Nentir Inn Second Floor

Lonely Tower Redux

I've made some additional notes to the popular Lonely Tower map. Thanks and a tip o' the tam o' shanter to loyal reader Dave L!

Nentir Insides

The first floor of Nentir Inn along with the kitchen.

Nentir Inn Curb Appeal

A by-request sketch of the Nentir Inn. I'll polish it up when I get a little more free time.

Doodle Family Fails Save vs. the Crud

First Daddy Doodle and Baby Doodle were sick and now Missus Doodle has a cold too! Bleh. 

Dwarftown?

I've been wrestling with Dwarftown looking too "above-ground", the details feeling to Greco-Roman and not other-worldly enough. But I'm liking this more rough-hewn style. The final version should look something like this.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

... it's going rather slow! Dwarftown, that is. But rest assured, the surly contractors of fantasyland are making progress.

Headin' Down South

I've found three little bits of copy regarding the larger world and the Nentir Vale's place in it:

• "A broad borderland region."
  
• "The Nentir Vale is a northern land..." and
  
• "(Harken Forest) separates the Nentir Vale from the more populous coastal towns of the south."
  

Sticking the Vale up along the northern border of the kingdom takes care of the first two points. Making the rest of this Nerath Empire remnant into a bastardization of southern England satisfies the third point as well a my current preoccupation with Bernard Cornwell's King Arthur books.

But please let me know if you've any better published sources for expanding the map, won't you? I'm working entirely from the DMG and H1.

Update: Misspelled "capital". D'oh!

Latest update: I got to thinking about Colmarr's comment that the Hammerfast trade route needed somewhere to go. It occurred to me if the Vale were on one side of a hellaciously vast mountain range, it would explain why people on the other side would refer to the mountains as something else beside "Dawnforge". Plus, a safe route through such rugged terrain really would be an asset worth guarding with a fortress. Thanks Colmarr! =)

Welcome!

This blog got some crazy number of visitors yesterday, so I just wanted to say -- Welcome to my blog of unnecessary maps, comics, and dried-out marker doodles! More goodies coming soon!

Fallcrest Revised

I've revised the original Fallcrest map into a players' version.

http://dandddoodles.blogspot.com/2009/07/fallcrest-rough-iii.html

Down, Down, Down

Just for fun times, here is Dwarftown in progress. It may take a while to finish this, but you can see where I'm going; namely, underground.

Hey Dwarftown!

The old map was looking slightly flat so I threw in some good ol' 3-point perspective. Not to be confused with Hammerfast though, nuh-uh. This is a map of Dwarftown; a largish, dwarven city which also lies along the Dawnforge Mountains' trade route. Coincidence? Yes.

Hammerfast Rough

I know these colors are getting pretty pukey, but it's a fair representation of what's left in my marker box =(

Have You Seen Me?

A friend of mine had a whole army -- well, perhaps more of a squadron -- of orc minis when we were in second grade. I can't seem to find hide nor hair of them on the internets. Does anyone have a clue where they came from? I say they were orcs (because my friend painted white hand and lidless eye badges on their shields) but they may have officially been 'goblins', 'kobolds', or even miniatures not specifically for D&D. 

     The most memorable detail was their faces weren't pig-shaped but instead were more tiki-like (as I've tried to recall above). They were cool. Any ideas?

Fallcrest Map

Herewith two versions of Fallcrest; one for players, one for dm's.

More Otus Gems

This time, four from The World of Greyhawk Gazetteer and one from The Rogues Gallery.

As I've said elsewhere, Otus' work is so appealing because his characters actually look vulnerable, as if they're seconds away from being skewered or digested (if they're not already). Check out that poor schmuck with an arrow through his visor in the second image!

Of course, his line work -- always first rate -- is on parade in these pieces. The firestorm in particular is a festival of chevrons, crosshatching, and contours... how does he do it?

10th Level Shaman

What is your business in these lands, stranger?

Fallcrest Composite Rough

Not that anyone's clamoring for this, but since it'll take me a while to clean up this drawing I thought I'd post it just in case someone wanted to run a party through in the meantime.

As I pull together the various elements of this Fallcrest drawing, a few thoughts occur:

• Who the hell is going to climb up and down a flight of stairs 15 stories high just to get their groceries? In the rain? No one, that's who. So I put in an elevator for the Porter's Guild to run.

• The original map has an awful lot of rubble and tumble-down walls. Now it's true that humans are lazy alcoholics, but it's been 110 years since the Bloodspears rumbled through! Don't you think someone might've organized a clean-up in the intervening decades? I do, so I patched the walls and cannibalized the rubble for more buildings.

• Marklehay having a personal forest within the confines of the city walls seems a bit odd. I've rerouted the approach to the Keep; the woods are smaller now and may end up just being ornamental.

Fallcrest -- the Lower City

Swimmin' pools, movie stars.

Fallcrest Rough

Here's a rough sketch of the Northeast neighborhood of Fallcrest. Big houses, lovely waterfall, mysterious caverns.

My Appendix N

A meme is going around the Grognards like the flu: Appendix N. The original Appendix N was Gary Gygax's list of inspirational books -- Conan, Lovecraft, etc. (here's a fun link:  robertsongames fantasy booklist).

Instead of books, my Appendix N is a list of albums we were listening to while spending countless hours playing games in the basement.

Postcard from Harkenwold

A map of the half-dozen villages that make up Harkenwold. It's about, oh, 7 miles from Devil's Bridge to Stockmer Keep along the the road. Beware goblins down 'round Pea Ridge!

Fallcrest Rough

It's map time! The northwest quad of Fallcrest, in rough form.

The Lonely Tower

Since the Lonely Tower has proven surprisingly popular, I thought I’d post the ideas I had while designing this dungeon.

Mechanically, the way the dungeon functions is this: everything starts off inanimate. Rooms 8 and 9 are hermetically sealed (and, should the players be skillful enough to notice, are the only rooms with airtight doors and no windows) and filled with a nefarious gas. If the party moves into the Chamber of Horrors (8) without shutting the doors behind them as they go, the gas will move into the rest of the prison, animating whatever various corpses and skeletons it comes across. I don’t think opening the Salon (9) would wreck as much havoc, since the gas is probably lighter than air and therefore couldn’t access the rest of the prison.

That’s about it, except to mention there’s a skeleton under the dock (11). This skeleton has a key which unlocks the ‘backdoor’ hatch (10).

The little story I made up about the place goes like this:

A while ago – after Fallcrest burned and/or after the fall of the Empire – there was a political purge, a not uncommon pattern. The lonely tower was where the Inquisition prisoners were incarcerated, tortured, and usually executed.

Eventually, some especially frisky ne’er-do-wells got into some dark stuff and set up a salon within the prison itself! With the aid of some magical runes and slapdash alchemy, they constructed an infernal device which would refine the agonies of the condemned into a recreational drug. Prisoners below would be tortured and the hedonists above would be able to toke off the distilled, etherized suffering of the condemned.

Everything was fine until everything went wrong and now, 90 years later or so, we have this chamber of horrors waiting for our heroes.

Fallcrest's own, dilapidated Gitmo. From a previous administration.

A Random Encounter

Rungo Halfmoon, his cousins Bosco and Bolo Halfmoon, and their hired toughie Bargie Leadloch, hit the King's Road hoping to expand the franchise to Winterhaven.

Dave Arneson, 1947-2009

From the Arneson Family.

Arneson's  Wikipedia bio.

Mapping the Nentir Vale

I only know a few things about the Nentir Vale, geographically speaking.

• The Nentir Vale is a "northern land".
• The "Vale" is situated between two mountain ranges; the Stonemarch and the Dawnforge.
• The falls at Fallcrest indicate an elevation change.
• Don't order the "mutton" at the Fiveleague House.
• South of Fallcrest are the Witchlight Fens. We also know that the towns beyond the southern edge of the map are "coastal towns". To me, these are indications that South is "down".
  

I'm imagining the Vale as a "saddle" between the two mountain ranges with a major elevation drop clearly defined by the White River in the southeast.

So what can we conclude?

• Harkenwold isn't really in the "vale" proper.
  
• The Woodsinger Elves of the Harken Forest, being at a higher elevation, may have a tactical advantage over the Daggerburg Goblins.
  
• The Kingsroad must really be quite lovely, what with the view and all.
  
• Winterhaven is in the ass-end of nowhere.
  

Winterhaven take 4

Here is probably the final Winterhaven map. If you look closely, that's Valthrun smoking a pipe on his porch.

Thunderspire

Another fairly redundant map, this time of the Thunderspire neighborhood. Nothing you won't find in the DM guide. Not to scale, not to be used for navigation.

New Foot

Thair Coalstriker hooked up Jonas with a new iron kicker! Add some shoulder candy -- a Hammer of Resounding -- and it's turning into a fine week for the ol' boy.

Broken Leg

Still looking for someone to fix poor ol' Jonas' broken foot. Any suggestions?

Winterhaven take 3

Here's the Winterhaven in-progress sketch. Still super-rough, but I've tried to make the density reflect the listed population, added 'suburbs' outside the walls, and reconnected Padraig's manor to the town proper.

Doodle Dump

A couple takes on the Tower of Waiting (number 1 on the Fallcrest map).

The Southern section of Fallcrest, from Kings Gate up to the marketplace.


Nentir Inn, nest of villainy.

Blue Moon Alehouse, with beergarden!

Completely Unnecessary

Quick sketch of Fallcrest with a little elevation tossed in. I did this without the key, so I'm sure there are some things mis-drawn.

Jonas, Intrepid Explorer

After Jonas received a broken ankle from the hobgobbos on the second level of the Shadowfell, the party crafted him a splint out of their magical flying broom. Things went downhill from there...

According to Beytak, "Through Jim's leadership, Jonas was able to fly last night; straight into the ground, face first."

Jim.... leadership....?