Into the Underdark with HellHound

[HellHound]

I'm going to go ahead and repost my old underdark maps from ENWorld, Circvs Maximvs, and if I can find them a few maps that I never got around to posting anywhere.

These are all finished products to me, in that I don't intend to go back and modify them any further. I have higher-res versions stashed away on a portable hard drive, but these are generally good enough for game use.

The theme of these maps was an underdark adventure set on the shores of a great underground sea. Some of the maps are more typical dungeon maps, but most are based on this theme.

[HellHound]

This was once a temple used by Kuo-Toa - that's the structure at the south end of the map with the well in front of it in the rough cave. They also had the back exit. Later it was taken over by slavers, who built the double fortress fronting the main cavern, as well as the look-out tower that has since collapsed by the back entrance. Now, it depends on what you want it to be. In my campaign, it has just been put back together by another group of slavers, but they haven't found the two secret door, and have not bothered to move into the back entrance area.

(Hand drawn in pencil, parchment created entirely digitally. This was my first scanned map, so the grid was lost and I had to create a grid in photoshop to superimpose over the map)

[HellHound]

Here's the next one in the set, and old monestary, now abandonned.

It was a rare drow monestary back in the day. A bastion of law for drow who sought the training provided here. It was a small monestary, but the power of those who resided within kep ti safe for generations. In time, a few other monks joined the order, finally including two githzerai, one of whom became the master of this enclave. It was the githzerai presence that brought about the end, however, as an inquisition of mind flayers struck in order to destroy their hated ex-slaves, and they not only killed the master of the order and his brother, but also all but two of the monks, and destroyed the stone bridge that linked the island monestary to the shore and the underdark caves.

Who lives there now? Up to you... in our game it will -probably- be the base of some aboleth slaves who have whatever item the party is seeking.

(Hand drawn in pencil, overlaid on scanned paper with digitally created edges)

[HellHound]

Here's how the party is getting to the ocean in question - the ancient Dwarven Stair. This access to the shores of the dark sea navigates down 120 feet from a small abandoned fortress at the top with accesses to the underdark, to the stony shore of the sea itself.

(Hand drawn in pencil, overlaid on a digitally created parchment)

[thebax2k]

Woohoo! Thanks for accepting the invite Hellhound. It's great to see you on the site. We (well at least I) really appreciate anything you do decide to post.

I have no idea what your unpublished maps consist of, but did you ever do any type of stalactite (aargh, I can never figure out which one hangs from the ceiling) tower dwelling for your Underdark campaign? No problem if you didn't, Chris West did a Cryomancer's lair in Dungeon (adieu old friend) I can yoink if needbe.

[HellHound]

Nope, never did a stalagtite lair. Although I considered it for a scene once, my underdark campaign ended before we got that far along.

[pyrandon]

Awesome, Hound! Keep 'em coming! Thank you x 10!

[ravells]

Besides the beauty of the compositions and the way they are so pleasing to the eye, I love your trade-mark hatching, the line thickness variation and jitter. Am I right in thinking you draw your maps by hand, scan them and then ink them and mount them on parchment in a paint program? I'd love to hear more about your working process.

Ravs

[HellHound]

100% hand drawn with pencil (usually a 0.5mm mechanical pencil with a fairly soft lead - as soft as I can get - sometimes a 0.7mm but I don't like those as much). They are never inked, all pencil work.

Then scanned and the unnecessary gridlines are brushed over in white, and finally overlaid on a parchment design that I made in photoshop. I've got a limited number of parchment designs for these because I just haven't found the time to make more, and don't have the energy to invest in them at this time.

The parchments are a mixed bag. Some were made entirely digitally - I wrote a short tutorial on doing that on ENWorld somewhere. However the better ones are pieces of white paper that have been seriously teabagged and then scanned when they dried.

---

This is a temple to some water deity or another. It has changed hands repeatedly over its existence, and is difficult to maintain because it actually has no other access to the underdark except the one access to the dark sea itself. A small underground river used to enter the dark sea from this point, and the temple was built around it, and the centrepiece of the temple is a waterfall chamber leading to a large pool. The river pours down from the centre of the ceiling of the chamber, and pours down past the observation deck on the top level, the blessing platform on the second level, and into the pool proper below, where the water is channeled into the dark sea itself.

(Hand drawn in pencil, overlaid on a digitally created parchment and digitally created wax seal)

[torstan]

Talk about timing. I'm currently gearing up for an underdark adventure based around an underground sea, so these are perfect. Thanks for posting these excellent maps.