I’m playtesting a B/X D&D Psionics system set to be published by New Big Dragon. I also happen to have a copy of the awesome “Mad Monks of Kwantoom” from Kabuki Kaiser. I figured I should combine the two.

Mad Monks of Kwantoom takes the ideas that were used in Ruins of the Undercity and runs FAR with them. While at heart it remains a rejiggering of the random dungeon generator from the classic 1e DMG, it adds a lot of details to it and also changes it in many ways for solo play. It really plays up the sequences that happen in town between adventures to the 1001 Pagodas of Doom. Also, it adds a whole fun little monster manual of new creatures and a bunch of new monk class variants. The book has a whole appendix of “Secrets” that you discover when certain triggering conditions are met during adventures. Finally, the dungeon generation tables have been well-tweaked to produce smaller, modular dungeons (the 1001 Pagodas of Doom).

So, I rolled up some characters, and went out to the 1001 Pagodas of Doom. Here’s the map results of the first two expeditions to the Pagodas. I’ll write up more about the games later.

Three Pagodas of Doom

What impressed me is that they came out looking and feeling a lot like something I would draw anyways. There are a few places where I fudged a roll because it would have smooshed areas into other areas that were already mapped, and when I was done adventuring in each pagoda I redrew the map in pen and embellished some spots and mutated the shapes of rooms somewhat to fit the final design, but I was quite impressed with the generator so far. The little ruins, trees, docks, paths and so on are my own additions to get the “feel” I had for the Pagodas across.

Oh, and why is the Tuesday Map up on Wednesday? Our apartment building was changing the electrical connections to the apartments yesterday, so I couldn’t scan in the Pagodas when I was done drawing them.

Old Orlep was founded not too far from OgreMouth cavern… When war came the old village was destroyed and the people of Orlep moved into the cave along with their remaining foodstuffs. In time they built up a new village here – New Orlep is built directly around the cave with a few houses inside the cave proper.

New Orlep

There are two entrances into OgreMouth – the entrance in the middle of the town which is partially walled off and beyond which there are more houses, and the entrance on the hill, hidden by trees and reinforced with a locked door.

Also of note is the side cavern to the left of the main cave that leads to the river. Sitting here in the middle of the river is an altar, around which the secret cultists of Orlep gather once a week in order to keep the foul spirit of the OgreMouth Cave at bay through a series of rituals passed down through the years from those who first had to live in the cave. The rituals are kept secret because the inner circle initiates of the faith don’t want to scare away the people of New Orlep, who would likely panic and move away if they knew what terrors await should the rituals fail.

The mysterious Ten Crown River Caves are a set of five entrances cut into the limestone walls of the Ten Crown River by another watercourse that no longer travels this way. Four of the openings are into a single cavern that runs adjacent to the river (typically referred to as a “gallery” cave). Somewhere deep inside is an old hole where the prior river ran into the caves, but it has been filled in with dirt and rubble for untold years now, leaving the caves dry and almost hospitable.

Ten Crown River Caves

For those who prefer my maps without gridlines and shading, here’s a clean scan of the above map.

Ten Crown River Caves (clean)

This map was drawn in my Moleskine gridded reporter’s pad using a Sakura Micon 03 for the walls and a Sakura Micron 005 for details and crosshatching. It is made available for your non-commercial use thanks to the awesome patrons who support these releases through my Patreon Campaign.

Moleskine Original

One of several fairly well known entrances into the catacombs beneath Triumph Mesa, Hesporus Cave is home to a xenophobic clan of dwarves who seem to have given up on most of what people expect from their kin. They are unkempt and dirty, put no time into mining and crafts, and instead worship some dark entity of unknown origin.

However, if you can deal with them (or sneak past them), access to the depths below is fairly simple. Those  who have negotiated passage in the past typically ignore the dwarves as they use the ledge above the dwarven mushroom farm to acccess the deeper passages.

And the dwarves grumpily ignore them also.

Hesporus Cave

Of course, these “fallen” dwarves are not always trustworthy. For the next five days or so after someone has passed through to the lower regions, they will post sentries to watch for their return. If they appear to have suffered badly in their descent and are returning injured and missing a few party members, the dwarves will fall upon them with cannibalistic fervor.

Hesporus Cave – Gridded

Hesporus Cave was actually drawn at least 18 months ago. When I started drawing in my Moleskine reporter’s pad again recently, I noticed that a few of the older maps in the book hadn’t made it onto the blog for one reason or another (mostly my own disorganization). It was drawn on a 4 square per inch grid in the aforementioned gridded reporter’s pad using my old 0.7mm gel pens.

It is posted here for your non-commercial use thanks to the awesome patrons of the blog who support it through my Patreon Campaign.

While the catacombs within Triumph Mesa are their main attraction for adventurers, treasure hunters and fortune seekers, the wildlife of the region also deserves mention – the most notable of which are the Gazing Beasts.

Armor Class: 6                                         No. Enc.: 0 (1d12)
Hit Dice: 11                                             Save: MU11
Movement: 90’ (30’)                                  Morale: 8
Attacks: 1 (Trample)                                 Hoard Class: None
Damage: 3d8                                           Alignment: Neutral

While generally harmless, the very fact that these massive cyclopean elephant-sized beasts that watch everything that occurs on the mesa even exist can be unnerving. Particularly when a few of them take interest in the activities of interlopers.

The Gazing Beasts do exactly as their name implies – they gaze. They seem to subsist on a diet of visual input. With so little to watch on the arid surface of Triumph Mesa, they tend to congregate where there is something of interest – thus they are often found at entrances to the catacombs below, as well as following adventurers and treasure seekers as they travel the mesa.

When aggravated or attacked, the gazing beasts are quite capable of defending themselves by trampling offenders under their massive three-toed feet. They gain a +2 on attack rolls to trample targets of human size or smaller.

A group of Gazing Beasts is known as a “vision”. When encountered, roll on the table below to determine the reaction of the vision of beasts.

Gazing Beasts Reactions (d6)

1. The vision was observing the activities of a small lizard. All of the vision but one will change their focus to the characters. The remaining gazing beast will try to push the lizard towards the characters, or to push the characters towards the lizard, in order to be able to see them all at once.

2. As the vision takes note of the party, each takes a turn standing on it’s hind legs and whistling loudly through its’ nostrils. In 2d6 turns, a second vision will gallop over to observe.

3. The vision attempts to close to extremely close range with the party, each beast trying to remain within 5 feet of a party member to observe them more closely.

4. The vision is watching one of it’s own as it decomposes, having been killed by another beast of some kind, or possibly other adventurers. They are 50% likely to not follow the party as they go back to watching their own.

5. The vision charges the party, trying to break them up, to increase the number of interesting things to watch instead of having them all in one place.

6. The vision runs away from the party, and then tries to “sneakily” follow them from a distance to best observe them without being seen.

Being observed by these massive sleepless beasts is often unnerving for adventurers, however the worst of it is the subtle magical effect this concentrated attention has. Roll on the table on the next page to determine what effects the gaze of the beasts in this particular vision has.

Gazing Beasts Effects (d12)

(always round the number up when determining the effect based on number of beasts)

1. -1 on all saves per 2 beasts present.
2. -1 on all attack rolls per 2 beasts present.
3. -1 on all rolls per 4 beasts present.
4. +1 on all damage rolls per 3 beasts present.
5. -1 retainer morale per beast present.
6. -1 on all damage rolls per 4 beasts present.
7. If any character rolls a 1 on a saving throw, they are slowly petrified over 3 rounds. The first round they are at -2 on all rolls. The second round this increases to -4 and movement is reduced by half. On the third round they turn to stone.
8. If any character rolls a 1 on an attack roll, their weapon (if any) shatters.
9. Any character struck by an attack with an attack roll of 20 must make a save versus spells or have their armour shatter.
10. Variable spell effects are reduced by -1 per 2 beasts present.
11. There is a 1% chance per beast present that a spell or magic item won’t work at all when cast / used.
12. Roll again twice.

The goblin trail leads to this cave, and presumably within they are holding the missing dwarf and fighter – maybe as prisoners, maybe just as food. But the origin of the cave isn’t geological in nature. This cave is part of the old coolant processing facility that was part of the nearby space elevator (the city of Winterspire is built into the foundation of that same elevator, this is one of 16 sub-spires that supported the original construction).

Cragmaw Hideout in the Coolant Processing Facility

The goal of this redraw of the Cragmaw Hideout adventure map is to inject a little bit of a different feel to my D&D5e campaign. It isn’t set in the Forgotten Realms, it’s set along the remnants of much older technologies that everyone has forgotten. Yet the bits and pieces of those prior ages are so abundant that people don’t take notice that they are in any way special. In game play the passages and systems of the coolant plant are described as “smooth passages” and “big lumps”, “small lumps” and “protrusions”.

The goal is to make it feel just that little bit different, to inject a bit of a Count Brass feel to the setting. Obviously these caves were made by magic at some point, and unknown magics were used to produce the waters that flow from them. Unless you are a sage who specializes in these things, that’s all most characters will care to learn. You can see the map I drew for the players of the region here.

And since I’ve been adding grids to my maps lately, here’s a version with a few screened layers added: grid, shrubs and water.

Cragmaw Hideout – Gridded

I totally recommend this process for learning everything about an adventure before running it – redraw the map as you read the adventure. In the end it should run as well as any adventure you have written yourself since you’ll be that much more familiar with the material.

This map was drawn on plain white bond paper (stolen from my printer) using a Sakura Micron 01 pen. It was scanned and contrast-enhanced in photoshop, and then the three additional screen layers were added there also.

It is made available for your (non-commercial) use thanks to the awesome patrons of the Dodecahedron who support the blog through my Patreon Campaign.

Another one of the caves leading into the catacombs beneath Triumph Mesa, this one is named after it’s primary resident, the boneless lich known as Cepheus. Cepheus is an undead monstrosity of immense size, resembling a bloated and unearthly octopus more than anything else. It resides within the large cavern, immersed in the study of other realms that it accesses via a 4 foot diameter crystal ball that it caresses in its massive rotting tentacles. Most travellers have the good sense to bypass this cavern completely on their way down, but some have sought out and spoken with the foul beast and a rare few have left Cepheus’ gallery with knowledge and secrets previously unknown to man and elf alike.

Cepheus Gallery (Gridded)

Like some of my recent maps, this one is available both with and without grid. The “clean” scan is below:

Cepheus Gallery

Like last Tuesday’s Hesporus Cave (that also leads into the catacombs beneath Triumph Mesa), this map was drawn at least a year ago in my Moleskine gridded reporter’s notebook using a 0.7mm gel pen. It is posted here for your non-commercial use thanks to the awesome patrons of the blog who support it through my Patreon Campaign.

Town names are not easy to make up and avoid having them be silly, or just too “medieval fantasy” feeling (Javelin Hill, Hawskford, Granite Pass). So welcome to Cliffstable on Kerstal – a small city that has gradually grown up where the Brown Goblin River meets the Kerstal.

The original name of the settlement goes back to when a single horse breeder maintained a stable on the raised cliff area in the south-eastern shore. Travellers and traders would come by the Cliff Stables to acquire excellent and affordable horses. While there is still a small horse trade in the region, the city is more of an agricultural and trading community in the current era.

Cliffstable on Kerstal

There are two open-air markets in the city – Hillside Market in the north within the walls of the city proper (which often has a very festival-type atmosphere and sells all sorts of handcrafts, foods and treats) and Citadel Market on the cliff itself which deals more in livestock, grains, and larger trade goods.

Today’s map was the result of waiting for two different medical appointments in one day. It was drawn in one of my little (4″ x 6″) dollar store mapping books using a Sakura Micron 005 pen. It’s very very small.

Here are a few shots of the progress – this one was taken just after my first appointment:

Cliffstable in Progress

And here’s a photo of the finished project after my second appointment (apple provided for scale, and to hopefully prevent me from needing to see my doctor as often…)

Cliffstable In Progress 2

Cliffstable is provided here for your (non-commercial) use thanks to the awesome people supporting the Dodecahedron through my Patreon Campaign. Thanks to them, these maps can continue to be released for free every week.

The forest of the Beastmen is well known as a place where those who serve fell gods travel to prove themselves against one another for the attention of their dark lords. One constant in the forest is of course the Beastmen, and the westernmost part of the forest is the stomping grounds of Tallhorn’s Herd, a savage group of centaurs, minotaurs and beastmen lead by the Tallhorn – the mightiest of their kin.

What makes this herd more permanent than the other herds and tribes in the forest is Tallhorn’s Retreat, a shrine / crypt / temple / fortress cut into a rocky outcropping in their territory.

Tallhorn’s Retreat

While lacking in easy access and egress points besides the front door, this structure provides shelter and a sign of the favour of the gods through the various shrines that have been built and desecrated over the years.

Tallhorn’s Retreat (Gridded)

Since this map was drawn freehand, there is no way to really match the grid up to the map – but I’ve done my best in this gridded version.

Tallhorn’s Retreat was drawn in a single draft using Sakura Micron 03 and 01 pens in my Dollar Store mapping booklet (which is damned near full and in sad need of replacement soon). It is presented here for your non-commercial use thanks to the awesome people who support the site through my Patreon Campaign.

Along the rough eastern coast of the land is the bridged town of New Cresthill. Built up around a small fortress overlooking two river access points to the Grey Sea, New Cresthill is known for the multiple bridges that connect the various sections and elevations of the town.

New Cresthill is “ruled” by a council of the five “established houses” of the town – each household having one vote in urban affairs. However, no matter how much they like to think otherwise, the reality is that the town is still beholden to the Earl of Everren who’s father built the original fortress on the hilltop that remains one of the central parts of town. While the council pretends autonomy, they make sure that no resolution or decision will cause too much conflict with the House of Everren.

New Cresthill

The town is primarily centred around the Everren Fortress on the central promontory and the city hall to the north (with the Cresthill open-air market just downhill to the south of the city hall). Several small farming and fishing communities exist along the coast nearby that regularly trade goods and food with the New Cresthill families.

I’ve included a version of the map as it looks in my mapping book (without the additional river and tree screens added).

New Cresthill (no screens)

Like the last city map I posted, this map looks significantly larger once scanned than it was in my mapping book. I’ve included a photo of the map as I was in the process of drawing it below. I drew it in my small Dollar Store mapping book using a Sakura Micron 005 pen and a mechanical pencil to lay down the roads before I drew in the buildings (all I had on me at the time).

New Cresthill Progress Shot

Because the scale of these drawings is so small to begin with, the scanning process often makes me somewhat uncomfortable with the final product as I can inspect it much more closely, showing off how uneven and rough some of the lines are (especially since I drew these while holding the booklet in one hand instead of sitting down properly at a desk or drawing table).

Nonetheless, I really like how this town map turned out with the multiple levels and bridges and decentralized layout.

The old stone structure at the end of the lake by Devil’s Creek has been quiet but not abandoned for a few years now and the town folk know to keep their distance. Once the lakehouse of Viscount Tramur, it is now home to strange and somewhat disturbing demonic Kabuki infestation. The white-faced demons maintain the grounds immediately around the lakehouse and are said to grab anyone coming too close and forcing them to watch their endless plays… and then something even more foul perhaps, as no one has yet returned.

Tramur’s Lakehouse

Sure, the white-faced Kabuki demons might actually be a team of hobgoblins with a penchant for makeup and scary stories, but either way, they have managed to cow the locals and thus to live in some semblance of peace out here. And perhaps their disguise and performance skills are honed enough that they could pass themselves off as not-so-local farmers when they come into town to resupply…

Tramur’s Lakehouse was drawn in my Moleskine reporter’s pad over three pages and then thrown together (along with a few screens for the water, trees and grid) in photoshop. Below is a version without the screen overlays:

Tramur’s Lakehouse

Tramur’s Lakehouse was drawn in my gridded reporter’style Moleskine in a single draft using Sakura Micron 03 and 005 pens. It is presented here for your non-commercial use thanks to the awesome support of the patrons of the Dodecahedron Patreon Campaign.

Early this week I had a dream where I was playing Rick Krebs’ old school Gangbusters RPG (published by TSR in the early 80’s). In real life I haven’t played this game since the early 90’s (1991 is my best guess back in University).

In the dream, we had awesome character sheets that combined Art Nouveau and classic cars. All our equipment was handled through trading cards with art nouveau borders and illos of the equipment on one side, stats on the other.

I couldn’t kick the mental image of the character sheets, so after a few days I finally started trying to redraw them two nights ago. I’ve no experience working with Art Nouveau and I have serious problems drawing circles and smooth curves. But I went to it with gusto, trying to get that dream on paper. There are some elements that I’m not 100% fond of in this final version, but for a first try at Art Nouveau I’m happy with it.

Gangbusters Dream Sheet

Download PDF

Here’s the final product, a one-sided character sheet for Gangbusters that combines art nouveau stylings for the stats and character illustration area, a medical release form for vital statistics, and of course a classic car for style. I’m particularly enamoured with the Medical Examination Form which I cribbed from a WW1 Canadian armed forces one combined with the statistical data asked for on the regular Gangbusters character sheet.

Earlier this week I had the idea of trying to put together a megadungeon again. This was initially triggered by the creation of my “Multi Page Dungeon” page that collects most of the maps that span more than one page on the blog. I came across both the Darkling Depths (which has all the structure I would want from a Megadungeon without the mega) and the abortive Delve of Dread which I never went anywhere with.

So I grabbed a post-it and drew out the baseline of what I’d want in my megadungeon if I were to ever get around to drawing it.

I got a few questions about layout and WTF the “Vietnamese Cavern” was (I couldn’t remember the name and proper letters to use for Sơn Đoòng Cave), and a lot of “hmmm… this could be AWESOME!”

So I started with the Fungus Cave.

Mushroom Cavern

Then, just because S. John Ross had a dream sequence about it (complete with a wavy-distorted screen segue effect), I put together a faux spot-process version where the mushrooms have been rendered in a different colour of ink.

Mushroom Cavern (Purple)

This also marks a strange turning point in my cartography… there’s a scale at the bottom of the page!

Yesterday I was in a rush and posted up my Fungus Cavern without a lot of chatter around it. So today I thought I could talk about the whole thing a bit more, as well as provide a few alternate versions of the map in question.

After putting together the multi-page dungeon collection (which I realized this morning doesn’t include Dyson’s Delve, my self-titled 11-level dungeon), I got the urge to sit down and make a true “mega dungeon”. Of course that meant figuring out what I meant by a mega dungeon and what other people expect in a mega dungeon. At the heart of it, the idea of the Darkling Depths is right up there as one of my favourite dungeon designs – multiple access points, a small community in the dungeon who can act as an entry point to the deeper levels and as a rest and restock area, and a total of 8 maps over 5 levels.

But that’s not mega, that’s just really really big.

So I pulled out a post-it pad and figured out what I would like in a much larger dungeon project – one that I could add to indefinitely if needed. And I got this:

Dyson Mega Delve

The arrows are access points to the outside world from the dungeon, and the wavy line is an underground river that starts above ground in the upper right corner. Because of the structure of the mines, I can easily expand this map using the mines as expansion points, and we can always add new locations further along the underground river. Further, each node in the mega delve is probably going to be handled with multiple maps – for instance the one area that has been mapped so far has a secret door leading to a secret sublevel that I’m in the process of drawing up for the Friday map this week.

With that established I started poking around at what would become the Mushroom Cavern (listed as the Fungus Cave on the post-it – I confuse myself by giving things multiple titles, not too clever eh?)

Fungus Cave WIP 1

This feels like a classic “Dyson” map to me in that it’s straight to ink without going to pencil roughs first, although it has a lack of crosshatching in the early stages, and it has something I never draw on a map – a scale marker.

Fungus Cave WIP 2

Now this is feeling a lot more like it. But it still needs fine details…

Fungus Cave WIP 3

And the rocks, debris and trees show up. All that’s missing now is mushrooms! But how should I draw mushrooms? This far into the map I don’t want to “wreck” it by drawing crappy fungi that just don’t get the image across, so back to the post-it notes.

Fungus Cave WIP 4

And some prototype shrooms show up on the post-it. A bit of back and forth on Google+ and it’s decided that some spots would drive the image home a bit.

Fungus Cave WIP 4

And the first fungus-filled chamber takes form!

Fungus Cave WIP 6

Soon to be followed by more.

Once I was done drawing in all the mushrooms (the work of a few hours), I slapped the whole thing on the scanner and scanned it into Photoshop at 600 dpi. I then stuck an overlay grid layer on it scaled to match the existing grid. Then I can go into the base layer, increase brightness and contrast to make it look truly black and white, and leave the superimposed grid unaffected. But old school Dyson maps don’t have that grid at all (and personally I don’t find it all that useful), so here’s a copy of the map without the grid overlay:

Mushroom Cavern, no grid (click for big-ass version)

Then, purely because S. John Ross (author of a bunch of RPGs, including the incredibly flexible and fun Risus) had a dream sequence about it, I did a version with the coloured shrooms. To get the colour change, I used the paintbrush tool with the colour of violet I had chosen and set the tool on “lighten” so it would only paint over areas that were darker than the purple in question (so not the white “floor”). Then I painted over all the mushrooms on the map (well, almost all, I missed two shelf fungus somewhere and a cluster near the centre).

But it turns out not everyone is happy with the violet in the media. So I made this blue version. If you want a different version, just load it up into your graphics software and adjust the hue and saturation levels (which won’t affect the black ink, but will change the coloured parts).

Fungus Cave in Blue!

If you look at the Mushroom Cavern map posted on Tuesday, you’ll note a secret trap door in one of the chambers near the entrance to the cave complex. During a multi-year dry spell, a team of mildly insane cultist dwarves converted the lower caves into a small temple and living area. When the nearby river started to flood again, they sealed the entrance to this area with a metal trap door that they would dog to keep the waters out.

Over the years, the door has partially rusted out, and now water flows through into this cave when the cave above floods. However, the flow is restrained significantly by the old door, and the result is that the flood often piles mud and debris over the door, keeping it well hidden from those who harvest the mushrooms above.

Mushroom Sublevel (with grid)

As long as the flooding isn’t extreme, the carved out portions of this level remain dry, or at least under minimal amounts of water. The natural cave funnels most of the water and mud down towards the sinkhole in the southern end which in turn connects much further down into the subterranean complexes.

While the Mushroom Cavern uses a grid size of 20′/square, this map uses a more standard 10′ square grid.

And for those who don’t use grids, I’ve kept a nice clean copy for you:

Mushroom Sublevel (no grid)

This map was drawn on 4 square-per-inch graph paper. I used one of my old 0.7mm gel pens for the walls, and a Sakura Micron 01 for the detail work (mushrooms, doors and crosshatching).

The OSR+2 Bundle of Holding just got 100% more Dyson in it!

With just over 48 hours left to buy the Bundle of Holding, my second book - Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts - has been added to the awesome collection of Labyrinth Lord PDFs.

This book takes most of the house rules for magic in my many B/X D&D campaigns and brings them together into one source for Labyrinth Lord play. In this book you have everything you need to play any of magic using character classes – from Wizard and Cleric and the classic elf, to any of the ten new classes presented here. In addition to the classes and spell lists, the book contains a collection of new magic items, and alternate expanded elementals.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts was written with the constraints and style of the classic B/X game in mind – spell lists are kept small (max of 12 spells per caster level – usually less) and while some classes have “unlocking” abilities at higher levels, they are kept simple and few.

This volume collects the best of my house rules for magic from decades of play. And while it’s normally $10 in PDF, right now it’s in the OSR Bundle of Holding where you can get it along with Dyson’s Delves, Labyrinth Lord and the AEC, People of the Pit, Death Frost Doom 2e, Lesserton & Mor, Qelong, the River Knife Trilogy of adventures, and Scarlet Heroes as a Labyrinth Lord uber package for under $20!

So check out the Old School Revival +2 Bundle of Holding!

Another exploration of the Dyson MegaDelve today! This time we are travelling north from the Fungal Cavern to the area marked as “Small Caves” on the node map:

MegaDelve Node Map

This node will probably contain two areas, the one being posted today and a second one that sits between these caves and the “Vietnamese Cavern” (the one that will be based on Sơn Đoòng Cave in Vietnam).

Since the Fungus Cave was drawn at a much smaller scale than the other dungeon sections will be (except for the Vietnamese Cavern, which will probably be drawn at the same scale), the three northern branches from it that all go to the “Small Caves” actually spread across a full sheet of graph paper when the scale is changed.

Like most of my maps, this one starts out with the walls of the caves and chambers being drawn in using a Sakura Micron 03 (and then drawn over a second time to thicken the lines). Typically, when I don’t know how exactly I want the caves to progress, I’ll stop drawing the walls and go back and start adding the crosshatching using a Micron 01.

Caves in Progress 1

I’m specifically adding little nodules and lumps off the caves so the goblins will have living spaces around the edges of the major caves they live within. Then as I go along crosshatching I start going back into the caves themselves using a Micron 005 adding little details – like thrones, campfires, boxes, barrels, tables and of course sleeping areas.

Also, I keep referring to the blighters who live in these caves as goblins, whereas in my head these caves are actually the “Caves of the Goblin-Equivalent Creatures”. While in game terms the creatures living in these caves will probably be pretty much the same thing as goblins, I’m thinking that they should definitely break the standard goblin mold in some way – I’ve been considering hordes of earwig-like humanoids, or semi-sentient rhesus monkeys…

Caves in Progress 2

In this picture I’ve finished the southeastern corner of the map. This passage, just past the goblin “king”‘s audience chamber, is where the majority of the goblins who bring back food from the fungus cavern live. They are looked down on as simple farmers by the rest of the goblins, but they see themselves as the warren’s “rangers” – an elite force of goblins who operate outside the warren itself and deal with the dangers out there and who also have the higher calling to care for their kin by providing them with the essentials of life.

Caves in Progress 3

And here’s the map after about two hours of work, when I had to leave it to take care of some errands. And finally, here’s the map after a bit of work when I got home from those errands and a bit of photoshopping to clean up the lines and to put the grid back in.

Goblin Caves (with Grid)

And for those who aren’t fans of the grid, here’s the “classic Dyson” style of this map:

Goblin Caves (gridless)

Five or so years ago I started drawing a new format of geomorph using a 10×10 grid with two entrances on each face. I drew over a hundred of these over the next year and somewhere along the way the format took off and today there are at least a thousand of these geomorphs available out there.

Then Joe from Inkwell Ideas came up with the idea of taking this goemorph format to the solid 3 dimensional format of dice. They are awesome and have been through multiple printings now.

Recently he got the old crew back together to work on a new version – taking the dungeonmorph dice and making village / city maps instead.

DungeonMorph Dice – Cities & Villages

I was tapped and planned on taking part in the design of these dice like I was in the original DungeonMorph dice before them, but I just can’t seem to find the time these days to take on this work. However, I have been sitting in on the design process the whole way through and these dice are looking AWESOME.

Awesome enough that even though I have basically stopped backing RPG stuff on Kickstarter, I’m in on this one. Because these things are great and I loved the dice and cards from the original DungeonMorph dice.

Also, it would suck if this project didn’t make the very reasonable $10k goal to launch.

So check it out on Kickstarter!

On the original node map of the MegaDelve, this map is part of the “Small Caves” node (same as the Goblin caves earlier this week, and the Cannibal Cave coming up next week).

MegaDelve Node Map

This area of the MegaDelve is inhabited by the “rat folk” who are actually messed up halflings who worship a rodent god-type-thing. They are cannibalistic, get most of their food from the “Vietnamese cavern” to the north of their lairs, and are on the constant watch for Ogres coming in from the east (which is actually goblin territory, but the ogres raid the goblins and occasionally head this way to get to the big-ass cavern). Fortunately the Ogres generally take the easy (wide) route to the big cavern, leaving the rat folk to their own devices in the smaller twisting caves around the main travel route.

Rat Folk Tunnels (with grid)

The passage to the right leads to the western exit from the goblin caves. The southern secret exit leads eventually to the abandoned dwarven city by way of the ogre base. All three passages to the top side of the page lead to the big-ass Vietnamese Cavern. The two sets of stairs lead up to the cannibal cave which I’ll probably have up on Tuesday.

And below I have a version of the map without the grid:

Tunnels of the Rat Folk (no grid)

And below are a few shots of the tunnels as they came together.

Lulu 50% off Sale!

Seriously folks, Lulu has to be losing money on this sale. On the upside, I’m not, and you… well, you’ll still be spending money, but you will be getting some serious returns on your investment.

30% off softcovers is a nice deal, but 50% off at Lulu is an unheard of deal. Like the kind of deal they never offer. Ever. Except today. Well, today, tomorrow and Monday the 24th of November.

So head on over to the Lulu store and pick up my books at crazy cheap prices ($15 each for hardcovers of Dyson’s Delves I & II), and then keep on shopping.

• Dyson’s Delves (1981 D&D Maps & Adventures)
• Dyson’s Delves II (More 1981 D&D Maps & Adventures)
• Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts (Classic 1981 D&D Spellcasting sourcebook with 10 new classes, new spells, new magic items)
• Narcosa (Full-colour drug induced hallucinations of the OSR, including one of my adventures!)
• Teratic Tome (It looks like an AD&D Monster Manual, but it’s more of an AD&D nightmare manual)
• The Dungeon Dozen (A whole book of random tables using d12s and Jason Sholtis’ pure genius)
• Labyrinth Lord (Dude, it’s 1981 D&D all over again, trust me!)
• LL Advanced Edition Companion (Adds all the cool stuff from AD&D to 1981 D&D without the weird complicated stuff)
• Mutant Future (It claims it’s not a 1st Edition Gamma World retroclone. But I say it is totally a 1st Edition Gamma World retroclone)
• Fantastic Heroes & Witchery (An OSR game that seriously expands on the classic source material into a gorgeous massive hardcover)
• Swords & Wizardry White Box (“The” OD&D retro-clone)
• Transylvanian Adventures (A Dungeon Crawl Classics expansion for playing “Hammer Horror” style games)
• Advanced Adventures Vol 1 (10 AD&D adventure modules)
• Advanced Adventures Vol 2 (10 more AD&D adventure modules)
• Advanced Adventures Vol 3 (10 MORE AD&D adventure modules)

And trust me, if you keep digging, you WILL find more.