D&D General Maps, Maps, Maps! Dungeons, Ruins, Caverns, Temples, and more... aka Where Dyson Dumps His Maps.

[Dyson Logos]

The Tower of Vodores

An oddly shaped “tower”, the Tower of Vodores is a brutalist structure standing alone in the Plains of Stone (the badlands to the west of the kingdom, a huge natural boundary between the kingdom and its nearest western neighbours). The structure consists of a large upper section resting atop six fifty foot tall towers or “legs” – producing something much like a stone table of immense size with space beneath that never sees the full light of the sun.

Vodores was a goblin warlord who had this built by captive dwarves over the ruins of one of their own outposts razed by the goblin hordes. Vodores had clawed their way to the top of the goblin heap like any other goblin does – through cunning and deceit but mostly through sheer brutality. The strange structure stands as a testament to both Vodores’ ambition and the fear they instilled in their foes, as well as the skill of the surly dwarves who built it. The tower’s top-heavy design is both imposing and unsettling, the remnants of the old dwarven outpost appearing as something crushed and ignored underfoot, just poking out from the mud and shadows beneath the tower.

But goblin empires don’t last long, rarely even as long as their short-lived emperors, and never beyond their death. And so the Tower of Vodores became home to several goblin clans who spent more time fighting each other than raiding the surrounding lands. Today there are still two clans living in a stalemate within the structure, each using a different ‘leg’ to get in and out and divvying up the interior space between them in the goblin equivalent of a cold war (which involves espionage, traps, bribery, and of course cannibalism).

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 9,600 x 19,200 pixels (32 x 64 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 2,240 x 4,480 pixels or 4,480 x 8,960 pixels, respectively.

The Tower of Vodores

The Tower of Vodores (300 dpi promo) An oddly shaped “tower”, the Tower of Vodores is a brutalist structure standing alone in the Plains of Stone (the badlands to the west of the kingdo…

dysonlogos.blog

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why can't you post it here? I'd love to see it.

New posters have posting restrictions to stop bots spamming. Well, to slow them down, at least.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

View attachment 398002

The Tower of Vodores

An oddly shaped “tower”, the Tower of Vodores is a brutalist structure standing alone in the Plains of Stone (the badlands to the west of the kingdom, a huge natural boundary between the kingdom and its nearest western neighbours). The structure consists of a large upper section resting atop six fifty foot tall towers or “legs” – producing something much like a stone table of immense size with space beneath that never sees the full light of the sun.

Vodores was a goblin warlord who had this built by captive dwarves over the ruins of one of their own outposts razed by the goblin hordes. Vodores had clawed their way to the top of the goblin heap like any other goblin does – through cunning and deceit but mostly through sheer brutality. The strange structure stands as a testament to both Vodores’ ambition and the fear they instilled in their foes, as well as the skill of the surly dwarves who built it. The tower’s top-heavy design is both imposing and unsettling, the remnants of the old dwarven outpost appearing as something crushed and ignored underfoot, just poking out from the mud and shadows beneath the tower.

But goblin empires don’t last long, rarely even as long as their short-lived emperors, and never beyond their death. And so the Tower of Vodores became home to several goblin clans who spent more time fighting each other than raiding the surrounding lands. Today there are still two clans living in a stalemate within the structure, each using a different ‘leg’ to get in and out and divvying up the interior space between them in the goblin equivalent of a cold war (which involves espionage, traps, bribery, and of course cannibalism).

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 9,600 x 19,200 pixels (32 x 64 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 2,240 x 4,480 pixels or 4,480 x 8,960 pixels, respectively.

The Tower of Vodores

The Tower of Vodores (300 dpi promo) An oddly shaped “tower”, the Tower of Vodores is a brutalist structure standing alone in the Plains of Stone (the badlands to the west of the kingdo…

dysonlogos.blog

I do like how the furniture is arranged in the lower left leg/tower on the upper level

 

[Dyson Logos]

I do like how the furniture is arranged in the lower left leg/tower on the upper level

Shhhhhh!

SEKRET KITTY IZ SEKRET.

(You'll find cats hidden in a fair number of the maps I've drawn this year)

 

[Dyson Logos]

Scavengers' Deep - Map 16

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven complex mixing some (ruined) surface structures, natural caves, and significant sprawling underground complexes dedicated to research, training, and breeding their slave species.

This is the sixteenth map in the Scavengers’ Deep series – in the lower right corner of the maps drawn so far (to the east of Map 15, and south of Map 12).

This whole area is essentially a continuation of Map 15 – the long highway-like twenty foot wide corridors into the depths of the mesa, and a set of very deep caves that link to the twisting caves to the north and then to the mushroom cave to the west. This cave was also home to the many mutant thralls produced in the elven breeding pits, but there are no observatories in this region – they lived in darkness ignored by their masters, in a forced evolutionary environment where only the toughest and strongest mutations survived.

The waterflow in this cave comes from the west and southwest. The western river being a continuation of the major waterways throughout the rest of the mesa, and the southern flow coming northwards to join it through a series of small waterfalls as it descends rapidly to the deep river flow which then travels through a deep ravine in the cave and fianlly picks up speed in a narrow channel that flows rapidly southwards.

There are two connections between the caves and the complex in this area – the first is a sealed door at the top of a long series of natural stairs, and the other is a deep cave tunnel that starts in a sinkhole in the big cavern and then snakes under the caves and complex, passing under the large circular chamber in the southern portion of the map where a deep pit has been cut into the stone to look over the passage, and then continuing to the south.

In the northeastern corner of this map is a small extension of the complex of circular chambers from Map 12 – including what was evidently once another one of the experimental breeding pits. This pit has the central shaft as usual, but instead of the corkscrew ramp down from the top to the bottom, each tier has a flat mezzanine overlooking the shaft, with stairs connecting them – except for the top-most level where a rope is hanging over the side of the pit because there are no stairs – this rope goes down past the next level that is also unconnected except by the shaft, and then the third level down finally has the stairs to continue to the bottom.

I've also attached a low-resolution compilation of the sixteen existing maps of the Scavengers’ Deep set. If printed at miniature play scale (where 1 inch equals 5 feet), each of the individual maps making up the Deep would be 8 feet by 8 feet in size making the current set 32 feet x 32 feet in size. Expect more maps of the Scavengers’ Deep over the coming months, probably at a rate of one map per month.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 14,400 x 14,400 pixels (48 x 48 squares) in size. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the suggested 10′ squares that this is designed around) – so resizing it to either 3,360 x 3,360 or 6,720 x 6720 pixels in size, respectively.

Scavengers’ Deep – Map 16

Illo by Mikołaj Ratajczak The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when…

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[Dyson Logos]

The Autumn Lands - Hex Map H

The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits to the east of map G from last month and to the south of the original map A – next month’s Map I will be to the east of this map and will complete the 9 map set of the Autumn Lands. The goal of the Autumn Lands is to produce a series of commercial-use hexmaps that can be used in their entirety or just one map for a specific adventure. There’s no set scale for these maps, and the items on the maps are not to scale with each other so we can see points of interest like towers, cities, and caves. If you really need a scale for this and don’t want to pick one yourself, go with six miles to the hex.

For this series, I’ve been working with the style I started putting together a couple of years ago where the rivers run along the hex borders – this allows for river travel to be great for exploration as you can see the hexes on each side of the river as you go. This encourages exploration-style games to stick to the rivers a lot, much like explorers did in the real world.

This map centres around the Autumn River as it flows from the west towards the Mulberry Sea. The Canard, a tributary of the Autumn, descends from a mountain lake to join the Autumn River just before reaching the Doven Gulf, and the Autumn Straight beyond. The northernmost city ruins of the kingdom that ruled the Serpent Lands to the south are here – a ruined and decayed city with a single massive stone bridge spanning the Autumn River. To the north are the remnants of a great wall at the mouth of the Canard river valley – it is unclear if this wall was built by the empire of the Serpent Lands, or by northerners to keep the Serpent Lands at bay.

The badlands to the northwest give way to a region of sinkholes and then to the mountains. The mountains themselves weather away into hills and are the last major descent of the Autumn River as it approaches the coast. The cities and settlements of the Autumn Lands continue along the eastern edge of the map, with a few towns (including one with a massive natural amphitheatre in the hills nearby), and the city of Doven’s Hold looking over the Autumn Straights.

Points of interest here include many ruins along the border of the Serpent Lands, a skull of titanic proportions sitting in a the middle of the plains north of the ruined wall, a tower caught in the centre of a magical maelstrom in the waters of the Doven Gulf, and “Finger Rock” in the sandy hills to the northeast.

The Autumn Lands – Hex Map H

The Autumn Lands – Map H (300 dpi promo, no commercial license) The Autumn Lands lie to the south of the Midsummer Lands. This map sits to the east of map G from last month and to the south o…

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[Dyson Logos]

"The Finger"

In the upper right corner of the latest hexmap (The Autumn Lands, Map H) is a strange stone outcropping (requested by a patron) that looks like a finger pointing to the sky. This freakish natural rock formation has been chiseled away at over the years, hollowed out and turned into a structure by weird cultists using magics that slowly shifted the rock to look more and more like a finger, while shifting the interior to a design they could use.

According to locals in the region, “The Finger” isn’t a natural formation—it’s a remnant of the “Somnolent One,” some vast, dreamlike entity between the folds of reality. Ages ago, this being emerged briefly into the waking world, drawn by the collective dreams of a long-forgotten civilization. But the strain of existing in solid form fractured the Somnolent One, leaving behind pieces of itself scattered across time and space. The Finger is one such fragment: a crystallized sliver of an entity that cannot be fully comprehended, its shape frozen in a gesture of beckoning or warning.

Now, the Finger vibrates with a half-remembered consciousness. Its interior a strange and nonsensical arrangement of rooms and chambers. In the dark, the walls pulse gently with veins of prismatic color (about as bright as a glowstick the morning after a good party), and faint whispers slip into the minds of those who enter—a mix of lullabies and maddening dissonance. Those who stay too long risk succumbing to “Dreamer’s Fever,” a state where their bodies fall into a deep, feverish sleep, leaving their minds to wander forever in the Somnolent One’s fractured memories. (Or it could just be some weird illness attached to the site, and the dreams nothing more than vivid fever dreams).

The main level has been cut into a nonsensical array of chambers and corridors, with a large circular chamber at the base of the main “finger” itself. The chamber contains stairs leading up into the finger, and down into the spaces below (which will be detailed in upcoming maps & posts). The finger contains two more chambers, one circular directly above the one on the main level, and a smaller rectangular chamber about mid-way up. A secret stairwell extends up from that chamber to the outlook – a ledge near the top of the outcropping.

The Reverie Collective has taken up residence here. They embrace the chaos of dreams, believing the Somnolent One holds the key to unravelling the boundaries between sleeping and waking worlds. They conduct rituals to piece together fragments of its broken consciousness, hoping to call it fully into this reality – or to merge with it and transcend mortality. Their efforts have begun to warp the environment further, drawing dreamlike predators into the chambers and blending reality with nightmares.

A Sibling’s Plea
A villager’s sibling has fallen victim to Dreamer’s Fever after wandering too close to the Finger, their body now comatose while their mind is trapped in the Somnolent One’s memories. The villager begs the party to enter the dungeon, find a way to sever their sibling’s connection to the Finger, and bring them back. (Or honestly, maybe a cure disease spell might handle the whole problem?)

The Lucid Key
An eccentric scholar hires the party to retrieve an artifact known as the Lucid Key, said to be hidden within the Finger’s depths. This key is rumoured to grant the holder control over dreams and allow them to navigate a different weirdly-shifting dungeon without losing their sanity (like… the Lost Ossuary, perhaps).

The Sunken Caravan
A merchant’s caravan vanished after camping too close to the Finger. The locals report seeing strange, ghostly shapes wandering the area, and the merchant’s wares now appear in the dreams of everyone in the nearby town. The party is tasked with retrieving the goods and uncovering the merchant’s fate.

The Sleeper’s Challenge
One of the party members begins experiencing vivid dreams of a disembodied voice urging them to “ascend to the ledge.” These visions grow more intense and impossible to ignore, whispering promises of great power—or dire consequences if ignored. The visions hint that the ledge at the top contains a fragment of the Somnolent One’s deepest secret.

The Dream Harbinger
The cult’s rituals have begun to leak dreamscapes into the surrounding countryside. Desert caravans awaken to find dunes turned to glass, oases filled with honey, and impossible creatures prowling the hills and dunes. Someone must infiltrate the Finger and confront the Reverie Collective before their experiments destabilize reality entirely.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,800 x 10,800 pixels (36 x 36 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 2,520 x 2,520 pixels or 5,040 x 5,040 pixels, respectively.

“The Finger”

On the upper right corner of the latest hexmap (The Autumn Lands, Map H) is a strange stone outcropping (requested by a patron) that looks like a finger pointing to the sky. This freakish natural r…

dysonlogos.blog

 

[Eyes of Nine]

its shape frozen in a gesture of beckoning or warning.

Or perhaps anger at someone's cart cutting you off

 

[Dyson Logos]

Or perhaps anger at someone's cart cutting you off

I don't usually use my pointer finger to indicate anger.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Beneath the Finger

The structure above these dungeons (The Finger, see Monday’s post) is believed by its residents to be a remnant of “Somnolent One,” some vast, dreamlike entity between the folds of reality. These lower chambers still thrum with half-remembered consciousness – and while the glowing stonework of the upper chambers is much rarer down here, the colours of those areas seem stronger, and the light brighter (still not as bright as a freshly cracked glowstick). These lower chambers are restricted to the rocky outcropping that forms the “finger” above, and beyond the stone is naught but desert sands until one digs deeper still.

The upper half of the map is the first level below the surface structure, and the lower half is the level below that.

The chambers down here remain as weird and nonsensical as those above – as if built from the strange fever dreams of a hallucinating god. The two western chambers on the upper level contain four statues of “guests” frozen mid-waltz in a swirling pale blue mist that conceals everything below three feet, and occasionally swirls up to conceal those who would walk through it and the statues. At the south end, a dais raises one more statue almost entirely out of the mist. A strange, off-key “melody” drifts through the mist, sourceless and inhuman. Sometimes, the mist coalesces into shadowy figures that mimic the statues’ poses and attempt to pull intruders into their strange waltz. Those who are caught by the misty forms dream of an opulent ball with strange foods, and then awaken somewhere else in the dungeons.

The circular stairwell on the east side that connects the upper and lower levels seems to almost ‘drip’ down like liquid as one descends them. Object dropped in these stairs don’t always fall as they should… The bottom-most step appears to be a shining silver liquid, and stepping into it purposefully causes the intruder to “fall through” it like falling into water. Within they are subjected to a Phantasmal Killer spell. If they survive, they emerge from the stair, gasping for air and spitting out a mercury-like fluid that rejoins the stair – but they also gain the benefits of Bless and Aid spells for the next 24 hours.

Other strange chambers on these levels include The Waking Echoes and the Gallery of Forgotten Faces

The Waking Echoes is an eerily silent chamber until someone speaks. Every word spoken here is repeated moments later by ghostly, distorted voices that grow louder and more numerous with each repetition. Occasionally, the echoes start to say things the intruders haven’t said.

The Gallery of Forgotten Faces has fifteen asymmetrical masks hanging along the walls – handmade from unfamiliar materials. The masks are offputting, faintly warm, and seem to change appearance when not being observed. Touching a mask floods the mind with fleeting images of lives they cannot recall, leaving behind strange fragmented memories (use this to provide clues for secret doors and puzzles and so on in later adventures). If the room is completely silent but occupied, the masks begin to whisper very faintly, offering cryptic clues to lure people deeper into the understructures.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 8,400 x 10,200 pixels (28 x 34 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 1,960 x 2,380 pixels or 3,920 x 4,760 pixels, respectively.

Beneath the Finger

The structure above these dungeons (The Finger, see Monday’s post) is believed by its residents to be a remnant of “Somnolent One,” some vast, dreamlike entity between the folds of reality. T…

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