The Aqueduct: A quick black-and-white map

[woopingwooper]

This map is pretty fast and rough, since I drew the whole thing in maybe two or three hours. I didn't even have time to add any hatch marks to distinguish the underground sections... Oh well, maybe I'll come back to it later.

This is technically my DM notes for the first dungeon in my upcoming pathfinder campaign, so there's a bit of writing around the margins and two puzzles. It's sort of in-character in case I decide to print this out as the actual dungeon map.

Dungeon (1).jpg

Backstory for those who care:

The dungeon itself is very simple and short. It begins at the south in a canyon while the party is searching for whatever may have blocked a stream. They discover a mysterious obelisk on the western ridge, although it is perilously close to a wyvern nest. Solving the puzzle (with instructions written in elian script, a code you can google if you're curious about it) opens an ancient door in the cliff face, from which the water has been issuing. Inside, a fountain bubbles forth a tiny trickle of water. It seems that whatever mechanism pumped water into this fountain has been broken or turned off!

The path onward is locked, and needs two keys (the "X"s on the map). To retrieve the keys the party must brave traps, escape a blind T-rex, and find a hidden passage in the bottom of a boring chest (and any other encounters one might be pleased to fit in the limited space). Once they have opened the door and descended into the bottom chamber, they encounter the massive, ancient technology that operated the fountain. One final puzzle finally reactivates the machinery, pumping water up to the fountain.

Reactivating the pump, however, causes a massive earthquake to rock the facility. The staircase the party had descended collapses, and a new, strange cave is revealed. Horrible fleshy red gunk coats the hallway and even blocks the path until the party can cut or burn through it. They arrive at a strange, polluted lake, in which resides the first boss of the campaign: a corrupted water elemental.

This is all part of my campaign about the party unwittingly living on the back of giant lovecraftian monster. The island is the thing's shell, the corrupted water has been polluted with its blood. From here, the party will continue into a world of madness, darkness, and horrors beyond imagining. Whee!

[Twinkletash]

I like it. Good return on just a few hours' work!
What scale is it in? Meaning, how big is the complex?

[Larb]

Looks like a fun idea. Water-themed dungeons/places are my favourite kind and I've made few myself.

The elian script is interesting (never heard of it before) although it is difficult to translate your stylised version. Something about it equaling seven.

[Meshon]

This is great! I just finished (like, yesterday) a map that had little notes on it, and it was really fun to do. It's been "submitted" so I can't post it just yet but I'm keen to.

The annotations really give your map an "in use" feel, which I really like, and a little bit of madness (the friend who I did the map for called it the Mad Cartographer style).

The puzzles are neat, although I'm not sure I understand the instructions for the obelisk. Maybe figuring that out is part of the puzzle? The story sounds great too, I hope you get a chance to post more maps as it goes along.

cheers,
Meshon

[woopingwooper]

Thanks for the compliment guys. The elian script translates to THE OPPOSITS SUM TO SEVEN ( I forgot the "e" in "opposites"). Perhaps an easier instruction would be "the opposite sides sum to seven."

PUZZLE ANSWER:
The puzzle is based on dice; the zig-zag shape is a flattened six-sided dice, which traditionally have opposite faces that, when added together, equal seven. In other words, the six is opposite the one, the four opposite the three, and the two opposite the five. Once you can visualize the flattened dice as a cube the puzzle becomes simple.

I used elian script because my party all knows it already, but it can be difficult to translate when you aren't used to it. The rules for elian are intentionally vague; if you want some good examples, I'd suggest checking out its subreddit (/r/elianscript).