Squared dungeons

I have a long time friend that has hassled me about my 'square dungeons' that I sometimes make. You know what I mean, squared off rooms in dungeons. He argues that this is silly and no one would spend the time required to dig out a perfectly squared room beneath the earth.

I hereby call bullshit.

The Tomb of Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great). Not only is this one square but there are right angles all over the place! Perfectly straight tunnels! It looks like they got far in, had a little too much mooboo juice and goofed in a single angle and threw off the entire part after the antechamber. I bet ol' Ram was rolling in his sarcophagus.

Ok, and look at this one, this is a photo of the tunnel. Heck, they even squared off the ceiling!

Now, you might say "But Matt, maybe it was just this once, Rammy was stuck on perfect squares or something. He was a square dude!"  Nay, I say nay sir. Look here at the Tomb of Merneptah.

Square shit everywhere. A nice sloping angle but straight as an arrow all the way down. The burial chamber:

The main hall:

Now you may be saying, "Yeah yeah, so a few people liked squares in Egypt, so what?" I say again Nay! Look at this shit, a full blown square-fucking-orgy at the largest of the Egypt tombs ever discovered, KV5:

This one is a freaking dead on copy of half the D&D maps out there. Hell, they count around 70 SQUARE fucking rooms. Someone had a serious hard on for squared corners and shit. Anyway, cool PDF here if you want to download, print and run/kill your friends in it:
http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/pdfs/kv05.pdf

[map] The Temple of Gringordt & Yullbrin

It has been a very busy month for me as I begin transitioning towards my retirement from the Army and I have had little time to focus on mapping or gaming. Luckily today it finally slowed down enough for me to throw together a quick map. For this one I went a slightly different direction than I most often take, opting for a digitally rendered background instead of my usual hand drawn hatching. Not sure which ones I prefer at the moment but I still have the original map and can easily go back and add in the hand drawn hatching if I wish. Which do you prefer?

The Temple of Gringordt & Yullbrin

In ages past, Gringordt and his younger brother Yullbrin saved the kingdom from ruin and sacrificed their lives so that others may continue. In their honor a grand temple was built in the nearby cliffside.

At the gated entrance, twin statues of  Jorfjord, the goddess of fearlessness, stand guard. Once inside the temple was designed according to Father Vindordt Malfofjort's demands that no walls be form a straight line, thus curves are present everywhere in the temple. The walls curve up to great domes far above.

In the main chamber where visitors used to pay homage to the heroes, the domes reach far overhead to a height of ninety feet. Two massive statues of the brothers stand on raised pedestals, surrounded by reflection ponds for others to come and meditate upon their own actions and to deem if the heroes would consider them worthy.

Farther into the temple are various chambers that served as a study, a library, the serving monk's quarters and various other uses to keep the temple running smoothly. Deep inside the temple a small but important statue was erected to the father of the brothers. It is said that anyone praying before the statue will receive blessings in all their brave deeds.

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Cartological Review, series 2015, volume 1

I create because I can, because I love my hobby.

And because I believe in the OSR.

Download link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxNLRuUwmjklWlJNQmIybGJpZjg

The Forgotten Fell

A quick map that I tricked out this evening. A village that has stood in ruins for quite some time after a volcano sent a massive lava flow after it (lower right of the map).

Without the grid.

Black and white.

[map] Mr Hassle's Shoppe

Originally drawn as a practice map for a commission that did not pan out, I thought I would flavor this one up with some text. Hope you like it!

And the obligatory black and white version:

[map] The IMPLICARUS of ARCHDEACON SAN DENARAMIS

The Implicarus is the tomb of the Archdeacon San Denaramis, a once powerful and respected member of the clergy of Bethmoora. His modest tomb - as proscribed in his will - is exactly one turn down from the Black Gate.  Those of the respectful sort will say a prayer to the Archdeacon as they pass.

There have been many attempts by ne'er-do-wells to enter the tomb but the protections that have been placed are formidable and yet to be breached. Inside are two statues, one of Valira, the Goddess of Life, along with an altar. Another chamber holds a statue of the Archdeacon himself. Valira's statue is in solid gold, said to be worth thousands and thousands of gold, while the other is a solid white marble.  A small tomb holds the final resting place of Feladornia, the faithful servant  (and many say the secret lover) of the Archdeacon. The actual tomb of the Archdeacon is hidden in a secret chamber. Rumors say that if the altar or statue of Valira are desecrated, the statue of the Archdeacon will become inhabited with the soul of the Archdeacon and defend the goddess.

Mold and fungus has grown in the pool over the decades and a green slime has taken up residence in a pool that has formed in the farthest chamber. Merely entering this chamber can be deadly as the slime emits a foul vapor into the air which can render a person inhaling the vapors unconscious. The slime will then move to begin devouring the victim.

The black and white version.

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