Tags
Caverns, Commercial Maps, Dungeon, Dungeons & Dragons, Dwarves, Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Maps, OSR, Release the Kraken, RPG, Shrine, Temple
Every month that Patreon funding remains over the $400 mark I sift through my back catalog and bring up a selection of maps that my patrons then vote on as to which will be released under the free commercial-use license. This month we got Granitespire (released last week) and the Three Underworld Temples.
A pantheon of three gods of the underworld are worshiped within these cavern temples converted from caves near the dwarven city of Kuln.
In the central gallery of the cavern a massive stone temple has been built up out of stone quarried from the far reaches of the mountains in very dark and pale shades of grey. This is the temple of the lord of construction, crafts, and stowaways and is the main focus of the complex. The administrative priest of the temple maintains his chamber within the temple, while the ritual priest and his aide live within the secret chambers in the back of structure.
The north gallery is carefully carved, expanded, and cleaned from the natural gallery that was here with the faces of ancient gods and priests long forgotten on each of the 9 pillars along the walk before climbing to the chamber of the challenger, the god who is said to have torn the world from the plane of earth and made it home to the modern races. The chamber has statues of the challenger in his three forms of maker, nurturer, and destroyer. Beyond the curtains is a larger open cave and ritual space, at the back of which is the chamber of the heirophant of the challenger.
Finally, the southern temple is dedicated to Ambassador Amstemon, god of the loquacious, brainwashing, and ancient tales. The priest of Amstemon dwells outside the shrine proper, for while the Ambassador is fond of many ancient stories and lores, it is well known to also take over the minds of those who spend too much time immersed in its lore.
Originally released in March of 2014, I’ve cleaned up the original scan as much as I could and added a grid that was lacking in the original release (although I do prefer the cleaner grid-free design). This map was originally released with a very short one-sentence description which I’ve expanded upon a bit above.
This map is made available to you under a free license for personal or commercial use under the “RELEASE THE KRAKEN” initiative thanks to the awesome supporters of my Patreon Campaign. Over 400 awesome patrons have come together to fund the site and these maps, making them free for your use.
Because of the incredible generosity of my patrons, I’m able to make this map free for commercial use also. Each month while funding is over the $400 mark, we choose a map from the blog’s extensive back catalog to retroactively release under this free commercial license. You can use, reuse, remix and/or modify the maps that are being published under the commercial license on a royalty-free basis as long as they include attribution (“Cartography by Dyson Logos” or “Maps by Dyson Logos”). For those that want/need a Creative Commons license, it would look something like this:
Cartography by Dyson Logos is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Thanks for another amazing map. And thank you even more for uploading the gridless version. The grid-free are perfect for virtual table top games like FantasyGrounds.com – which we use. You make my Patreon sponsorship a no-brainer. Keep up the great work.
This is so confusing to me. The reason I started to do gridded versions was because people using VTTs said it was easier to use with a grid instead of without.
When using your maps on VTT (roll20), what is really needed is a scale. I’ll use the gridded maps to figure out the size of the table, line it up with the provided grid, and then replace it with the plain map and turn the grid off. That way the scale remains true to how the map was designed but the players still have open mobility.
But there’s specifically no scale to most of my maps…
Sorry for the confusion. I think that might be an issue with the features of a specific VTT. I think most of the current versions of the big ones (Roll20 and FantasyGrounds) lets you add a digital (VTT software generated) grid to any map image. When you do that, the software can auto calculate distances, token sizes and areas of effect. Using pre-gridded maps can be tough because the grids seldom line up perfectly and you end up with multiple grids showing.
For me – I don’t need a scale with your non-gridded maps because it’s easy enough to estimate and it allows me to adjust as needed. I’ve used one of your maps as a giant lair by setting the digital grid to twice what I normally would – now one square doors were 10′ wide instead of 5′.
Thanks again for the great work!