Wyrmling's Lair

[aeshnidae]

The dwarven city of Kuglutuk is built in old dwarven mines. The dwarves have never stopped mining and the city expands ever deeper as the years pass. But now something stirs in the mines, beyond the underground lake that the dwarves have yet to cross...

I'm working on this for my D&D game; the PCs are currently in Kuglutuk and will need to do quite the favor for Chief Darkhorn if they want to get access to his vault. Lucky for the PCs, the Chief needs their help dispatching a wyrmling that the deep mining crew recently discovered. I decided to do this one as a side map, since I haven't really tackled one yet.
This is also my first attempt at using crosshatching.

I need to add an exit from the lair (it'll probably be from down below and lead to the Deep). I'm also planning to add some mining carts and such, plus some treasure in the lair. Other suggestions or critiques?

Wyrmlings Lair (sm).jpg

[arsheesh]

The hatching looks pretty good, though a couple observations: (1) there's a few places where the spacing between lines is very uneven; (2) I think a thicker line-weight would have been preferable here. The layout itself is pretty solid, though linear. By adding a couple more passages or other connections between various parts of the cavern you could open up more options for your players to choose how they wish to proceed, thus promoting their player agency. For a good source on this I'd recommend Justin Alexander's series of blog posts entitled "Jaquaying the Dungeon".

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[aeshnidae]

Thanks, arsheesh! Fortunately I have the crosshatching on its own layer so I can easily go back and use a thicker line weight and pay more attention to the spacing. I figured I would probably wind up re-doing the crosshatching because this was literally the first time I've ever used it, so I'm considering it a draft.

I don't want many options in this particular dungeon, in part because the players succumb to analysis paralysis and have specifically requested fewer choices, and in part because this is a tiny piece of a larger "dungeon" (dungeons within dungeons, if you will). The players already have a full city to explore and the main dungeon (a vault and stronghold) will have a lot of options, both in terms of trying to get into it and then trying to find the item they need. I'm not even sure if the players will use this dungeon - they may prefer to simply charge the stronghold or come up with an Ocean's 11-ish scheme. Both of those options could go terribly wrong, so I'm keeping this in my back pocket just in case.

I will check out the Jaquaying the Dungeon link. Thanks for that!

[aeshnidae]

Still need to re-do the crosshatching, but here's an update.

Wyrmlings Lair v2 (sm).jpg

[Arkidemis]

I like the updated version, definitely like the new color pallette. Only thing that stands out to me is the treasure, it feels like it doesn't fit the rest of the dungeons art style.

Would love the seen the whole dungeon on a map if you happen to make one. It would also be interesting to hear what direction your players took, either way sounds like it would be a great time.

[aeshnidae]

Hey Arkidemis! Check out my Kuglutuk thread. It has my completed city map, a close-up of the market districts in the city, and a blueprint of the vault dungeon (doesn't show the secret doors and rooms, though). On the city map, the vault/stronghold is labeled; it's part of the Chieftain's District. The wyrmling's lair will be way down at the bottom, in the mines.

I do need to work on the treasure. You're totally right, it looks off. I'm trying to decide how much effort to put into this map since it's just a one-off for a game. We were supposed to play this weekend but had to reschedule due to the crazy wind storm that hit the US east coast. Most of the players have young kids so scheduling takes time...but that gives me some breathing room to think about this map a bit more!

[aeshnidae]

I made the treasure more muted, to better fit with the character of the map.

Wyrmlings Lair v4 (sm).jpg

[aeshnidae]

Finally got around to fixing my crosshatching, spruced up the treasure, and added some mist. I think it's done, aside from any touch-ups/clean-ups that jump out at me when I look at this with fresh eyes. Thank you all for the feedback!

Wyrmlings Lair v5 (sm).jpg

[elboe]

Very nice. I like the improved crosshatching, it really improved the contrast on the map. The treasure turned out great, and I really like the overall coloring. I've never done a cross sectional map, makes me want to give it a try.

[aeshnidae]

Thanks, elboe! I spent a lot more time on this than I expected, but I'm really happy with the final version. The coloring is the same grey fill layer from my original post as the bottom layer (with a layer mask so it's not visible inside the caves), and then another layer of a parchment texture with both fill and opacity greatly reduced. I liked the warmth that the parchment layer gave to the inside of the caves. I used a prism overlay, again with fill and opacity greatly reduced, to give an extra oomph to the treasure cave and then just did random dots of varying sizes to give the impression of sparkles.