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| Tharzad-Dul: The Mountain Door Level 1 |
Heres a slightly fixed up version of
the level 1 map I posted previously. I added in the stairs down to
the lower levels. I also hatched in a section that I missed when I
first inked the map. I should have the map key posted up in
instalments through the week. I might come back to this map again but
for now it does the job.
My experience working on this project
has been a very different process from how I normally work.I'm an
obsessive compulsive planner. Everything needs to go according to
plan. I've been trying to break free from those shackles and let the
dice fall where they may, both in gaming and in life.
Typically I start off with the a basic
concept of what the dungeon level was originally intended for. In
this case I knew that this level was first built by the dwarves as a
fortress to defend the rest of the city from invasion and act as a
check point for those entering and leaving the city.
Normally when I draw my maps I do them
on graph paper. This time however I started off with the idea to just
create room nodes connected by lines. I took a regular blank sheet of
white paper and just drew a bunch of squares and circles and then
connected them with lines. This didn’t sit with me very well. I
wanted a sense of scale and more traditional feel. I will say the
process did help to give me an idea of what the level was all about
before I did too much work drawing.
I got another sheet of paper and used a
sheet of graph paper underneath to use as a guide for drawing rough
rooms and halls. Once I was satisfied with I inked the rooms with a
big sharpie, and the halls and hatching with super thin black and
brown markers and finally numbered the rooms.
Even when writing up my key stocking
the dungeon has been a very random and organic process. Normally I
like to have planned static encounters that need to be worked
through. This time I just used the random tables from the 3.5 Dungeon
Masters Guide to help stock the monsters, traps, and room contents. I
made a few adjustments here and there, but otherwise I just tried to
brainstorm up reasons to explain some of the weird combinations of
room contents and creatures that came up.
It's been a fun and liberating
experience. I'm not sure why I've never done it before now but I'm
glad I did.
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