This map was inspired by Minoan ruins courtesy of Wayne Rossi (the host of the Semper Initiative Unum blog, and author of the Dungeon Crawl ‘zine for which I drew a map in issue 3). He was looking for a set of ruins based on the Palace of Zakros. It was a lot of fun to take the Zakros floorplan and just go nuts with it to produce this confusing ruined monstrosity.
Ruined Palace
The layout has multiple elevations within the buildings, making the main courtyard and the areas around it about 4-8 feet higher than the rest of the construction.
The map was drawn on 5-square-per-inch graph paper using a 03 and 01 Sakura Micron and takes up a full 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Unlike most of my maps, this one (and the one to follow this Friday) were originally roughed out in pencil which I then erased after inking and before scanning. After scanning at 600dpi some minor cleanup was done and contrast and brightness were enhanced (+30 brightness, +60 contrast). I use a Diffuse (anisotropic) filter on the 600dpi image and then reduce the image resolution to 300dpi.
The final map is yours to use in a non-commercial manner thanks to the awesome support of the Dodecahedron Patreon patrons like Greg Skinner, Corey Reid (creator of the AWESOME Dino-Pirates of Ninja Island), David Lane and people like YOU who support my cartographic efforts though my Patreon Campaign.
Dyson's Dodecahedron 
This is a great map! I love the detail and the old school feel. It’s what dungeon maps should look like!
Hey D. –
I don’t comment on your blog as often as I should, but this really is an eye catching departure from your standard fare. I love it. I love all your stuff, but, OK, um, yea. Also thanks for the scan tips – Copy/Pasted
Thanks!
It feels very open. More like a ruin of a hedge maze than a proper dungeon.
Intentional?
Probably because it’s not intended to be a dungeon, but is instead fairly consistent with actual Minoan ruins (albeit with a few more rooms). The Minoan palaces were rambling agglutive structure in which each year they just added new rooms without a lot of planning ahead.
Also, since it’s designed to be like actual real-world ruins, there are almost no doors left, leaving the structure oddly open feeling.
This would make a great map for something like Call of Cthulhu or Cthulhu by Gaslight, too. Love the atmosphere of it!
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