There are 6 more issues of the #dungeon23 pamphlet zine to produce for the 2nd half of the year. I am looking for a number of small spot illustration pieces for these.
I’d like to find a half dozen artists for a small piece (~3.5″ x 2.5″), black+white, for each of those issues. Paying $10 for non-exclusive rights.
I’m hoping this can be an opportunity for some new artists, and a way to find some other artists for other projects. If you are interested and have a portfolio online, let me know. I’d also appreciate it if you pass word along to other artists you know who might be interested.
The planned topics for these so far include: Air & Glasses; Mechanisms; Geology; Plants & Vegetation
Anything related to dungeons or caves, doors, corridors, etc., would also be perfect for this.
Ordering on itch gets you 3 issues (first 2 are available now; 3rd will be added soon)
Print copies are only available through itch, at least for now. If you pick them up on itch, you’ll get all 3 of the ones planned for the first set (issue 3 is still coming at this time, but will be added soon). Since the print copies are going to be bundled by quarter, it makes it easier to manage if all three for each mailing are included at one time.
This is the start of a series of twelve pamphlet zines for #Dungeon23 and #ZiMo2023
The first issue is now available at DriveThruRPG. There will be an issue per month for 2023. The pamphlet is just a single legal-size (8-1/2″ x 14″) sheet folded in quarters, but packed with information. Each issue will contain at least three random tables for features or elements of a dungeon. There will also be at least three maps of dungeon intersections or fragments. And there will be an article on a topic related to dungeons and dungeon design.
The complete list of topics is still in process of development, but this is the plan at present:
Q1 (Jan/Feb/Mar)
Intersections * Halls & tunnels * Stone masonry
Q2 (Apr/May/Jun)
Doors * TBD 1 * Stairs & shafts
Q3 (Jul/Aug/Sept)
Air & gasses * TBD 2 * Mechanisms
Q4 (Oct/Nov/Dec)
Geology * TBD 3 * Plants & vegetation
Because it is just a single page zine, it should be relatively easy and affordable to mail these in a standard business envelope as first-class mail. Since the plan is to do 12 of these over the course of the year, each quarter, an envelope with three issues from the previous quarter can be sent off. And, by keeping it to simple first-class mailing, it should be possible to send copies outside the US without running up ruinous shipping charges. It’ll be more expensive than sending within the US, but maybe only $1-2 more than for domestic mailing.
The shipping is not set up yet, but if you are interested in more information about that once they are ready to go, drop a note to let us know. That will also help with working out the logistics of printing and mailing these once we are ready.
Maybe the last map made me long for doing some brick greebling. Maybe I just needed something that wasn’t a plan for a change of pace. In any case, the idea for this struck, and I wanted to knock out a quick and dirty version of it.
The flues are big and open, so you can see all the pathways. I was experimenting with a fill in the flues to make it dark, rather than white. But it was reading a little oddly, so this is a clean and readable version.
(And, as discussed on Mastodon, this is very fictional (and functionally unsafe)*. A real mason would have an aneurysm looking at this. (*See also every crawl through ducts in any movie)
It seemed to me that this could be used as the map for some kind of a caper or heist game, where the plan layout of the space matters less than the arrangement of the fireplaces and flues for a crew to scamper around a building going between rooms and levels. If you make this work for something like that, I would love to hear about how that goes.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
Sometimes, the final version of the map goes in a different direction than what was expected with the initial concept. In this case, the first idea for the drawing was to have hooks and switchbacks; that the connectors would have sharp turns rather than being more direct A-to-B kinds of connections. But the version that came out of that, with these swoopy, Art Nouveau lines, was not necessarily what I was after. It’s not a bad thing at all; just different from the initial thought.
It also clearly didn’t call for a Dyson-hatch or for a block wall style to outline the edges. The denser stipple at the edges along with the overall poche also seems pretty successful with this one.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
More experimentation with borders and poche fill in this. The corridor with piers running down the middle is a bit goofy, perhaps, but maybe it was once a mine or some kind of created structure.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
Sometimes an earlier piece suggests doing the opposite in the next one. This was inspired by the idea of having passages that branched, which is true for most of the connections between the rooms in this.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
Shape rooms and lots of connections; this is a very Jaquayed dungeon bit, but all of the corridors are simple end-to-end or room-to-room connections; there are no forks or decisions between the rooms.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
It has been quite a while since I did one of these with a stone block style wall, and that was suddenly very appealing to do for a change. This is also a “boulevarded” dungeon, since there are several places where there are two passages running side-by-side, at least for a bit of the way. It was somewhat inadvertent, but it was interesting, so a couple more got worked in.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
This map started with the central round chamber, and then extended from there. Unlike a lot of the Fragments, this one is rather interconnected, and has at least two ways to get to any area from any other area. The central area is definitely a point of focus of some kind, which makes this different from a lot of the rest of the series.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
These are a pair of maps which are linkable to each other. Usually, the maps posted here are singular pieces, without interconnection to each other. But this one and its counterpart were created to be able to be connected to one another on any edge. So there are four configurations possible with the combination of the two.
As usual, feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose, or contact me if you’d like to use this on a commercial project, or if you would like to commission a custom piece.
Here’s an image for the next adventure project I’m working on. It’s a quick and rough model in SketchUp of the space where the adventure starts; this is a view looking into the chapel yard from just outside the wall.
This intersection incorporates a series of standing stones aligned in a line of rooms. This progression could be extended in both directions to other parts of the dungeon. These could be part of a larger magical system, perhaps working as a conduit to direct mysterious energies for some larger purpose.
Here’s something that has been a long time coming; the cover for the “Wilderness of Ordurak” adventure with art by Nate Marcel (and a few interior illustrations by him, as well). This is an adventure written for use with DragonQuest, but, it should be adaptable to other games.
The original backers have gotten proof copies to look over. There are some known issues, so there’s a little editing and revision work to be done, yet. But this is finally just about complete.
The original crowd-supported project proposal was for a 16-page adventure. This is presently clocking in at 54 pages (including the cover), plus there is a 12″ x 18″ region map.
Some people who missed the original crowd funding period have asked about getting in on this project. It looks like IndieGoGo added a feature called InDemand that “lets anyone back you after your crowdfunding campaign is over.” However, I haven’t been able to enable that feature on the site.
But, if anyone is still interested in getting in as a supporter at one of the Mercenary levels, let me know, and I will set up a selection at the Antherwyck House store to make those options available. There is not a good way to extend any of the Adventurer or Hero levels at this point, since those were options that involved input in deciding the content of the adventure.
We’ll have more information about this adventure as it gets into production.
Work in progress for a project. The chambers and the hex grid (yes, it’s a DragonQuest project, so it’s on a hex grid) are done on computer, but then the hatching in the solid areas is all done by hand. I think the combination of the two is working pretty well, here.
The whole thing will be included in the Wilderness of Ordurak adventure, which is being wrapped up now, and, for the time being, the complete version of it will only be included in there.
This is a fairly simple hex map showing a path and a stream crossing with some stepping stones. The other elements are intended to be the trunks of trees, but they may not read that way, since there are no branches or leaves. But that’s what those other bits are meant to be.
The scenario envisioned for this map to be used with was an ambush by a couple of archers who are working in conjunction with a nixie/water sprite. Most of the water is too deep (more than waist deep) to be able to be easily forded, other than near the rocks at the crossing, so a fight on both sides of the water will be a lot of ranged combat (and the tree trunks as cover then become a significant element).
I’m not a regular (or, at this point, even a sporadic) VTT user, so I don’t know if this is workable/usable for that sort of thing. Let me know if you use this in something like that, and let me know how well it works.
The original was drawn in pen on a hex page, so the hexes are integral to this image, and not something that could be turned off. But if you’re playing a game that uses a hex grid for tactical display, then give this a shot.
There are a couple hours between when you have to arrive at the park in order to have a parking spot and when the community fireworks program actually starts. So this was a pre-4th of July fireworks* dungeon.
(*these were fireworks held on the 3rd so that kids could go and stay up late)
I’d grabbed this old but unused notebook to bring along, a fat Paperchase gridded notebook with hundreds of thin pages in it. It’s probably A5 size (roughly 5.5″ x 8.5″), and it’s so fat the spine is curved, rather than straight. There are probably 400+ pages in a notebook that’s over an inch thick. So, this could be the first of many, many maps (and other notes). The grid is fairly close on the pages in this notebook. The grid that I drew into the map is actually every 2 squares.
To make the map, I just laid out an assortment of rooms across the page, and then connected them together. I wanted a really tangled, haphazard looking layout, and that seems to be what I ended up with. I took some pictures along the way to show the process. I only had one pen with me, so this was all done with a simple medium Flair pen (except the gridding, which was added in with a thinner Micron after we got home).
After a wonderful partial map posted by Kevin Campbell a couple weeks ago [here on Google+], I did some looking and found a couple blank map forms*. They aren’t wonderful quality (too dark and heavy), but they’ll still do for doodling.
So this is a quick and dirty try at using the spherical box blank. It’s little more than a five-minute map, but it’s one experiment at finding an interesting way to use the form. It’s enough to justify messing around some more later on. (more…)
Circles and spirals were obviously what was behind this map. And, it seems there was maybe something in the water, since Matt Jackson also posted a very circle-y map earlier this week, as well. This was still in process at the time, but I shared an in-process version, just for comparison.
The latest couple maps have been exploring the idea of interrupting a long, continuous hallway; in this case, the arcing diagonal hall is broken with a large circle, and various smaller halls and rooms spin off from the various paths.
This is a little bit out of sequence, but I think last week was supposed to be the next post, so things got messed up anyhow. So, enjoy this one, and there will be a new one next week to get back on schedule.
RThorm - Antherwyck Blog 