After posting my remix of Kelvin Green’s Die Drop Loot Table yesterday, I figured it was time to finish off the die drop wandering monster table for the second node of the Mega Delve – that little secret area underneath the mushroom cavern.

Since this particular node has a lot less creatures in it (and they are all of one faction and no one else currently knows about it), I had to be a little more creative (and at the same time, a little less awesome) with the drop table design.

Under the Mushrooms Drop Table (click for PDF)

This table requires dropping 2d6 of different colours. Both dice are used to determine the makeup of the group (so it could be d6/2 subhumans and d6/2 more subhumans, or 1 warlock and 1 thorny, etc). The dark die is the “primary” die that is used to determine which “What’s Going On” chart is being used (but you use the number from the light die to determine what the actual result of the what’s going on chart is, except with the middle group of subhumans where you use both dice). As usual, ignore any results that don’t make sense.

Here’s a couple of shots of the table in action:

In this one the dark die is a 5 on the warlock and the light die is a 2 on the thorny. So we have a single subhuman warlock with a thorny companion. The warlock has Charm Person prepared. According to the table the warlock should be blackmailing the thorny, but that doesn’t make any sense, so instead he’s chastising the dog-thing as they wander.

This one has both dice up on the 4 facing, with the dark die on the subhumans entry and the light tie on the priests. This gives us 2 subhumans and 2 subhuman priests. The subhumans are armed with short bows and short swords. Both priests have prepared “Cause Fear” as their spell for the day. The group are carrying a totem reliquary (the shriveled heart of the clan elder who had visions of invading dwarves) that grants them a +1 to their morale and they are on a “serious” perimeter patrol (obviously since they are carrying this fetish they believe that some foul dwarves may have breached their home).

You can download the PDF of this encounter table here.

Beneath the Venomous Hall lie the Hematite Mines – source iron ore for the dwarves who helped to equip armies to fight in the war against the elves. Also known as the East Mines, these passages link to Venomous Hall via the stairs at the lower left, to the West Mines on the left and to both the Giant Citadel and the secret dwarven camp to the right. Finally, a small 6 to 8 foot wide natural chimney descends from the lowest point in the Mushroom Cavern to the sump room in the lower right side of the map (indicated by a small dashed circle).

The Hematite Mines (with grid)

This map is drawn at a larger scale than most of the recent maps – 1 square is 20 feet, like the maps of the Lost River Cave or the Mushroom Cavern. The dotted lines that lead to the deep crevasse (the same crevasse from the Marble Hall and the Venomous Hall) are small airways that were added to provide fresh air to the dwarves working down here. Now that the crevasse is home to the malevolent Gimchak Spiders, they use the airways to send scouts into the mines – watching to be sure that they will not be disturbed by the return of dwarven industry, or at least that they will be warned before it becomes so prevalent that it affects their society.

Hematite Mines (no grid)

We’ll return to the mines on Friday with the West Mines and then probably again on Monday with the Flooded Mines.

Also known as the West Mines, the Thunder Mines are named after the sound of the waterfall that crashes down into the chasm these mines were built up around. Invisible from up here, the bottom of the chasm is actually where the dwarves who built this city first arrived and had left their Earthships during the war against the elven empire.

Thunder Mines (with grid)

Like the Hematite Mine posted on Tuesday, Thunder Mine is mapped at a scale of 1 square = 20 feet or 1 inch = 100 feet.

This section of mines is currently home to the Brotherhood, a group of nearly mute humans (?) who all look almost identical (except those who have visible scarring or other environmental deformations). The brotherhood seemingly crawled out of the mud one day and began attempting to reopen these mines and are moving the small amount of ore they have collected so far up to the hall of iron where they intend to smelt it down.

Exits from this level are to the right (leading to the East Mines / The Hematite Mines), the top of the page (leading to the Flooded Mines), a set of stairs and an elevator in the upper right side that lead up to the Hall of Iron (and the elevator leads even further up to the Hall of Bronze and the City Gates) and the chasm which leads down to the Earthship Docks.

The Earthship Docks (and the bottom of the chasm in the Hematite Mines which are home to the Gimchak Spiders) will probably not get detailed in this series of Mega Delve maps – the goal of this set is to detail everything at the level of the dwarven mines and above leaving the lower levels for their own development once this is complete and I’ve taken a rest from the whole Delve for a bit.

Thunder Mines (no grid)

While the Hematite Mines were designed to feel like a real-world coal mine with large straight tunnels and many side branches dug out into the rock to harvest the main ore veins, the Thunder Mines are meant to bring home a different vision of mining more like that shown in the Hobbit movies when they show the dwarves mining along deep natural vertical shafts seeking precious stones.

This level also finally shows us hints at how the elevator room that accesses multiple levels of the dungeon operates – powered by a water wheel and a series of huge gears. Anything more detailed is up to the DM to determine as it is basically dwarven magic beyond that.

To the north of the Thunder Mines and down the long twisting stairs from the Hall of Bronze are the flooded mines. These were the first set of mines worked by the local dwarves and were mostly worked out when the dwarves partially sealed them off in favour of the hematite mines.

The Flooded Mines (with grid)

Originally built around the river that creates the falls in the thunder mines, the water flow in said river continued to increase while the dwarves were working these mines. Eventually it overflowed into the lower areas of the mines themselves. Through most of the wet areas water is roughly two to four feet deep, with the most northern room and associated tunnel being completely submerged.

Like the two other mine maps, this map is drawn at a scale of 1 square = 20 feet (or 1 inch = 100 feet at 300dpi).

Initially the danger of this level would appear to be the slimes and molds that are found within the dank environment. But dark things have crawled in from the waters. A foul mastermind of a beast crawled in along the Lost River cave and into the mines and has settled into the chamber just north of the waterfall and source of the smaller river. From this location it has sent it’s minions out to collect materials and based on the genetic materials collected (from an unlucky adventurer) has birthed a collection of nearly identical human-seeming creatures under its control. As they don’t speak, they have been named “the brotherhood” by those other factions that have encountered them.

Also swimming the waters of this area are the true children of the mastermind beast. These little non-sentient monstrosities swarm in the water wherever they encounter food or blood. Any serious adventuring in this area will first require wiping out the thousands of these little toothy bastards, or keeping the whole party above the water at all times.

Flooded Mines (no grid)

Entrances and exits from this map are:

• Stairs in lower right lead up to the Hall of Bronze
• River and mine passage at the bottom of the map lead directly to the Thunder Mines
• River on the left side leads to the Muck Dwellers node
• River at the top of the map leads to the Lost River node

Here’s the current node map of the Mega Delve – only nine nodes left to map!

Node Map January 27th (click to enlarge)

I should probably figure out another name for this map. This is where Lost River (which travelled through the three Lost River Caves) re-emerges into the dungeon, a bit downriver from Lost River Cave.

Lost River (with Grid)

In the missing span between Lost River Cave South and here, the Lost River has run rapidly through rough caves, often fully submerged – a deadly journey for most who fall in and are sucked downriver. But should a character make their saving throws and not die during the descent, this is where they will most likely wash up – the first area where the Lost River’s bed widens again and the water flow slows to manageable speeds.

Unfortunately for anyone who does wash up here, this cave is home to a small colony of otyugh who fish in the river for the detritus that flows from the upstream caves and a truly massive giant slug that consumes whatever they leave behind.

Being a link between the Necropolis Crypts (to the upper left), the dwarven mines (bottom right) and the Muck Dwellers (bottom left), this set of caves also often sees groups from those locations seeking to expand their borders, exploring, looking for treasure, or just travelling between nodes.

Lost River (no grid)

While the caves of this node were carved by underground waterways that are now dry, there is one set of stairs that stands out as being constructed. The twisted stairwell near the lower-left side of the map is evidently manufactured, but not by humans or dwarves. The stairs are low and long, and nearly perfectly smooth. They are made of a shiny pinkish material reminiscent of mother-of-pearl.

Now we head southwest from the Flooded Mines, along the Lost River to the home of the Muck Dwellers. The muck dwellers actually consist of a few different amphibian races who worked together to build these strange ovoid structures.

Home of the Muck Dwellers (with grid)

Currently, four different races make this area their home. They can be broken up into “fishfolk”, “frogfolk”, “mutant frogs” and “the jellies”. While they are seen as a single faction to most outsiders, there are heavy tensions between the races.

The frogfolk and their genetically manipulated mutant frogs live in the south end of the structures. They are also the priests of the dark shrine further to the south. They are a very religious and xenophobic group, trying to figure out how to rid “their caves” of the other species sharing space with them.

The fishfolk are warriors and hunters who pay lip service to the frog god, but honestly care little for the faith or the frogs that run it. They are also mostly oblivious to the interspecies issues at work in the caves, or perhaps they pretend they are in order to cultivate favour with both other groups.

The jellies are a race that seem like sentient hovering jellyfish. Many of them are sorcerers and warlocks, bargaining their souls and the souls of others for arcane power. This obviously upsets the frogfolk who see this as a horrible heresy – but then again, they also think the jellies are probably heretical just because of their lack of bones. They live primarily in the “palace” structures built into the northwest side of the large pool.

As I drew this map, I was loving the feeling of being free of both the 20-foot grid of the mines and even more importantly the strictly square and grid-conforming architecture of the dwarven city I drew before drawing the three sets of mines.

It has definitely become my second favourite map in the whole MegaDelve, just behind the Mushroom Cavern (which is definitely the high point of the set).

Home of the Muck Dwellers (no grid)

Persons riding the current of the Lost River not lucky enough to catch themselves in the slowing current at the Lost River node (or fished out by the otyughs there) or able to grab a bridge or abutment passing through the Flooded Mines will find themselves caught by the nets placed by the fishfolk between “the teeth” – where the Lost River is compressed into the narrower section and two mighty pillars of natural stone jut up out of the water. They maintain a set of nets that hang in the water behind the teeth to trap whatever makes it downriver.

Around the teeth and after them the Lost river becomes a white-water torrent crashing through the caves beyond, drowning out sounds and likely anyone foolish enough to try to brave the current.

A little bit down the river from the Home of the Muck Dwellers is the Water Temple – where the Frog Priests cultivate their mutant frogs and worship foul gods of the depths.

Water Temple (with Grid)

Guarded by a few elite mercenaries of the fish-people, and only rarely visited by any of the strange jellyfish beings from the node to the north, this node is almost entirely given over to the frog folk, their spawn, and a pair of spirit naga who have placed themselves as the intermediaries between the frog folk and their squamous deity.

Having seen the frog folk experiment on their giant frog companions, the spirit nagas have hatched a plan for expanding their sphere of influence further into the Delve. They have collected young from the otyughs in the Lost River node and have begun experiments creating neo-otyugh that are under their control, which they will have seeded into other areas by fish folk mercenary units.

The young otyughs are cared for on the backs of specialized mutant giant frogs who glue them there in their eggsacs from whence they eventually hatch and are fed by the frog priests.

Water Temple (no grid)

The two elder jellies who live in this area are magically enslaved to the naga, and rarely if ever venture back to the home node, providing their spellcasting expertise to enhance the genetic programs of both the frog and otyugh breeding operations.

South of this node the Lost River falls down a mighty underground waterfall at least 600 feet tall. What lives beyond those falls is subject to rumours, speculation, and the nightmares of frogs.

(With thanks for ideas from Andrew Shields for the nagas and otyughs).

When the dwarves loaded up their Earthships and abandoned the city above, they intended to take all the clans that lived here with them. But in the months leading up to their departure there were disappearances from the city. Religious fanatics, young idealists, and some struck by pure greed from their time in the mines were among those who went missing.

Dwarven Outpost (with grid)

These self-exiled dwarves hid themselves away in the deep mines where they built a small outpost to live in. In the years right after the departure from the city, they went back to the sprawling empty halls, but eventually returned here where they were less haunted by the echoing empty halls of their decisions, and where they had a small enough settlement to be able to defend properly with their restricted numbers.

For that is what they do now – they defend. Their settlement is besieged by thin and loathsome humanoids with pitch black skin and not a hair on them. Foul rubbery and cold-blooded things that haunt the darkness and are invisible to infravision / darkvision, requiring lamps and torches to be kept lit to find them. They have formed some sort of nest or hive just south of the dwarven settlement, but the dwarves lack the manpower to clear it out.

At least the exiles have food. The mud that slides down here from the mushroom cave far above is rich with fungus, and a unique breed of mushroom grows in the depths – the black cap mushrooms that provide all the nutrients needed by the dwarves and also tastes like a rich and sweet chocolate steak.

But it is these magically psychotropic “Black Cap” mushrooms that have given the Dwarven nightmares flesh and form. In the dark unwatched areas, the stalkers crawl out from under the caps of the mushrooms. They are everything the dwarves fear – they cannot be seen, they never speak (and seem to communicate with each other telepathically), they care nothing for gold or ale, but instead crave the flesh of dwarves. They stalk the tunnels and threaten to overrun the small encampment that subconsciously brought them into being.

And who knows what forms the mushrooms will bring forth once the adventurers have been here?

Dwarven Outpost (no grid)

The exit to the left of the map leads to the Hematite Mines (and the northern of the two eastern exits from that map node). The three exits at the bottom of the map lead south to the Giant Citadel. And the passage to the right leads up sharply through mud and twists and turns to the sinkhole at the bottom of the area under the mushroom cavern.

- – -

There’s also big news today about the Dodecahedron Patreon campaign. As of last night we have crossed the $300 funding mark. This means that every map that gets $300 of funding will be released under a full free commercial license. The full announcement will be posted tomorrow regarding how I’ll be keeping everyone up to date on the funding levels and which maps will be released under this license. What it does mean for now is that the first map released next month will be released under this new license. Which means I’m going to try to pull out all the stops and produce something impressive for this one (which will also be the first map that isn’t part of the Mega Delve in quite a while).

A while back I tried to run myself a solo D&D game using Mad Monks of Kwantoom and a playtest B/X D&D Psionics book from New Big Dragon. I drew a bunch of pretty pagodas, but didn’t document the game well and then forgot about it.

So I recently started a new one with a new party assembled in Kwantoom to explore the Pagodas (or just the city, whatever rocks their collective boats, right?)

• Carlen HearthWarden (Healer)
• Ersen the Younger (Elf Swordmage)
• Silent Brother (Willow Leaf Monk)
• Dorian Worldshaper (Mystic)
• Gurglesnot (Arcane Babbler Gibbering Mouther)
• Doomhammer (Fighter)

Day 1 – Gurglesnot’s spell is Charm Person

We begin in the district of Kuan Loon, carrying our gibbering mouther in a basket to keep it from freaking too many locals out. We are appraoched by Mo Shu-sai-chong who sees that we are outsiders and likely to be travelling to the Pogodas – his teenaged daughter sought to prove her bravery and has travelled to the Pagodas and he offers us 350gp to rescue her! With that kind of offer, we have no choice but to head to the Pagodas as soon as we check out the local shops, err, I mean right away! (She will be found in the 31st chamber or room we explore)

Shops Found:

• Caw’s Knotshop
• Koom-Pah Candlesticks (buy 10 firecrackers for 1sp)
• Lo’s Famous Chopsticks
• Mong’s Weapon Counter
• Palace of the Red Glove (promise to return to celebrate after our expedition!)
• The Shrine of Avalokiteshvara

Attempt to hire footmen, but they are wary of our screaming basket of eyeballs.

That evening, we embark on a boat to the 1001 Pagodas of Doom

Pagoda 1
1A – Door is ajar. Two demonic statues face off from opposite corners of the room.
1B – Another demonic statue watches over this room and the 26 Pa’Kua Kobolds that live here! That’s a lot of kobolds! With 26 of them there are two 2HD leaders. Each one can cast bless or curse 1/day. This is going to be trouble! Fortunately we surprised them. Immediately Ersen the Younger casts sleep and rolls a 14, taking out just over half of the kobolds. In a flurry of attacks, three more are slain and one of the leaders is charmed by Gurglesnot. With 17 down, and one trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, the remaining nine miraculously make their morale check.
Fortunately initiative is in the party’s favour and another four are slain, one slowly being consumed by gurglesnot (and holy crap, two attacks for the monk at level 1 is very powerful!). The remaining four immediately try to make a fighting retreat out the back door while one casts bless on their remaining forces and another bane on the party.
1C – Once through the door to the small dead-end chamber beyond, they rush to break open one of the strange wooden kegs found therein. 3 Kegs (full of mysterious amber jelly – acts like a potion of giant strength – 6 doses). With another won initiative, the party descends upon them and slaughters the remaining kobolds.
Hoard Class I x 26 = 364cp
Hoard Class XIII x 1 = 2000sp in two small coffers
1D – Octagonal chamber contains a larg e mirror – looking into the mirror triggers a glyph of fire dealing 4 damage to the elf. The healer casts her only Cure Minor Wounds spell, healing 3 of the damage.

We then find stairs leading down beneath the pagoda. At the bottom of the stairs, a thin laquer wood door blocks our path. Fortunately the monk spots the poison arrow trap peventing a calamity.

In the basement corridor we ran afoul of an ambush from behind by a pair of Sheng Men when we ran into a dead end. With surprise, they fell upon our back rank, striking Gurglesnot and paralyzing the screaming beast with foul poisons. Out of spells and with our back rank exposed in tight confines, the issue becomes trying to get someone with real fighting skills to the front. The mystic invokes his psionic invisibility to try to slip past the Sheng Men and the charmed kobold jumps into the fray. The kobold gets reduced to 3 hit points, but is not paralyzed. Finally able to maneuver Doomhammer to the back rank, he smashes one sheng man into a smear in the wall while the wounded kobold grabs at his injured side (rolled a 1 on his attack roll) and is finished off by the remaining sheng man. The monster then turns his attention to Doomhammer and a short back and forth ends with the predictable result of Doomhammer’s hammer of doom embedded in the sheng man’s head. Fortunately no one contracts the strange and deadly poison from the black blood of these foul creatures.

1E – Pushing our luck we check to the south, finding the small chamber of the Sheng Men, where two more of their kin are watched over by the statue of a much larger and more demonic version of these human-like creatures. Seeking revenge for our lost Kobold companion, we fell upon the Sheng Men with surprise, slaughtering them in seconds. On each side of the statue is a chest, the first containing 500gp, and the second three jars of extremely rare and vibrant purple dyes worth an astounding 900gp EACH. Retreating from the pagoda, we returned to Kwantoom to sell our loot and hopefully recruit a few henchmen.

Expedition Tally:
Rooms Explored: 5
Treasure: 3223 gp equivalent
Magic: 6 doses potion of giant strength
XP: 575 XP each (604 with 5% bonus) (633 with 10% bonus)

To the east of the Hematite Mines and south of the Dwarven Outpost we arrive at the Giant Citadel. Originally listed in the node maps as a single map, I realized I really wanted this node to be about “big” – so large halls, large chambers… and thus more than one map.

Giant Citadel – North (with grid)

I’ve also got a love for little caves and cracks in big areas, so I included to sets of passages that are entwined into the area – the caves that lead here from the dwarven outpost to the north. In this case one set (the ones where the strange fungus-born nightmare stalkers live) leads to the mines outside of the citadel, and the other passage (that the dwarves use on occasion) leads straight through the citadel and on to the next map. The highlight of this is the section almost in the middle of the page (above, not the picture below) where the dwarven tunnel is basically a big crack in the floor of a passage in the giant citadel – a way for sneaky dwarves (and adventurers) to see how terrifying the giant controlled node can be without having to directly interact with it.

This node is home to a large clan of stone giants and their assorted henchmen, lesser giants, and hangers-on. Most of the stone giants live in the southern portion of the citadel, and this area exists mostly for water access and the clothes washing room, as well as a guard room that looks out onto the dwarven mines beyond. The dwarves occasionally run through here in order to get to their alternate exit from the mountain, a small door in the southern part of the citadel that is not too far from the giants’ own great gate.

Giant Citadel – North (no grid)

I spent yesterday mapping with my isometric graphing paper that my lovely girlfriend bought me for Christmas (you’ll see why I had the pad out on Tuesday when I post the map I was working on yesterday). But in the process I drank a lot of caffeine.

Which is rough, because I pretty much cut caffeine out of my diet recently. So as night arrived, I still had the pad in front of me, and a pencil… and too much energy.

So this started to happen. Just a random collection of lines and buildings in a strictly isometric perspective, without thought as to gameability or whether it would turn into a functional map or just… something else.

And it started to grow… Sometime around 1:30 this morning I realized I had filled the page with pencil scribblings (and spent a fair chunk of time erasing and redrawing sections to prevent accidental M.C. Escher twists) and it really was time for bed.

A full letter-sized page of madness. Some strange city where law and chaos have collided into an explosion of straight lines, sharp angles, and bizarre byways.

This morning I started to ink the final piece from last night (using a Sakura Micron 03 pen) and it rapidly grew more… solid. Less sketchy… Like a solid heavy thing slowly emerging from the potential of the grid and penciled lines.

A quick hit with the eraser later, scan the mofo into Photoshop and a bit of digital editing to make it a little more apparent as to what is what and we finally get The House of Seven Larks.

The House of Seven Larks

If you manage to use this in a game, I would LOVE to hear about it!

Today we are taking a quick break from the MegaDelve to post up my most recent isomorphic dungeon map.

Temple of Greed (with grid)

I received four pads of isometric graph paper from my girlfriend for Christmas (three letter-sized and one ledger – which is too big for my scanner). Over the next few months I’ll be posting some of my various trials with the paper in question. One important trick I’ve learned though is to avoid “overlap” between the areas on the map, which generally means making sure that stuff on the upper left is at higher or equal elevations to areas on the lower right.

Also, adding a grid is not as simple as with my regular maps. In the end I had to take the original map, draw the grid directly onto the temple floors, and then rescan it to get the version above. This version (below) was from the original scan.

Temple of Greed (no grid)

This Friday we return to the Mega Delve with the second half of the Giant Citadel before we start exploring the depths of the necropolis and crypts on the opposite side of the mountain.

I drew Owen’s Mine sometime around June of 2011.

Wait… 2011? I’ve been blogging here for a while, eh?

Anyways, yeah, Owen’s Mine. It was inspired by a game of How to Host a Dungeon that I played where the kobolds had their base of operations just beside the human mines, without any actual connection between the two.

Owen’s Mine

What’s exceptionally cool is that Vance Atkins then used the map to write up a set-piece encounter / adventure. Then another, and another, and one more!

So over on his blog (Leicester’s Ramble) you can read up on and download all four variations on Owen’s Mine, each with a different concept – at least one of which will probably mesh with what’s going on in your game. :)

Giant Citadel – South (with grid)

Today we return to (and complete) the Giant Citadel. There’s a valley in the mountains that is avoided by sensible people and even adventurers (who are notoriously not in the sensible category most of the time) because it is home to a Stone Giant warlock of immense girth and supposedly immense power. Regular trade caravans run here however in order to meet his appetite for food and drink to complement his own herding operations that provide him with most of his meat. After all, keeping him fed and getting coin for it is a lot more appealing to most than having a kingdom of stone giants and assorted kin trampling around the area looking for free food.

These halls are where the stone warlock holds court. His throne room and feasting hall are immense and impressive and designed to accent his already incredible size compared to his petitioners. He surrounds himself with ettins and also employs gnoll and flind herders to maintain and protect his bison herds.

Giant Citadel – South (no grid)

Recently he has gained a flight of gargoyles who have pledged allegiance to his kingdom. They now lurk in various nooks and crannies about the area as quiet and often unseen guardians. One of these gargoyles has discovered the comings and goings of verminous dwarves from the northern pantry attached to the kitchen and has killed and eaten one such intruder and now waits silently to figure out exactly how they are entering the pantry…

These bi-weekly map posts are brought to you by the many awesome patrons who keep the site and maps coming thanks to their pledges to the Dodecahedron Patreon Campaign. If you like these maps and would like to see more of them and have the money to spare, please check out the campaign that keeps these free maps flowing to everyone.

We head back to the top-left side of the Dyson Mega Delve node map for the next three maps (although the last of the three may be delayed by a week or two as I post commercial-licensed maps at the beginning of March – see below for more information).

The Crypts (with grid)

The Crypts are carved out of old mines under the necropolis of Bryn Mynnyd. Many niches and alcoves have been dug into the walls of the old mines to house the many dead here. The whole expanse smells of dampness and death, with old bones occasionally underfoot as likely as old stones from the mining.

Exits from this map lead to the Lost River Node to the right, the necropolis of Bryn Mynnyd to the left, and the death cultists to the north.

The Crypts (no grid)

There are a few tombs in the catacombs, but none harbour the undead that adventurers would likely expect. These tombs are quiet and still, appropriate resting places for those who have passed on into forgotten history.

The real threats down here are corpse-rot, a few traps, some strange oozes, and strange humanoids who seem to feed off the darkness itself… Only should someone be foolish enough to raise the ire of the death cultists north of this area will the dead rise under their command – even they respect the dead enough to not bring them to the mockery of life that is undeath except in times of true need.

These bi-weekly map posts are brought to you by the many awesome patrons like David Magill, Michael Galle, Duane Sibilly, and Sasha Bilton who keep the site and maps coming thanks to their pledges to the Dodecahedron Patreon Campaign. If you like these maps and would like to see more of them and have the money to spare, please check out the campaign that keeps these free maps flowing to everyone.

Speaking of the Patreon Campaign, while this Friday’s Map will be of the Death Cult map to the north of this one, we’ll then have a week or two break from the Mega Delve when March rolls around. The campaign reached the target goal of $300 this month, and that means at least one of the March maps (likely two or three) will be released under a free commercial license. So instead of sticking publishers who want free maps from me with partial areas from the Mega Delve, we’ll be posting some other cool maps in early March before posting the last two maps of the Mega Delve (the necropolis and the harpy tower) later in the month.

Death Cult (with grid)

Buried in the crypts and tombs under the ruins of Bryn Mynnyd is the Church of Silence (known be the few outsiders who know it exists as the Death Cult of Bryn Mynnyd or the Assassin’s Cult of Bryn Mynnyd). This group isn’t a “Mwah ha ha ha, look at my undead minions!” type cult, but are more the “heh heh heh… Murder, murder and murder, my pretties” type of cult.

Ensconced in a massive tomb in the crypts, the assassin-priests of the cult have trained most of the creatures that live down here to keep their distance from them, using alchemically-treated blue torches to remind them to stay clear. Priests of blood and murder, they prefer their corpses on the truly dead side and do not surround themselves with zombies and other undead as many necromantic cults do… but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the means to raise the dead when the shit hits the fan.

Death Cult (no grid)

In fact, should someone make a concerted effort to eliminate the church, odds are they would find themselves surrounded by hundreds of skeletons and zombies crawling out of the many niches in this node. Both the high priest and his right hand man know how to use the dark heart in their temple to unleash a wave of animating force through the complex to awaken the many corpses they have prepared over the decades.

This map is provided for your personal use by the many awesome patrons who support this website through my Patreon Campaign. In fact, support has been so awesome that we’ll be taking a break from the Mega Delve for a week (or maybe two) in order to post some maps that are being released under a full free commercial license starting on Tuesday. We’ll have more information on how many maps will be released under this license once March begins and we can see the totals for March funding. Once these commercial maps are all posted, we’ll get back to the Mega Delve and post the last two remaining maps (the Necropolis under ruined Bryn Mynnyd and the Harpy Tower)!

Sometime back in November I figured I would finish off 2014 with a small megadungeon styled map. So I pulled out a post-it note and drew a basic node map for said. In time, that node map would evolve as I added additional maps and subdivided the various nodes (but in the end, the final node map is still recognizably pretty much the same as the post-it)

Node Map (click to enlarge)

All that is needed now is the last two maps to be drawn (The Necropolis and the Harpy Tower) – which we’ll get to in a few weeks. I’m holding off on these last two maps because the first few maps in March will be released under a free commercial license thanks to the awesome funding of my Patreon Campaign patrons, and I don’t want to stick the potential commercial users with partial maps from the MegaDelve. To see how the whole Dyson Mega Delve comes together in a more tangible format than the node map above, here’s a pseudo-isometric blow-apart projection of the 29 maps used so far:

The Whole Mega Delve (click for huge graphic)

This graphic is a bit big and unwieldy (roughly 4000 x 4000 pixels in size), but it gets the structures of the existing maps across in a visual manner and shows off a few of my mistakes along the way. I seriously miscalculated the location of the Lost River and the section of it on the lowest level actually runs directly underneath the section of it on the upper level. I’m going to have to add a big corkscrew to it if I want the rivers to match up at all, or give up on it being the same river. There were a few other glitches along the way, but nothing huge besides that one. When the whole thing is finally done I’ll keep working on map descriptions and the wandering monster dice drop tables and get this massive monstrosity to publication. My goal is to have it go to publication this summer. Fingers Crossed!

There is a stout tower along the Akkedis Trail that is decorated with massive white chunks of stone along its battlements. To those who pass through its shadow on the trail it has become known as either the Crown of Teeth, or the Titan’s Teeth.

Titan’s Teeth (with grid)

It is said that the “teeth” were pulled from the ancient corpse of a primordial titan of wind and sight. The same tales would claim that the teeth confer some of the titan’s powers to those who stand atop the tower, granting the ability to see incredible distances and to accurately shoot at twice or three times the normal range of a longbow.

Titan’s Teeth (no grid)

The Titan’s Teeth has four levels above ground (plus the battlements) one level half underground and a final “dungeon” level underground that contains a secret passage to the surface some distance away.

This is the first map released on the blog under a fully free commercial license. This map is posted as a PNG format file (instead of my usual JPG) so you can download it and use it at home or in any personal or commercial project. You can use, reuse, remix and/or modify the maps that are being published under the commercial license on a royalty-free basis as long as they include attribution (“Cartography by Dyson Logos” or “Maps by Dyson Logos”).

For those that want/need a Creative Commons license, it would look something like this:

Cartography by Dyson Logos is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Again, this shouldn’t need repeating, but this only applies to these two maps in this post!

This free license to use and abuse this map is courtesy of the many awesome patrons who have supported the Dodecahedron through my Patreon Campaign. This past month we saw a surge in patrons that brought the campaign over the $300 mark. Awesome people like James, Josh (who has his own Patreon campaign here), Barry Fujii, Brandon Kern, Phill Everson, Ryan Stoughton and Pablo “Hersho” Domínguez have all contributed to making this map not just free for your personal use, but for anyone’s commercial use also. Not to mention paying my rent and putting food on my table.

Even better, the more we bring in each month, the more maps will be released under this free commercial license!

So, once again, click on those maps, download them, and have fun remixing, reusing, abusing, stocking and doing whatever it is you want with them. These maps are yours now – I have sent them out into the wilds and look forward to seeing them again.

While there will always be wizards who are popular due to their fireworks and other magical manifestations, there are others who find no solace in civilized society. Necromancers, demonologists, witches and practitioners of foul arts.

The Summoner’s Lair (with grid)

This small hillside excavation is the lair of such a wizard, witch or warlock. One who keeps generally to themselves, along with perhaps an apprentice or a skilled swordsman along with a few additional toughs who can handle most problems should they arise.

The Summoner’s Lair (no grid)

This map was drawn using Sakura Micron pens (a 03 for the walls, a 01 for doors and crosshatching and such, and a 005 for fine detail work) in an A6 wiro-bound gamer’s notebook from Squarehex (a really lovely and tough notebook perfect for carrying around and drawing in while at meetings, in waiting rooms and so on).

This map is made available for your free use thanks to the patrons of the Dodecahedron Patreon Campaign that keeps me fed and sheltered while I draw these fancy doodads for your enjoyment.

One step further – because of the incredible generosity of my patrons, I’m able to make this map free for commercial use also. Each month while funding is over the $300 mark, each map that achieves the $300+ funding level will be released under this free commercial license. You can use, reuse, remix and/or modify the maps that are being published under the commercial license on a royalty-free basis as long as they include attribution (“Cartography by Dyson Logos” or “Maps by Dyson Logos”).

For those that want/need a Creative Commons license, it would look something like this:

Cartography by Dyson Logos is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Again, this shouldn’t need repeating, but this only applies to these two maps in this post!

So enjoy! This map is yours to do with as you please, personally or commercially!

Every now and again when I’m in the midst of drawing something, I get the urge to draw something completely different.

Fortunately for me, yesterday that urge was easily contained into something reasonably small and quick. I grabbed a sheet of hex paper from Incompetech (.2 inch hexes) and started doodling a vignette…

Half an hour of doodling resulted in the following piece:

Hex Map Vignette

Another 10 minutes in Photoshop and this alternate version appeared:

Hex Map Vignette (with screens)

I really like them. They’ll look awesome as a footer for a page (or a chapter) of an RPG book. Just stick the page number in that big empty hex in the middle.