. So, being of sound mind, you decide to explore further.
He mentions one tomb is rumored to already be open, inside it is haunted but there is some sort of glowing archway that the old timers say used to whisk you away somewhere. Where? He has no idea, perhaps to a secret tombs locked away in the rock?
Another tomb is rumored to be in the same area, one for the three sister of Agmorda who prayed to the toad god Ptturib. It is said, around the drunken tables at The Dead Rabbit, that the tomb is home to a room littered with gold coins. So many that it would take multiple trips to remove them all. Course, the sisters aren't too keen on all their pretty coinage leaving their tomb, but hey, y'all are adventurers, brave and whatnot, right?"

So - the current ongoing environment is wearing on me. Like most of us. Even though I can get out of the house for work, it's still an isolating world, and I just feel unmotivated and dull. So this morning it was time to bear down and create a bit.

Normally when I write, I'll note/outline each room, maybe use Moldvay's 2d6 random stocking method to suggest some fillings, then backfill the room descriptions, contents, and encounters. Today, I wrote from the empty page, starting at "Room 1" and moving in order through the complex. Matt threw enough seeds in there (Three Sisters, possible teleportation, toad god, and room of gold) that I just allowed myself to point and go.

So here it is - writing in a single sitting (more or less), one draft straight through. Written with the assistance of:

Yeah, it's a potential meatgrinder (besides the (SPOILER) literal meatgrinders)... Written primarily with OSE and a few extra bits and bobs.

Have fun, and...

Pyramid of the Restless Eye - A Walthall interpretation

Greetings from CoronaCon2020, Day Whatever.

Doing pretty well here, and hope that you all are safe and sound as well. Trying to keep up fitness, both physical and mental, so regarding the second - a writing exercise for today:

Daniel's Patreon

Ganked another of Daniel Walthall's recent maps - an evocative pyramid, and wrote it up as an objective location with a number of undead guardians that will require negotiation (and potentially a quest) rather than combat to gain information or other desires from the target MacGuffin. It's a bit open-ended, and an eccentric undead has their potential, as do the undead's companions, hopefully.

deviantart.com/kostya-pingwin

So hack and slash your way through the jungle until you reach the Pyramid of the Restless Eye, and find out what Amenhemti is interesting in adding to his collection in exchange for his services.

Kübler's Shop - Stealing Shorts' Scribblings

Happy 2020, ya heathens...

So, Tim Shorts recently posted up a WIP map and narrative of his drawing process. The unnamed map is intended for a future adventure, or perhaps to torture his hapless players with... Anyway, it's a promising 10-room space for a bit of exploration and derring-do. Tim purposefully left out significant interior features for flexibility and interpretation. And no exterior doors, it seems, so we are dropping in from above, perhaps...

But you know, Tim, you shouldn't just leave these things lying about... you never know who's going to find them...

***

Gilgian Kübler has been tinkering around in his workshop and taking deliveries at odd hours. I'm sure that there is nothing untoward about that...

Better go check, just in case. What's going on in Kübler's Shop?  Good for a few low-level mooks, statted generically.

Support Tim's Patreon if you want to find some cool hand-drawn mini-adventures and eccentric NPCs in your mailbox. And of course, check out his blog and Anchor podcast for his thoughts and most enlightening audio unboxings...

Loading up MJ's Barrowmound 9 with ... THOULS!

So I guess I'd never noticed the 'thoul' listing in the B/X monsters. Chalk that up to incomplete reading comprehension, or something. And, I don't think I've seen them employed in the adventures I've perused.  So, time to drop them as backup dancers in another B/X song and dance, this one taking place in caverns accessed via a tidal marsh, where someone is up to nefarious deeds.

Again, thanks to Matt Jackson for his mapping, and to Gavin Norman for the B/X Essentials booklets, where I finally took the time to read the monsters from A to Z....

Click it, you know you want to...

And another guest appearance by my wife's artistry)

EDIT: Download link updated to PWYW on DrivethruRPG

Vobleavira Complex, a B1-Inspired Crawl...

So, when Matt Jackson posted up 'Barrowmound #11'  on his Patreon, I commented, "Cool, looks like a mini Quesquaton. Now, where to put the room of pools...."

And that's how I committed myself (at least in my mind) to statting up this maze... The occupants of Quesquaton were Rogahn and Zelligar, a fighter and mage, respectively.  Considering this, the occupants of this maze must be the other two base B/X human classes - a cleric and thief...

With that meager concept, I was off...

So we have a cleric and thief who found themselves allied in adventures, found their own subterranean outpost, and created a space that reflects their two characters' personalities. While it isn't as extensive as B1, I hope that it has a similar flavor. The challenges and exploration, like B1, are put together with low-level mooks in mind. I even included a handful of B1-styled pregens in the back, complete with appropriately wacky names.

No room of pools though. Sorry about that...

GET IT HERE

Many thanks to Matt for the original map, converting me to the zine format, and several days of editing back and forth in Google Docs. And to my wife for drawing up a few creepy goblins :) Thanks also to Gavin Norman, for his B/X Essentials and general blessing of this crapshoot.

More to come...

EDIT: Download link updated to DrivethruRPG as PWYW
EDIT2: Adventure revised with additional encounters, language consistency fixes, and shuffling stuff around.

Uthur's Tomb, an Interpretation of Jackson's Barrowmound 10

Having a creative burst here, or more likely, finally transcribing a few ideas into a somewhat publishable format.  Really, you don't want to try to read my notes.

Back to Mr. Matt Jackson's contributions to the map ecosystem, his "Barrowmound 10." Per his notes, the tomb side resulted in a case of mummy rot in his home game...  My victims, er, adventures, will be sent to make sure that the tomb is undisturbed, but find something else disturbing in a pair of recently-dug caverns...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/barrowmound-10-23759664

Have a look. and find out what lurks in Uthur's Tomb.

Sneaking into Dyson's Sapphire Vault....

Two posts in a day?  What sorcery is this?

Well I have a few things in the pipeline, and its time to translate my scribbled notes to legible text, followed by making that text somewhat coherent.

So today we visit the lovely Sapphire Vault of Mr. Logos, as he described it, "... the Sapphire Vault appears to have been part of some larger structure at one point – the construction of which is significantly beyond the skills of the current inhabitants. Access to the vault is via one of two small caves on the cliff-face – the smaller cave being about 12 feet above the larger and used primarily as a look-out for invaders, looters, and adventurers."  I upgraded his foul goblinoids to degraded lizardfolk and went from there...

https://dysonlogos.blog/2018/10/29/the-sapphire-vault/

Download it here, y'all. 

Creeping in Old Cruik Hollow

Knocking out mini-adventure #2, this time a Dyson Logos creation.   Dyson often adds a bit of description or plot seed to each of his maps.  I usually go my own way, but this description was evocative enough for me to run with it...

The limestone caves of Old Cruik Hollow are at the head of a box canyon and show the signs of decades of use by various groups over the ages. Stairs have been cut into the floor of the cave on the left leading into the upper caves. Sections of the caves have been closed off with wooden walls and doorways – and a small tomb was cut into the looping cave and then more recently converted into a storage space. 

These days the upper caves are home to a small group of bandits, exiles and outlaws from the nearby town. Their leader, Ola Zeldade, escaped town when they began growing scales as they are actually at least one quarter naga, and are in the midst of the slow transformation into a more naga-like form.

So I built out this cavern with its leadership "in transition". So to speak. Her merry band was generated, in part, via a few clicks on the Meatshields generator, your one-stop-shop for mooks.

Welcome to the Hollow, we got fun n games - Download

 Happy holidays, ya heathens!

Barrow 007 - Licence to Kill (PCs)

Hi all, knocking out a couple more inspired maps before going mostly off-line for the next week or so. 

First up is a Matt Jackson barrow from his ongoing series.  This one was a tough write - it became a bit more complex with each iteration, in some ways. I had a bit of a challenge filling the south portion of the map, but came up with a second, hidden boon, in addition to the titular baths.  Have look, I hope you enjoy.

Download linky HERE