Underground Waterfall Temple
So, I'm in the process of writing my first fantasy campaign (probably for Fate, but I've been working on the story rather than the stats so far). I've begun the process of making maps. And I'm interested in getting some feedback.
Obviously, I can't ask my tabletop group, as they're going to be my players
The whole campaign takes place underground, but I've started mapping from the bottom up with one of the last areas the players should find: the subterranean cave and temple which is causing a lot of their problems. The concept is of a huge cave which was inhabited by cultists generations ago, abandoned and forgotten, and then re-discovered by accident.
I know I want a few things here:
- The cultists put all their building time into the temple itself, and the rest of their structures were ramshackle huts and pre-existing caves.
- The waterfalls have cut through the rock in the centuries since the cave was abandoned, so they're further back from the temple than they were, and erosion has taken out a couple of the old huts.
- The cult's major goal was kidnapping new slaves/sacrifices for their god, so the prison is important.
- An exploring group (of cartographers, no less) re-discovered the cave by accident, and their camp is still here.
- The temple and prison are in use again, as this group was overtaken by the dormant god.
This was an earlier concept, the entrance is no longer behind a waterfall and I hadn't really thought about erosion yet:
This is the most recent map, which I probably should have done with a grid to start with but oh well:
Both hand-drawn in Photoshop with a tablet. I haven't mapped the temple itself yet.
I'd be really grateful for feedback. Do the maps look good visually, would you as a player be interested in exploring them, are they clear & legible, am I overlooking anything important? Is the location believable? Thoughts on 3d/isometric maps vs top-down maps? And I feel like I have a lot of empty space in the second map, is that a bad thing?
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