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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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 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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
You never miss if you’re aiming at everything. Cyberpunk Mech Fight is a Phased boss encounter with a steel giant raining rockets and bullets down from above. It’ll take some pretty creative moves to avoid its Cluster rockets!
“I heard machines are replacing humans in most industries, I guess that includes stealing catalytic converters.”
There are more horrible things than death, So when Cybernet-X LLC sent its kill mech out they considered that a kindness, Not what I would personally consider a fair severance pay but I suppose I’ll have to take the documents I stole and make my money back.
They say when you sign up to be a proper Corpo you die twice, Soul than body. But You never miss it if you're aiming at everything.
My first boss fight phased map outside of the Fantasy genre! I’m a huge cyberpunk fan and just love out insane and over the top everything is- SO I wanted to make a bossfight that felt equally as turned up to 11!
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!
“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!
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.
“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 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!
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.
“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!
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!
“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!
Scene of the Crime. 12 variations on the idea of a murder mystery in a dark dangerous alleyway. From Noir, Fantasy, Post apocalyptic, all the way to Cyberpunk. Every game needs a whodunit!
“I knew she was in trouble the moment she walked into my office. She may be a halfling but she was a full woman. And she had feet as hairy as my last case.” - Detective Holly.
Your information was correct. The goon you were hunting after would be in this alleyway around this time. But looks like he got there well before you and won't be leaving anytime soon. His body now lies dead and with it all the information you hoped to glean. Someone silenced him for good. But they were sloppy and evidence is left all around.
If you're fast, maybe you can figure out why this happened, and who was so invested in making sure you don’t get any closer to the truth. And most importantly- where THEY went.
Next to fantasy Noir and Mystery stories have always been my favorite. Especially really over the top pulpy ones! The fist variation of this map I wanted to make a Noir scene but then I thought it would be fun to do the same in other genres! Cyberpunk, Fantasy, Post Apoc, Modern! All of them fit the Murder mystery vibe with only a little alterations between.
I also included a few variations that I thought fit the layout too, Such as a flooded street, an overgrown version inspired by Last of Us, as well as an active dieselpunk warzone set in my own setting of Crudilex!
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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)
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!
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.
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!
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.
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?
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