I've drawn up another four dungeon geomorph designs that will be added to the pool of designs for this year's Inkwell Ideas DungeonMorph Dice. 15 dice are being made in this set, and initially that doesn't feel like that many, but that's 90 geomorphs - almost as many as I drew in one year of my initial Geomorph Mapping Challe...
2019-05-16 19:43:05 +0000 UTC View Post
The great city of Oublos-Dorren was destroyed decades ago by a massive pyroclastic flow followed up by a slower engulfing surge of lava from the Searing Mountains eruption. All of the city except for a small “bubble” almost exactly 180 feet across centred on a small temple of Lazotl – a local deity of misfortune and rev...
2019-05-13 18:49:32 +0000 UTC View Post
While a number of the old shaft tombs of the Etturan Dynasty have been found and explored, there is one that remains a well-kept secret amongst sages, masters of dark arts, and the few adventurers who have been there. Possibly the original shaft tomb of the dynasty, or perhaps a strange discovery that became the inspiration f...
2019-05-09 17:32:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Back due to popular demand, we have another partially walled tavern. This tavern (even with the walls) is more suited to being in a town or city as it has no “guest rooms” per se and is strictly a tavern and not an inn.
The upstairs rooms are for the owner’s family, while the ground floor has the bar and tavern an...
2019-05-06 23:55:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Last month's backstage pass included 4 maps that didn't get released last month and didn't include the geomorphs that were released in their place. I kind of lost track of time and forgot when the DungeonMorph Dice Kickstarter was happening and one thing led to another...
This month's pass is a little lighter than usual...
2019-05-06 23:41:06 +0000 UTC View Post
A small dungeon or sublevel of another dungeon, the Black Armoury is where the Mad King sealed away the Weapon after using it once in the Battle of Zayhr Mountain. The guardians of the weapon are trapped here in eternal vigilance – their own life force replaced with the energies of the Weapon itself.
The structure its...
2019-05-03 20:03:51 +0000 UTC View Post
TL;DR: Four new geomorphs in a flashback to a decade ago, and the DungeonMorph Dice Kickstarter is going strong and moving in on $10k of the $15k target!
...
2019-04-29 18:38:40 +0000 UTC View Post
The first map to get re-released this month under the free commercial license is last year's "Sanhelter Keep".
A small keep within spitting distance of the Kearwood Grove – a sanctified grove of the druids of the Somernigan Woods – Sanhelter Keep is essentially a ranger base for keeping an eye on whomever or whateve...
2019-04-27 21:08:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Beneath the walls of the roofless ancient structure of l’Église de l’Oubli are the Temple Crypts, still tended to by the Wraith Priests of the order.
Hidden behind massive ghost-iron masks, the wraith priests float nearly silently through the temple crypts guarding sacred relics that were stolen long ago and mutter...
2019-04-25 21:56:21 +0000 UTC View Post
If we set the wayback machine to nearly a decade ago, there’s essentially a full year where I posted nothing but geomorphs to the blog. Behind the scenes I spent a couple of months working on geomorph concepts to figure out what format worked well enough that it was not too apparent when you moved from one geomorph to the n...
2019-04-23 20:49:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Up in the hills there’s a small river cave where a pair of stone giants have set up their own private grow-op to supply themselves (and a few shamans and priests back “home”) with giant-scale psychedelic fungus.
The “psychedelic cellar” itself is well protected in giant terms. Stone bars block access along the...
2019-04-21 19:30:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The crypts under the Grand Cathedral in Javelin Hill are where the faithful and powerful are interred to rest in silence. But something went wrong. Probably linked to the burial of the Lord of Sunsets, minuscule stone “eggs” managed to work their way into the stonework and packed earth of the crypts…
Unfortunately...
2019-04-18 19:53:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The Wooden Duck is a walled coaching inn nearly a day’s ride from Granitespire, about an hour outside of Prince’s Harbour. It has a small tavern but is mostly dedicated to 8 private and semi-private rooms and a large common room for travelers to stay overnight.
The Wooden Duck is owned by a widower who moved here fr...
2019-04-15 19:13:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Here we go with my first ever "Patreon Exclusive".
As a thank you for your continued support, the goal is to produce a play aid or accessory every month that all patrons receive for supporting the campaign and keeping the flow of free maps going out into the world.
This month we have this pocketmod adventure...
2019-04-13 23:47:21 +0000 UTC View Post
The Vault of Tranquility is the audience chamber and sanctuary of the Dwarven mummy Gheres-Nekheb Stormstone – one of the last remnants of the Lich Shogunate. Within these enchanted halls only the dwarven mummy’s voice can be heard above the level of a hoarse whisper… and old Stormstone rarely speaks louder than that hi...
2019-04-11 19:59:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Starting this month I’ll be releasing something that will not be posted to the blog every month. Following up on my promise and goal of keeping my maps free – the Patreon Exclusive release will never be a map.
Instead, I’m producing other interesting content that meshes my drawing and cartography with some graphic...
2019-04-10 22:54:47 +0000 UTC View Post
There was never much to Charnesse – a stone bridge, a few houses, and a small common house that served ale and light food to passing travellers and the local farmers when they had a few coins to spend.
But there’s a lot less now. Smoke was seen rising from the area since yesterday, and the reports are grim. All the ...
2019-04-08 18:45:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Last night I mentioned that I was getting a bit of control over the whole scheduling situation. To try to prove it, here's this month's backstage pass!
2019-04-06 16:30:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, wait a minute... I'm almost on top of things? Doing the whole "release the Kraken" thing before the last week of the month? Next thing you know I'll be putting up the Backstage Pass in the next 24-48 hours or something.
So!
For those new to the Patreon, every month I put up this poll where I've chosen 8-12 ma...
2019-04-06 04:09:46 +0000 UTC View Post
The only major river inlet on the whole of the island is the Y’ruvex Swamps, a marshy lowland pincered between mountain ranges. We believed that if we could get past the swamps themselves and to the open rivers beyond, they would likely lead us to the heart of this island and the rumoured central plateau.
But nothing ...
2019-04-04 19:40:28 +0000 UTC View Post
From your votes, a second tower has been selected for re-release under our free commercial-use license this month!
The wail of the banshee can be heard through the fens for miles around. In the nearest village they pretend it is the call of a very persistent screech owl, but few actually believe it.
On a ...
2019-04-03 19:11:49 +0000 UTC View Post
In a fun twist, this month’s Release the Kraken voting has brought back a classic “joke” map from 2016 – the Tower-Faced Demon!
There are a number of dead gods, demons and other creatures long forgotten who’s planes of existence have ceased to exist and who now float around the astral, petrified with ...
2019-03-30 19:54:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh, wow, I knew I was busy, but somehow all of March has flown by and we haven't released the krakens yet!
So, here's a quick 48 hour poll to select which maps from the Dodecahedron back catalog we'll re-release under the free commercial use license this month!
Hey folks, sorry for the delay, here's the collected zip file of all of March's releases. I've got six of the nine maps done for April and maybe I'll manage to get the April pass out in the first week or so of April. :)
Been super busy - looks like I've found what my peak production speed is without sacrificing quality....
2019-03-28 18:57:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Beneath the buckled stone floors of the jungle ruins in the Tempest Gardens is a massive set of catacombs guarded by the eternal vigilance of fifteen deathless minotaurs.
Each minotaur has endured the ages imprisoned within these catacombs in their own way, but none are untouched by time or violence. And they are not al...
2019-03-28 17:51:52 +0000 UTC View Post
An exercise in pointless stonecraft, this castle sits abandoned and oft overrun by foul creatures. A dwarven folly – a structure built purely for the sake of building a structure – the castle cuts into and juts over a small canyon in the foothills of Tismar Summit.
When the dwarves left after building the folly, the...
2019-03-25 18:23:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The Bitter Minotaur is a roadside inn along a major road within the relatively safe lands of the Satrapy. The roads here aren’t threatened by monstrous incursions and other foul beasts, but as they run through heavy forests they are still prone to a bit of banditry here and there. Thus the Inn serves as a resting point alon...
2019-03-21 23:01:25 +0000 UTC View Post
The Octopus Sorcerer has been researching and experimenting with some remains of the lost Aemril “technologies” in a cave on Farmrath Summit for the last seven years.
This wouldn’t really matter to anyone except that they are in possession of another Aemril artifact – the White Hadariel Staff. The staff is likel...
2019-03-18 19:16:46 +0000 UTC View Post
It should come as no surprise for anyone who has had to deal with the Obsidian Clan bugbears that Nagmer the Terrible meets anyone who requests to parlay with him in the most ridiculously ostentatious cavern setup he could arrange.
Nagmer’s throne cavern is a multi-tiered affair with a natural stone bridge over an und...
2019-03-16 20:59:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Most of the temples of Zueshel were destroyed after the Seven Heretics struck down the God-King – however a few rebuilt into pyramid-temples dedicated to the heretics themselves. Most of these contain (or at least claim to contain) a holy relic of either the death of Zueshel or from the later deaths of the Seven Heretics. 2019-03-14 22:32:10 +0000 UTC View Post
