The local fishing spot down the river from the docks is really popular among the old fishermen around town. They really use it as a place to sneak away from their wives and drink the day away swapping fisherman’s tales. Arglo, the village elder, is out there each day telling how he almost reeled in “The Monster”. Clean ripped his rod in half. Something that big in the river must be nothing but bluster- Well that or someone should really put a few more nails in these rickety old boards.
The great tank fortress is a monster on the battlefield- A mobile bastion claiming dominion over whatever region it storms through.
The Coalfrock minotaur do not have a homeland. In their quest to rid the world of magic they have developed a nomadic culture that is always on the move. Storming one end of the world to the other. However to unite under their flag their battalions required some kind of great gathering place. Thus the Tank Fortress was constructed. Today they have allied with the Palavier Republic in their war against the pyromancers of Dawnfire, their great mutual enemy.
The Trials of the halls of runes had many puzzle chambers, most parties never had to worry about the others beyond it. Or anything at all ever again.
The pulsing runes on the wall were the only warning, seconds after each rune with the same symbol would empower, connecting to all other empowered runes directly next to it with a wall of shimmering force. Passing through the hall was a challenge in itself but when the monsters began pouring through the exit the heroes knew it was time to get serious.
Fond Departures: Skyliner Class, Civilian Transport Ironclad.
The massive, refitted military ironclad was built for war, a titan of the sky capable of transporting a small army and deploying it directly onto its target while withstanding horrendous amounts of flak. Today, it has been redesigned as a cruise ship, painted stark white and capped at the nose with a huge domed window. Fond Departures is the largest still-operational skyliner of its kind. Though it now only ferries celebrities and politicians from Grand Nostridan up to the Cirrus-on-High Casino.
The Luxury cruiser occasionally makes appearances at Nostridinian celebrations, its titanic bulk used as a symbol of national power and progress. Such propaganda is highly effective, especially when the skyliner is displayed beside more modest airships. However Fond Departures continues to belong to the billionaire Enchanté Cirrus, and it’s likely that none of the people it’s meant to inspire will ever even step foot aboard.
All across the lands there are taverns of every shape and kind. Really, what more is a tavern than a place you can get a drink? Roof and hearth optional.
This map is a collection of 9 taverns found across my setting, Crudilex. The adventurer, as an entity in the world, means taverns serve many different uses: gathering and forming parties, providing safe harbor for rest, and exchanging information, like what dangers lie between this and the next tavern!
Among the collection there are many rowdy places perfect for a brawl: mercenary and airship pirate taverns, Stinky Dukes, which is an old abandoned fishermen's wharf building, the mead hall of the northern Jarl, a brothel-cantina, the Witches Bar inspired by Howl's room, the Rootbound Tap, which is inside a ruin held together by the vines of a tree ant who also happens to be the barkeep, and the Emerald and Ivy, a fancy elven game hall where one can drink expensive wine while listening to a harp as two monsters tear each other apart in the pit below.
When you delved into the hidden dungeon below the academy you realized It wasn't the academy that had changed after the pulse- but you- transported into the far future.
Deep in the guts of the dorian academy of invention a secret arcane laboratory was hiding the dungeon of the Chronomancer. A meddler who’d combined the three major sciences, Arcana, Alchemy, and Engineering to invent the world’s first time machine. But the unstable device send itself and everyone delving there into the far future. Pulsing on and off, sending the adventurers trying to stop it back and forth between a time of ruin and the present.
The city parades committee has become so accustomed to heroics they can set up a parade with an hour's notice these days.
A well earned victory deserves a heroic welcome. Festivals and parades thrown in the honor of the conquering hero’s defeat of their arch nemesis. Market holidays- harvests- funerals- and marches. The parade grounds have become the center for events all across the city.
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This map is inspired by the opening scene from howls moving castle where the city is seemingly very excited about going to war. While the irony isn’t lost on me I did always think that it seems like a killer party. lol.
We have to fight our way down to the end of this passage- it may take a bit… guess we're in for the long hall.
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I developed this map when I wanted to run an encounter that had the players pushing down a long hallway with some sparse cover- Sort of inspired by halo CE onboard the pillar of autumn. However I couldn't find any skinny long maps, so I made one! It's a very tall map 25x50. This map includes 10 variations across a few genres, A cyberpunk back alley between mega buildings, WW2 Trench, An ancient desert temple, Indiana Jones boulder chase, A cavern for your cave diving adventures (No thank you), a river rapid, And Multiple spaceship/station interiors.
Nuclear Reactor meltdown imminent!
This map was inspired by the encounter in the game Prey where the player has to power down a satellite station causing it to lose gravity and life support. I knew I wanted to run something like that in my Lancer adventure. Imagining mid-fight the players trying to power down a reactor while the baddies are trying to over heat is so it's a tug-of-war for the device mid combat!
This map has a number of variations including a nuclear reactor, submerged in coolant, overtaken by an alien hive, post-apocalyptic, and more. But in addition to that I've included a short group of phases for a version of the map that's melting down.
Every adventurer has their nemesis, but their true enemy… the real BBEG is “THE DOOR”
Look, there is no shame in it. Delving dungeons means stumbling into traps here and there and after one trap you get a little on edge. You start checking everything, touching as little as possible. You expect anything with an obvious solution to be a possible death sentence. And so you slow down, talk everything through. Scrutinize the smallest details so you don't get caught unaware. And when your party comes to a door you become suspicious and spend 2-3 hours poking and prodding what might just be a normal- unlocked door.
Well sometimes you're right. This door wants to beat your ass.
The Door is a phased bossfight encounter I designed (honestly sort of as a joke) to throw against those overly cautious parties. Every anxious dungeon crawler deserves their chance to tell their party I told you so. The obvious next true BBEG map I need to make, ”Scheduling”.
Trench Crusade inspired battlemaps! Steel Necropolis, no man's land, the northern Hellmouth and more.
I actually made this map back when trench crusade had just hit the scene, but decided to circle back to it after the awesome art of the steel necropolis was dropped this month. So many awesome scenes for TC to explore, I do wonder if there is an audience for virtual play trench crusade- But sometimes you get inspired and gotta make the thing or it will keep begging to be made in the back of your mind! This map includes 7 variations, No man’s land, A plane crash, The Steel Necropolis, a normandy-style beach siege, the hell mouth, The crusader’s Trench which is inspired by the first art of TC, and Nin’s Trench from my own setting Crudilex!
The moors south of Yisa mark the edge of the city proper and the further inland you venture the more completely the landscape is completely swallowed by overgrowning moss and thick peat bogs. While it makes the landscape fairly inhospitable when it comes to settling it does however serve as a perfect staging ground for the annual Yisa Balloon Festival. Huge hot air balloons of every imaginable shape blossom over the landscape inflating and drifting high into the air- their internal torches shooting gouts of flame into their massive sheets which at night illuminate the whole of Yisa like giant floating lanterns. Yisa itself is not well known but it’s festival draws in millions of tourists each year from everywhere in the world who come to see a sky completely filled with hot air balloons.
This map was a real challenge. Sometimes as an artist there are times when you can see the shortcuts and the easy ways to do something and you make a personal decision that every single element for a piece will be done the hard way. That's what this map was. I made 30 something balloons and half of them are hardly visible in the background- Laid out the entire landscape (multiple times for each zoom out) which I mostly ended up covering in clouds. Haha. But ultimately I think this came out to be one of the best maps I’ve ever made. Super proud of this one.
We can survive the blizzard in here! Look, there is even a nice fire burning and strong sturdy doors!
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“You slam the door behind you, the roar of the furious wind in protest spraying a torrent of ice and snow in after you as you do. You’ve survived, but only barely. Another hour in that, and you’d be far less lucky.
Outside, a horrible blizzard threatens to end your lives in frigid isolation, hopelessly buried under bone-white snow. But inside, you are safe, for now at least. You find yourself in the mountaineer’s lodge, the place you ventured this far up the mountain to reach and meet with your contact who was to guide you across the treacherous, unmapped mountain chain. However, only one of your guides seems to be here, but he is slumped in a chair at his dining table. And as far as you can tell, he is in a near-death slumber.
You are cold. You are isolated. And something evil is hiding in this lodge.”
The map is a remake of my first ever published one-shot I made 5 years ago! It’s been updates and reformatted and the map itself is cleaned up and expanded into a full phased map! The One-shot is a 4 hour escape room themed adventure for 3-6 players at level 5!
After a hiking trip I decided to make a phased battlemap inspired by the northern Californian old growth redwoods and Fern Canyon.
When I wrote my book Ida’s guide I was inspired by my memories camping in yosemite park as a boyscout. The otherworldly feelings I got while running further away from camp than I should, and the Redwoods which are the largest trees on planet earth. Some nearly 200 feet tall, which sounds like nothing on paper but in person it gives you vertigo just to look at the tops of them. I never got to revisit while writing the book so I based everything off that childhood memory but this week I went to hike the out in redwood national park to see Fern Canyon. And I knew I had to make a map right away inspired by it and the giant trees surrounding it.
The paintings in the magic gallery really bring the artist’s visions to life. Quite literally.
The villainous conjurer vanished in a cackling poof of multi-colored light. The party dashed after him, their sorcerer sensing the auras of his magic not far off. He’d teleported himself into the gallery. They wouldn't let him get away again no matter what tricks he’d conjure among the paintings. And sure enough the wiley mage who’d plagued them had one final show to put on as he brought each painting alive to strike the group on his behalf.
Open Hand Waystation, a collaboration dungeon map for an upcoming Encounter Book for Draw Steel by MCDM.
A very exciting dungeon map made in collaboration with MCDM for an upcoming Draw Steel book, a handful of my maps will bring to life some of the encounters in the book. This three room dungeon delve is designed to be plug and play in any adventure. A very cool and novel concept, They only asked for one of the variations but here I’ve included a number of other options for any tables that want to shift the encounter's flavor or even genre. I made a lot of alternate versions for the base map. Above the dungeon, and crumbled chunks. A version thats cyberpunk, trench crusade, magi-tech, and a big spiral stairway well in a sulfurous land from my own setting Crudilex!
We put a lot of trust in magic, but sometimes things go sideways and you end up on a trip all over the world from teleportation circle to teleportation circle.
This map is a sequel of sorts to one I made 4 years ago. The idea behind its design is an encounter that takes you on a trip through many different kinds of battle maps, keeping the players on their toes warping from scene to scene as the portals go off and providing an opportunity for an encounter with monsters who have no business together. I even updated to older maps when I made the original so this is an especially meaty collection, with twice as many battlemaps!
Also for the Inkarnate map makers out there there is a cloneable version to add your own location to the series. HERE: https://inkarnate.com/m/dl5JKG
The Astral Plane elements are all turned off by default but if you want your portal semi-teleporting already as part of your design you can turn those on to fiddle with that. If you do make your own version be sure to tag me @balatro_dnd on instagram so we can collect them all together in one giant mega-map!
The Derilict’s SoS was sent from the Helm over 1000 years ago, no lifesigns on-board. Just that signal- a last desperate plea from help only heard now as an echo, a millennium too late.
The signal broke through the Oroko particles, something our scientists believed impossible. It drifted, or maybe flew, into orbit, slowly creeping into Minimum Sustainable Altitude sending out an SOS signal that was first sent 1000 years ago. No one knew what the ship was or why it arrived until a few scavengers made it onboard and found data containing its name and mission, “the widdershins”.
A mythological colony ship that left earth more than 3000 years ago before it vanished.
I’ve had Sci-fi on my mind lately between seeing Project Hail Mary (amazing btw) and the Artemis mission launch, so It's time for another Lancer inspired map! This time it's a spaceship Helm inspired by the Ten, In lancer lore when earth fell to climate and nuclear disasters ten ships left the planet and launched out to form whole new civilisations completely removed from earth.
In my game one of these ships, “Widdershins” gets lost in Blinkspace. They instead experienced 5000 years onboard inside blinkspace while 2000 passed “realtime” trapping them inside endlessly warping all over space never able to exit. slowly over generations devolving and forgetting there ever was a destination to begin with, until eventually human life onboard went extinct. But- the mission continued on.
The Sanroko-II Fortress Train will cross the entire world, with stations in every nation there is. Some say that when the last spike is hammered the reign of monsters will end forever.
The Sanroko is a feat of engineering that will go unrivaled for 1000 years. Built by Frea, Exalt of the god of machines, leveraging the final gasps of her empire’s power as it was torn to pieces by civil war. She claimed the construction of the Sanroko was a divine mission from her god and its completion would bring its holy rapture to the world.
That train fortress never got completed- but the idea has outlasted the culture dedicated to building it. Today the Sanroko-II is a single well defended monolith to human ingenuity that swears no allegiances and brings together corners of the world of crudilex that would have otherwise never known each other and allowed the safe crossing to all of its people no matter their king.
This is a hugely important location in the setting of Crudilex. The Sanroko is a world-changing project where many nations of the world are working to unite them all by rail, extending the ends of the massive tracks across all kingdoms and through or near to all the most important capital cities. Rarely do I make a map that is actually a location on the world map!
The deepest dungeons have the worst upkeep. The teetering bridge wasn’t even one of the many intended traps.
The ancient guardian stood vigil over the bridge for 1000 years. Unmoving awaiting the swordsmen who would at last be worthy and defeat it, releasing it from this undead eternity. Sadly when at last a group of challengers approached their weight crumbled the old brittle mortar. Perhaps the lich should have had some undead eternal masons to serve alongside the blade master… would have been nice to have company too… oh well.
This map is inspired by the awesome action set piece sword fights from movies like the pirates of the Caribbean where the environment is as much one of the combatants as the fighters themselves. I wanted to do the teetering platform trope, and the fight on the bridge trope and smash them together!
The Shifting Dungeon serves as tomb, temple, and trial all in one. Heroes navigate the bridge across the chasm’s river to prove themselves in the eyes of the ancestors buried there.
The central bridge hangs hundreds of feet above a roaring underground river. Suspended by chains a large wooden wheel is rotated- through no small effort- to drive the bridge along the chains up and down the drop. Throwing the four switches, all protected by an undead guardian grants the heroes access to the chamber of the ancestors where their bodies are housed and their spirits can freely manifest. It is only then will they be faced with their final test.
This map is the second in a series I'm starting exploring the idea of fully mapped out dungeon- phased maps. I'm trying to explore what all can be done with a whole dungeon space that changes while the players are inside of it- I have a few more ideas but I think this one is really gonna shine!
Local fey never liked the humans mining out the land in the quarry, but recently their little pranks have started getting a little- more intense.
When our heroes arrive in town they find a small army of miners all shouting at the captain of the guard, demanding something be done. Members of their crew are trapped down in the marble quarry by a swarm of fairies whose little games with the miners have taken a more serious turn. They unearthed something the fey consider sacred and now the fairy are using their magic to enchant and awaken all their digging equipment. Nothing to be done- all they could do is run. The guard is already overwhelmed… if only someone could help resolve the situation peacefully.
Oldtown was, in its day, considered a whole city. But when the corps move in the small buildings might as well have been swallowed whole by the hundreds story tall mega-towers.
Inspired by Kowloon, this map is a zoomed in high detailed slum where I envision far far too many people live basically on top of one and other, Originally when I was making this map I wanted to make a true-to-life one to one recreation of the walled city, but Inkarnate simply couldn't handle the sheer number of assets required and it was all basically the tiniest little detail being so zoomed out it rendered the map basically unplayable as a functioning battlemap. This map is a much more measured- usable battlemap. Maybe some day I'll make the full 14 story megastructure in all its glory, just to flex.
Raider’s Refuge, a collaboration dungeon map for an upcoming Encounter Book for Draw Steel by MCDM.
A very exciting dungeon map made in collaboration with MCDM for an upcoming Draw Steel book, a handful of my maps will bring to life some of the encounters in the book. This three room dungeon delve is designed to be plug and play in any adventure. A very cool and novel concept, They only asked for one of the variations but here I’ve included a number of other options for any tables that want to shift the encounter's flavor or even genre. The map pack features a number of variations, various tones, a cavern, a ruined and repaired variation, a negative of the whole dungeon to make it an alleyway scene. Even a Sci-fi corporate office.
Secrets in the Bayou, out there in the swamps there are a million places to hide and twice as many things best left unfound.
While developing my Call of Cthulhu map a while back I was rereading the book and came to the chapter about the ritual in Louisiana. I thought that would make for a really awesome encounter with loose footing and lots of environmental hazards- on top of the cultists and whatever monsters they conjure up. This map has a handful of other variations. Quicksand, a stranded boat and crashed plane, a fey swamplands filled with massive bones and bugs, unicorn’s grove, a jungle canopy tarzan-like branch above.
I probably should have done something romantic for a valentines day release, but instead I made a big stinky bog.
The Phantom coachman never stops, his carriage rolls through the fog of purgatory to collect the spirits of the dead.
The moors of dolver are haunted, its few pine-lined roads crisscross between settlements draped in an oppressive gloom. Its reaching castles filled with what few stalwart souls choose to linger in the lands where the veil of purgatory and the world of the living grows the thinnest. It is here that it is sometimes said the phantom coachmen can be seen with the naked eye moving those whose time has come from the lands of the living to the darkness hereafter. Normally his hauntings pass us by unseen but in places like dolver he is said to roll with his ghostly steeds through walls of fog for the briefest of moments. It is best to ignore such things, they are not for the living to witness. And if his coach arrives for you it is best to climb aboard- no use running the phantom coachman never stops.
The Coachman is my setting, Crudilex’s grim reaper. I wanted to do a sort of gothic horror- carchase type encounter where the players are literally running from death. Something with that frakenstine-ravenloft sort of stink!
The Superbloom rarely happens in the drylands after a season of rain. But when the local chronomancer and the Local Druid had a little- affair. Well. It came a little early this year.
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Even the desert fey play their tricks. Two mages, one of time and one of nature, ventured across the desert on an expedition to find the fabled lake of silver. When after days of hiking through the burning hot desert they came across a fey spirit; the creature took an instant interest, delighting in the turmoil between the two and laughing at their frustrations and struggles. It followed along in secret using it’s enchantments to transform their strained partnership into a sudden romance.
A voice on the wind told the chronomancer that the druid’s favorite flower was a poppy that bloomed here only very rarely. After the druid conjured a storm to cool them both off they seized their moment, literally. The time mage moved them both into the future- that spring and suddenly they were together in the midst of a superbloom. Blossoming like their love-
at least until they left and realized they’d been tricked when the lake of silver was already discovered a week prior.
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I’ve been sitting on this idea for ages, as a native Californian I’ve always been fascinated by the superblooms in deathvalley and how magical and otherworldly they are. Like something in our world that came straight out of fantasy, so I figured why not work backwards! What would a superbloom be like in DnD, Instant! And duridic!
The Windchime Market, traveling in a choir of ringing bells, the flotilla of ballooning nomads venture through the skies together selling their goods along the winds.
The City of Yisa is more like a traveling band of ballooners. Their homes and vehicles are lifting and dropping like mobile camps all over the continent of Iarin. Landing at the edge of cities and opening up like a floating circus. Pilots zipping through the air doing stunts. Airships and skiffs offering rides to kids. But the most well known of all is the Windchime market. It began simply selling exactly its name sake but as more and more merchants joined Yisa this mercantile flotilla has become the primary place to make trade in the whole country under the gentle dings of the chimes above.
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For this map I wanted to make something for a unique culture I've been dreaming up. Yissans, a people who have taken to living in the sky, really connecting to it like many cultures in our world have with the earth. Yissian’s are semi-nomadic and live in hot air balloon huts that move all over the land but return to Windchime market and Yisa when conditions are bad, or they get too old for life in the air. This map includes a number of variations, two cyberpunk one downtown one a junk night market. A caveman times river tunnel, a necromancer market, and more!
The Rail Car, In the big city its difficult to quickly cross the terrain and get through traffic and the rail car quickly bypasses it, But that means you never know who you’ll cross paths with on it.
The city is dense and crossing it through traffic is never easy, And a city like grand nostridan is even worse. Its hundreds of miles across and reaching Jalova from Cull could take days of driving. Even worse on foot, navigating around the central bowl in the middle of the city is a nightmare or was until the Lerin brought a Cronoslide railcar. Now 500 miles feels like 10 minutes. For a small fee of course.
This collection of maps explores the railcar. I’ve been replaying Skies of Arcadia, one of my favorite games of all time and got to the scene where the sky pirates fight some imperial guards on top of a railcar crossing a city. It made me realize I don't think I’ve ever seen one in a battlemap. So I made a few versions. One with a deiselpunky vibe for my setting Crudilex. One in the open sky, maybe between some floating islands or mountain ranges? A cyberpunk monorail variation and a classic subway underground for something modern.
Steel Mill, The factory’s machines are predictable, always moving the same way. But combat is not. So keep your head down and don't get crushed.
The white-hot molten iron fills a giant house-sized crucible radiating enough that walking into the mill feels like passing into a solid wall of heat. The old steel mill kept almost everyone in town employed. You could tell where you were at night by looking for the orange glow in the sky coming off the factory making metal for guns and tanks on the front at all hours. No wonder it was such a target. When the Brazen crusaders advanced into palivier they targeted the factories before the outposts. Turns out that was their plan all aloung- quick decisive strikes at the republic’s manufacturing then retreat. Over and over until their machines and armor outnumbered paliveir’s.
I feel like every 80s-90s action movie had a fight scene in a factory. I wanted to make something industrial and looping for this week’s map. I thought the idea of an encounter in a factory where the map could change fairly quickly in the background but in a way that becomes predictable to the players so much so that they can use it to their advantage would be a really cool encounter.
The Airship Good Finch and its crew of longhaul couriers is relied upon for mail, cargo, transport, really everything coming in and out of the city of Yisa. Even the birds take advantage!
Once built for war, this airship has been completely retrofitted by Yisian Aeronauts to serve as the city's primary long-distance transport. It makes regular trips moving goods, cargo, passengers, mail, and trade up and down the Manderwind from Yisa. For decades this Ironclad was unnamed until birds began flocking around it as it made their migrations easier since as it followed the same routes during the same months the birds would. More and more birds began flying with and even nesting on the ironclad, eventually, even a Great Finch. After years of this the murmurations that would fly alongside the ship became Something of a symbol to the people of Yisa and a proper roost was built for them on the ship, this Ironclad was named 'The Good Finch' and decorated with a flag representing the Great Finch's Wing. The birds may make a mess on the ship but they are welcomed as pets and mascots for aeronauts who rely on The Finch
This is one of the first pieces for a yet-to-be announced project featuring all kinds of airship content. If that's something you dig in your TTRPGs follow along! This map is a collab with the fabulous artist @henturtlettrpg. See more of their stuff at henturtleportfolio.carrd.co
I hear the TNL VSN pyrotechnics budget alone requires ⅓ of the cut from every concert they have.
“The neo-capital sensation TNL VSN is a four piece synth-punk band made up of hackers known for putting on elaborate stunts at their shows. Hacking a small army of self-driving cars to create a moving blockade around their show. Or that time they hacked the powergrid and had the entire downtown quarter flashing its lights along with their pyrotechnics. They never pull the same stunt twice and if they come to your city, you’ll be sure to hear about it.
Their local Neo-Capital PD is always trying to put a stop to them but the fans defend them in numbers that require Riot cops to deploy and more often than not the stunts are temporary, the mayor's office has quietly asked PD to just let the shows go through the motions to prevent a disturbance of a few hours from becoming a days long series of riots and arrests.
It can't all be combat, at some point every adventuring party has to grab trunks and towels and have a proper cannonball contest.
The fabled heroes have traveled to every corner of the kingdom, slain countless great evils. Battled dragons, liches, dark knights. But nothing has prepared them for this, their ultimate conquest. A 4v4 beach volleyball contest. No holds barred, TOO THE DEATH or first to three since we only rented the court until sundown.
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I made this map because where I live, in northern california its been 4 weeks of absolute gloom and the sun is a distant memory. As a summer-child I have been longing for some poolparty energy. And thus the Beach Episode map- I’ve kicked around the idea of writing a really extremely complex TTRPG with a 400 page rule book called “Beach Episode” where the whole bit of the game was the unbelievably crunchy rules used for a slice of life type setting. Then at the very back having one page of rules-lite combat rules for the “Combat Episode” Maybe someday I’ll commit to the bit. But for now this will have to do. Haha.
Catastrophic meltdown imminent. Maintain station efficiency. All employees return to work stations until the meltdown is complete. We're a family protocol: Deploying pizza party to breakroom.
The Makatan Terraforming station is one of the most important buildings in all of the Oroko planet colonies. Sending huge plumes of chemical reconstructive compound into the upper atmosphere to transform the chaotic, sulfuric, atmosphere into something more like ancient earth.
Its operators, the Algoric, are a culture of humans obsessed with being absolutely optimal. Nothing wasted, nothing over spent. This odd obsession means they are morally opposed to redundancy, and when the station drops to 98% power the whole station begins to cascade, melting down.
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This map was featured in an encounter in my show Star Progeny. The basic idea being the party is away from their mechs when this culture of algorithm driven space I-pad kids experiences being without their directives for the first time in their adult lives. The do not handle this well and in 24 hours things start to really break down. The R&D and Engineering departments regress to feral animals fighting with spears and wearing ties on their heads. Caveman office employees warring all around them as they try and save the terraforming station from fully melting down!
The Gravemines, treating ancient graves and their magical artifacts within like mineral veins to be stripped and sold. Cold and pragmatic, desecrating the dead for a fast payday.
The discovery of Sun Ivory ignited a frenzied rush of adventurers, miners, and fortune hunters, all eager to extract these rare and potent relics by any means necessary, strip mining for catacombs. What began as a small dig has now grown into a feverish race to unearth the crypts and mine their contents.
The practice of treating these ancient graves like mineral veins to be stripped and sold earned the participants the name "tomb dredgers." Originally an insult, the term has since become as common as "blacksmith" or "lamplighter" as the coin piles higher. The demand for Sun Ivory has surpassed that of any other resource in Crudilex. The Gravemines, the largest of the excavation sites, are now ruthlessly strip-mined in search of more tombs and artifacts, their cold and pragmatic efficiency leaving deep scars across the tundra.
Huge pieces of metal scrap are thrown all around you as you desperately scramble to shut down the out of control machine spewing fire and smog from it’s Scrapyard Incinerator.
Scrapcity is a sprawling junkyard metropolis where mechs are as common as cars. A rusted maze of broken war machines, salvaged armor plating, and makeshift dwellings welded together from the skeletons of giant long-dead constructs. Smoke curls from chimneys built into old missile pods. Streets are carved between the legs of toppled titans. Ruled by scavengers, tinkerers, and war profiteers, those who thrive on the leftovers of the stalemated conflict.
Nothing metal in the Scrap-City stays dead for long. If it could walk when it died, it walks again.
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Sometimes an encounter is more about avoidance and survival than combat outright. In this map I imagine players trying to avoid the claw and debris it throws around, the smoke and fire all while trying to shut the machine down and achieve whatever goal brought them there. Originally I was working on an airship battlemap with the claw here but I got really inspired, I think by watching Dimension 20’s Cloudward, Ho (best season yet, Imo)
City Backstreets, roads, alleyways, sewers. The city is filled with places one might find a fight.
The megastructures that fill the center of the 500 mile city of Grand Nostridan are crowned with parks and terraces, gardens and entire cityscapes perched atop their highest heights. Many citizens live their entire lives without ever wondering what lies at the bottom. But far, far beneath the city lies Lowside, a place crammed with people, homes, and factories built wherever there is space. There are no roads. There is no map. The streets are more like gutters. The suns above are distant and shine on the lowest levels for only an hour or so each day. There is no government here, no sanitation, no direction. And yet, countless people do. Lowside is the runoff of life. When the city has no further use for something it ends up down here.
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This collection of maps are all inspired by the depths and side streets of large cities. Deep allies and busy main streets far from the forests and dungeons most adventures take place in. I like to imagine a dense and confusing city adventure where skills to find your way like nature and survival might be useful in the same ways they’d be deep in the wilderness. It includes a few different settings, modern, fantasy, Cyberpunk, and three from my setting Crudilex.
This map was inspired by the idea of a boss fight where a villainous ringmaster stands in the center, Orchestrating a comical battle with the players and putting on a real show for the audience by making them look as foolish as possible during the encounter.
I like the idea of the ringmaster forcing the players to do minigames, Like Trivia about their last adventure, or Quickly solving a maze before too many rounds pass. And those who fail become charmed. This map is a redesign of one of my very old yet still quite popular maps that lots of new subscribers like, so I wanted to give it a new coat of paint and bring it up to my more recent standard while also adding in a handful of fun new variations! I tried my best to include the various flavors of the curious carnival trope as I could, Evil, Abandonded, ring of fire, human cannonball, Clown parade, and some that jumped off the idea of a the large tent, like the warcheif’s or nomad’s tents.
Rouge Wave, 80 feet high like a monolith of tortured water falling over your ship, a crumbling mountain of surf turning everything around you to splinters.
I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave. I’ve experienced the ocean in all its moods. I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days.
Then came a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into hours. White surged the foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf. We were in a seething chaos of tortured water and our ship shuddered under the blow.
The burning wasteland has few precious resources. Those who have those must guard them zealously or they will very quickly find themselves without them. And on along old Interstate 5 in the blasted wastes of California the price of gas has become blood. Fuel trucks became rolling fortresses and the rattle rigs that take them down have likewise adapted, slowly over generations evolving into the insane machines of war they are today.
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I have made a good handful of Post Apocalyptic battlemaps but almost all of them were variations on other maps I’d made that were not fully focused on the genre. So, Inspired by Fury Road, I wanted to make an encounter map that the battlemap itself was the crazy car combat vehicles. More zoomed in then other vehicle maps I make so the bulk of the fighting can take place on and between the cars as they move around crash and explode below the players and focus a little less on the combat between the cars themselves and more on the crazy acrobatics of those hanging on for dear life. The map also includes PNGs of the vehicles alongside blank backgrounds in case GMs want to make the encounter more of a vehicle fight- or the players surprise you and get behind the wheel!
Castle of Cannons, a cathedral-fortress belonging to a militant sect of crusaders who worship artillery. making war as holy sacrament, Their doctrine teaches that anything reduced to ash becomes one with their goddess of fire.
Traditional Dawnfire scripture venerates fire as a purifier of both body and spirit, the Castle of Cannons extends this belief to an extreme. They believe that each foe struck down by a blade is a soul lost, wasted in purgatory. But a being obliterated by cannonfire is delivered directly to the goddess by sacred flames, their heresy turned to ash and left behind, their purest essence folded into the divine cause of Dawnfire. In death, they are saved. In fire, they are made holy.
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This map dives back into the Crudilex setting, Specifically the central reaches of the world where trench-style warfare and long stalemate wars are fought with seemingly no end. So long that whole structures like the castle of cannons are built along the back lines. I wanted the map to represent a push by the enemies very very close to the artillery cannons where they’ve had to blast their own trenches. Also- I just love making maps where shit blows up.
It towers on the back of a giant Royal Mammoth filled with Primal and murderous fallen elves ready to swing down to any unlucky settlement in the path of their titanic living battlement.
The nomadic stronghold lumbers its way across the glaciers of Algere. A fortress of wood, bone, and rope that anchored to a titanic mammoth's body. Its battlements flutter with banners of lost elven kingdoms taken by a curse. Its barbarian elves are all cursed with a madness that grows stronger the longer they are away from the fey realms of Wilder. Their survival hinges on movement, venturing back to Wilder to sustain themselves through its power before leaving to raid the settlements of Algēre like divers surfacing for air.
The wild elves have transformed their curse into a weapon. Unlike any other fallen elven cultures, they have embraced their feral brothers who have gone completely monstrous for lack of fey essence, wielding them as tools of war. Cages dangle from the great mammoth’s sides, holding those among them who have succumbed fully to the curse. During raids, these feral elves are unleashed upon their enemies, descending in a tide of unchecked primal fury. Once the cursed have ravaged the battlefield, the rest of the Yamir forces descend from the fortress to finish the attack.
The entire northeastern quarter of Veirloh Island is covered by the Stone Forest, a vast, jagged expanse of sharp limestone outcrops that make travel nearly impossible on foot. These rock formations are the remnants of ancient fossils, worn away over thousands of years by relentless rainstorms. What remains are long, blade-like fins of stone that rise and fall across the land, forming a maze of stone sails. The dry riverbed that cuts through the center provides one of the only easy passageways through the stone forest but regular storms make it a gamble each time as the flash flooding in the region washes everything away.
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This map was inspired by the Shilin Stone Forest in China and Tsingy de Bemaraha in Madagascar. There are so many places like them in the world that feel straight out of a fantasy story, but funnily enough are hardly ever actually IN fantasy stories. I’ve been working on a series of maps that explores the more magical real-world locations like the stone forests!
Mouth of the Void, The Gates of hell; The passage to the bottomless pit where all hopelessness, paranoia, and anxiety originates, calling out to those who cast its shadows above, whispering the call of the void.
Hell has fallen, the betrayer demons have claimed the throne of the devil and declared the dark below as “the void”. Haunting paranoia and oppressive, unrelenting darkness choked out all the torment and cruelty that once defined “Evil”. The New Devil, Monodono, rules that bottomless pit and at its edge, the mouth of the void. Its gates, watched over by the skeletal titan, welcome countless souls who cannot bear the toil of life anymore and cast themselves willingly into the nothingness of Monodono, answering his call of the void.
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Decided to make the gates of hell in my setting, Crudilex, as this week's map. Did a bunch of other "Gates" from around the setting as well for the other variations and a cheeky little post apoc one because the inspiration struck. It is surprising how many big important doors you can squeeze into a fantasy setting, I guess there is just something evocative about a huge doorway and what protects whatever might be behind it.
The locals say deep in the jungle is a temple, overgrown and collapsing into the mountain it was carved from as it is strangled by roots and vines. No one knows the name of the snake god who was once worshiped here, so it has gotten the nickname “The Pit of Vipers.”
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This map is an experiment with 11x17 sized maps, which are a much more printable scale. I notice not a lot of dungeon themed maps are small enough to easily be used in meat world play, so I thought of this as an interesting challenge to see how much adventure I could pack into a much smaller room than normal.
Diagonal Akira Elevator, Descending into the mechanical guts of the mechanical bunker. Surely no waves of enemies will jump aboard before you reach the bottom, that would NEVER happen.
Inspired by the decent into the bunker from the cyberpunk classic Akria, and the many many Diagonal elevators in the 90s and 2000s video games likely also inspired by it. A horizontal platform arena that slowly makes its way down a shadowy shaft as enemies pile on or attack from nearby platforms, a staple in sci-fi and science fantasy. There must have been some kind of sirens call developers to design this exact encounter across so many games. I did my best to sell the illusion in top-down, I’m quite proud of it and couldn't find anyone else going for quite the same thing, so now we can employ this wonderful trope in our own Sci-fi and cyberpunk sorts of games!
Crosshaven is a well-known frontier town, with loads of adventurers passing through, which of course means parties butt heads or debate claims over who staked out a dungeon first. Typically these conflicts are resolved with a showdown; the last party member standing wins the rights for their group. However, lately a Dust-fey has become more and more annoyed with the constant parade of chaotic heroes traipsing around in its territory. Seeing the perfect opportunity for a little payback, it rode into town followed by a regular army of spiny dry tumbleweeds to drown all those damn adventurers and their stupid town in!
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Inspired by the tumbleweed storms that rolled through Texas and Utah, covering absolutely everything. Seemed like a perfect, unexpected freak nature event that would make an encounter for a D&D party to try and deal with, maybe while tussling with some nature-controlling foe blowing them around with high winds!
“Not many people would call a smelly, messy, disorganized office home. But this is the one my mom and dad built for me. I’m right proper proud of it.” – Ida Holly
Established by the Holly Cartographic Society with the intention of raising funds to complete the work of the Holly family in mapping the whole of the world, the building began as little more than a notary, keeping records for the city of Grand Nostradan. Slowly, it expanded, growing into a guild and then a university, adding more programs: Archaeology, History, Artifice, Transplanar Physics, and of course, Cartography.
Every year, more floors were added, and more professors were hired. Eventually, whole classes would be sent on mapping expeditions that filled in the map while also exploring their field of study. The school became a well-known place for explorers and adventurers to find funding and support, a legacy that has continued to this day, long after the completion of the society's world-mapping mission.
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For those who have followed my work for a while or read my book, they may already be familiar with Ida, the in-universe writer of Ida’s Guide to Worlds Beyond Our Own, who has appeared at the corner of all of my maps for years! Well, this map is a dedication to her! This is where all her work is done during her many adventures and expeditions. Her workspace may be disorganized, but her heart is always full, and she is always excited and delighted by the stories of other explorers and by making new adventurer friends! I’ve worked on this map as my warm-up for a day of mapping, on and off, for about a year now, and I think it has finally reached a point I’d call done. The other option is that I continue fiddling with it forever, and no one ever gets to see it.
De Lune Moving Picture Theatre! Showing its very first ever talkie tonight!
A line around the block waits for their strut down the red carpet with celebrities of radio and screen out in force to see this miracle of technology! Rising starlet Avaleyssa enchants us with her beautiful voice, sure hope no ne'er-do-wells come in and try and ruin the show. If anything were to go wrong people might not take it too lightly, especially since according to some of this reporter’s sources a whole lotta crumbs went into baking this particular pie.
The base variation of map is set in the fantasy-noir setting of Grand Nostridan. A 30s-40s sort of environment but with healthy doses of whimsical magical D&D. Something along the lines of Mistborn, Dishonored, or New Capenna from MTG. It also comes with 10 total variations. An abandoned version for urbex, a 90s Wacky Pomo arcade, an airship bridge, a cyberpunk movie theatre with minecraft parkour and subway surfer on the sides, even a modern day movie theater. And a few more check them out!
The Boiler Room had been tinkered with by the repairman for decades. It was only after he vanished that the tenants realized they had never known who he was. Hissing, rattling pipes and hoses dripped hot water from the low ceiling. The network beneath the building was a strange kind of alchemy only the repairman understood. Without him, you’ll have to cross the mess he built and fix the boiler yourself before the pressure gets too high!
I made this map on a complete whim while working on another with pipes. The idea of trying to get into a maze-like boiler room and back out before being cooked by hot steam really sounded like a fun, non-combat challenge that could still be run with turn orders. Putting a complicated problem in front of the players and asking them to solve it with the tools they’ve built into their little murderers can be a fun change of pace!
The Orrery, calculating and mapping the movements of magic through the aether for the master wizards of the arcane university.
The Celestarium of the Mimsy is the foremost school for the study of the relationship between the ley lines and the stars, exploring the growing field that attempts to understand how the conditions one is born under shape the future of that person and the essence of their soul. The Orrery was developed to track the nexus of these arcane concepts and calculate them in a measurable way. Six ley lines were discovered, and so six spheres rotate below a map of the cosmos painted above.
There are those, however, who see this device as heretical—believing these wizards are attempting to understand the heavens and the realms of the divine. Fanatics have already attacked the Orrery three times since its creation, and they nearly succeeded in destroying it the last time. After three years of restoration, the study has at last been allowed to continue. The school has hired a small group of heroes to protect it until the important work can be completed.
Sky Pirates and aeronauts are generally mortal enemies but the few things they agree on should be headed by all who climb to the clouds. And among the many superstitions one stands above all others- That in the dark skies over crudilex is a horrible cursed vessel. A ash-black skiff hull what rests on the bones of an Arcwhale. Whose damned crew of phantoms kills and butchers any ship that comes into their line of fire and cannot be felled with a blade or gun.
The legends tell of a Cutlass of green phantom steel forged in the lands of the dead and smuggled back to the living. “Wake” they say its named. And who wields this cutlass commands the ship of lost souls, This power over death is yours while you live but once your time comes your everafter belongs to the Phantom Airship, The Frigid Gale.
Another map from my setting Crudilex, Airships are a key feature of the setting and the daring aeronauts who sail the skies make for many of the world's heroes and adventurers. And what's more troublesome for a sailor than a ghostship. This particular ship sails to and from the realms of the dead mooring in purgatory in the ghost city of Tanare, Which I’ll have a map set in coming out soon!
Wytch's Dale, A single narrow pass between towering frozen mountains. The laws of the coven here say passing through in complete silence is the only way to reach the other side.
Nestled at the eastern edge of the Algēre glacier lies Wytch's Dale, a forest choked by silence. This woodland valley is home to one of the oldest witch covens in all of Crudilex, a sisterhood of Blooded Riven who forged a pact with the Dryad personification of the season of winter in ages long past. Through this pact, the witches gained dominion over the Dale, ruling unchallenged and exacting tribute from all who pass through. Magic and secrets must be offered, and any who cross their territory must pay this tithe or pass their lands without speaking a single word. An unnatural silence hangs over the dale, not a birdsong and animal call to be heard within. Even beasts respect this dominion of the coven.
To loudly cross Wytch's Dale unwelcomed and without paying their tithe is to welcome disaster into your life, perhaps not right away, but well into your future. curses are grown right into the roots of the trees and those who fail to pay their due to cross will find the dale has a way of following you back to where you are going and getting what it is owed.
This map is another feature from my setting crudilex, the covens are a culture in the setting that gathers magic without any regard to its source, believing there is no evil in magic. Some covens align themselves with a single creature like the Coven of Winter here in Wytch’s Dale. The idea was one of those classic video game looping dungeons, where you have to successfully make it to the other side of an area perfectly or be sent back to the beginning.
The mountain-high dullahan, known as the Colossus of Riddles, stirred to life at the dawn of the Age of Adventure. Pacing endlessly through the scorching desert awaiting the Titan of the sea.
Prophecies foretold a cataclysmic clash between the greatest beings of land and sea: the Behemoth and the Leviathan. For thousands of years the titan wandered the world Yet the Leviathan never rose from the depths, and the Colossus's purpose remained unfulfilled. As the eons passed, whatever divine force sustained the Colossus began to fade. In its final days, the titan marched eastward, its steps carving scars across the landscape of Deitziel, before collapsing in the Silkwind Gully. The immense fall shattered a canyon wall, rupturing an underground reservoir and creating a massive hot spring waterfall that now cascades over its broken, crumbling body.
Today, the Fallen Titan has become a sacred site to the Vermontis, a devoted group who worship the Colossus as a divine being. They have built a thriving society around its remains and the thermal springs, which they revere as gifts from the lifeblood of the titan.
“It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness. … The Thing cannot be described—there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order.”
Inspired by the classic, the call of Cthulhu, I imagine this map as an encounter where cultists have gathered at an ancient ritual ziggurat far out to sea, and our heroes have to stop them completing their eldritch ritual before releasing a big nasty Cthulhu-like baddy into the world. Classic as it gets!
The bridge fortress, Watching the comings and goings of each and every cart and merchant who crosses the city, sneaking past the soldiers to the other side of the river will be no simple thing.
The Historilogical Protectorate strictly controls the narrative and story surrounding the founding of the empire, and has been given imposing power and resources with-which to silence those who claim any contradiction to the government approved history. Moving around the reach of the imperial country they regularly move into cities and claim temporary rulership, setting up stations to observe, control, and censor. Stations like Fortaleza Protectorate
The imposing stone building spans across the bridges crossing the Delta which runs through the city of Tankren. Overlooking the goings-on of the region, maintaining a threatening presence over the people. Fortaleza Protectorate is the fortress that serves the occupying force in the city, Many of the secret police of the Protectorate serve from here under the orders of its shrewd and no-nonsense captain, Raphael Marina, a well-known mage-slayer.
The Hatchet of Hadar, dreaded airship of the villainous Captain Kane Rotlungs. Unleashing hell in the night over the Capital City.
Rotlung’s infamous ironclad pushes the limits of what a Manabattery engine can keep skyworthy, Covered in layers of pigiron and scrap salvaged from the bones of ships he’s taken from the sky Rotlungs and his crew of mischievous Imps bombard cities into submission and make off with loot and weapons. His ever growing boldness has sent him for larger and larger targets deeper and deeper into Grand Norstidinian airspace. Until one dark night that hatchet of Hadar, silhouetted against the shattered moon, let free hell over the capital itself.
Something no Air Pirate has ever been crazy enough to attempt.
This map Is a Crudilex original featuring the great city below and one of the many famous airship pirates of the setting. Kane plays the part of a sort of Long-John-Silver type. An antihero who calls himself a freedom fighter but is really just a backstabbing treasure hound at his core- Kane himself cuts a broad silhouette for a tiefling, a mountain of a man with a horn littered beard and intelligent yellow eyes. I’ve made tons of airships but a nice scraped together-post apocy looking one just makes sense!
The Unknownwood holds many secrets, its perpetual autumn. The painful silence cut only by the ever present wind. This forest is old and those who live here do not particularly appreciate intrusions. Deep deep in the wood, where only one who is truely lost could reach is the hut. A single chicken leg that glimpse into a cascade of black fur and feathers. Home to the Baba Yaga, first sister of the first coven. If you can handle her tricks and riddles and trails she may even reward your brashness with some of her ancient secrets.
But she just as soon may boil your bones and hand them from her teetering chimney. Depends on the day-
This map is my second shot at Baba Yaga, I did one map for her hut way way back when I first started making phased maps and it was, I think- my worst map. One of those projects you look back on and facepalm. But I’ve grown a lot as an artist since then and I can say I'm super proud of what it eventually became five years later!
All you have to do is cross a room, easy peasy, also don't get crushed, that's important too.
The door slams closed behind, the party looks before them a deep pit with cubes, each marked with arcane runes. The otherside of the room is another door. Ok- reach it. Easy. They take a step and the room jumps to life, the stone cubes slide violently fast across the pit. Not so easy. The floor is littered with symbols, maybe those can help us predict where the cubes move and we can ride them across without needing to navigate the meat grinder below.
Inspired by those sliding box puzzles from platforming games in the 90-00s. I really enjoy making simple dungeon rooms like this and it seems sometimes folks like just a simple functional idea and not a big flashy movie scene like I normally make.
Online Cyber Cafe, For one low low (hourly) price guests can enjoy (Limited tiered subscription plans) to link into the local net from this off-grid cafe! (cash only)
The high-rises of the city, so packed with people, put a demand on the local intranet signal that is nearly as congested as the apartments themselves. But like any problem in the dark future, there is a solution available for the right price. The Online Cafes let customers access high-speed connections for the VR worlds they use to escape the late-stage capitalist hellscape they find themselves in, or to link into private business meetings with a need for a less personally connected connection address.
For this map, I wanted to zoom in more, working on a smaller, high-detail design. Not every encounter has to be a massive, dynamic battlefield—sometimes, as a player, it's fun to just scan the map, looking for inspiration in the details for those unexpected, off-the-cuff sort of moves!
All pilots report to Mech Hangar 01! High alert! Enemies detected within hangar. All hands battlestations!
The titanic machines require nearly constant upkeep. For every pilot there are 200 of us engineers. The damn things have countless moving parts, and they insist on them being bipedal for some god forsaken reason. Really it's a miracle of engineering these things work at all and then those damn hot shots take them out on the battlefield and blow them up, unbelievable. You’d think flash printing would have put us out a job but the easier they are to make the more those apes blow them up, we’re working more than ever!
This map is inspired by the Lancer TTRPG, and the long history of the mech hangar ready-up scene from mecha anime. If the battlefield is where the action takes place then the mech hangar is where the interpersonal drama shines! No reason one can’t leak into the other.
This collection has 10 variations, The Hangar, AI (NHP) Storage Facility, Air Drop Hangar, Space Cultists Lair, Modern Docks, Shamazon warehouse, A player character hangout hangar, and more!
“Most totemic troupes are quite poor. But to have so little and still perform is—I think—an even truer expression of Passion.” – Ida Holly
The magnificent Sperrowspot Revue. Pop-up traveling theater, one night only! Half off tickets if you bring your own chair!
The theatre troupe of the Sperrowspot Revue can have their whole stage set up in a day, and torn down in under an hour. A useful talent when your lead actors have a habit of causing a scene at the local tavern when your caravan is pulling out of town. They’d throw him in jail if not for his charm, a once-in-a-lifetime wit wasted on a complete ass of a man.
But the show must go on, and on it goes sundown tonight at the edge of town. One night only.
This map is inspired by the bohemian arts pictured in those early 2000s greats like Moulin Rouge and Dr. Parnassus. Victorian paper theaters, vaudeville. Turn-of-the-century pre-war circus art and occultism. Have a hard time pinpointing exactly what that style is called, but boy do I adore it. This map comes with a number of variations, most inspired by theatre in some sense.
“Your path to discovering Arjun’s Inn begins at the foothills of the Markehsha Mountains, a major crossroads of cultures. The majestic sight of Joramy volcano is just above the horizon.” - Ida Holly
Here lives a rich merchant, Arjun, who has fallen on hard times and has turned his large home into “Arjun’s Inn. The kind of boutique hotel that wealthier adventure travelers might seek out in Dawnfire. Traders, pilgrims, and crusaders have passed through this small, rural village, on a well-traveled road to Seagate snaking through the central north of the lands of Dawnfire. While travelers rest at the hotel, the owner and other families reside there. The décor, as well as the furniture, at Arjun’s Inn is an amalgamation of mismatched artifacts Arjun has collected through his years of travel across southern Crudilex.
Dawnfire culture believes that fire is sacred, The act of burning something is to send it into the divine realms to become one with their goddess. Ash and soot being the portion of that thing that are not sacred, unholy or deconsecrated. All that remains when every holy element is removed from a thing leaving behind only the portions the goddess does not wish to claim. Because of this many cultures throughout Dawnfire see touching of ash as a corruption, like staining your fingers with pure unadulterated unholyness.
The Getaway! You’ve loaded an airship up with your ill gotten coin, now all that matters is outrunning the cops!
“They say the heist of the casino was the boldest ever preformed in the whole of the world. But they forget to add the chase that came after was too” - Ida Holly
“Your listening to Rockthron radio:
This just in! The auction taking place at the cirrus on high floating island casino in Grand Nostridan HAS. BEEN. ROBBED! a grand heist has left the coffers of Enchante herself completely empty and- what’s this?
Breaking news!
A spellship loaded with countless coin come careening carelessly through the hot air balloon show off the side of the island, Roian police skiff in hot pursuit firing their force-chain cannons! Go get’m boys!
This has been Rockthorn Radio!”
The final map in my cirrus casino series. Starting with breaking in, Then the raceway outside, then hitting the vault, and now the getaway! All four maps will be released together in an up-coming One-Shot! Cirrus is a dear part of my Crudilex setting and now that this portion is done I’ll finally be moving to another part of that world to dive deep on!
“The Wilder, the Wilds. Home of the wolfking and his children. The land of beasts is no friend to man. The soil riots to our boots and the winds cry our passing. Wander ye weary through circles of the fey.” - Avara Luvo, witch of Dunwel
In ages long forgotten these portals served the beasts of the woods, connecting their burrows and warrens to the land of the fey. Today the fairy use them to prey on foolish mortals. There is a song, It goes:
"O tread ye not near fey-folk's ring,Where deathless spirits dance and sing.
By stone and root their charm is laid,Like snare for those who pass or stray'd.
They watch from warrens, from bush and sprawl,Where mortal boots must never fall.
For time turns foul and paths are lost,And kin who seek thee pay the cost.
Leave milk and bread, then walk thee wide—
And venture not to fey-folk’s side."
This time we’re diving into the lands of the fairy. With many variations on the fairy circle. With seasonal fey court versions and even the Unseelie. I think the one I like the most is the Faun's Labyrinth, Inspired by one of my all time favorite modern fairy tales, Pan’s Labyrinth. I could totally see a Feywild game in DnD where you're jumping between fairy rings and transporting through the various courts and seasons trying to seek something or escape.
Living in the Mega Buildings? Oh it's not too terrible, really anything you’d need in there. Shopping entertainments, Most even have a monorail station. But the worst thing about living in the megabuilding is the Gantry lift skips so many floors every stop. I’m up on 170 so I have to go up to the 185 stop then walk down 15 flights to get to my apartment. But I mean for the price it's better than one of the Coffin hotels or living out in the stacks or something. Plus I always get my steps in.
Another Cyberpunk inspired map! When playing 2077 I always imagined how fun it would be to do a combat encounter on the lift up to V’s apartment. Honestly it never made any sense to me that none of their many… MANY enemies ever came for V where they lived, Not like they were particularly careful about it.
“There are few monsters great enough to be mentioned on world maps by name, But it is critically important that the territory of Rahido, the Arcwhale, is known to anyone traveling the skies.” - Ida Holly
The Lost horizon is the fastest, Highest flying twin manabattery Iari class airship ever created. The Drakul Harpoon is the strongest most advanced airship harpoon constructed to date. The crew we’ve assembled is hand picked by Tankren Falstead who’s been hunting Rahido since he was old enough to become an aeronaught. There are no further preparations or equipment hitherto forth available to us. And somehow it still doesn't feel like enough-So, as your captain, best that the lot of you to pray to every devine whos name you know. That's an order. Good. Now- To stations! Full speed into the eye of the storm! Let's kill an Arcwhale!
This map is set in my setting of Crudilex high in the sky featuring the legendary battle between an one of a kind airship, The Lost Horizon, which I featured in a previous battlemap, fighting the world of Crudilex’s greatest airborne monster! I wanted it to feel momentous and epic! Like a clash between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick or an encounter with a leviathan but thousands of feet off the ground!
“I have seen the World Engine. Deep down underground in the Sunless Sea. Its miles across and Its core glows red in the darkness. Which is lucky, because it's very easy to get disoriented in that forest of Oil and pistons.” - Ida Holly
There are machinations we just weren't meant to understand. The surface above the world engine is so simple, human, strife but only on our mortal scale. Below the World Engine runs for the divine constructed by gods and put toward their ineffable goals. We scramble upon its artifice without the ability to fathom its purpose like rats in a wizard’s study. We can guess at the reason the divine built this machine, perhaps it is their means to bring about another devine of their kind, Deus ex machina, God from the machine? Perhaps it will run until the end of time, keeping hours like a great celestial clock. We can only guess. But there is one single consensus, if it should ever stop only upheaval can follow.
For this map I wanted to imagine the whirring insides of a super complex machine, Something like an airship or walking castle the players had to board and take down from inside! I even tried to make the lifts on the right and left move like they are the inside mechanics of a giant walking machine! I was really inspired by Steamboy and Dragonmech.
The city of the future, sterile and optimized, is beyond scarcity- but some things only huge fighting robots can settle.
This map is designed for my Lancer Actual Play, Star Progoney which just recorded its very first episode! www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJDmsa9_Ro
It’s my first crack at making a battlemap set for the Lancer RPG. This location hasn’t been visited just yet, but it belongs to a faction known as the Algoric, a hyper optimized society of computer worshiping humans who love their lives in service of the AI who dictates their tasks and steers their lives. Likewise their cities are over-optimized, over-engineered clean- and devoid of any waste or mistakes.
The map also includes 9 other variations, Automated security, Active combat zone, a dieselpunk city, a dreamland city, an ancient ruins, cyberpunk downtown and a few other city-centric takes on the same layout for any encounters in your densely populated zones!
The ambitious design of the Cirrus Archives and its three primary vaults requires the unity of over 100 master craftsmen in their respective fields. The estimated cost of the entire vault level is believed to exceed the sum total of the entirety of the Grand Nostridinian military. Engineered, artificed, alchemically treated, and enchanted with every single ward and defense that can be placed upon a location to protect it, all to house three individual vaults. Inside which a demi-plane is constructed, protecting the contents safely away in a pocket dimension housed behind 10 feet of solid black iron.
A Decoy vault was designed to thwart heist crews only interested in the coin. To protect the greater collection deeper in the vaults, a fabulous fortune is left outside the Main Vault door as a kind of insurance.
Past the great vault door is the electrified room. Every 6 seconds, one of the lines of metal flooring charges up. The following 6 seconds, a deadly shock fires along that line. This can easily be avoided by those who know the pattern and step carefully when opening the next vault door
Oh and then there are the lasers.
Time Machine! Drifting through the ages, your party has got their hands on a tool of immense power. Now just to figure out how it all works…
The Cloudstone Engine breached the veil of time, Constructed by the greatest alchemical engineer ever to live, or at least conceptualized. If the legend is true the moment Crimley Dorian dreamt the Time Machine up the earliest second a time traveler could return to was set, and in a flash of light, before it’s inventor even put pen to paper, a copy of himself appeared with a fully constructed device exactly as he had imagined it.
Learning about the future, about himself, about the laws of time the past and future versions of Dorian together perfected the device, and again, in a flash another of themselves appeared. How many times this happened and just what theoretically infinite invention and reinvention over countless lifetimes is possible to achieve is unknown. Dorian vanished. All that remained of him was this one machine. And now it's your party's task to find the inventor of time travel wherever in history he ended up.This map is a collaboration with my fellow cartographer Silver Compass! Each of us splitting up the time machine through various timelines and eras! Check out Silver Compass’s Work: patreon.com/silvercompassmaps
The chaos of limbo is death to anyone who cannot master the mind. The Ever-Changing Chaos is a mental domain and so those who can colonize a place for themselves here must be steadfast and unshakable in their mental discipline. Personal resolve converts one to one to physical manifestations. It's no surprise that the aetherial monasteries are some of the only lasting structures. But when they come under attack each lost monk threatens the integrity of the whole of the temple, and the chaos of limbo is all too eager to creep back in.
This map is inspired by the Geth and their lore, playing around with that cool alt-space design of DnD and Spelljammer. It comes with a handful of variations such as a more traditional monastery, Jungle temple of the silver monkey, a storm wracked lighthouse, even a Anti-Aircraft gun emplacement variant.
“Sometimes a quick getaway is more dangerous than just sticking around to fight!” - Ida Holly
Life in silkwind Junction is fast and cheap, Emphasis on the FAST! And the Tho mines are blasting all round the clock and wont even pause for a group of wayward adventurers and hurt their bottom line. Baron’s would say if you stopped for every band of misfits who ran down into the blasting tunnels you’d never have a full day’s work!
Danger, Blasting! This phased battlemap takes you on a minecart chase through the active canyon mines, past exploding dynamite, the edge of a canyon cliff, and into a dam-powered ore grinder! This map is my second minecart rollercoaster map, the last one was inspired by indiana jones, and TAZ 11th hour, this one is more in the flavor of Big Thunder railroad, or Looney Toons! Its a bit crazy, a bit goofy, but sometimes it's a fun time to run an encounter that… flies of the rails? Eh eh?
Silkwind Junction, The canyon mine is always rolling day and night, no time to slow down, cross the tracks at your own risk. Life in Silkwind Junction is fast and cheap, better to work the mines then tussle with the Tho Barons. The locals say If you don’t have a mind for invention then you better have a back for digging or fists for fighting. Down in the canyon it's all or nothing and switches between them mighty fast.
Inspired by one of my earliest maps that was a frogger sort of encounter on a busy street I wanted to set a similar kind of challenge in my canyon city of Silkwind, a gnomish desert city where inventors are celebrities and the rest struggle to survive. This is also a two part map! Next week we’ll see what happens if you jump aboard a minecart and ride down into the blasting tunnel!
“People in glass castles shouldn't throw stones.” - Ida Holly
As you enter the great hall, your eyes run up the black marble walkway to the great Geode throne in the center of the chamber. The throne must tower about 15 feet high, dwarfing everyone else in the chamber, but somehow the figure sitting in it makes it seem too small.
A man built like an Olympic God reclines in it, his opaline eyes regard you thoughtfully, striking a vivid contrast to his stone-like obsidian skin. He stands up, and every other person in the palace of black glass bows low before him, holding their hands up in supplication.
This map was an experiment with light and layers. I've done a few throne room type maps in the past so I really wanted to challenge myself and make something with more dimensionality and levels to play in during a boss fight kind of encounter. With the upper landing, a deep bottomless pit, lots of falling shards of obsidian shattering while the players try and destroy the BBEG holding the place together and get out before it crumbles on top of them!
“See Basanna never run off when their links are undone. It's mostly because they are too dumb, but the point remains.” - Ida Holly
Moving cargo isn't exactly a QUEST, but you have to start somewhere and your party needs coin. So you climb up the wagon and roll off to the market faire. Unloading was easy but loading everything back up in the evening has been a real pain, when suddenly the druid lets the pack beasts loose! “They hate this job” so they say, which would be all fine and dandy if you weren't ON the wagon when it started rolling backwards down the hill! Everyone HANG ON!
This map was a pretty time consuming affair, as are any maps where the platform the players are on is still while the background moves. But In the end it's always worth it! I like to think this could be used as a non-combat encounter as well as a fight if your say wrestling with a thief as they try to snatch something from the wagon, or releasing the wagon intentionally for a cinematic get away from the guards!
The Saltpool Terraces separate the upper sea from the lower, The great geyser erupts with mineral rich torrents in the upper sea and slowly they flow over the mountain side depositing their minerals and forming countless pools and rivers. The people of the region believe among these sacred pools lie portals, windows into time where one can peer and see how their life might turn out depending on the choices they make. Divining Dowser Wizards make frequent visits to them they say to seek to glimpse their fate, but the public secret is that its really just to the region's best vacation spot.
This map is a collection of maps from the region of Rayion, in my setting Crudilex. Inspired by Pamukkale in Turkey, Yellowstone, the sulfur lake in Indonesia, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia, and various other unique hydrological regions in our world. I’m endlessly fascinated by ways water behaves and the extremes are so unbelievably beautiful to look at and so alien.
‘Twas the dark of midwinter, the hearths burning low,
When out in the village there came a faint glow.
Mari Lwyd has come and challenges you to rhyme,
but if the ghost horse wins she will come in to dine.
The moon, on the snowbanks that shimmered below,
Lit up the dark lanes with an eerie white glow.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a horse’s white skull and a troupe full of cheer.
With ribbons and bells tied to bone stark and bare,
Mari Lwyd had loomed, a sight strange and rare.
Her sockets were empty, her grin wide and grim,
Yet joy filled the air as they sang their old hymn.
"Open your door!" came Mari's refrain,
"Let us best you in rhyming, or here we'll remain.
For blessings and cheer, and a sip of your ale,
We’ll riddle and jest 'til your words finally fail!"
We answered their rhymes with quick, clever wit,
Each line and retort we hoped would outwit.
But Mari was cunning, her verses well-spun,
And soon we conceded, her victory won.
With laughter and joy, no more rhymes left to think,
And in came dear Mari for our food and our drink.
They drank and they danced, their spirits alight,
Bringing good fortune to all on that cold solstice night.
In the city it feels like you live inside your car in traffic with brief, glorious moments of being outside at work or home. Even in the dark future with flying cars and automated driving there is no real escape from the true dystopian pain of rush hour. Best to avoid any car chases or high speed gun fights until at least 6:30. Life in the slow lane, Bumper to bumper… still on the fastest route.
This map comes with 11 variations all set on a packed 8 lane freeway in the city. I apologize now for any war flashbacks for anyone from LA.
“Critical note: Just because Mimsy sometimes LOOK like stuffed animals doesn't mean they are cute and snuggly and nice.” - Ida Holly
In the dreamlands of Nocturne everything is steeped in whimsy, the theatrical world of sleep. Here the Mimsy, Jester-like personifications of various dreams and desires, live their lives. Their great dreaming city of Avu serves as an anchor point for all the waking world to visit when they are asleep and their minds wander to Nocturne, and at the heart of the city is the Carousel.
With its decorated sheep bouncing up and down as it spins, and its celestial patterned walls and roof, it is an Icon of the realm of Nocturne beloved by the Mimsy. And an ever present target of their enemy, Nod.
For this map I wanted to make something cute and fun, I went for that blue and gold celestial 90s motif that was once super popular. They call it whimsigoth these days. Perfect vibe for a magical counting sheep carousel I think!
You enter a dim chamber, the stone door sliding closed behind you, the room is lit by faint glowing runes one each on every stone between here and the exit. On the opposite side of the room an illusion of one of the runes glows over a plinth.
Collapsing Puzzle Floor, A phased battle map where glowing runes on the floor slowly crumble underneath the heroes. Each rune is foreshadowed by the illusionary plinth, telling players who figure out what's happening which runes they best avoid. After each rune has fallen- the doors open releasing them!
Simple enough- But of course, there is the matter of those flickering shadows waiting to attack on the far side of the room. Surely handling a small puzzle AND fighting a terrible beastie isnt too much for a group of brave heroes!
Inspired by The Last Crusade’s crumbling floor puzzle. I really enjoy making simple dungeon rooms like this and it seems sometimes folks like just a simple functional idea and not a big flashy movie scene like I normally make.
Some believe the Net is hell, and that AI are demons, Evolved in their pit of darkness and code. Some others are reckless enough to dredge them up to our side of sanity.
Inspired by one of the missions in Cyberpunk 2077 where a demonic ritual was being performed anchoring something unknowable from the cybernet to a body, This map imagines a similar sort of ritual. Because I know that back alley chop job was not Mealstoms’s only attempt. There's got to be warehouses hidden deep where cults within the gang dive deep and see what new fresh horrors beyond the blackwall there are.
“The Lost Horizon, Plague of merchants from Seagate to South Deitzeil, Yet somehow its crew manages to do good. Could there be such a thing as a hero pirate?” - Ida Holly
Airship Pirates, Really not too much of a threat. Most of the time a few broadsides is enough to keep them away. But if you see the flying skull of The Lost Horizon’s flag. Best to just surrender…
There are legends that Captain Tankren The Lost Horizon made a wish to fly an airship that would never go down, Always outrun, and come to rule the sky. That the Lost Horizon would dominate Crudilex and outlast all others- Today even Tankren himself has aged and died, But his old ship still flies. Who can say if the legends are true.
This map is my third in a series of large airship maps. The first two were more imperial style warships. Only made sense to give some representation to the noble airship pirates, legends of the flying port of La Gaviota. This map was very inspired by the Blue Rouge’s airship the Delphinus from Skies of Arcadia, one of my favorite games of all time.
This map is a feature in my most recent bundle of 14 other airship maps also! So if you have a airship heavy game now is the time to check out balatro.net/airshipbundle
“I’ve heard lots of tales of the adventurers who fly that airship, and really… It's no surprise it wrecked. Honestly, most adventurers shouldn't be allowed to fly.” - Ida Holly
The Affinity was an exceptional airship and it crashed in just as exceptional a wreck. Shattered to splinters hundreds of feet in the air when it tried a daring maneuver through a basalt canyon that was just a bit too narrow. Now it dangles from ropes in the frozen wastes, its treasure and secrets high and unreachable, but always tantalizing those who venture across the tundra.
But someone, someday will come along and make the climb up to the wreck. And they better come prepared. The icey cliffs are hardly safe, but there are rumors that something is roosting up there in that airship wreck.
Dead Man’s Party! When the veil grows thin the dead can return for a brief time to the world of the living, And there are some few who take full advantage until the sun rises!
There are some few with the innate ability to see ghosts, Via Cruse, or boon, blessing, magic, or perhaps even being born an innate medium. But all who truly bear this power will tell you that the personalities of the dead are just as diverse as the living. And when they get an infrequent chance to celebrate, poking their spectral heads back onto our side of the veil, they absolutely get down.
Don’t believe me? Just cast a speak with dead spell on hallows eve at your local graveyard and see what happens. Don’t forget to bring some ale, because decades in the grounds leaves one mighty hankering for a stiff drink!
Inkarnate’s own Mati and I collabed together for a special halloween map! Inspired by the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans and The happy haunts of the haunted mansion at Disney. Mati built the map and I provided the phases!
Find more of Mati’s over at https://inkarnate.com/p/34K9WG--mati/
“There are cracks in your authority my king, as big as those in the fabric of spacetime behind you…” - Ida Holly
At the end of all things the Scarlet king awaits. The lord of horror and master of all evils who came after him. His malignant energies have merged with the ley lines and taken root in the very heart of the world causing generations of darkness to bubble to the surface and a legion of minions to rise to his wordless commands. And here, at the heart of everything you have entered his throne room, a simple enough looking man, humble even. But as your indignance continues the Scarlet king casts aside any semblance of humanity. revealing the true horror. no more wasted power on illusions. No more wasted intentions on mercy. After centuries of waiting the final battle at last can begin.
This map is the final battle location for the campaign of a years long supporter of mine! I’ve made something around 50 maps for his games through commissions and it's been very cool to paint all these scenes of his players' stories for a few years now. I've felt like an honorary player invested in their adventure. (Or a secret villain, if you look at the maps I’ve made for them, sorry about all the explosions!) This map is the final final of that game, a proper Cosmic BBEG arena!
It’s fake. I mean just looking at it statically, if there are that many skiff crashes there shouldn't be any aeronaughts left to fly the darn things! - Ida Holly
The Cirrus Casino, constructed in a cloudy valley of floating island motes, hovers miles above the purple, sandy wasteland dunes below and serves as the playground for the most famous and influential figures in all of Crudilex. It is best known for hosting the Monoskiff Classic.
The casino's mysterious owner, the gorgon Enchante’ Cirrus, has run the Monoskiff Classic airship race four times now, and it only grows bigger and more extravagant with each event. Private booths are now worth a small fortune, and people flock from every corner of Crudilex to witness the spectacle and the renowned racers who fought their way through fierce competition to appear in this grand final. Winning this race makes legends, and from the most despised villains to the people's champions, the pilot-aeronauts are celebrated daredevils of the skies—assuming they put on a good enough show.
This map is my second set at the flying Casino of Cirrus on High in my campaign setting Crudilex. This time it features one of the main events the casino hosts, a high speed high octane airship race. The entire vibe of which is inspired a lot by pro wrestling with stories playing out between races and pilots being high energy characters and villains playing roles and building relationships for the audience to get behind all leading up to the last big race for the title!
Cabin Pressure Warning! Pull up, Pull Up! You know how to fly a plane right? The fuel has been dumped, The Engines are failing, were gliding into low altitude and there are no safe landing sights. So what do we do?!
Hang on!
For this phased map I wanted to do another Indiana Jones inspired map, specifically the plane crash escape scene from temple of doom. But I also was really inspired by the plane fight from uncharted and basically decided to just do both!
"I wouldn’t claim to know what sort of crime one could possibly commit that even the land of ultimate evil would want you imprisoned."
– Ida Holly, On the Void
Some souls, after passing on, are still too dangerous to exist even among the damned. In the deepest pits of the void lies a prison—solitary confinement for those who might seek to unleash their horrors upon the living once more. There, in the blackest depths, the Abyssal Dias houses these spirits for all eternity. Do not meddle in cosmic affairs, nor venture to those depths. If someone you love has been banished to the bottom of Hell—they deserve to be there.
The Winged Skull Convoy are tightly-knit, mobile groups of outcasts and rebels who live on the fringes of society, away from sprawling corporate cities. They are skilled in scrapping, scavenging, and repurposing technology. traversing the badlands in their heavily modified big rigs. United by family bonds and a deep mistrust of the corporate elite. The convoy operates as a self-sufficient community, smuggling and transporting between city zones, trading among other clans and occasionally clashing with city-dwellers or Scavs for routes and scrap.
The Winged Skulls are best known for their long-haul trucking, a dangerous and dying trade that few dare to undertake in the chaotic world of 2077. While most cargo transport has shifted to drones, underground routes, or corporate-controlled airships, the Winged Skulls stubbornly stick to the open roads. They brave the blistering heat of climate-ravaged landscapes, navigate hostile territory overrun by wild marauders, and dodge corporate warzones where borders shift overnight. Their massive, armored rigs are both fortresses and homes, equipped with cutting-edge tech and weaponry to fend off threats. For the Winged Skulls, hauling goods isn't just a job—it's a statement of defiance, a way of life in a world that's died to leave them behind. Thus the tombstone winged skull as their symbol.
For this map series I wanted to follow a group of cyberpunk truckers across a bunch of locations. I have this idea for a nomad cyberpunk red game that follows a group of truckers as they make their way across the states hauling some kind of freaky mysterious tech. No idea if I’ll ever put together a group for it, But the inspiration has been cooking in my mind for a while now! So I made the maps!
“One of the most fascinating things about Undrum’Kal. Even as I write these words I know that no Undrumian decedent will be able to read them.” - Ida Holly
The dwarves in crudilex constructed the most powerful city ever to stand in crudilex deep in the underdark, Named Undrum Kal alongside the Atlantiens. But in an act of treachery they turned on the merfolk and attempted to claim the city. After a long bloody war the King of the Atlantiens, Thrumm transformed himself becoming an Aboleth, and with this power banished the Undrumian Dwarves from the underdark entirely, this curse still lingers today, any dwarf who ventures deep into the earth, simply forgets everything they see, completely failing to retain any memories. Leading them to spend their days on the surface, unaware of history they have lost.
This map is my first toe dip into making a battlemap for a dwarven style. In Crudilex the city of Undrum’kal is supermassive. Thousands of miles of forgotten and flooded under-ruins below the surface. Someday I’ll bundle up all my sunless sea ruins maps into a Undrum’kal pack and put them all together on one big map. But for now we get a taste of some of the primary locations in the ruined dwarven city!
“The Void of hell is isolation, paranoia, loneliness. I don’t know which is worse. Eternity of torment or eternity of- nothing.” - Ida Holly
What is the measure of a man? The sum of his deeds and his failures, weighed against eternity. Who are the divine to pass judgment, to offer me paradise or damnation? I will not submit, I will not bow. My soul will not be so easily reaped, nor will I surrender the final spark of my essence to a hollow, proud eternal. If you desire my soul, come and take it. Face me here, as a warrior, upon the scales of judgment. Should you triumph, I will consign myself to your eternity. But if I am victorious, my spirit and its power shall be granted the gift of absolute oblivion.
This map I wanted to play with the way we use and think about phased maps.instead of making something sequential this time the map serves as a tug of war back and forth. I imagine the scales tipping one way or another depending on where the bulk of the fighters are, forcing players to make interesting choices as to where they want to be standing to affect the tip of the scales or the battle!
The Henge of the guardian of earth and lava has been completely forgotten, overgrown, and consumed by the jungle. Surely awakening a lava elemental won't cause any problems.
“Moldo Island filled with monsters, Pirates, and ancient forgotten angry elemental gods of land, sea, and sky. I can't wait to go!” - Ida Holly
The Elemental gods of Triton each have a champion. Though they haven't been summoned in the modern age. The myths say their altars can still be found and if they are defeated in battle they offer a gift from their respective patron god.
Deep in the jungles of Moldo, the lost island, the elemental guardian of the land, Arewanna, waits and waits. The throngs of orc who once paid homage to their patron devine of the land long have moved away from the pilgrimage to the island to worship and leave offerings. The shrine has become overgrown. The few elders who remember the guardians' visits grew fewer and fewer until they stopped completely. But Arewanna remembers… and its challengers will one day return. One day.
The Badlands! Deadly sun, dangerous creatures, Long cruel distances. And worst of all the Canyon. They say there are more who’ve died trying than actually made it one side to the other.
“The Vermontis are born with four arms and incredible strength, The greatest climbers alive number among them, even the average Vermontis has a mastery of climbing a human could only hope to reach. Even their cities lack ladders and stairs, they never needed them.” -Ida Holly
I have been inspired by deserts out here in california, Growing up with Zelda and I always associate sandstone and canyons with adventure especially when paired with that killer flamenco vibe from the Gerudo theme.
No Man's Land, Blasted into oblivion by two sides deep in their trenches. Trying to cross this chaotic hellscape will only stir up the fighting again.
For this battlemap I wanted to jump back to WW2 and make a map for other kinds of wargames I don't see getting a lot of support in the VTT world, Like Warhammer and Bolt Action. I really have no idea if these can even be played online, But I’ve been super inspired by the scratch building community and terrain construction I see for war games, especially WW 1-2 games so I thought I'd take my VTT crack at it and make them a phased map!
If you dig it for your setting or there is actually an underserved community of Virtual Wargamers out there who don't have a lot of battlemap options let me know and maybe I’ll make a few more like this! Cheers!
All we need to do is escape the cell, get out into the yard, Avoid the guards, stay out of the light, sneak down to the dock, and row a few miles through stormy seas! See, breaking out of jail is easy!
The thunder will mask our hammers breaking the wall. So we have to escape during a storm, and it's the end of the season so either we break out now or we are trapped on this hell island for another year- Are odds are bad, horrible really. But it’s go now or rot.
For this map I really wanted to play with light, Shifting the shadows along with the spot lights to create a dynamic environment for a fun stealth encounter. The best thing about this map is it can be run forward and backward over and over to have the lights slowly pan back and forth as the players are sneaking along and avoiding guards. It was inspired by the first dungeon, the forsaken fortress, from Zelda Wind Waker so if your DM runs it they legally have to let you hide under barrels.
The King has announced that the great Duke of Castle Kradsten is to be honored with an expansion of his duchy following the capture of the last criminal dark mage at large. With the foul art of necromancy rid from the kingdom 50 years since becoming criminalized, the celebration draws near. It is at this celebration we draw the curtain to foul secrets, treacherous dealings, and worst of all—a murder at Castle Kradsten!
This Noir-inspired murder mystery one-shot adventure places each of the characters at the scene of the crime with only a handful of suspects, including each other!
“And to think. These beasts aren't even the largest monsters can become.” - Ida Holly
Titan Elemental vs. Warforged Colossus: two god-like giants warring at the heart of the city. Could any power even hope to stop their clash now?
Above you, great giants clash, but the battle rages on! Their duel creates an ever-shifting battlefield as you face your opponents below their feet. You use whatever tactics you can to avoid their massive feet and awesome weapons, as everything in their path is reduced to rubble. Time is running out to end this encounter and escape before they unleash their true power.
Magic vs. Tech! This map is inspired by all the wonderful titanic robot anime I watched growing up, mixed with a bit of WWE and Pacific Rim. The warforged titan (nicknamed Alexander) is an old favorite of mine, and I really wanted to revisit him and give him a Crudilexian makeover—something a little more Dieselpunk. This map was really challenging; it took four sleepless nights in a row to complete. Even if no one sees it, I'm super proud of it. It was incredibly fun to make, and sometimes you have to create the kind of thing you love as an artist. And I happen to love big, huge mechs and explosions!
“Riddles are so common in dungeons from the age of magic that it's actually not a bad idea to bring a riddle expert with you on an excursion.” - Ida Holly
The Flooding Chamber, Deep in the dungeon a mysterious door offers a riddle. But each guess raises the water level. Can you solve it before you drown? The ancient dwarves protected their crypts from the rising ground water with special chambers to contain it. These cisterns provided ample supply of fresh water in the ancient times. So much in fact they started to find creative uses for controlled flooding and water irrigation in the dwarven megacity of Undrum’Kal. But today they really only ever cause problems.
“When the gods shed tears in excess,
And rivers can't hold their embrace,
I march on and never regress,
And submerge all below my surface.
This map is inspired by one of the first ever homebrew encounters I ran, Instead of flooding water the guessing added an additional monster to the encounter, one of my very first- a “Ratspider” Luckily I got more creative with my beasties as the years went on, But I’ll always have a little soft spot in my heart for what is an objectively terrible campy monster. The answer to the riddle is the file name of the Gif. (also in the map files)
Atop the tower the wizards' crystal prison contained the Atropal all too well, it could not escape but neither could it be moved and the rotting curse poisoned the land for a generation.
“A wizard did it. Just put a sign up outside of every arcane disaster from now on- nine times out of ten it’s right.” - Ida Holly
Meddling is the great strength of wizards, tinkering on the fringes of the powers of the universe. Mostly their magic is cosmically harmless. But every era or so some mage gets ambitious. An attempt to create a Divine being by a mortal is doomed to failure- but that attempt will always come at a cost. For the case of the grim tower it was the lives of an entire civilization for two generations.
To the wizards credit the being was summoned and created. But it contained none of what makes a creature “alive” in any sense. Devoid of purpose it quickly became an atropal. The last act of the mage was sealing it in a prison it could not escape. Sealing the undead unborn god atop the tower where corruption ate away at everything for miles around.
“The Outriders have fought against the Empire for one thousand years, while they have not won, They have never for a second considered stopping.” - Ida Holly, On Okugai
An Outrider druid lives among the plains, one with their mount and ever-present in their saddle. They practice ancient magic passed down for generations, originating from the Sky Giants. Proud, patient, strong, they make a formidable foe as a group and a dangerous challenge alone. If challenged, the arena will be formed with hundreds of hooves pounding at full speed in a circle around the combatants.
Legends say their hooves rumble the ground so loudly it calls out in the language of thunder to the sky.
This map of the Outrider's Arena is set in the world of Crudilex, where horses are fairly rare but prized among a culture known as the Outriders. Inspired by the khanate, ancient Mongolia, and the Eurasian Steppe, I imagine this scene where a single powerful foe stands against the party as hundreds of his men respectfully allow the challenge to continue, creating a storm of horses as a battlefield.
“Doom is too kind a word to describe the feeling this monstrosity impresses in me.” - Ida Holly
The skies grow dark as the great Ironclad flies over the city. Relentless Witness, the Blackiron flagship of the mad queen’s fleet, has already removed three entire populations from this world. Nothing can challenge it—not from outside the hull, anyway.
The creation of the Relentless Witness meant the end of the federalist revolution. Royalist soldiers rounded up every citizen in the free city of Saradross and forced them to build. And when their toil ended, the dark dreadnought emerged. Forged of blackiron, a material said to be completely indestructible, the flagship could hover above any city in Crudilex and bomb it out of existence. The only method by which the great airship is vulnerable at all is that it is piloted by mortal men.
This map is my second giant airship map. My setting of Crudilex has a lot of airships and ironclads, and so I wanted to make a few that were the tarrasques of the skies, such as this one! The Relentless Witness, which in my home game only flew for 6 rounds before the players dive-bombed it into the side of a mountain, where it still rests to this day, a permanent feature of my setting! Good thing too, because it was said to be completely indestructible.
“Khan Nimbus was known for two things: barbarism and cleverness. I shudder to think of a more dangerous combination of traits.” ~ Ida Holly, On the Skies of Okugai
Fortress of the Cloud Giants: The ancient keep built upon solid clouds miles above the surface using ancient runic arts that the giants themselves are slowly forgetting. Ancient magics and arts are sliding away generation by generation, replaced with primal fury.
Your party has been summoned to appear before the Khan of the Sky Giants. Guided by their minions and sherpas up the mountains to their peak, where a bridge lies extending into the foggy clouds. Crossing into the mists, a huge, logic-defying fortress is constructed right upon the clouds themselves. Silver-blue eyes watch as you walk in silence but for the howling winds.
You’ve heard their myths and legends: magical acumen, incredible poise, and riches. But now the Cloud Giant Khan’s son sits upon the throne and looks no different than a hill giant, if not for the setting. “My father has been banished. Khan Nimbus walks the ground amongst you smallfolk now. I—Khan Stratus—am Lord of the Sky Horde. Grovel.”
This map is my second shot at making a full dungeon phased map. It imagines a clan of Cloud Giants cut off from their kin and regressed to a primal state, forgetting everything that gave them their identity and following a might-makes-right leader who removes all ties to their past. It's inspired a lot by the ruined fortress dungeons from Skyrim, occupied mostly by bandits who had no relationship with why it was constructed, treating the once-noble castles as little more than a hideout or cave.
“Well, it's a bit of a fixer-upper. But if these walls could talk… I mean... they can. That's actually on the list of things you’ll want to fix.” - Ida Holly
Grand Estate: After a bit of hard work and a whole lot of gold, even a rundown haunted house can become a perfect home base for a group of adventurers! And it comes with secret passageways!
After a point, all heroes get over the murder-hobo life and look for a place to hang up the +2 full plate for the night. The Grand Estate awaits. Won from a quest for a local lord, taken as a secret squat, or cleared of creepy crawlies by the party themselves—however they got the keys, the party now has their very own place to call home! It's really nice to not have to sort out sleeping orders and night watches for once. Oh, and the kitchen has more than just trail rations!
A second crack at my old haunted house map, this one comes with a handful of variations, including a full cyberpunk warehouse club inspired by the Totentaz from Cyberpunk 2077, as well as a WWII requisitioned forward operating base, and a noir murder mystery variation!
“ You may have dark vision, but do you have horrible blinding light death ray vision?”
- Ida Holly
The coastline is extremely well-defended; the most advanced minds of a generation work beyond its bluffs to ensure the empire is never caught unaware. The only method to besiege these shores that will have any significant effect is sheer overwhelming numbers. But surely no army would mount such an attack; the casualties would be immeasurable!
This map is inspired by the myth-shrouded mirror weapon that historical writings suggest Archimedes used with “burning mirrors” to set anchored ships on fire during the siege of Syracuse. I remember seeing the Mythbusters episode about this very subject and thinking it all made sense to me! Solar beam your enemies! So here’s my D-Day-like fantasy Greek Omaha Beach attack phased map.
The Totemic have been a nomadic culture for one hundred generations, Devoted followers of the god of travel and adventure. They see journey as a form of worship welcoming others into their caravans and sharing their sacred knowledge, the safe routes, and practices for navigating the roads of Crudilex to outsiders and followers alike. And at the center of this unifying spirit is the wandering church.
The Great Vardo serves as a traveling capital building, or religious cathedral. It is usually accompanied by a parade of other carts, wagons, and horseless carriage as it ventures anywhere and everywhere, only ever stopping during large ceremonies and Totemic Holidays. If the great green Vardo pulled by its team of great ox, hear the songs and smell the food you know the caravan is passing and many more are sure to follow.
“The Totemic served an important civil role, aiding travelers crossing dangerous stretches of the monster strewn grasslands of the plains of avarice between the countries of man. They were honored for ages until the train was constructed and today many have forgotten just how much the nomads served the people.”
- Ida Holly, the tragedy of progress
The Cloud City of Auran hovers in the skies over the dreaming lands of Nocturne. The city is a paradise where all earthly needs are tended to by conjured wind elementals and unseen servants. The people of the lofty city, called Eicio, have grown so completely bored with everyday things that they now indulge exclusively in the one interest they all have left: fashion.
Crudilex’s Air Eicio are elemental spirits of air tethered to a mortal body. They enjoy princely, pretty things; they see their bodies as their models and the world as their personal runway. Their culture is very hedonistic and disconnected from the world. While not all Air Eicio share these traditions, the majority live this way in the cloud city of Auran. Their natural ability to drift weightlessly has completely untethered them from the world below, both literally and culturally.
Learn more about the Citizens of Auran in my book Ida’s Guide balatro.net/eicio
This map includes variations of Auran, Including a festival, Fire, Night and airship hover over the city. As well as a selection of other variations of cities I've created from the same setting as Auran, Crudilex. Also Venice, of earth, and Cyberpunk which feels like it's basically earth now also. lol.
Lmure’s and Gentledevils! Such a shame you all died, But worry not It’s time again for the carnival of vehicular violence! Hell will spit you out if you can out deathrace the Infernal Engines of our champion devils, The 7 deadly sins!
What happens AFTER a full party wipe? the whole team dies, the battle is lost is this the end for our heroes?. Nope! They are sent to hell. Now the trick is getting out! Luckily down on the first layer lives “The Ringmaster” a twisted Devil who shirks his duty to the archdevils to instead rake in the soul coins in infernal engine death races!
He offers to planar shift them back home, but only if they win a race against the devilish reincarnations of all the villains they’ve killed in life! The 7 deadly sins- Hell’s poster children for evil and the once-living BBEGs your party has put away. You beat them once right? Cant be so hard now that they are devils!
“The Tipsy Tavern is a great place to hear a good tavern song. The best part, The clashing cultures sing the same song with the words slightly changed. Funny how a few shifted names can change a songs entire message.” - Ida Holly
The Tipsy is a quite famous sailors tavern and Inn roosted high above the Divwhim peninsula along the rocky bluffs. The tavern is home to all kinds of wayfaring travelers crossing the Fjords and serves as a very active crossroads between cultures all gathering for some respite up and down the coast.
Fights can be common in such places where morals and cultural taboos cross. What could be kind to one sailor could be a curse upon the ancestors to another. This is why the tavern is known as the Tipsy, Always sliding between standings right on the edge. Well that and the 700 foot drop down to the water below!
“Love is an endless conversation that somehow still feels too short.” - Ida Holly
Wedding in the Woods, I’m getting married! This map is my fantasy interpretation of our Venue.
This map is a dedication to my wife. I'm posting this on our wedding day, Time set to release as were at the altar saying I do! What better way for a Cartographer to commemorate their love than to make a map about it, haha. I make two styles of map, Phased and Variation, but for this one I did both!
Thank you for the support everyone has shown me over these years map making, I'm so glad to have the community at my back who has helped me feel secure enough to do something as crazy as planning a whole wedding! It’ll be a little quiet for awhile as Im off to my honeymoon! Cheers!
-Balatro
“The Red Waste is unforgiving, but the rewards for the persistent are great. Careful though friend. They call it Rattlesnake Gulch not for the creature, But for how it coils and winds and often rattles.” - Ida Holly
The mines belong to the Hellcat brothers now, But our outriders are nothing but fair. The Law of Rattlesnake gulch is clear- Who can hold it, is who keeps it. You want my mines to meet me by the river, high noon. No funny stuff, Me- and you- To the last in the chamber. Whoever stands after gets the gulch and the other rides out into the suns never to be seen again. Or gets the gulch forever, from 6 feet under it. What say you?
This map dives deep into the “Rocks fall everyone dies” scene. Nothing spices up a duel at noon more than a sudden rockslide. I guess mother nature wanted in on the action!
The servers handle everything! Employee productivity and workflow, Even The cooling systems, It's all managed by the servers algorithms to maximize profit! Correct; cybersecurity too, Why do you ask?
Welcome to the Credcoin head office! Digital currency is our business. Please follow me and we can begin the tour. Here is our server room, Chilly I know. All digital Credcoin in and the city come through this office! All across the land citizens are Implanting a computer in their heads that handles everything in life including your credfolio(™). It's very simple. You think about investing, Think your access code, and Wala! You just invested! All nural-links in the city connect right to this server room across the network. Is it vulnerable to cyberspace attacks? I think a better question is: Is it valuable to cyberspace- attraction!
Everyone will have one! Haha.ha. But yes, If somehow someone breached into our systems the damage they could do to the economy would undo the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of investors.
Who wants to see the ping pong table in the break room!
“On The Dreamland Express. All cars are sleeper cars.” - Ida Holly
All aboard! The Dreamland Express departs Bedburrow station and makes its way across Nocturne on route to Nod, Stops through Leather, Languor, Somnolence, and Torpor. Transfers to Lucid on Platform Zzzz. All trains to Coma have been canceled. All ABOOOOARD!
The aetherial realms of thought and dream are so complex and ephemeral to the beings of the waking world. It's a land where metaphor has no meaning. Things are both conceptual and literal at all times, even time moves in odd intervals. Lucky for the staff of the Dreamland Express. Tasked with bringing sleeping mortals across the boundary for their nightly sojourn in the lands of Nocturne.
As long as your circadian rhythm is in sync, the Dreamland Express will get you there right on time to witness the mysteries in the theater of memory. Sleep deep, and follow your feet, It's never good to snap out of the fog of sleep early before you reach your destination.
“In the realms of madness in the darkness between the stars the beings of pure thought dream up what form they will take when they breach into reality. Horrors literally beyond imagination.” - Ida On the Far Realms.
Equipped with a few potions of water breathing and with the help of their Triton guide the heroes plunge deeper and deeper in search of the lost ship. Silently descending for what feels like hours until the sun grows weak above. Precious few glittering beams of light offer a fleeting comfort as creeping inhuman murmuring begins infecting their minds.
The darkness itself seems to reach out all around the abyssal depths. As you descend ever further into the void the muffled drone of the sea grows quiet and the whispers grow louder. The Thing feels your approach. It knows your sins. And it’s massive- terrible eye opens at the bottom of the cold, angry nothing.
“Power of a leader is derived from their people. Some leaders take that- maybe a bit too literally.” - Ida Holly
High over the desert city, the throne of psychics serves as the conduit for immense power for it’s sovereign. Only a fool would challenge one whose power is drawn from an entire city's worth of energy atop their own tower!
Inspired by Sarlona from the Eberron setting this map imagines an encounter where the ruler of a city has hive minded the population and gathered all the strength together in themselves. Serving as a massive physic beacon and conduit. When challenged by the players they unleash this power sending chunks of their throneroom hurtling off into the sands along with the heroes as they fight the superpowered sovereign.
“Tablrough, An entire town shrunken to the size of a tabletop, exists in The Glassway. For a fee you can speak to the wizard who runs it and get shrunken down to live forever as a mini-you. Best be sure thats the life you want to lead before you say yes” - Ida Holly on the Glassway
Borrowers, Hero mice, and Awakened toys alike find themselves sneaking into the bigfolk houses now and again, Generally they are best avoided but sometimes you gotta clamber up right onto their giant tables and get the loot you need!
Inspired by my recent game of Mausritter it occurred to me that “Tiny little guy in a big huge world” is a genre of adventure often explored in books but missed out on in battlemaps! So I tried to dream up a swath of various scenes all set on a table top in a world far bigger than the heroes! Various tones and settings both fantasy and modern, Some meta jokes like a table set up to play DnD on which would be a very funny and brainblasting level of meta layers deep. Also among the variants is a Giant’s table, if in a normal DnD game the players end up on the menu of a family of actual giants!
Cirrus Casino, The floating island playground of the World’s most wealthy, hand selected patrons! This “Impenetrable haven of decadence” is literally above it all and protected from the drab woes of the unwashed masses. So- lets rob it!
The Cirrus Casino, constructed in the cloudy valley of floating island motes, hovers miles above the sandy purple wasteland dunes below, backlit by hundreds of magical Illusionary symbols and light shows. The Cirrus Casino is the playground for the most famous and influential figures in all of Crudilex.
Cirrus is known for more than just its eccentric clientele or glamorous architecture. Its tyrannical master chef, Grelofishal, produces food sought after across all 4 nations. Its master Humunculmancer, Jakacoru Peel, creates prized familiars for the world's preeminent mages. Most of all, the casino's mysterious owner, the Gorgon Enchante’ Cirrus.
The Casino was commissioned by Enchante who serves as hostess and proprietor of all future events including the Monoskiff classic airship race, Sky Yacht shipshow, and the Premier Auction where all the greatest and most valuable artifacts of Crudilex are collected and sold to the affluent and hand-selected clientele of the world's most notable figures.
This map is set in the same setting as my book, Ida’s Guide, Crudilex, and is inspired by all the great heist movies! The entire thing is meant to evoke that feeling of executing the perfect plan with your crew during some kind of big fancy event, even Ocean's Eleven style. When I first ran this encounter, I included a handful of criminal organizations who were invested in the crime with a “Pick one to protect you; the rest are coming after you” sort of complication on top. Because the only thing better than pulling a heist is another crew also hitting the same casino at the same time!
“Agrakata is a well defended city. Only a fool would try any sneak into the palace of the Phoenix king. And such a fool would need these maps of the city's aquifers, hopefully such a fool has 250 gold.” - Ida Holly
The Sneaking Into the City, Rumor has it the main well connects to an underground river that flows out of the city. Guard patrols out in the dunes are infrequent, Once you're in you’ll need to creep your way to the Palace. Stay out of the light!
One little slip up in an otherwise perfectly defended city. An opening to get you behind the walls and not far from the palace where the crown, your target, is. Now here's the rub. You set off alarm bells and the whole operation is a bust, because we can't just steal the crown we need to REPLACE it with this fake and the royals can't be none-the-wiser. So this is a sneaky quest, in and out in silence, Got that, bard?
Designing the layout of this map I knew I wanted it to be a Mediterranean city, and for it to be beautiful and opulent, a city of plants and art filled with life and for the players to be sneaking in during a rare time of quiet through an otherwise very busy and lively city. For this map I wanted to pull from Turkish/Ottoman architecture like the blue mosque and the terraced houses in Mardin.
“The ancient city of A’taran is built upon the limestone Cenotes where the stairways lead to the depths. The dead are offered to the underworld in exchange for the pure life-giving water of its pools.” - Ida Holly, On the Triton sea.
The Underdark reaches below most of the surface world. But sun-dwellers will tell you it's all glowing mushrooms and Duergar. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are biomes of a thousand kinds most upper-folk have never even seen. In the west, we have the limestone caverns, a thousand times larger than those seen in the rest of the deep. Formed in the primordial eras from beds of bone and coral, the earth around is literally formed of fossils and death.
The Sunless sea there is brilliant, and the water is perfectly pure, cleaned by the stone. The death-granting life. They say there are windows to the surface where you can see the shine of your blinding sun through Cenote. But know when you drink from our waters down here, you are a guest in the underworld. And the drow are witnessing each trespass.
This map is inspired by a thread I did on Twitter a few years ago, discussing the incredible real-life locations of our world and how the settings might inspire us to be more creative in our fantasy world-building! So many amazing locations outside of just forests, mountains, and fields!
“Most fixers have a whole separate list of gigs they know go bad they give to crews they don't like. But if you don’t die, that means getting onto the ‘Reliable’ list” - Ca$he, Japantown Gun runner
It's an easy gig: swipe the car and get it to Japantown. Is it close to the precinct? Yes. Is the payout bad? Also, yes. Is it a bait car loaded with unregistered firearms? No - they are registered. Look, you're a new crew. Good luck finding something better without any rep.
The city doesn't favor the brave or the stupid. It does not favor anyone. Runners have to put in the work for every inch they claim on the streets, and that means taking big risks for next to nothing back. You want to survive? Become useful. That starts here, kid. So steal that car and get it where it needs to go clean, and keep the heat low - well… as low as you can.
Phased maps like this are a special challenge. Since the car doesn't move, the background does, which means I had to make 10 separate phases! It took three weeks of working between my usual releases to finish this one because I made the dumb decision not to cut any corners and made each area a fully realized map. Cool locations you’ll just drive right by during the chase. ;_;
But hey! That means if you wanted to, you could use those locations later with the no-chase variant of the map that removes the cars. (Which also allows for finer control if the players want to get creative with their driving or if an NPC isn't at the wheel.)
This map, while being a LOT of work (close to 100 hours), was so fun to make, and I hope it does well because I’d love to do more Cyberpunk car chases like this! I already have some cool ideas!
“Let's see you get out of THIS one, superdorks!” - Evil Doctor Notida
The villainous lair was easy to find, almost too easy! Entering, there wasn't a guard or henchman in sight. Just a large metal tank and enough explosives to blow up half the city! The alchemical vats and laboratory beakers bubbled, and the only sound was the sudden slam of the iron exit door. Gas filled the chamber, and your vision began to blur; the last thing you saw was the villain's boots as he walked away.
You awake, bound to four chairs next to the gathered bombs, a cartoonishly long fuse leading to a cannon pointed directly at the pile! Your arch-nemesis clears his throat to begin his evil monologue.
"Well, well, heroes! You've managed to uncover my secret alchemical laboratory. But NOW, let's see if you can ever ESCAPE IT! Surely, some capable adventurers like you can break free from a few locks and chains before the fuse burns! MWA ha ha ha!!"
"Between cults building stone monoliths, the heat, and the sand storms, I can't decide what I'd rather do me in." - Ida Holly
Listen up, soldiers! This information cost our greatest spies their lives. The line of obelisks siphons power from all across the land, funneling it back to the enemy's kingdom. Each one feeds the next in an endless line of invisible power, rerouting ley lines, shaping the landscape, and draining everything for the benefit of the enemy!
The chain of obelisks reinforces each other with their arcane energies. Once completed, they are nearly indestructible. However, if they are connected to the arcane link BEFORE they are finished being built, then destroyed, all the power will flow outward into the wastes - like opening a dam as a river trench is being dug.
There is no telling what that much magic released at once will do; the least you can hope for is a bad sandstorm. But it is the one weakness of the chain, and our only hope!
Deep below the castle dungeons the servants hear the cries of those who are taken. But the Duke of the castle continues to forbid anyone from investigating, and prisoners continue to vanish. Lich’s Lair! Also with 10 other variations from archeological dig to a Fallout vault!
The main map of this pack is a Lich’s Lair where a necromancer secretly prepares to preform the transformation, but this map collection includes 10 other variations as well! A pirate’s cove, sewer cistern, fallout vault, Yuan-Ti jungle shrine, a cloning facility, a red dragon’s horde, A graffiti covered buildsite inspired by Cyberpunk 2077’s Dogtown, a myconid colony, And a dinosaur fossil archeological dig site!
The lich’s lair variant map is part of a Noir-inspired murder mystery one-shot, Murder! At castle Kradsten. The 4 hour whodunit adventure places each of the characters at the scene of the crime with only a handful of suspects, including each other! Because in this One-Shot mystery the twist is- a member of the party is a PLANT!
Well of the Golden Serpent: A legendary ruin, once the heart of a great city deep in the jungle. Abandoned and swallowed by overgrowth, only the bravest are said to accept the endless riches the myths promise. Surely without any sort of ironic twist.
“The Serpent god Nisi’Mammo is the patron of green and gifts. Anything you desire can be yours with a visit to her well. But you will forever be changed. Contorted to her likeness forever more.” - Ida Holly, reading ancient writing on the wall of the Well of the Golden Serpent.
Every adventurer has heard the legend, a well the size of a castle whose waters house a giant statue made of pure gold in the shape of a titanic snake - the Golden Serpent. Standing at the edge of the well and asking for eternal wealth is all the price that needs to be paid for more gold than one could carry.
Countless pirates, conquistadors, and adventuring parties have bushwhacked through the jungle in search of the well, and so far, those who return are fewer in number, or forever changed. But the one thing that defines every person who has seen the Well: they will speak nothing of it, no matter how persuasive the questions may be.
This map is made featuring the latest Early Access assets the EA team has gotten to play with, with a Jungle theme! I am very grateful to be among the chosen members to get to experiment with these assets and share them here in first looks with you!
"In the forests of Dolver, there is a city fallen to ruin before its completion, cursed to wait forever for its citizens to return." - Ida Holly.
Everyone perished before completion, building their new kingdom in the unexplored, mysterious pines without discovering the horrors that lurked among the needles. Every citizen either died or vanished, leaving the castle to fall into ruin.
The strange, haunting need to protect its people awoke something in the kingdom. Protective of its citizens who fell before the moat was dug, it lies in wait for their return and grows ever wearier as their homes overgrow and crumble. The castle finally arose when strangers sought to steal from the bones of its people.
As it rose, awakened as an elemental of the ruined kingdom, so too did the citizens. Their skeletons adorned with arms, they returned to defend their home.
“The effects of a legendary beast taking a lair has on the land is not well understood. Perhaps it is a residual bleed from the potent magic within them? All we have is conjecture for now.’ - Ida Holly, On the Primal Beast
“It’s said the creature came from long ago, slumbering in the molten rock below the geysers. And one day the thunder of war roused it, with thousands of years of hunger it ate an entire army in one go before slinking off into that tunnel and making its lair.
Not comes out of that mountain’s maw but steam and the trickling river of rock-stained water. And not goes in but fools like you. There is no justice to be found for the ones who lost their lives to the Primal Beast. Best leave it alone or the river will turn from orange- to red.”
This map is inspired by geyser fields like Yellowstone! I love the idea of a monster layer set above a slumber caldera that slowly wakes up as the legendary effects of a lair grow more and more powerful, causing more geysers to form and eventually- possibly a big eruption the heroes have to prevent. That’s just how I’d run it anyway. What would you put in this monster-lair?
“Making it through another year is worthy of celebration. Your birthday for you and the New year for us all!” - Ida Holly
Even adventurers need a break, a festival and celebration now and again. And after a rough year heading off to the capital to watch the local customary magical sphere descend might be just the thing.
This year marks my 3rd year map making,
It's an alternate version of one of my favorite maps, the Deco-city and includes a version without the text, ball, and an isolated ball for your convenience. I'm really grateful for all the patrons who helped support my work this year and going forward, 48 maps a year each with 20+ versions between variations and phases. It's been a huge huge year for me and I’ve never stopped appreciating how lucky I am to do this for a living.
Here's to 2024! Happy new year!
Pipe Works! Deep below the city, down in the ducts that feed air and power to the mega buildings above, a second hidden society thrives, humming with life creeping in shadows. Those who go down rarely come out either because they can't afford to, or… well..
Some gigs are going to require you to get creative with your entrance and the ducts below the city are always an option. But let me tell you, they got to be the final last option. Between the fumigations, the cavernous drops, the radiation, the phycos, and the corp vampires…
All I’m saying is sometimes sneaking is more dangerous than blasting your way in through the front door.
But if you really wanna pop a sewer grate and crawl inside, be my guest.
This map includes 8 variations. The pipeworks, Inspired by the stories of the Underground of Night City, Flooded and unflooded. A homeless camp, steampunk, In a storm, an overpass, oil rig and spaceport!
Dark Acidemia: 9 maps each inspired by variations on academic libraries. From Eldritch horror, to modern Oxford, a Cyberpunk Corpo Datafortress. Or a blasted post apocalyptic waste with the last copy of the one book that can save the world.
“Alright students, Look to your left, look to your right. One of those people will not pass my class. And the other will get eaten by an eldar horror…” - Ida Holly at Azmik University
In the sheltered halls of Dark Acidemia, where forbidden wisdom intertwines with occult secrets, lies the infamous Forbidden Library. This battlemap plunges you into the heart of a archive of tomes with contents that blur the boundaries between knowledge and danger.
Navigate towering bookshelves that seem to whisper forgotten incantations, their tomes guarded by spectral librarians with eyes aflame with eldritch knowledge. Or barter with the Corporate elite to unlock their vast data fortress guarded by an army of black I.C.E. Or investigate the unhallowed sanctuary of Miskatonic University, where the line between scholar and Cuthluian clutist becomes obscured in the shadow of the jewel of their collection… The Necronomicon.
Venture into the forbidden depths of the Dark Acidemia, where each page turned might lead to enlightenment or unleash unimaginable darkness. Will you uncover the secrets hidden within, or become lost in the labyrinth of forbidden knowledge?
Sand Skimmer, an 11-phased battle map. Crossing the vast deserts poses numerous dangers – exposure, thirst, and, out in the dunes and canyons, the most formidable threat is the Bulettes. In the soft grounds, they can grow... quite large.
“If a Salt Dunes or Redwaste outlaw starts running while holding up your sand skiff, you run too. You’re on the same team now.” - Ida Holly
The dunes, though only 20 miles across, divide the kingdom so completely. No army can march through; no caravan can trade. Out there, it's an empire of monsters and vultures feeding on what they leave behind. That is, of course, besides the Sand Skiffs.
Officially deemed a crime by the crown, Skiffs are considered too risky. One in every 5 skiffs never returns, but that's exactly how the Skiffjocks like it. No oversight, no cargo checks. Just coin and speed. Smugglers, outlaws, bandits, criminals – they all make a good living taking anything and anyone brave enough to skim out under the oppressive sun and launch into the razor winds to outrun the Sandshark Bulettes to the canyon rocks at the desert's heart.
I'm sure you have your reasons for not taking the two-day trip around the dunes; hope it's worth it.
Tech may have advanced in the Cyberpunk future but that hasn't stopped corporations from corner cutting construction and bribing inspection officials. Gangs trading explosive rounds hasn't helped structural integrity much either.
In the big city, there are no graveyards. Those fortunate enough to have someone who cares about them are incinerated into ash and disposed of in the mountains of trash. With a good insurance plan, you might even receive a holo-memoriam for a few years. For the rest of us— the nobodies caught in the crossfire as you psychos launch rockets at each other—mass tombs made of concrete and rebar await.
Every flickering street sign and distant siren is a dirge to the struggle for existence in a place where the line between the living and the discarded blurs into a haunting symphony of neon dissonance.
And I'm just trying to get to work on time.
“They say the Queen of Sirens spends her days lavishly lounging on her throne and reading her collection of messages in bottles that will never reach shore like letters from a lover.” - Ida Holly
The Siren's Throne is an inhospitable island chain in the distant stormy seas made up of jagged cliffs above the surf and tangled seaweed strangled around countless rocks and wrecks below. It's bad luck to sail within a mile of it- and worse luck to follow the songs into the heart of it.
Fog on the tide is generally considered an Ill omen in the Triton coast. Hides potential rocks in the surf, Drifting debris, but also- worst of all it covers anything that may wish to swim up close to your craft while you cross between islands.
And you best be careful out past Guillotine Point. Never sail where your chew could snag on rocks. Always wear a token to give to the lost lady of the tides to lead you back if you go over. And stay alert because that's where the Mara’Kahua and the Sirens hunt.
and take care and plug your ears in the cold hours of the morning.
With an airship in pursuit the heroes fall through a cavern opened by its bombardment. Stumbling into an ancient forgotten Magi-tech laboratory. Back against the wall, the only way to escape is to delve deeper into the unknown.
“The world is strewn with ancient ruins left behind by forgotten civilizations. Dungeons deep and vast built to entomb ancient peoples, and forgotten magics.” - Ida Holly
United by a need to rediscover the ancient technologies of the forgotten arcane civilization, you gathered as experts in your field to find and reawaken the powers of old. You were on the verge of success when the Imperial airship admiral captured you. Intent on using the power for evil, he forced you to guide his armada high into the mountains where your research led you. At the 11th hour, you managed to escape, and now, with only seconds ahead, it's up to you to reach the treasure first!
However, it wasn't until the fourth day of searching for the entrance to the dungeon that you began to hear the propellers of the airship on the horizon.
This map draws inspiration from Final Fantasy 14, envisioning a Galarian airship bombing a cavern that houses a late Allagan rebel research facility. I aimed to incorporate various design influences from across the setting, despite not being intimately familiar with it. I made an effort to ensure its relevance to most traditional TTRPG games, and I'm pleased with the final result!
Roots, if given enough time, can shatter steel, and there is said to be magic that can speed up that time to just moments. The forgotten forest gods don't appreciate it when their few remaining altars are trampled.
“There are legends of ancient devines- fallen into a slumber- waiting to be remembered.” - Ida Holly
There stands to the north a dense, ancient forest shrouded in an ethereal mist. Deep within its heart lies the altar to the ancient peoples' forgotten forest god, the Ent Father. Legends speak of the Ent Father's wisdom, and druids often come to this place to commune with nature and seek guidance. Unbeknownst to you adventurers, tonight, the forest is alive. There is 100 hungry spirits in the trees looking down.
Subtle tremor ripples through the ground. The statue of the Ent Father, carved from ancient wood and adorned with emerald leaves, comes to life. Its eyes, once stone-cold and lifeless, illuminate a brilliant shade of green. The altar beneath it begins to pulse with vitality. Vines and flowers crack through the stone, wrapping around the temple. The air fills with the scent of rotting leaves and wet earth, as the magical energy envelops you.
the Ent Father, after countless generations, has awoken.
Like ZOINKS! It’s Halloween. So here is the last map of my Fun Scary October series! An 8 map collection of maps inspired by Scooby Dooby Doo! From Zombie Island to the Harlem globetrotters!
The last map of the Fun Scary series is here and its Scooby doo inspired! I grew up watching the 60s scooby on cartoon network and there is no way I could do a fun scary theme without the number one mystery gang!
This collection includes many of the gang’s most Iconic cases as well as the mystery machine in the bottom portion of each, arriving on the scene to unmask some ghoulies! There are also variations available without the Mystery Machine present in case you want to use them in a normal fantasy, or DnD game,
Among the collection is the Ghoulish Graveyard, the Abominable Lodge, the Globe Trotters Court, Knight at the Museum, The glowing diver’s Dark Lagoon, and Zombie Island! As well as the haunted house the bats fly past in the original intro and Funland. The theme park that was haunted by a robot for whatever reason. It was the 60s, haha.
“That Can't Be Good For The Table."
Throughout October, I've been crafting my annual set of horror-themed maps—four in total. This year marks the official third installment of this tradition! Inspired by Laudna this years theme is FUN SCARY!
This particular map, however, veers more towards the fun side rather than pure fright, featuring Howl's Moving Castle! It's not only my all-time favorite movie but also a massive influence on my writing and world building. I've poured extra love into this creation.14 phases that guide players through some of the film's iconic scenes.
The Town of Pottsfield, located somewhere in The Unknown,Over the Garden Wall, Is thrilled to welcome all to take part in the harvest! So long as you don’t trample the crops… If you do, Enoch will be forced to sentence you to... a few hours of manual labor.
For the entire month of October, as always, I'll be creating horror-themed maps—four in total. This marks the third year of this tradition, and it's officially becoming a favorite! This year, we're taking a page out of Laudna's book. The theme of all of them for 2023 is FUN SCARY! Last week was the Addams Family Mansion. This week We’re getting a little lost Over the Garden Wall!
Specifically Pottsfield from episode two! Where perhaps your players don’t receive sucha favorable punishment from the Gord headed skeletons. The encounter is imagined as a clash with the leader of the chamber of commerce, Enoch, who may or may not be a cat inside of a giant autumnal maypole.
Dodging his flailing ribbons, braving the high winds and kicking up, leaf filled dust as the creature flails in a whirling dervish. The map has 12 phases, but phases 8-12 actually loop into each other allowing the boss to continue spiraling as long as the battle goes on!
Their house is a museum. When people come to see 'em. They really are a scre-am! The First of my Fun-Scary October Halloween maps! The Addams Family Mansion! In a cozy nook between the Swamp and the graveyard! 0001 Cemetery Lane.
For the entire month of October, as always, I'll be creating horror-themed maps—four in total. This marks the third year of this tradition, and it's officially becoming a favorite! This year, we're taking a page out of Laudna's book. The theme of all of them for 2023 is FUN SCARY! And what better way to start than with a map inspired by everyone's favorite goth icons? Putting the 'nuclear' in the nuclear family!
The Addams family house! primarily based on the 60s floor plan, but I've also incorporated elements from the 90s movies for the basement and an attic.
In addition to the various levels of the mansion, you'll find three eerie variations: Dark, Stormy, Dark AND Storms. There's also a classic black and white version. My personal favorite, though, is a hot pastel pink rendition, based on how the house actually appeared in color. Surprisingly, much of the house was super bright, designed for black and white TV viewing!
Every year I make 4 horror, halloween, spooktober maps only for the whole month! And now you can grab them all together just in time to plot out your evil DM macinations for a October one-shot or speical goulish episode of your main game!
This bundle Includes maps from Spooktober 2021!
Crye 1313 the Ghost Train: The Haunted train traped in an endless loop as it endless attempts to escape the disaster in eberron.
Dark and Stormy Night: A haunted graveyard cast stark shadows as the thunder crashes, The Rain pours down, and the tombs open up
Sunset at the Vampire's Castle: The Lair of a vampire lord resting in his crypt tell night falls. As his prisoners you have until night arrives to prepare for the coming battle!
The Pumpkin Hut: A cute little home to haunted familiars inside a giant rotting pumpkin!
Every year I make 4 horror, halloween, spooktober maps only for the whole month! And now you can grab them all together just in time to plot out your evil DM macinations for a October one-shot or speical goulish episode of your main game!
This bundle Includes maps from Spooktober 2022!
Catacombes de Paris:A phase battlemap where the lights in the underground are slowly plunging the path behind in dangrous deadly darkness.
Frankenstine’s Lab: A phased battlemap where the creature is risen up to the sky during a particualry promising storm!
Night of the living Dead: Featuring the house from the moive that made zombies famous imagined in a varaity of ways!
and The Little shop of horrors: Where this humble oddities shop sells our heroes a blood hungry plant with a sulty deep baratone.
When the party visited the local Onsen they expected a well earned moment of peace and relaxation. But when the wizard asked where the hot water came from the staff all began to act very suspicious.
“Listen potions and spells are well and good but the kind of healing I’d like is 3 or 4 hours in a hot spring.” - Ida Holly
This map is inspired by the stunningly beautiful hot springs from all over japan. I did my absolute best to capture some of what makes them so stunning. It includes variations including a cyberpunk version in the heart of the city, A Volcanic take like a fire temple, A sky island, a Dramatic Anime bridge duel showered in Cherry blossom petals and more!
WARNING! Hull Breach detected! Station pressure dropping. Reactor failure imminent. All engineer personnel report to airlock subsection 3 for emergency repairs. WARNING! Hull Breach detected! Station pressure drop-
We’ve lived our entire lives planet-side. Where you take things like- air and gravity for granted. They say “everything in space wants to kill you” but they should really hammer home how “Everything” includes space itself! The vacuum seems like a harmless novelty when your in a jet-enabled suit but once space finds even the smallest rupture or failure in the hull-
Well suddenly the line between outside and inside gets real, VIOLENTLY, blurry.
This map is for all you Sci-Fi fans! There isn't a huge collection of Sci-fi phased maps out there and what better scene to take on in a space faring TTRPG than a hull breach! I imagine this scene being less of a combat encounter and more of a desperate dash to stop the reactor from exploding.
Which- If I'm honest, I have no idea if any kind of explosions can even happen in space- But its kick ass and that's why we have the fiction part on Science fiction! haha.
Top of the World! Climbing the highest mountain to witness the beauty and magic that hide above the clouds at the edge of the world. But tread carefully, one wrong move and an avalanche would rain down.
“There must be some calculable proportional number between the beauty of a location and the danger.” - Ida Holly
High in the alpine reaches above the veil of clouds where hides a world witnessed most by gods, Where the heavens and earth meet. Few dare to make the days long climb to the top, fewer still survive to the top.
They say, Palidians from all over the world climb the mountain to reach the aurora which many believe is a gate to the celestial realms. A pilgrimage to bask in the physical presence of the divine realm of their patrons or even, if they are worthy, speak directly with their god. But to reach the gate they must first defeat the challenges of the ascent. Avalanches, Ice, and the cold. To speak nothing of the Roc’s high roosts or worst of all- the Yeti.
But there could be no greater reward than basking in the celestial light of the aurora.
At the edge of the frontier on the crossroads sits the last tavern for at least two weeks in any direction. The Crowcover Inn. Best to stop in and enjoy a drink and a hot meal because its bedrolls and jerky from here forward.
“Relius is such a unique family name. I’ve only heard it once before, belonging to one Saint Relius. But surely, this generous, happy-go-lucky host is not the self-proclaimed purifier of the dead and leader of the undead-hunting plague doctors. It would be a long journey from necromancer-hunting fanatic to humble barkeep.”
- Ida Holly. Ida’s Guide to Worlds Beyond Our Own.
The two-floor inn stands on a lonely crossroads — the only building for miles. It looks to have once been a vibrant, popular place, but now it is completely empty and just a step away from run-down. It has an open stable on the side, covered by the second floor overhang.
It is much nicer inside, with bright red drapes hanging over an open vaulted ceiling. Soft record music plays from a Gramophone, and a soft hum emits from three large industrial machines, which appear to be brewing different drinks.
At the bar, a single patron, a Fallen Elf, sits at the counter, behind which an elderly human man cleans a glass. Both regard the characters as they enter but otherwise pay no mind.
Crowcover Inn was once famous, as its founder was a well known adventurer. He had the tavern built many decades ago, out in the most isolated part of the world he could find so that people would have to “earn” its shelter. It has since become a local spot to escape the Phantom Rain and a popular place for hunters to meet up, but otherwise, it mostly stands empty.
During my first time in The Glassway, I said, “sell everything? What does that mean?” Then I saw a store that sells stores. So, my first question was answered, and that was the beginning of many, many more. - Ida Holly
A mysterious demi-plane that is an alleyway between worlds. This location is a black market for all manner of strange, alien, and otherworldly beings, who sell and barter all manner of rare items and artifacts not seen anywhere else.
The Glassway is a narrow alley, tightly packed and crowded between looming buildings. Finding your way to The Glassway is a carefully guarded secret. Many outsiders sometimes accidentally get lost in the side streets of a large city and emerge in the Ninoten Loop, or the back door of the bashful Basana Tavern. Only once one has earned the trust of a shopkeep or vendor will the secret to locating the magical market be offered, usually only when they think you may come back for return business.
Also! You can explore the Live Map of the glassway right now at balatro.net/glassway
Clicking anywhere on the map will pull up the lore of the shopkeep or location of that area of the market!
Supplements for TTRPG games are usually about vast cities, or countries, and sometimes, even whole worlds, but Glassway introduces a new concept: what if we took a single street and examined everything about it? What if we met everyone on it, learned every story and visited every single market stall? The goal of The Glassway is to create a vibrant, entertaining hub with lots to explore and uncover, to add spice to the sometimes dreaded “shopping session” by making it more rewarding and suffusing it with more and better roleplay!
The Cathedral of the Rose, A primary location that my book Ida's Guide centers around! (And 9 other variations like Cyberpunk, Gate to hell, Weddings, Funerals, a vampire lair and more!)
“A giant rose!? Does it come with GIANT CHOCOLATES!?” - Ida Holly
The Cathedral of the Rose stands as a towering ruin at the heart of the Bramblefen. Its majesty is marred by time and the echo of forgotten prayers lingers in the air. This ancient structure is now overgrown with the relentless embrace of the Bramblefen. Tall spires reach for the suns of crudilex, yet are anchored to the ground by the sinuous vines of the rose.
Inside, the cathedral retains a sense of solemn majesty. Stained glass windows, now cracked and shattered, still showers the space in a kaleidoscope of colors. statues of carved stone stand along the walls, etched with intricate patterns and symbols, perhaps of the faith that once thrived within these walls that is now forgotten by time. The white marble floors are now overgrown with a padding of dirt and tall grass. And the ancient pues are now petrified and blanketed with thick moss.
A heavy aura of reverence still hangs in this place where history and nature have woven together in an eerie dance of beauty and decay.
Full collection of all current Balatro maps with a Cyberpunk theme. Including 5 diffrent maps and a total of 15 variations. Inspired by and for settings such as Shadow Run, Cyberpunk Red, Starwars and all grimey city-slime Sci-fi adventures!
High tech-Low life!
Battling a top bobbing Redwood logs you swashbuckle against your opponent is a daring duel, trying to maintain your footing while splitting focus on your opponent and those towering 100 foot trunks shooting down the flume in River Logging Camp a looping phased battlemap.
"Wow! There are enough logs in this river to build an entire forest! And look! A big empty area with nothing but stumps, the perfect place to put it." - Ida Holly, Ida’s Guide to Worlds Beyond Our Own.
Before you is an enormous lumber Mill. The river is filled with so many logs that barely any of the water's surface is visible. You could easily walk across to the other side. The opposite bank of the river slopes steeply upward in tiered cliffs, and a large wooden slide sends logs from the lumber yard above down into the river.
On top of the highest cliff is a small building with a red wooden roof, most likely the place where your contact wants to meet up. No one is around and the only sound to be heard is the rushing water off the Log Flume. But somehow you know- Something isn't right. A suspicion confirmed by the ambushing soldiers waiting in the woods for your guard to be down.
This encounter is another from the Series of maps contained within my book Ida’s Guide! The characters visit this mill expecting to locate some lost loot and instead are attacked by enemies who knew they’d be headed here. This one is also looping! While there is only actually 3 phases you can follow the log from the upper river down the flume and into the lower river over and over forever!
The Water Temple, An ancient puzzle locks the submerged entrance to an underground temple. The party pulls a series of levers to block the river feeding the lake above, and eventually have access. But- that damn doesn't look all too reliable.
Across the nations of the world it’s denoted that many, even, most civilizations build along the sea, for trade and food. As a cartographer I can say without doubt over the ages the seas have crept closer and closer.
Leads one to wonder, What history of the ancient world sleeps under the tide, What volumes could we fill if only we had gills. - Ida Holly
Note: Ancient temple structures are unreliable. Especially puzzles, And double so for moving parts.
The map comes in ten phases; the first few are ideally done out of combat allowing the players to explore and use the levers to dam the water above. Then from phase 6 on the dam begins to burst. At this point the players have a choice where to go, into the cave below the lake or away from the wall of water crashing over the empty lake.
This map is inspired by the Wonderful movie Atlantis: Lost Empire, and the infamous Zelda dungeon from which the map gets its name, and is a Remaster of a map I made 2 years ago. One of my favorite and most popular maps, which I’ve lovingly recreated to keep it up to date with the skill level I have now!
Grand Arena, The stands filled with roaring crowds seeing what sort of surprises the master of the games will put against the characters! Doesn't matter if you survive so long as it’s a good SHOW!
“Of course I find the arena barbaric! This is a flag for a different “Oglore the gladiator destroyer.”... It's a very common name.” - Ida Holly
Pit fights, Races, Sports, and COMBAT! The grand arena is a scene present across all genres! This variation map offers many ideas for challenges, types of games and a handful of alternative settings where you might toss your players into combat to placate their adoring fans!
This map includes the following variants. Grand arena, King of the hill, water challenge and bloodbath. Then we also have Truck rally, Shogun’s Arena, The Ancient ruins and the cyberpunk pit fights. Also a probending arena for those playing the new Avatar TTRPG!
And the Theatre- which if you're a drama kid like me you know is the most deadly arena of all. (The piles of bodies from the dead social lives blocked out the sun)
Glorious End. Said to be the greatest airship ever constructed. With a crew of 400, Including Aeronautic artificers and soldiers. Four artillery cannons and 20 auxiliary. Nations surrender when its shadow crosses their border. And YOU gotta sneak inside!
“The shots came from that direction, Understood captain- Eliminating that direction”
Stealth missions are one thing. It's another thing entirely to rescue a captured princess who is being held in a 20,000 ton flying death fortress. How do we get in when it never needs to land? How do we get OUT?! The thing has a small kingdoms worth of enemies aboard!
We're gonna need so many feather falls…
It’s Finished! This map, and all 6 of its decks, took me at least two full days of time to complete over the last few months. I designed it to be a flying dungeon, a crawl built into a vehicle! I’ve always loved airships and their maps and wanted to make the absolute BIGGEST one I could. At 75x75 with multiple floors, this has to be the biggest one out there. I applaud anyone who could make something bigger!
It also shows off lots of new Sci-Fi assets just made available to the Early access team of Inkarnate which I’m very lucky to be a part of!
Shipwreck Treehouse! Stranded on a remote island this village in the treetops was built out from the ropes and planks of the very vessel that betrayed you.
“Just look at it like a vacation! an extended, forced, no escape, starvation induced… horror filled VACATION!” - Ida Holly
The storm shattered the HMS Lillian against the rocks of the island. And for weeks you collected timber and rope, waiting for the fleet to notice the signal fires. But as time drags on and days march forward it feels more and more likely that there won't be an escape from this island.
So the crew begins to build a life here. Houses first, then bridges, soon leadership, protection, even a market.
Months become years, and somehow the life you left behind fades away. Of all the places and all the people you could have been stranded with, these ain't so bad.
This map is a variation collection with a few different takes. Most inspired by the Swiss family Robinson, Tarzan, Hook. All those good old treehouses. It also includes other variations, Includings An apocalyptic dry ocean outpost, Sky Islands, A treetop village, A waterworld-like floating fortress, a pirate lair, Even a Cyberpunk Ship Breaking yard! And more!
In the far off future of 1943, In a strange world not unlike our own! Stupendous Dieselpunk machines of war rampage through bombed out cities and lead the battle for the soul of the world! Punch a hole right through that enemy line! Go get em boys!
“I’ve seen many worlds, many cultures. At some point, everyone invents the tank.” - Ida Holly.
“Well, The Moonwell gasket is leaking. We only have 100 gallons of fuel to get us through this siege and drive it back to base. We're surrounded on all sides, the bridges across the river are bombed out and I haven't had lunch.”
Well… I can fix one of those problems right now.”
Captain Buck said, handing the engineer an MRE. "As for the rest, I leave that in the capable hands of the lord. Stations everyone."
“Cap there ain't no way, All the roads are blocked.”
“Well, We’ll make our own road then, Right through the mayoral Estate.”
This map is actually set in the city of Saradross in my setting of Crudilex. The setting is heavily influenced by Dieselpunk and WW2. While it may not seem like it from the map alone it is in fact a D&D setting just not rooted fully in a medieval world. Crudilex includes technology akin to what might be seen in our world up to the 40s, But is rooted more in fantasy. Experiencing an evolving technological timeline entirely separate from our world, giving it an Anachronistic flair which allows many kinds of stories to play out in the setting.
Like driving a tank through a building for instance!
Don’t be afraid to dream your worlds bigger, DnD can be anything!
Towering apartments nearly 100 years old stand side by side almost like one massive beautiful building flanking the Canal running through the heart of this Parisian inspired city street.
“Adventurers are rarely called ‘Heroes’ even while they are fighting against evil. I think a big reason for this is the way some behave when left to their own devices in large cities.” - Ida Holly
I have always loved the architecture of Parisian apartment blocks and have felt like they would make an awesome battle map that plays more with verticality. With 10 Variations Busy, Empty, Ablaze, Lowtide, Dead of night, Post apocalyptic, Sinkhole, Cyberpunk (Inspired by Blade Runner), Pridemonth celebration, And Grand Nostridan, A location from my own setting of Crudilex.
In the dark Cyberpunk future you will surprise yourself at the lengths you will go to afford even the worst of living conditions. Megabuilding apartment towers provide more spacious accommodations for the low price of sharing an elevator with thousands of other people.
“Still cheaper than a studio downtown.” - CyberIda holly
Cyberpunk Apartments! A battlemap set on the 1203 floor of a massive residential mega structure. Containing bodegas, Night clubs, Hacker Lairs, and Drug dens! Everything you need towering above the city below. Never go outside again!
This map contains 11 variations, Each in a Cyberpunk vibe. Inspired by Night City but kept open as to fit into any Dark future or sci-fi setting. Perhaps it’s a criminal satellite or a building in the seeder parts of coruscant!
Deep in the deadlands, Poisoned by decades of undeath. At the heart of this evil, barren place. Lies the forsaken steps. A stair climb to the top of a mountain above which hangs the heart of the curse, A mysterious dark star.
“Sometimes, There is nothing to magic missile BESIDES the darkness!” - Ida Holly
It cost so much to reach even just the first stair. The Plaguelands stretches from the mountain all the way beyond the horizon and all that can be seen is death. No plants, no animals. Just the undead waiting for the black star to awaken and their master to return from the darkness beyond.
The doom that has hung over the horizon threatening this world for a generation has at last found the heroes who can undo it. Hopefully.
After they ascend the Forsaken Steps.
This map is a location from my own setting, Crudilex. And was a location of immense historical importance to a nearly world ending plague. My thought is the location where a BBEG might be waiting for the heroes to come face to face can be just as dangerous or important to their wicked plot as the villain themselves!
Too many enemies to fight, your party flees until they reach a vast gorge, The only way across,A rickety bridge. Would you go for it? The Rope Bridge of Doom, A 5 phased battle map inspired by the classic fight scene from Indiana Jones.
“The surprise doesn't come from the fact that it collapsed, Look at it, Of COURSE it collapsed. The surprise was not knowing WHEN or HOW it would!” - Ida Holly
Every campaign isn't complete without a few key adventure scenes, A statue that comes to life, A door you can’t get through, A slowly lowering ceiling, and the Rope Bridge of Doom. This map is my take on the classic battle at the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with the Thuggee cult chasing after them.
And you know,
If Indy could have played as an Aarakocra at level 1, I’m sure the scene would have played out VERY differently.
The Throne of bones, Upon which the most powerful lich who has ever been sits. Their power growing, magnifying. Waiting for the fools with the audacity to challenge them.
“There are terrible things in all corners of the Elseworlds. But when evil convinces the people it is good there is no greater horror.” - Ida Holly
The Queen's chambers have been breached. But after clambering the chains anchoring the citadel to the dead god below you expected an army waiting for you. Not so. The castle gate is open, the courtyard is silent. The only thing that tells you this place is not completely abandoned is the soft wheezing laughter and the faint red glow of magic emitting from the throne of bones.
Vlaakith looks through tattered strands of hair with glowing eyes. The Lich queen speaks slowly…
“Well, You have worked so hard to get my attention, now you have it. Before I add you to my army of the dead I should very much like to hear what you have to say.”
This map is the last of a three part series I’m calling “The Battle of Tu’Narath” which imagines a chaotic clash between the powers of Wildspace all converging on the dead-god city and seat of the Lich queen of the Gith. Part one can be found named “Nautiloid Vs Spelljammer” marks the arrival into the city, the second part is the battle through the city to reach this final map! part three, where the characters will reach the throne room for a final encounter with the City’s Lich Queen!
At the tiered waterfalls where the river meets the sea hundreds of pirate crews gather in the bones of old shipwrecks. connected by rotting rigging and swaying rope bridges. Here no navy would ever dare sail, but still they live in fear of the kraken who sleeps below the bay.
“Keelhaul Falls is a den of horrors. Thousands of ships, more sailing in each day. Murderers, Monsters, and Pirates all living among each other in a bandit camp that grew unchecked to become its own terrible city. Its small wonder the bay is the nesting ground of the Kraken. A fitting throne for the king of horrors”
- Ida Holly, Regarding Triton and the Western Sea.
The Pirate Kings tout that the Kraken never strikes from it’s nest in the bay because they keep it so happy and fed with the sinking of merchant and Imperial ships. They rest easy and drink their rum, play their songs, and fight their fights sparing the growing- world ending monster- left unchecked just a few hundred feet below them.
But nothing is sure in Keelhaul other than chaos. And one day those wakes as the foot of the falls will become choppy. And the glowing yellow eyes will look up and see exactly what sort of prey the surface has to offer when whales and sinking ships stop being enough.
Until that day the pirate kings will continue to gloat about their favorite pet.
Facing the villain who’s evil machinations are nearly complete on top of the very machine they have come to destroy as it’s being built! Dodging chains, sparks, and molten iron in this battlemap!
“The legends of the age of magic say an object with sufficient magic thrown into a Quicksilver Crucible emerges as a fully forged humanoid construct, with designs and purpose nearly identical to the intent of the artifact used in its creation.” - Ida Holly
Pouring molten metal overhead spilling from soot blackened Crucible, Sparks and fire leaping out of cooling casts. The factory hums with life and danger in equal measure. Your party arrives with only minutes perhaps seconds left to spare as the machines of industry make evil artifacts of simple slag.
And from under a shower of sparks your enemy walks, their blade dragging in the ash behind them. Standing between you and the completion of their dark work. Battling over the top of it as it’s constructed.
Be it a Mechanical dragon, a fire giant’s sword, or an army of warforged, this map imagines an ironworks the characters have come to shut down before it completes its task. Having them dodge molten metal and chains and smoke as the doomsday device is constructed around them as the battle rages!
Originally this was imagined as a phased map where the factory is alive, but I elected for variations on the map instead to allow for the widest possible array of things being constructed!
Avast there! It be too late to alter course, mateys. And there be plundering pirates lurkin' in ev'ry cove, waitin' to board. Pirates of the Caribbean! A 4 phased looping battlemap inspired by Disney World!
"Aye, 'tis true, mateys. Dead men tell no tales!" ~ Jolly Roger
Nothing ever goes wrong on a theme park ride, This time couldn't be any different!
This battlemap is inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the magic kingdom, Disney World. And even includes a hidden backstage area! (Though its not strictly accurate.) While I used to be a Cast Member myself I never worked on pirates so I took inspiration from my time at Star Tours. (Mostly by general tone and style not literal layout)
I’m really proud of the 4 phased loop on this map. If you watch a boat at the launch area at the beginning of the attraction, you can follow it all the way through the ride!
Mist Closing In, A 6 Phased battlemap. The players are lost deep in a swamp as an ominous and supernatural mist slowly closes in around them. With muck and water up to the knee and tangles of mangrove roots proving the only surface above the water. And someone or something is lurking… waiting for their moment.
“In the deepest mists, on cold nights in isolated parts of the world it is said the dead can peer through the threshold, and spy upon the world of the living” - Ida Holly, on The Haunted Shallows.
As if being lost and stranded in the Mangrove marsh wasn't bad enough the chill of night creeping in has brought with it a choking mist, for now it hangs low to the water, as if dredging through the muck was too easy, at least now if something jumps out you won't see it coming.
Hopefully it has the decency to make it quick, Dying in the mangrove swamps would be preferable to navigating them half alive.
This map is a variation on an encounter set in my book Ida’s Guide to worlds beyond our own! The world is a fantasy dieselpunk setting and features mechs, called automata. And the players come upon a crew of which is trying to make sport repairs as strange eyes watch in the encroaching mists. You can check out more about this scene and the rest of ida’s guide at balatro.net/lore/#Hauntedshallows
Flight of the Dragons, A 11 Phased battlemap in the skies above the city of dragons. Our heroes become caught in the crossfire of two classing dragons, One serpentine, and the other a tyrannical Acid breathed Ancient Black dragon!
“The Tower was built for dragons, The city was built for their servants. They rule the sky and most mortals live in their shadow- Literally.” - Ida Holly
The Wind dragons have ruled the skies over the city for generations, But the Stone Tyrant of the mountains, King of the earth dragons knew peace would not last forever. And so when the opportunity to be rid of the leader of his rival faction arose, and to cast blame upon the mortals with whom she so Unwisely consorted with, his once in a era chance became clear.
Wait until she was above the clouds, Strike her down, and when her lifeless body crashed down from above his conquest over the human world could begin with all the elemental dragon clans under his wing.
This map was a real test, Close to 100 hours to sort everything out! I finished it only today, as of posting this and it really boiled my eyes burning the midnight oil from 10 to 6am. BUT Here they are! A battlemap where the players hang on for dear life as two dragons attack eachother miles above the surface, Nothing below but a hungry yawning nothingness of sky.
I’m very proud of it! Epic encounters like this always make for a climatic story to have for a game!
“They say the ley lines of this world are what we use for magic- I wonder if the moon has ley lines…” -Ida Holly.
The red glow from the meteor was unmistakable. And all across dunwel fen the crash of it falling from the heavens scared the crows into flight. Followed by the immeasurable flash. Night instantly became day for but a moment. Then the stillness came as everyone in the land realized what had happened.
But after the moment passed a second thunder roared. The pounding of hooves and the readying of those who would seek their fortune. For the magical components of a moon fallen Noctrite meteor were more valuable than some small kingdoms. The race was on, and all around hundreds ran into the forest where the crash happened- Ignoring the glowing red smoke of the coming forest fire.
Another Variation style map, The meteor, the hill before it landed, the glow of the meteor from above, Also versions with other things crashing like a nuke, a spaceship. Some versions that play with the landscape, such as a portal and castle atop a hill. And even a version set on the moon! And more!
“The baser instincts of humans to fight are so deeply ingrained even in times of absolute peace they still insist on beating each other up.” - Ida Holly
Below the tavern is a large whisky barrel that is actually a false door, behind it is an unused sewer path that leads to a cistern. Drained and rebuilt as its own little fortress the thieves guild had set up a hideout. For years they collected loot and spoils there but eventually had more than they knew what to do with. And so the Pit Fights were created, and what was once a useless cistern became the most popular attraction in the whole city.
It’s become something of a public secret, Hell even the guard captain comes in and bests on the fights off the clock.
This map is my transition to working variant maps into my rotation and not just doing phased maps. My maps generally have a narrative meant to inspire encounters, but I’d like these maps to be more applicable to more situations for DMs to use on the fly!
This map includes the following Variations.
Pit fight, Watching crowd, Thieves Guild Trial, Spot Light, Spikes 1-2, Flooded 1-2, Trash Covered, Collapsed, Beast Cage, and Fire.
“So then, Every other day is the day of the living alive then.” - Ida Holly
Inspired by the horror movie this map includes the following 10 variations to allow for a variety of play and use cases for dms!
1. Daytime
2. 1968 B&W
3. Autumnal
4. Attack
5. Reinforced windows and doors
6. Storm 1
7. Storm 2 (Lightning)
8. Burning wagon
9. The Horde
10. Dead (The zombies won) CW: implied self-harm
Tried something new this year in October, alongside my usual 4 monthly maps I did an “Inktober” style challenge making 31 ttrpg battle maps. Some of the prompts were more designed for regional or world-style maps but I did my best to interpret them as maps that could be used for an encounter. Some came out really great and im quite proud of them all! There is sure to be at least one or two anyone could enjoy among the whole set!
“La Gaviota. Home of the Airship pirates who plague the skies from Prossporo to Daven. But you have to give it to them- Who wouldn't want a hideout that moves!” - Ida Holly.
The heart of the crews is the Covens. The mother matrons set the rules on the Mote here and all crews obey them. They may not have the mustering of our numbers or strength to fight us off but that isn't the point. Their power comes from the pirates, The hags set a rule and the crews all agree, That's the only way La Gaviota stays flying. That's the only way we stay free.
Aint nothing no merchant zep captain, nothing no Royal Areonavy admiral, and nothing no on the outs raff crew can do about it. On this crew mate, We respect the Hags. That or you take the short walk and the long drop to feed the hungry sky.
This map is a little bit of my own lore, The skyport of La Gaviota was invented for my setting Crudilex. It's a Floating Island mote “ruled” by a mysterious Hag called Granny who dotes upon her “Children '' the many superstitious airship pirate crews who call the island home. While it may not be how you choose to use the map I also included loads of variations, A flying Market on the backs of airships, An imperial Raid, The island ablaze, flying over seas, deserts, Two airships battling it out off the side of the island and more
Clash of the Ironclads, High in the sky a war is waged. Ironclad Airships fire their cannons making the clouds glow as exploding vessels rain down. Through the chaos two ships lock into a death march opening fire until only one remains in this 15 Phased Battlemap.
“In the ancient prophecies it predicted that the skies would rain fire. I guess we just didn't predict that it would be US in the skies doing the burning.” - Ida Holly.
There was no time to delay. Above the chaotic aerial battle the Admiral's Flagship hung observing from above. The captain spotted him and knew what must be done, Full thrust, full lift. Out of the chaos the Ironclad burst up like an angry whale from a sea of flames. It came around and launched alongside the Flagship. The two captains looked at each other through from their sight decks staring as the cannonports opened.
And hangers and hatches above released a swarm of the crewmen and aeronaughts from each ship who hurried out to board the other. There was no escape this time, Captain Finch would have his revenge or he would crash back to the earth trying.
This map may be the best I’ve ever made, at the very least it’s my favorite. Airships and dieselpunk are both something of special interest of mine and it was such a fun challenge to try and make an all out war scene for a clash of two fleets of airships! I’m thrilled with how it turned out!
“Captain Goldfang. The legendary big boisterous cat-man pirate. I heard a tale that the guards finally caught him by employing a strategic use of Pspspspsps.” -Ida Holly
Here be the last will and testament of the dread pirate king Captain Goldfang Cronen, Terror of the seas and amasser of a horde of treasure that’d make a dragon blush. I lived a life of plunder and gluttony fat on the liquor of the land and never wanting for a single thing but now my time on this mortal land comes to its end-setting sail to unknown waters. Me father always said the Goldfang boys only die at the end of swords or the end of ropes.
So to whoever what reads this here massive I present to you my last dagger in the back of fate. Me treasure is out there at the end of the river rapids with rocks like teeth, through the bones of me old crewmen, and into the guts of me ship rotten now as the hearts of its swabbies. Should you whistle in the darkness the walls will fall and there too you can claim it be yours as I did. That terrible treasure of captain Goldfang.
Yarr! This map is a second shot at my river rapids map I made about a year ago now but this time inspired by pirate-treasure hunting adventures. Specifically, I was inspired by the goonies and one-eyed willie’s treasure, but more in tone and energy than anything else.
“The temperament of nature is calm until it isn't.” - Ida Holly
What sleeps below, The roiling powers of the earth that boil and churn away from our gaze. Inner chaos that hungers for release. The mountain waited for an age, far from mortals who would build their towers and fish the sea, where it could truly contemplate, and consider its turmoil alone, a few thousand years of thought.
Interrupted, a band of misfits comes to disrupt the silence. And at long last, the choice of settle or erupt is made clear. The Mountain chose violence.
This map was created for annex theater’s Kaiju battle arena, where each player in the stream played as a legendary monster and went toe to toe in PvP! This map was set it at the center of 9 50x50 battlemaps and forced them to explore the rest through the eruption! It was extremely fun and can still be watched, and perhaps even soon a second Kaiju battle will happen!
“I was once lost in an underground, not unlike this. Survived by cultivating a grouping of roots and drinking drops from the ceiling. I don’t recommend it.” - Ida Holly
The creeping darkness closes in as the magic candles flicker out. The reliable fixes fail you. Darkvision painted black, Light spells flicker and die. Something isn't right with this darkness. The black of the penumbra seems to call to you. You know in that moment- if you get lost in that pitch black you will never escape.
You flee rushing through the halls of piled bones. Crawling, wading, climbing. Anything to stay in the light of the candles. Until you come upon a door, your only way forward. an inscription above reads ”Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate”
This map is 3rd in my line of Spooky horror movie-themed maps for October. This one inspired by As Above, So Below. One of my favorite underrated horror movies that follow a group of Urban explorers going through Dante’s layers of hell in the Parisian catacombs.
“The real monster was the friends we made along the way” - Ida Holly
It’s Alive! The mad wizard screams as the platform is lowered from the blustering storm above. The body crackled with electricity and the flesh golem is complete. The wild-eyed wizard and his companion smile wicked smiles at your party.
“We appreciate your help! And you will be handsomely rewarded- well those of you who survive the first test.”
The minion throws a switch and the creature is released.
This map is the second of my spooktober22 series. All this month my maps will be horror movie themed! I tried to combine all the greatest labs throughout the Frankenstein mythos, the original, bride of, and even young Frankenstein! (The Abby normal brain is referenced on the desk at the bottom!)
“It came from beyond the stars in the darkness of an eclipse, It drinks blood and offers fame and riches. Oh, and it sings a mean Soulful solo.” - Ida Holly, Field notes from Worlds Beyond our Own.
The Oddities shop holds many artifacts from across the multi-verse. Trinkets collected from the adventures of its eclectic owner and sold to new up-and-comers who wish to explore the many mysteries of this and many other worlds. Truly artifacts have a way of coming into the shop more than leaving it and its role has grown to be more of a museum. One such artifact recently passed hands and ended up here.
A plant, with a mind of its own. Desires and goals. And a single defining craving, Blood.
This map is part of my 4 part October series of horror-themed maps only! Last year the maps were all quite fun so I decided to make it a tradition. This time I’m basing all the maps off of horror movies starting with The little shop of horrors!
“You want me to go to an Island that moves throughput time. that can only be reached by those who wreck, and can only be escaped by those who know how. I didn't get YOU anything!” - Ida Holly
“it seemed finding something yet unknown was your fate. but fate, she is seldom so kind. Months into your nautical journey you heard murmurings from the crew. Moldo, they said, was the island you couldn't reach without first wrecking your ship.
The place where lost sailors wander in the untamed jungle forever. And isn’t that just the thing about legends? they all come from somewhere.
You washed ashore, the massive wave and the flash of lightning striking a shattered mast still burning into your closed eyes. You attempt to stand… sea water and sand rain from your half-buried body. you look up a climbing island mountainscape and back to the sea to see all around the Timbers of shattered ships you know it id true. And now you’re shipwrecked on Moldo.
This map is inspired by the One-Shot releasing at the same time for the 5$ tier members of my patreon. It’s a survival adventure where the players have to save their crew from a coven of sea hags hiding inside a treasure-filled ship using only what they can steal and scavenge from the ship. The catch is the hags are protected by a 5-mile-long stretch of open ocean guarded by an angry sea monster. Meaning our heroes will have to get pretty creative!
“These creatures are hardly creatures at all. It feels more true to call them walking disasters.” - Ida Holly.
What horrors slumber in the soil of our world, resting, waiting to reawaken and unleash a new age of chaos? The Tarrasque has attacked this world so many times yet few remember the last, 1000 years pass after each time it falls before it returns to slumber. Generations of beings speak of it, the tales turn to legends turn to myths. And again it is forgotten, and the world becomes complacent and vulnerable.
That is until the Elven envoy arrives at the King's court, with a dire warning.
This map is another Big ol’ boss fight map! I wanted an epic encounter with one of DnD’s most iconic creatures. Since the Tarrasque in 5e is cr 30 it would be almost impossible for a party to actually face one without some incredible outside help, so that led me to think how can you use on in an encounter? The idea for this one is actually less intended for combat and more intended to be a desperate scramble to simply survive as the creature rampages, perhaps buying time for reinforcements or some massive spell to go off. Either way, the battlefield is designed to try and force the players to get creative and move around a lot! I did include an extra phase with a “sleeping” Tarrasque just in case your players surprise you and defeat this legendary foe!
“Abraham Dune, He calls himself “Snake eyes”. He’s a dwarf stricken with the Yuan-Ti’s curse and he runs that place. I need to talk to him. The thing is- The cost of admission is a bit…high for me. Help me and I’ll help you!” ~Ida Holly, During the events of Shrive Débauche
Infante’s Dice is already the unofficial town hall of Tankren. Ruling from up and down the river and draining the town of all their hard-earned chips. And that is made doubly true during the Week-long festival of indulgence that grips the town every year. Shrive Débauche. A high stakes 3 dragon ante with only the best players the world has to offer is held aboard the Riverboat and lit by magnificent magical light and fireworks!
The week leading up to The Tankren Ante is a special event in Tankren. The streets fill with parties, music, and people. Parades go down the River wharf tossing chips and trinkets to applauding crowds. The cultural saying is the week celebration and debauchery is done as a means to cleanse the spirit. The indulgence of gluttony and vice and seen as an act of release. This way the soul is ready to accept whatever fate has in store when the life is placed up for complete reset at the Tankren Ante, The final event of Shrive Débauche.
This map has been in the works for ages and ages. In the end, was about two weeks of daily work. It includes lots more little goodies than most of my maps. All the decks of the Riverboat, It sailing along the docks past a parade. And even a bonus with it out in a swampy river just to really capture the flair. It's also a Primary location for my Book Ida’s Guide and is featured in one of its big encounters! Hopefully, you can find it as inspiring and useful as I did
“Endlessly fascinating the minds of the creators of dungeons such as these. They never make them impossible to enter- but never safe either. Perhaps the lure of the possibility of success is what brings in more adventurous victims.” - Ida Holly, Lichs and other megalomaniacs
Delving the deeps of the Tomb of horrors or the Tomb of annihilation to simple for you? Well if the rumors are to be believed yet another Lich’s domain has been uncovered deep in the High mountain forests. Locals have uncovered the entrance after a recent flash flood and none have been brave enough to cross the gargoyles at the entrance.
What is inside is unsure- but the town’s wizard has advised the local lord to keep all away from it as they detected a powerful set of four chromatic enchantments within. The kind locked inside crystal spheres. Who can be sure what Foul creature these wards are keeping locked within if they are all collected? Luckily we will never know!
Very happy with this map! It's an 8-phased romp through a collection of classic dungeon traps and tropes. I wanted to give something new a try- this map is meant to be played as kind of a series of small encounters- each room you enter the Dm should hide the other rooms and run all 8 phases in that room! Like a bunch of smaller contained phased maps! The dungeon is laid out around the 4 crystal balls and the main chamber (On the far right) the idea being the players need to obstacle course their way past all the traps in whatever order they want to reach the four and unlock the final chamber.
Updated: This map now includes a remasted variation with the filters creating the blur removed as well as a full intro campus dungeon as a single map.
“Every little Warforged reaches that age when they ask where they came from.” - Ida Holly
The facility has stood in the heart of Cyre for ages staffed by the greatest mages and Artificers. The laboratory existed long before the creation forges were used to create Warfogred and became one of Cyre’s most important locations For thirty-one years, the creation forges churned out numbers of Warforged through processes only scions of House Cannith fully understand.
Specializing in experimentation and innovation to bring about victory! Surely nothing bad will EVER occur here in Cyre, with such powerful and well-defended Eldritch Machines as these?!
Long live Cyre! Long Live House Cannith!
For this map, I wanted to dive into the Creation Forges and play around with what I think they were like in the peek of their use in Eberron! I was lucky enough to get a bit of advice on the design of the map from Keith Baker himself as woefully there are very few references for what an active Creation Forge was like before they were all destroyed.
“Did I say I wanted to explore the oceans? In that? Uh- I think that's a misquote.” - Ida Holly, Who definitely said she wants to explore the ocean.
It is the pleasure of the Submersible Integration Nautical Keepers corporation to announce our latest and most effective magical artifice! The Greater apparatus of the Crab, Unlike the 5-person model of ages past the greater apparatus, is capable of any depth, any pressure, an endless air supply, and still has plenty of room for the wife and kids!
S.I.N.K is proud to be the leading artificers guild building bridges between the merfolk and land dwellers! (All S.I.N.K brand Greater apparatus of the crab are in an invitation-only closed alpha, S.I.N.K is not held liable for equipment failure. Consult your cleric to find out if going to the bottom of the ocean is right for you.)
This map is inspired by one of DnD’s silliest magic items, the apparatus of Kwalish. I’ve personally only used it in a game once and only heard of a handful of people who have so I wanted to make a map imagining a GIANT one you could have an entire encounter in. And I mean I make phased maps so I had to make it sink, haha. The last phase imagines it after the water has settled and fully filled the apparatus allowing the encounter to become a struggle to the surface and a good old underwater battle.
“Some worlds I’ve visited across the multiverse have every possible luxury and advantage and still they discover new ways to suffer.” Ida Holly.
Towering skyscrapers framed in gold, Countless citizens moving across the streets and bridges like insects in a hive. The Metropolis was Utopia for those in proper standing. Lives of luxury, splendor, and decadence all visible from the streets below and always just out of reach.
I wanted to make something that felt Art Deco, with that kid's WB Batman, Metropolis, or streets of New Capenna vibe. I also worked hard to make it an endless loop- even the clouds fading and reforming to continue as seamlessly as I was able.
“It is the most peculiar thing that a creature 5 times my size would be so easily distraught. Who among the gods I wonder decided that the noble horse should be a prey animal.” - Ida Holly
“The beating hoofs of the stallion could trample an adult man to death, But a simple thunder wave spell sends it sprinting full speed away. Even a well-trained horse can get spooked and now what was a simple encounter with a group of roadside bandits has devolved into a highspeed chase all the while attempting to calm the panicking party steed before it flings us all down into the river!”
This map includes a variant with a Horseless Carriage featured as part of my book Ida’s Guide to Worlds Beyond Our Own. However, the setting is more advanced than the average dnd so I decided it best to include a be-horsed Carriage. Both are in the folder however if you have Model T’s in your setting. Haha.
“Druidic magic has always confused me. I suppose I don’t understand how something like a beehive is considered natural where something like a house is not.” - Ida Holly
The wedding celebration was in full swing. Music, Food, two families becoming one. The Druidic covens and the royal houses uniting and settling the years-long conflict between nature and civilization was cause for celebration of itself.
But before the union can be considered official the Druidic father required one last challenge of the humans. And with a wave of his staff, a massive twisting maze grew just beyond the reception.
This map is another map it hopes can be a non-combat encounter. Something players use their skills for more than battle! Each phase changes the layout of the maze in small ways; they impact the route in larger ways. And each is still solvable from one side to the other!
“Nothing in this world is predictable but taxes and tides.” - Ida Holly
“It’s not abnormal for the Tides to flood the canals. But with the coming festival, the kingdom has put forth efforts to slow the flooding as the city fills with merchants. The canals are packed with more gondolas than ever when something shook below the waves.
An island, on the back of a massive creature, rose from below the tides outside of town and displaced an inordinate amount of water rushing into the gullies and canals all across the city! And with it all manner of beasts of the sea.”
I was really inspired by the yearly flooding in Venice when making this map. because there is something incredibly evocative about the sinking of such a beautiful place. I'm so proud of this map, I really think it's some of the best work I’ve ever done!
“The Gates to the hells open first within us, then around us” - Ida Holly
"We have grown so used to the security of our towers, castles, and stone walls. Humans flocked to their cities and watched waves of soldiers smash against these shields. But the arch-devils claim power over the souls corrupted by evil, living and dead alike. And evil exists within, no stone wall can be built around the soul.
The trouble is they can only shape an evil soul to their bidding that they can reach. and evil souls have enjoyed the security of the living world from their would-be tormentors.
But that has changed. The first arch-devil arrived and each corrupted soul shone like a beacon, a source of power, and each source of power a potential gate. And while they cannot reap the souls of the pure-
they can burry a pitchfork into them, And that's just as good."
Trying something a little different this time. This is more of a map series of 4 maps, Farm, Village, Coastal pier, and City Gates. I imagine this being a sort of frantic moving from place to place defending what you can while more and more of these gates open up. Or perhaps spreading them out over the course of a campaign as the rifts become more frequent.
“Just a little snack, guys!” - Ida Holly
“The market attracts people from all over the kingdom, From well outside the city's walls, to come and view its lights and splendors and spend their precious coin. Listen, they came to lose the coin I don't think they’d much mind HOW they go about losing it. Call it a charitable donation to the poor and impoverished peoples of the city.
Just remember the plan. Snatch it and run down the alley, If the guards keep up we swing the crane. If somehow that doesn't slow’m down enough just get up on the rooftops. What could go wrong!”
This map was me NEMESIS. I worked on it for 5 days straight, right up until I'm posting it now. Really it's 9 distinct maps, Each with this semi-isometric perspective, I wanted to give the alleyways a sense of depth and keep climbing and running on rooftops a possibility for the chase. But boy oh boy don't think I’ll do something like THIS again. I still really love how it turned out, and I think phased maps have a lot to offer for chase rules encounters which are rare as it is. Chaser, or chase’ee I think all good TTRPG games should include a solid chase scene!
“Across this infinite Elseworlds. It seems a tragic constant. Men like to kill eachother and make it- very dramatic. - Ida Holly
“Reckon there ain't no way he were gonna survive iffin' the law came down on’m. Seems to me this sort of challenge really puts the favor in the corner of the outlaw. But who am I to say, Iffn' the sharif wants to end the bandit raids in one quick draw with their leader spose he might be onto something.
Ways I see it though, iffn' them their bandits were good’nuff fellers to make good that they’ll leave iffn' their leader drops dead… they’d be good’nuff fellers what not to become bandits in the first place, I reckon.
Anyway back to playin’ piano. This is a new one called “Hello ma baby.”
So this map I imagined the players standing back to back with their BBEG as the shadows fade and the sun reaches high noon, taking their paces as the dust blows. I think I may have- Over done how fast the shadows fade. I guess there just back to back for an hour or so or time speeds up. Haha either way it's great for the D R A M A. While this map is obviously western-themed I tried to leave out enough wild west stuff that it could be used still in a high fantasy game.
“He who fight and runs away, lives to activate the force wall another day” - Ida Holly
“No alarms, no warnings. A ship full of siege weapons and a horrible electrified monstrosity of an airship attack all at once. The entire guard cut down and the port was set ablaze.
The only choice is to fall back, regroup, and try and evacuate as many civilians as possible through the sky dock. But the wards won’t hold and the lightning frigate turns its sights on the wizard’s tower.”
This map was commissioned for an all-is-lost moment, where the player's home base is besieged by the collected forces of their BBEG, unwilling to wish for them to supply and sneak into their lair. I always love splashing in dieselpunk elements into my maps so it was a delight to design a villainous airship that gives off some Warhammer 40k vibes to me!
As always this map includes a variant without the ships or vehicles included allowing for finer dm control!
“So we all agree- next time we pull coin for a wagon that can float?” - Ida Holly
"Crown’s Canyon bridge was the only crossing along the river border between the two kingdoms large enough to march trade across- or soldiers. Its collapse would mean passing far far north to the caverns through the mountain or worse the southern lake said to house a horrible monster in its depths.
It’s up to you by orders of the king to protect the bridge from any brigands who may wish to see it reduced to rubble on the river’s bed. Unless, of course, you are willing to hear out their offers."
I think anyone who makes phased maps is required by law to make a bridge collapse map. Haha. I wanted to play with color on this one and make it feel really vibrant, Also water is probably one of my favorite things to animate with phased maps.
If you ran this map what would you make the cause of the collapse? Explosives? An earthquake spell?
Don’t just stand there! Try and brace it with something! - Ida Holly
The pressure plate clicked, and the whole party held their breath. Nothing seemed to happen after passing through the dungeon filled with falling rocks, Poison darts, and Swinging logs. All manor of Traps, you, at last, arrived in the lich’s tomb, and yet. Not a trap to be seen.
A full second went by before anyone allowed themselves to think maybe it was safe, Then CRASH! The doors slammed closed and WOOSH! All the braziers alit with flame! Dust and rubble cracked and fell from both walls to your right and left. And the whole room rumbled, deep in the sarcophagus you hear a maniacal, cruel, laugh.
This map I’ve wanted to make for ages, Inspired by the ceiling in Temple of doom and the famous trash compactor in A new hope. A classic adventure trope where the whole landscape turns against you that I think can be executed best through a phased battlemap!
I’ll never understand the desire of monarchs to build castles at the tops of mountains. Sure they are safe, but the cold is miserable. - Ida Holly
The climb along the icy mountain cliffs, the snowbanks hiding perilous cavern shafts, and the unyielding wind that leaves ice crystals stinging your skin are all left behind you as you breach the mountain’s top. There it stands- Iverholm keep. A towering forgotten castle left abandoned for nearly a century, its palisades still in place from the war that brought it to ruin.
As you pass the gates into the empty courtyard and begin scouting for a good place to set up camp you hear a voice in the winds. “You are not welcome here. Leave us to rest” The wind kicks up as your party all grabs for their weapons. In the silhouettes of the snow, figures begin to take shape. Frozen phantoms. And behind them growing ever closer. A massive- horrifying blizzard.
This map was originally made for my home game, I usually don't share the ones I make for my own players but I felt like this one was really great and wanted to give you all a crack at it! Originally it included a landed airship and some abandoned bi-planes (My setting is turn of the century themed) I figured I’d make it a bit more accessible but I DID include that version as an alternate in the files!
With timeless lives and boundless intellect I am forced to wonder if our most brilliant minds were not consumed, would we too be this advanced? - Ida Holly, on elder brains.
“The hive was unlike others the historians wrote about, few if any Psyoniccally controlled minions. Its walls were reinforced like armor. Pipes and gaskets all around hissed and the air was thick with chemical smells.
When we reached Xzvel’s Brine pool it didn’t even seem startled. In our minds it welcomed us… and when a massive door behind it opened the dread machine inside- whatever that monster was building- it tore our party apart with fire and acid and light… You mustn’t venture down there, I beg you!”
This is the last map of my April boss fights only series! I did three others, a rotting heart, a pirate raid, and a frozen horror! For this one, I imagined “who led them all” and came up with the idea of a sort of Elder brain BBEG who has been testing the heroes up to this point! If you saw the others you’ll see in each of the vats is a small nod to them- implying this elder brain somehow created them.
The Druid circles are isolated far from the cities. But don’t get it wrong. Out in the woods, they are protecting us all from things we will never even encounter. - Ida Holly
“It grows every day.” the old fishermen says, lugging cages of sickly looking river-life up onto the dock where you stand. “Slow enough that no one seems to pay it much mind. But we notice. Those of us out there along the rivers. Something is making this whole forest sick. Half my haul comes back looking like this.”
“Black Dragon, I’d wager. Made its lair out there in the wetlands.” A fisherwoman chimes in from her own boat. “Neigh- its gotta be one of them Otyughs. You smell it out there?” “Otyuga-what now?!” The whole dock begins bickering back and forth leaving you with little to go on as you head out deep into the woods- following the rot.
This map is the 3rd in my April boss fight series. This time I went for something that doesn't move about- but creates loads of tough terrain and challenges for the players to navigate to reach the heart at the center of the tree.
“You’ll always remember the day, That uhhh… that.. Hang on, it’ll come to me.” - Ida Holly
Your boots barely reach the trap door. The man with the black sack on his head checks the noose. And all through your mind hundreds of opportunities to right the wrongs you’d done in the eyes of the merchant lords play on repeat.
This is the end. The drummers ring out their drums. Wait… that's- not drums. The eyes of the crowd cast out to sea. A silhouette casts a long shadow over the rolling sunset tide, As if sailing out of hell itself there is a hush. Than chaos. The building behind you explodes as cannon fire blares all around you. The Adine’s Sorrow begins its raid and your new life as a pirate begins.
This map is a part of my April series of boss fight maps. For this one, I imagined what it would be like to have a boss encounter with a pirate ship! I treated the ship as I would any on-map boss monster, and included a version without the ship on it for DMs who prefer to have more control. I took a ton of inspiration from Disneyland’s Pirate’s ride, specifically the scene where Barbossa's ship is firing at the port.
I’m a cartographer and a historian. I seek to best understand the world around me. But not all things should be written down. Some things are best forgotten. - Ida Holly
An exposition has traveled deep into the icy glacier cavern, some relics were found from what may have been a ship from long ago- but they haven’t returned in days. Expecting the worst, crossing the ice on dog sleds, descends into the tunnel, repelled by rope and lit by the teal-colored light of the sun through the ice.
A feeling of dread grows further as you delve into the glacier. You should not be here, you don’t belong here. Thoughts like this enter unbidden. At last, you find the ship, around it, bones- must be some ancient sailors. Sailors… with dog sleds.
This map is the first of my April boss fight series! I wanted to put the players against an enemy who was mostly immobile for a majority of the encounter but eventually breaks free and goes absolutely ape. Like all monster-on-map encounters I make, this one also includes a blank background for a finer level of control!
“The city is completely locked down. There is no way in or out. I mean other than their supply trains but the airships guide them in from the farms… why are you looking at me like that?” - Ida Holly
riding atop a wartime cargo train, the skies turn dark, and a storm rolls in. The rain hits you like bullets due to the speed the train is traveling towards The Factory. Cardillo's forces close in boarding the train from small skiffs to stop you, monsters and soldiers alike, The distinction between them grows blurrier every day as the mad machinist experiments bring the dead back to life. Machine guns posted on bridges fire down the tracks as your train passes under.
The storm only grows more and more violent as from the clouds above a massive, black airship descends and casts the train in an ominous shadow.
The second time the blackiron frigate gets a feature in one of my maps! This one is pretty specific to settings but that's the joy of fantasy, It can really be whatever you like, no need to hold ourselves to medieval alone. I went with 11 phases on this one, which is over my normal amount but I had to get that climatic explosion in at the end, If you’ve followed my content you know I love to spend hours upon hours building the most beautiful settings I can than hours more absolutely destroying them!
If you dig this map check out my other maps Monster Factory and Clash with the Colossus, which are meant to be played in sequence.
“The difficult thing about creating maps is shifting borders. This time, quite literally.” - Ida Holly
The dunes they say burry countless secrets. Treasure hunters are always making their way out there to see if they can strike it rich locating some of the ancient cities swallowed by the sand. You’re fools to go out there, Even if such a thing exists what could you hope to bring back? More likely you’ll just be adding more bones to the tomb.
How would I know? Well, let's just say I didn't find this crystal neckless in the stalls of the market. If you want my advice, go when seems the worst time, The heart of a sandstorm. The bigger the better. You’ll be surprised by what the winds unearth…
if you are mad enough to brave them.
This map is another I had been thinking and reiterating over and over. I wanted to create another version of my popular water temple map, Something about a large structure slowly appearing is just so very quintessential fantasy. Perhaps I’ll do a Fire and Air temple and make this a whole series.
“Ghosts doesn't narrow it down. Shades, Haunts, Banshee, Hells even some LICHS are ghosts. I’m going to need you to be a lot more specific.” - Ida Holy
The Riverbend estate has been abandoned for decades, It’s previous lord was executed for toying with “Dark Magic”. And no one has so much as ventured there to trim the hedges. But when the lights in the tower started the locals became nervous. Shades began haunting all along the river and the woods around the estate.
If your meaning to head out there, Do it in a storm. Those shades don't much care for the lightning. That said, Best still be on guard, who knows what old evils got left behind in that haunted place. And worse still who knows WHO has gotten into them.
For this map, I wanted to try my hand at making a phased map that also had multiple floors. I tried a lot of different approaches but eventually liked this one the most. The idea being that as the players are exploring the dungeon The lightning storm is going off in the background. The monsters in the dungeon, ghosts of some kind, are only harmable in light. And as the players explore or in combat, they have to time their actions around the lightning!
Sort of a mini-game approach to a dungeon that I think would make for a very fun encounter and offer loads of creative problem-solving moments for players!
“What unspeakable doom lurks at the edges of our vision. Out where nothing can be known, and nothing can be understood. More terrifying than the danger is the complete lack of reason.” - Ida Holly
You arrive at the Chapple. A two-floored structure with an indoor garden at the center of which a large stone henge sits tended to by many quiet druids. It is not the terror you expected. When you were sent here to “Slay the aberrations”. For a moment you feel silly, Standing in this church in your full plate with a sword drawn.
When all at once the druid's eyes snap to you. In one shared voice from many mouths they say. “You were unwise to come here.” as the walls begin to crack and melt.
I made this map as an encounter in my own home game! I wanted to create an encounter where the environment was the enemy. Letting the players work against the tears into the far realms and try their best to close them as the heart of the challenge. With monsters and combat as a secondary challenge on top of that. I used Nothics as the creatures, But I think any aberration could fit the scene.
What would YOU have in this arena?
“We put a lot of faith in magic, You expect things to always go right- but when you stop to consider just how many monsters are created by magical accidents… well it just puts things in focus.” - Ida Holly
The King, in gratitude for your heroism in protecting the castle, has allowed you to visit the court Archmage and use the Teleportation circle in her courtyard to expedite your trip back home. But when you arrive instead of the elderly woman you were told to meet a teenage boy in an ill-fitting floppy wizard hat greets you.
“Uhhh yes. I am the arch-mage. Uhhh I’m Polymorphed!” He lets out his voice cracking and beads of sweat dripping down his face. But you don’t care to unpack whatever THAT is, Stepping into the circle with your hard-won riches. The teenager begins saying the incantation, When again his voice cracks, and he gives you a look of horror as you begin to vanish to who knows where. You realize as the sounds of ocean sea and creatures climbing out of the waves to gobble up the treat that was teleported to their lair… Ah- an apprentice… Of course.
This map was kicking around in my head for ages and ages. The idea behind its design is an encounter that takes you on a trip through many different kinds of battle maps, Keeping the players on their toes and providing an opportunity for the players to fight monsters who might never be in the same encounter together.
I imagine the phases where the teleporting is happening to be in the Aetherial realm, Giving the beasts the players come across a chance to still get into the circle, keeping the fight on the move!
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