royal crypt

[CluelessCartog]

i wanted to go in a more dungeon crawly direction for my next map, and i thought a crypt was a good choice as i LOVE the undead. i wanted this one to be a little cramped as to limit the players mobility, and you can gradually ramp up the type of undead as they go along towards the main chamber. i picture the crypt belonging to a child emperor and all of his faithful retainers and guards, not to mention all of his family. i think there is great potential for roleplay if your main undead is a child who may have been murdered for his throne.

this is the first draft and i will refine the design later this week and hopefully have a finished map on Saturday.

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[DaggerAndBrush]

I like the concept. As you say the PC's will have two options to get to the main chamber, maybe one of them as less encounters/less deadly undead spawn. Do I read the concept right and you intend to have some alcoves recessed into the walls? That is a cool idea and should provide some surprises for adventurers, maybe even on the way back.

What kind of style are you going for? Just a line drawing or a fully colored encounter map?

[CluelessCartog]

there are indeed alcoves in the walls that will house the remains of the emperors household staff and guards as well as his family. not really sure how i can represent it, but they will be stacked 3 high along the walls. maybe a small detail sketch is in order.

as for style, this will be a fully colored encounter map.

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[DaggerAndBrush]

A good start. I like the texture you are building up.

For the stacked skeletons: Maybe just draw one skeleton in each alcove and make the alcove slightly darker. It should then be clear they are a resting place. An isometric depiction of one alcove might also give the needed information to your players.

[CluelessCartog]

some small progress tonight, not really motivated. bleh.
i laid in the floor, some coffins, the grid, and a sketch of the hallway to show the alcoves are stacked three high. i'll refine it a bit and if i like it i may enbiggen the canvas and include other little snapshots of other areas of the crypt.

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[wdmartin]

The grid needs work.

The hallway on the left with the six coffins is clearly five feet wide, but the vertical dividing line for the grid falls about two thirds of the way across those squares. Suppose my PC is walking down the center of that hallway. Which square is he in -- the one on the left or the one on the right? That could make the difference between getting zapped with a lightning bolt or not.

Ironically, this feels too real! Real world structures don't conform to a five-foot grid, obviously. Several times I've tried adapting real world floor plans to battlemaps -- sometimes it works, but more often you wind up with a map like this one, in which the grid and the shapes of the rooms don't line up. It's very realistic, but doesn't fit well with the game mechanics.

EDIT: Looking back, I see that this wasn't an issue in your first draft. What happened?

[CluelessCartog]

i messed with the scale and didn't anticipate the scalilng issue. i'll have time tonight to get it back to where it needs to be. learning lessons the hard way...

[DaggerAndBrush]

Looking good. I really think that small sketch to the left adds a lot. I would almost say keep it simple like that, maybe some bolder lines, but really just a sketch.

The alcoves definitely read now as burial chambers. I would wonder if they would place their dead in a coffin and the coffin then in the alcove. Maybe go for a "Skyrim" style burial rite. Mummified bodies or just skeletons. The background story could be that bodies are first defleshed by being exposed to wildlife. The bones are then collected and placed in the crypt.

You drawing reminds me a lot of a 1/58 model I made inspired by Skyrim. The idea was to make several crypt modules for a gaming table. The prototype worked out nicely, but I need to adjust measurements for consecutive modules.

Here is a pick that may give you some inspiration for detailing the crypt. Some additional alcoves for sacrificial offerings etc. may be a cool idea to add flavour:

[CluelessCartog]

heeding some of this excellent advice, here is what i have cooked up so far:
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now i'll lay in the royal burial chamber details and some shadows...

[CluelessCartog]

i think i can call this one done. i added the royal casket as well as the guards. i was going for a marble feel for the dais and the guard casket tops and i think it came out ok. there are two versions, one with a grid and one without...

here is the post on my blog...