So I have been holed-up in central Virginia since Friday morning, and counting my blessings that we no longer live in the DC area. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the recent blizzard.

I’ve actually been able to get some work done and have a few maps for you. Today’s map is an experiment. I wanted to try something completely different with the walls. Awhile back I posted two maps from old DND/rogue-like games. These maps didn’t have thick walls so I followed the technique Dyson used on this map The Ruined Palace. My efforts looked like doo-doo (I was still using shitty pens), but I thought I could do better. Over the past couple of weeks I think I have.

I first started off looking at some of the different styles and line weights that I’ve used for my maps. Most of my recent maps have been in the top middle style. Fine for thick walls, but not for thin walls. Dyson used the middle style for the map I linked to above. Well, I have to have that crosshatching in my maps, so I added it to two different line weights. I loved it. So to test that style out, I whipped up a quick map. The result is below.

Today’s map was drawn with Micron 05 and 01 pens. Post-production yielded a fantastic contrast between the walls, rock, and open space. If I could ever figure out how to put in a grid, I’d be happy. Truth be told, working this way is much more time consuming but much more rewarding.

And here we go with the next dungeon. This one actually cleaned up much better than I thought it would. Nothing much more to say about it except that I thinks it’s cool.

So here is the first map of two that are in a similar style to Random Dungeon 17. You can see that I was unable to remove some of the crappy grid lines. I think I was able to fix it enough so it shouldn’t be too much of a distraction.

This one (and its cousin who will be posted after I finish the post-production) was one where I was drawing the cliff faces in an isometric view and it just looked like poop. Taking a cue from Dyson in this recent map Kemp’s Divide, I figured I would just try using just those little fucking lines. They don’t convey the height of the cliff faces, but quite frankly, any DM using this map can choose how high he wants them to be.

Anyway, more talky-talky after the map.

Interestingly enough (to me anyway), I drew the rough steps to match the approximate height as my regular stairwells–so forty feet horizontal feet traveled for 20 vertical feet traveled. [I don’t need to illustrate this do I?] I’m making believe that the northern cavern steps rise the same as the rest even though I only fit in six.

One of the things I really like about this map is the southern section. It looks like it could be a well defensible lair for a group of kobolds or goblins or gnomes. It has one access point in the dungeon and the rough steps that lead to the water.

During the first draft of this map, I placed the river as you see it. I had/have no f—ing clue what is on the other side. BTW, the river is at least twenty feet across and is filled with f—ing piranha. Or something.