Odd Looking Gamma World Map

I was toying with Hexographer (free version) and I found that if you use the "icy" terrain on any other, it turns it into a bicolor version (mountains become black and white, forest green and white, dunes yellow and white and so on.) I changed the grid color to yellowish green, used an odd pixeled font for numbering and here you are. I wanted this map to look geometric, so I used blue grid-snapped lines for rivers and red dashed grid-snapped lines for "routes of the Ancients". I think the result is kinda cool, except for the fact that "badlands" numbering is a bit hard to read – I will fix it one way or another.

Tower of Zordaz Sketch and Level 1

Rough sketch

Yesterday I made this rough sketch of how the awful Tower of Zordaz should look, and although it's not exactly what the tower itself actually looks like, I think it gives the idea. In particular, the tower is not set in the center of a lake, but only near one (and yes, that means there's a Watcher In The Water, of course!) Under the tower I drew the upper side of the stone door that leads down to Room 1 in Level 1. You may be right in thinking I was under some kind of weird Zak S. influence when I made this one, just don't say it loudly! All in all, my actual paramecium map style has been directly derived from the maps of Khunmar made by Stefan Poag, so I can honestly admit that I'm done with shame!

Level 1: The Ravaged Laboratories

And this morning I finally came up with the first map of the awful Tower of Zordaz! Some notes:

• This level has been inhabited by the most promising apprentices of Zordaz.
• This level has been ravaged by a Shoggoth, conjured by the apprentices who lived here (possibly a mistake.) The Shoggoth moved away, but there should be a very low probability of encountering it there (that means, RUN YOU FOOLS!)
• Room 2 contains a manhole, hidden under much rubbish. It leads down to a corridor, a room (3) and then to a slope down to Level 2.
• Rooms 4 to 11 are the proper laboratories. I figure most of these rooms to be empty, and only two or three filled with some weird encounter.
• Room 14 contains many broken vats. There should be amorphous monsters in there (simil-lemures, living molds, maybe mongrelmen.)
• Room 15 are some prisons for human guinea pigs.
• Room 17 contains stairs leading down to levels 2 and 3.
• Room 18 contains a huge mark on the floor. I plan on using similar signs to mark teleporting spots around the dungeon. The mark is actually The Eye of Zordaz, as players may discover during the game.

Mapping Experiment: Yaqqothl the Robert S. Conley Style

Campaign Map #01

This new experiment took me about 1 hour and a half of heavy photoshopping. Given that it was the first time (although I already had a quite accurate idea of how the map should look like, since I had already done it in Hexographer), I trust that further experiments should take less time. I like it very, very much. Also, I've used Georgia font instead of the usual Futura, and I think it really makes a difference (looks much more "Yaqqothl" to me, probably because this is also the blog font.)

I Need Your Help, Again - Geomorphs Anyone?

Yo guyz! The Birthday Party is approaching and I still have tons of dungeons/levels to map. Therefore, I need to be pointed to some on-line tools that uses geomorphs; I remember one that allowed you to choose the sets (Dyson's and others) and eventually save the map? I don't need anything random, I need something that actually lets me choose each geomorph – or at least allows enough customization on randomness. I don't actually need anything that "fills" the dungeon for you, just the maps. If you have suggestions, it would be much appreciated! Rock on!

Back Again

Whoa! I feel like I've been re-born. I have just spent a beautiful evening with my girlfriend, and I'm feeling really fine. We have had some pizza, hot chili nachos, beer (me) and martini dry (her), and a cheesecake (I can't tell you how much I love cheesecake). It's awesome to still be in love with a girl with the same intensity we used to have three years ago. By the way, I'm not coming back to bother you with my private life, so here's what has kept my mind busy over the last few days.

Ta-daaa!

Here is the first map of a possible megadungeon. I have spent a very long time on it, selecting the style, drawing it in pencil, inking it and then importing it in Photoshop to add some details (adjusting light/contrast and adding numbers and lettering). I like it very much, and it's been awesome to rediscover my love for hand-drawn maps again. I have some ideas for the background, and I'll post them in the next few days. I don't want to delay my work on Supplement VII, I just want to make some dungeon maps for the sake of it. If you're puzzled by a symbol, ask!

Isle Variation

While pondering about the isle, I came to thinking that, all in all, I didn't need very many encounters and, more especially, so much "land". In fact, the cthulhoid megadungeon should be the main attraction of the campaign. So I drew this:

The Forbidden Isle of Doom

In the last few months I haven't made very many hand drawn maps, and I had forgotten how much fun they are! I like this one very much, it's way more personal. Also, I have played around with the Sea of O'sr idea, because, despite the fact that I won't contribute with a one page islet, it's fun to meta-play with such a thing, kinda like gaming during worldbuilding. By the way, it took me about an hour to draw this map.

Edit: For an overview of the Forbidden Island of Doom, go here!

Second Take on The Isle

I've added some rivers, a lake and fixed the edges. I'm loving its geometric look, kinda Outdoor Survival feel. I'm thinking of including 20 encounters (the twentieth being the Megadungeon), which will involve some villages, the madman who was shipwrecked many years earlier and now lives in a ruined sanctuary (the safe spot), some weird flora (you know, I'm reading CAS), the thing in the lake, the aeons abandoned city (perhaps an alternative Carcosa? Or maybe the Nameless City itself) and the vast city-state ruled by the tyrannical archwizard (I've greatly appreciated Henchman Abuse's concept). I have a couple of ideas that involve terrific Mi-Go plans and the impossibility of leaving the isle unless the megadungeon has been explored and a certain über-technological artifact disabled.

The Isle

Cthulhoid Megadungeon, First Isle Sketch

It looks like the OSR is going mad for islands! I'm largely happy with this, since I find islands to be way easier to put into an ongoing campaign rather than a single page dungeon/wilderness adventure (although I'm grateful for the whole one-page dungeon concept and the way it simplified keying dungeons). I will not participate in this project, since my own idea is a little bigger than just a page. This morning I managed to draw this map thanks to the awesome Hexographer tool, and I like it very much. It's roughly the same size as the infamous Isle of Dread, although a little wilder in wilderness-type placement. The map is still incomplete, missing a) rivers, b) lakes and c) labels. I'm not thinking of coming out with an encounter for each and every hex, since the real icing on the cake is the cthulhoid megadungeon placed in the south west. (See that little green hex surrounded by mountains? There.)

Let me know if you like it, perhaps James @ The Underdark Gazette will find it suitable for his amazing "Gamer Porn" column on News from the OSR.

The Isle

The Dungeon Sketchbook

I need to put my hands on a big-enough square notebook for dungeon design. I love Moleskin notebooks, but they use pretty light paper in their square ones, although they have a very appealing Extra Large size about 7½'x11'. I will check it out as soon as I can.

Do you have a Dungeon Sketchbook? And what does it look like? I'm pretty curious about it. I would use my mac to design dungeons, but I still haven't found a simple enough program to draw them. I eventually got Campaign Cartographer II with my AD&D Core Rules 2.0 cd, but it looks like it's pretty well too hard to use (no experience with CAD software). I wish I'd be able to design cool maps like this one.

Yaqqothl Campaign Map #1

This is a revised version of Yaqqothl Campaign Map #1, which details the NW part of the main playing area, scale 1 Hex = 20 Miles or a day of hard walking. The map was inspired by the Color Map of Carcosa by JDJarvis at Aeons & Auguries, as I pointed out previously.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge