February 2016 Challenge: The Halls of Undermountain

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks Ilanthar!

[Bogie]

Great job T. I prefer it without the monsters as well.

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks Bogie!

[ravells]

aww, I miss the giant sweeping up the skulls!

[LordEntrails]

Nice map. I like it a lot. I will make two critiques for your consideration;
1) The room labels being placed over some of the rooms are distracting for me. I would rather see you use text along a curve or at least angle the text lines to run next to the rooms. You could consider leader lines, but I don't think those are needed. Plus, moving the labels off the rooms will fill up some of your empty space.
2) Your map doesn't give me the feel of Undermountain. It has far too few rooms and they are not close enough together. The vast majority of published UM maps have very little spacing between rooms (i.e. graph paper was at a premium *G*)

Good luck with the challenge, and again, good map.

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks LordEntrails, I'm glad you do. I'm sorry the labels are distracting to you but I actually did try them with text along a curve and also moving them off of the rooms.. While it is true that it filled up more space on the map, it also made the map look a lot more crowded and ruined the aesthetic of the map so much that I just didn't like it. I even played around with different sized font to see if that would help and for whatever reason, again, it just ruins the aesthetic of it. Though I suppose if I did put the text next to the rooms then it would make it seem like they are closer together.

To me, everything already looks a little close together compared to other maps of other dungeons from the time so in my eyes, while not super crowded, which I think would have ruined the Isometric look, it does a fair enough job of resembling Undermountain.

Thank you for the critique though, it is always welcome to see where I may improve. And thank you for the good luck wishes.

Cheers

[Carnifex]

You did a good job on the map but how is this connected to the novels? Any special place you had in mind? I have played in undermountain but never read any novel or shortstory.

[Tonnichiwa]

You've never read Elminster In Hell? It's about the goddess of magic trying to get Halaster to go rescue Elminster from Hell. But, there is only one way to get to Halaster, through undermountain. So this is just one part of the everchanging undermountain. It's been, what, 10 years or more since the novel came out? I haven't read it in forever but undermountain changes all the time except for skulllport. This was intended to give the feeling of the unknown because the dungeon changes so much. It's why I never said where a few of the doors lead, or in what part of the dungeon they are in, no one but Halaster really knows.

[LordEntrails]

Actually, Skullport changed in 4E and Halaster died *G*

Oh, and glad you appreciate the critique. If you tried the labels another way and like them best this way, then have to go with your judgement.