Maps: The Known Dungeon of Montporte After 60 Sessions

Elementalist Monastery Level 1

Elementalist Monastery Sub-Level 1

Elementalist Monastery Level 2

Elementalist Monastery Level 3

Elementalist Monastery Level 4

The Deep Dark - 21 Miles Down Level A

The Deep Dark - 21 Miles Down Level B

The Deep Dark - 28 Miles Down (Goblin Way Station)

The Deep Dark - 42 Miles Down (Gnome Kingdom/Stone Giant Forest)

Transit Dungeon Maps?

My wedding anniversary was this past Monday and one of the very cool gifts my wife to me (besides the green light to participate in game night on Monday*) was a book about mass transit maps, cleverly entitled Mass Transit Maps of the World.

New York City Subway Map

I have loved maps of all sorts since I was a child--I regularly created room-sized maps by taping together sheets of paper when staying with my grandparents (I was 6 or 7 years old...I didn't do it at home because of our dogs). I started working on a cartography specialization when I was an undergrad, but it required me to do a double major and I didn't complete all of the course work for the second major by time I graduated.

Istanbul Rail Transit Map

I am thinking that creating a transit map might be a groovy way to present the Montporte Dungeon, at least as it has been explored so far, to the players. As we are closing in on 50 sessions of play, it is hard to keep track of how the dungeon all fits together. I know the players seem to really struggle with this as they only see a small piece of the dungeon at any one time in Roll20.

Final Fantasy VII Transit Map

I am not sure how much work it would be to create a dungeon map as a transit map. I think the map creation would be the easier task. Figuring out the best way to graphically represent the dungeon and its connections might be brain-numbing.

Cardiac Transportation Routes

There is also the reality that a map that only represents to the players what has been explored so far becomes obsolete as soon as they begin mapping out new areas. The level of abstraction in a transit map might extend the useful life of the map, but at a certain point, the map would have to be modified or even completely recreated.

Sofia Public Transit Map

I am not sure how to represent the 3-D aspect of the dungeon. The Sofia Public Transit Map (above) gives enough of a 3-D perspective that it could be the basis for a good dungeon map. That would really challenge my rusty cartography skills.

Milky Way Transit Map

I might try to sketch out a rudimentary map and then see if I can create it on the computer (without investing too much time or any $$$ in software).

Springfield Transit Map

Doing Some Dungeon Mapping

I am mapping additional levels of the Montporte Dungeon, using AutoREALM, and I am doing some experimenting as I go. My goals are to: (1) Speed up the mapping process; (2) Make the maps a little more interesting; (3) Make the maps bigger so that I do not have to flip back and forth so often in Roll20.

I have been creating maps with a grid that is 60 x 60. With 5' squares, that creates a 300' x 300' map. That's the size of the maps used in Michael Curtis' (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) Stonehell. He uses 10' squares, but I wanted a scale that would support tactical virtual mini play on Roll20.

My current maps are functional, but each level of Montporte is big and so each 60 x 60 map (at 5' per square) only represents a small area. Players cannot zoom out in Roll20 and see the bigger picture. And for me creating maps of entire levels has involved the tedious tiling of smaller maps into a giant grid in MS Publisher and then saving it as a JPG file. I am sure there are other ways to do it, but I just testing to see what works.

My first attempt at a 180 x 180 maps (900' x 900') yielded this map (I am only showing a small portion so as to not give the Montporte players too much info):

Meh. It is blurry and the graphics using for the flooring in AutoREALM did not scale properly when I saved the map as a JPG. The rectangular rooms on the right are 30' x 60' rooms with brick floors. Those bricks are mighty big.

I messed around with the size and shape of the JPG file, which can be modified in AutoREALM when saving the file and I ended up with a much better looking map:

Much better. This will work, although I still need to test it Roll20 [Later edit: It works fine in Roll20].

My next questions are:

• Leave the grid out of the map and use the grid in Roll20 as needed?
• Set up these levels with the dynamic lighting feature in Roll20? I can always give the players updated maps (in the journal section of Roll20) of what their characters have mapped so far. I am not sure how much work this would be on my end or if it would make a really big megadungeon unplayable for the players. Thoughts anyone?

Montporte Dungeon Maps After 40 Sessions (Part 2)

Here are some Montporte dungeon maps after 40 sessions of play. The maps below only display what has been explored and discovered by the player characters. I have decided for this round of dungeon maps to (a) identify the stairs between levels and (b) break the maps into 2 separate blog posts (this is Part 2, as the casual observer has already noted in the post title...Part 1 is here).

Key

• RED indicates ascending stairs/ladders; PURPLE indicates descending stairs/ladders
• The distance noted below indicates the vertical ascent or descent covered by the stairs/ladders.

25 - Elevator pad that ascends an unknown distance to an unknown destination

26 - Elevator pad that descends 150' from Mystery Level A to Mystery Level B

27 - Stairs descending 21 miles from Mystery Level B to 21 Miles Down A

28 - Stairs descending 75' from 21 Miles Down A to 21 Miles B

29 - Narrow stairs descending 1 mile from 21 Miles Down B to bottom of chasm

Maps

Mystery Level A (1 square = 5 feet)

Mystery Level B (1 square = 5 feet)

21 Miles Down A (1 square = 5 feet)

21 Miles Down B (1 square = 5 feet)

Montporte Dungeon Maps After 40 Sessions (Part 1)

Here are some Montporte dungeon maps after 40 sessions of play. The maps below only display what has been explored and discovered by the player characters. I have decided for this round of dungeon maps to (a) identify the stairs between levels and (b) break the maps into 2 separate blog posts (this is Part 1, as the casual observer has already noted in the post title...Part 2 is here).

Key

• RED indicates ascending stairs/ladders; PURPLE indicates descending stairs/ladders
• The distance noted below indicates the vertical ascent or descent covered by the stairs/ladders.

1 -  Stairs ascending 80' from Level 1 to surface (dungeon entrance)
2 -  Ladder descending 20' from Level 1 to Sublevel 1
3 -  Ladder descending 20' from Level 1 to Sublevel 1
4 -  Spiral staircase descending 100' from Level 1 to Level 2
5 -  Spiral staircase descending 100' from Level 1 to Level 2
6 -  Spiral staircase descending 100' from Level 1 to Level 2
7 -  Stairs descending 100' from Level 1 to Level 2
8 -  Spiral staircase descending 100' from Level 1 to Level 2
9 -  Ladder attached to metal storage tank descending 50' to unexplored area
10 - Ladder attached to metal storage tank descending 50' to unexplored area
11 - Ladder attached to metal storage tank descending 50' to Level 3
12 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
13 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
14 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
15 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
16 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
17 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
18 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
19 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
20 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
21 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
22 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
23 - Spiral staircase descending 50' from Level 2 to Level 3
24 - Spiral staircase descending unknown depth from Level 2 to unknown location

Maps

Click on a map for an enlarged view.

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

Sublevel 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

Level 2 (1 square = 5 feet)

Level 3 (1 square = 5 feet)

Dungeon Exploration Maps: 30 Days in the Hole

After 30 sessions, a clearer picture of the Montporte Dungeon is emerging on the players' maps. Here is a history of that exploration (in 5 session increments). I am only including Level 1 in this post, not Levels 2 or 3, just because of the number of maps:

After Session 5

The brave adventurers had explored a bit of Level 1 and had this map to show for it:

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

After Session 10

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

After Session 15

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

After Session 20

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

After Session 25

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

After Session 30

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

Mapping the Town of Montporte--Post 3

So I am finished with the Montporte town map. I might do some editing down the road, but for now I just wanted to get it labeled and keyed so it will be ready to go for the Montporte Dungeon Campaign.

Here is the labeled map of the town and immediate environment:

Here is a map of just the town, which is not yet labeled:

I decided to go hexless, as the grid made the map look and feel very cluttered.

Montporte used to have many more people, but famine, a poor economy and a dragon attack has thinned the population considerably. Parts of the town (the southeast corner) are still in ruins and much of the town has been repurposed for animal stables. Gnomes, escaping the civil wars to the west, have also rebuilt and settled into the northwestern part of town.

Mapping the Town of Montporte--Post 2

I had a snow day at work today and just went in the office for part of the morning. This afternoon I have been working on the Montporte town map for the Montporte Dungeon Campaign. I am using AutoREALM. This is what it looks like so far:

I might redo some of the buildings as I like the block style buildings that populate the eastern part of the town (plus they make for faster mapping). There is a lot less flexibility when using the built-in objects.

The Town of Montporte Map (So Far)

After running 25 sessions of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign, I finally decided I needed to create a map and some detail of the nearby town of Montporte. Given that it has served as a military outpost and trade center on the far eastern fringes of the civilized world for a very long time, I thought it should have a wall. At several points in its history, Montporte was a thriving center of trade, with rich mineral resources located nearby. Currently, the population is only a fraction of what it once was.

Here is the map so far, after about 2 hours of work using AutoREALM. You can see that I still have a lot of work to do:

The area of Montporte is a bit like the western foothills of the central Ural Mountains (with the mountains near Montporte being much taller). There is quite a distance separating Montporte from the much more densely populated Western Kingdoms. Below is the map I gave the players at the start of Session 1 (which, at the time, was meant to be one-shot adventure). The Montporte Dungeon is marked by the star at the top of the map below:

Montporte Dungeon Maps--After 25 Sessions

I posted the maps of the Montporte Dungeon after 15 Sessions back in September 2013. Here are the maps of the same dungeon after 25 sessions of play. I have kept the maps simple this time. I placed a purple "U" next to any unexplored door, corridor, room, or area. I placed a red "U" for the two ladders that lead down from Level 2 to an area still unexplored (maybe Level 3?).

Click on the maps to enlarge them. 1 square on the map equals 5 feet.

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2

(1 square = 5 feet)

Some Maps After Last Night's Session (Montporte Dungeon Campaign Session 22)

A tale of exploration from the last three sessions, told in maps. The players, +Chris C., +Daniel McEntee, +Rob Conley, and +Tim Shorts, decided to head back to Level 1 and they headed north, in search of ancient dwarven treasure.

Session 22 (Last Night)

Session 21

Session 20

Session 19

Montporte Dungeon Maps--After 15 Sessions

The brave adventurers are starting to get find their way around the Montporte Dungeon. There has been a significant amount of territory explored (compare maps below with the maps after session 5 and after session 10). Because they were teleported during Session 13, the maps below are still a bit disjointed and jumbled.

The Key
A = 25' ladder between Level 1 and Sub-Level 1
B = 25' ladder between Level 1 and Sub-Level 1
C = Unexplored Corridors and Spaces
D = Unopened/Unexplored Doors
E = Exit/Entrance to the Dungeon
F = 100' Deep Spiral Staircase Between Level 1 and Level 2
G = 100' Deep Staircase Between Level 1 and Level 2
H = 100' Deep Spiral Staircase Between Level 1 and Level 2
I = Teleport Pad from Level 2 to Level 1
S = Unexplored Stairs Down
T = Unexplored Stairs Up
U = Unexplored Ladder Down

Scale: 1 Square = 5 Feet
Click on a map to enlarge it.

Level 1 Maps

Level 1 (1 square = 5 feet)

Level 1-Exact Location Unknown

Level 1: Sub-Level

Level 2 Maps

Level 2 East

Level 2 West

Level 2-Exact Location Unknown