Drawing maps is one of my absolute most favorite things to do. Below are a couple of maps I'm making for the the Dungeons and Dragons game I'm currently DMing with some of my co-workers. So, if you're in the campaign, and you're reading this post... you're cheating!
I'm currently calling our game "The Reywish Campaign" and you can find game notes for each session of play here. Session notes should be updated on the Monday following the game, but we'll see how good I am about sticking to it.
In the limestone mountains East of the town of Reywish lives a group of Bandits (naturally). The bandits are led by a woman called "Ma Li'Telli" (yes, and without shame) and they've got two camps; one on the North side of the road, and one on the South side. The northern camp is a very large box canyon where they keep most of their horses. The southern camp is in a much smaller canyon containing some natural caves.
The Southern Camp
I guesstimate that about 75 people (men, women and children) live in this area. Many of them in the tents in the canyon itself. A major point of interest in the canyon is the waterfall (center). The water flows down from the bluffs and into a large sinkhole (~500' deep or more). Everyone that has gone down has not returned, and the bandits currently use it as a trash dump.
It turns out that the bandits are not the first people to inhabit this area, and long ago (maybe 100 years) a great wizard named Fazool, built a tower home in this area. Using elemental thralls, he turned one of the caves into a large stable (lower right hand corner of the map), and a small, low security prison. The bandits don't know that there's a mage tower here because it's protected by a monster that lives in the lake (top middle), and they have done their best to barricade that portion of the cave off.
Fazool's Tower
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| Level 1 is the top floor, and level 6 the bottom. |
Fazool's Tower (first map, upper right) is six stories tall, and almost completely obscured by limestone bluffs when viewed from the canyon, or any of it's high ledges. While drawing the map I decided that Fazool was an exceptionally powerful Water Mage. One of the main features of the tower is a giant aquarium that passes through levels 2-6. It's actually linked to the plain of Water allowing the creatures seen in the tank to change over time. On level 2 the aquarium arches across the ceiling, giving the library a rather spectacular effect.
The tower has been abandoned for many years, and it is unclear if it was ransacked or packed up in a very hasty manner. The library has the most "stuff" in it, but most of the book shelves have either collapsed or fallen, and books are strewn everywhere. To sample some of the books that can be found in Fazool's library, check out this awesome ArcaneBook name generator I found over on D&D with Porn Stars.
Also of note: On levels 1 and 4 you can smell the sea, and hear seabirds. On level 6 however, you can hear what sounds like ocean breakers crashing on the shore. Is it an enchantment that causes these sensations? Or is it that the pit on level 6 goes all the way down to the black oceans of the Underdark?
