Between the streets of Waterdeep and the many dungeons (and a whole other city!) below it are significant extents of sewers used to move sewage and storm water from the city to the sea. Many of these sewers link to basements of homes throughout the city – although in many cases these basements ...
2019-10-03 18:13:51 +0000 UTC View Post
One of these days I should update my Patreon page to mention these Patreon-Exclusives, eh?
Inching in just before the end of the month, we have another Patreon-Exclusive piece from the Dodecahedron. This combines and rewrites a number of random tables of mine, and adds some new ones and a b...
2019-10-01 01:07:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Sprawling over the area where the Greenbeck river joins the Vhec is the trading centre of Jalovhec. A “point of light” in an area of dark forests, wastelands, and inhospitable low mountain ranges, Jalovhec is walled and and well defended against predation by the locals and assisted by its tra...
2019-09-30 19:38:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Many enjoy living next to l’Étendue Sombre, or the Dark Desert – a fragrant desert of dark sands and slowly shifting dunes where the faint smell of anise suffuses the dry air. Those used to life in colder and wetter climes find the border cities around l’Étendue to be therapeutic. The des...
2019-09-26 22:38:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Drowning Point is, aptly enough, sinking into the lake.
A small community built up around a river outlet, Drowning Point is watching the buildings built closer to the water being taken by the rising waters. Not that the lake itself is rising rapidly, but the land here is definitely in the s...
2019-09-23 18:58:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Built into a small plateau in the east hills, the Falcon’s Rest is a shrine to a small local deity that is usually interpreted to be an incarnation of the great hunter, or a version of the god of thieves.
After travelling to to the many stars to meet the gods themselves in the form of a g...
2019-09-19 16:20:07 +0000 UTC View Post
The Ashknuckle gnoll tribes divide the area around the Absent City into their various tribal territories – but they share a common set of ruins that they use occasionally for the punishment of prisoners and the entertainment of their leaders.
An ancient fighting pit is under the ruins –...
2019-09-16 20:11:54 +0000 UTC View Post
It is time to pick out a few maps from the back catalog to re-release under the free commercial-use license. I've picked out ten maps that I'd be comfortable bringing out and seeing in commerc...
2019-09-14 20:00:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Smugglers repurposed the old Hornberger House a few decades ago – essentially in response to the political shifts on the mainland increasing protectionist taxes on a number of imported goods – particularly liquors and steel arrowheads. The last of the Hornbergers lived out their final days pr...
2019-09-12 20:54:50 +0000 UTC View Post
There is a wise soothsayer who lives in small house in a grotto under Deep Echo Forest. It is said that the house was there even before the forest, and has slowly sunk into the ground. A sinkhole now leads down to it, but the soothsayer isn’t the only inhabitant of the area who’s lifespan has...
2019-09-09 19:40:41 +0000 UTC View Post
In the ruins of the Absent City are a number of sites that are still maintained by the silent caretakers. One of these is the sunken gardens by the Palace of Rains which in turn lead into a whole section of the undercity that survives intact beneath the ruins.
Some of the areas directly att...
2019-09-06 20:54:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I just put the finishing touches on the last map for September (see my Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed), so here is the backstage pass containing all nine maps to be released this month!
2019-09-05 21:37:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Converted from / attached to an old watchtower from the Siege of the Mad Kings era, Shieldrick’s Inn is a small tavern set in a pastoral landscape of rolling hills and farmland.
The inn serves mostly as a tavern for a few of the local farmers who congregate here to exchange information on...
2019-09-04 20:11:20 +0000 UTC View Post
It is done!
The 2019 reissue of the classic mini mega dungeon from the early days of my blog. Dyson's Delve is an 11 level dungeon with all new maps that is exclusively presented here for your enjoyment.
2019-08-31 21:06:20 +0000 UTC
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Nearly a decade of geomorphs on the blog. So let’s do one more set of four that I put together for the new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas.
Clockwise from top left we’ve got:
Nearly a decade ago I spent most of a year drawing and posting geomorphs to this blog. This year’s Kickstarter for a new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas brought me back to drawing them again… with the slight stylistic improvement of a decade of experience. This is the fifth set...
2019-08-27 19:24:37 +0000 UTC View Post
We return to the maps of Dyson’s Delve with maps of the very top and bottom of the mini mega dungeon.
The upper ruins are only hinted at in the original Dyson’s Delve – the assumption in the adventure is that the party sneaks in using the hillside cave, dodging the goblin-infested tow...
2019-08-22 17:34:33 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the final month of redrawing Dyson’s Delve – today we get levels 9 & 10 of the redraw, and later this week I’ll be releasing the final level (11) as well as the all-new surface level of the mini mega dungeon.
At the end of this month, a PDF will be released to all patrons ...
2019-08-19 21:12:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Colloquially known as “God Alley”, the Temple Walk is a set of courtyards and walkways winding between 13 different shrines, temples, churches and reliquaries to various deities and godlings of the city. Not all the deities of the city have shrines here, and few of the larger faiths are repre...
2019-08-15 17:10:46 +0000 UTC View Post
The sewers under Rosewood Street are large and open compared to most in the city. Built out of much older structures that were repurposed ages ago, the sewers are a mix of utilitarian and overly ornate.
While most sewers are made of brick, clay, or masonry – a few feet wide and tall enoug...
2019-08-12 22:58:41 +0000 UTC View Post
If you are going to build a secret temple to a pariah god that is not intended to be worshiped at, why not go whole hog and build it at the bottom of a deep and nearly inaccessible desert cave?
Dedicated to a god of betrayal, none would worship here regularly (for fear of being in turn betr...
2019-08-08 20:54:21 +0000 UTC View Post
We don’t know why we call it the Old Turnip… it’s just always been the Old Turnip. Well, I guess about 30 years ago it was the Old Turnip Eatery and Inn, but that didn’t last.
You can tell it is old just walking past. The windows are out of square now as the building has settled ove...
2019-08-05 20:31:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Portals between worlds are crafted from potent materials in places where the energies of the world intersect with that of other places. Sometimes these ‘ley lines’ are conveniently found where the sky meets the earth and the portals can be built on the surface of the world itself.
But m...
2019-08-03 20:21:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Woo! The August backstage pass is here. Because I'm releasing geomorphs 4 per release and levels of Dyson's Delve 2 per release, this pack has something like 17 maps? I lost count. A bunch.
Plus th...
2019-08-02 23:14:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Every month we go through our back catalog of maps and the many patrons over on Patreons vote on which two should be re-released under the free commercial use license. For older maps I also work on upgrading the quality of the scan where possible. Today we turn the spotlight on the Guildhall and ...
2019-08-01 20:23:40 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been trying to work a bit with colour on some of my maps as I've had a lot of requests for this over the last decade. I'm practicing techniques and having the occasional rough spot where I just want to throw away the piece I'm working on because it looks weird and blobby when I sit back and ...
2019-07-30 18:27:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Even bullywugs have saints, holy frogs, and sanctified leaders and allies. They aren’t common, and they are revered. This bullywug reliquary dates back to the rule of the Verdant Administrant and The Empire of Gold.
The reliquary itself is collapsing into a much deeper dungeon. It can be ...
2019-07-29 20:18:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Drawn back at the end of 2015, I've upped the resolution on this map and am re-releasing it today.
The Smith’s Reliquary was crafted from heavy blocks of stone banded together with huge bands of steel that wrap around the structure like the hoops on a barrel. These bindings have rusted th...
2019-07-28 19:40:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Nearly a decade ago I spent most of a year drawing and posting geomorphs to this blog. This year’s Kickstarter for a new series of DungeonMorph dice from Inkwell Ideas brought me back to drawing them again… with the slight stylistic improvement of a decade of experience.
Clockwise from ...
2019-07-25 21:52:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Once again we return to my classic “Dyson’s Delve” with another pair of maps from my 2019 redraw of the mini mega dungeon. This entry brings us to the mid-deep levels of the delve, where we find evil cultists and a second entry point into the dungeon.
2019-07-22 21:16:34 +0000 UTC
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