Tags
Caverns, Dungeon, Dungeons & Dragons, Dyson Mega Delve, Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Map, Mega Dungeon, OSR, RPG
On the original node map of the MegaDelve, this map is part of the “Small Caves” node (same as the Goblin caves earlier this week, and the Cannibal Cave coming up next week).
MegaDelve Node Map
This area of the MegaDelve is inhabited by the “rat folk” who are actually messed up halflings who worship a rodent god-type-thing. They are cannibalistic, get most of their food from the “Vietnamese cavern” to the north of their lairs, and are on the constant watch for Ogres coming in from the east (which is actually goblin territory, but the ogres raid the goblins and occasionally head this way to get to the big-ass cavern). Fortunately the Ogres generally take the easy (wide) route to the big cavern, leaving the rat folk to their own devices in the smaller twisting caves around the main travel route.
Rat Folk Tunnels (with grid)
The passage to the right leads to the western exit from the goblin caves. The southern secret exit leads eventually to the abandoned dwarven city by way of the ogre base. All three passages to the top side of the page lead to the big-ass Vietnamese Cavern. The two sets of stairs lead up to the cannibal cave which I’ll probably have up on Tuesday.
And below I have a version of the map without the grid:
Tunnels of the Rat Folk (no grid)
And below are a few shots of the tunnels as they came together.
Dyson's Dodecahedron 
Very nice! I especially like the round room in the center of the map. It provides an interesting focal point, if just because it’s noticeably different than anything else on the page. It begs for a very complicated combat encounter, where the adventurers get pelted from the above gallery. Getting to the upper gallery is a challenge in of itself, as they would have to either make their way there through the eastern corridor, or find the secret door on the opposite side of the gallery. Fun!
One trick you do that I’ve been trying to figure out for all your maps is: how do you drop the center of the grid lines (where they should connect) and where they would normally touch your map’s walls? It’s a very nice touch, and seeing screen shots of how you pull that off would be just as interesting as the map itself (please forgive me if you’ve posted this earlier, I am new to your site).
Anyway, great map. Can’t wait to see how this all comes together.
Thanks!
The gridlines without intersections are actually a layer I put over the map. I drew it a couple of years ago in photoshop and made a pattern out of it. So I create a “New Fill Layer”, put that as the fill, and adjust it to the size of the graph paper I’m using.
Then I select the areas I want the grid to fill using the magic wand tool primarily (sometimes other selection means are required). I reverse the selection (so everything else is selected instead of the areas I want the grid in, expand that selection by 8 pixels, and then delete the gridlines in the selected zone.
I gotta ask: what’s in the Vietnamese Cavern?
Seriously. That name is so good it almost deserves to be plastered above the entrance.
The “Vietnamese Cavern” is based on a cave in Vietnam who’s name I always forget how to spell (doubly so since Vietnamese uses so many funky accents), so I just call it the “Vietnamese Cavern” instead of the proper name of “Sơn Đoòng Cave”.
This was the answer I was looking for, too. Though I thought it might involve the kind of food the halflings were obtaining: pho with rare slices of halfling, halfling fried rice, etc.
I think you mean “halfling flied lice”!