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Deck of Worlds Arrived

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

At long last, and mostly down to disruption to services due to strikes around the Christmas and New Year period, I have got my hands on the Deck of Worlds. Its the result of a Kickstarter I backed last year by the same team who created the The Story Deck. Both of these boxes of prompt cards are now sitting very proudly on my bookshelf and will be getting some use over the weekend.

The entire concept is that there are different cards for types of location, something significant there, an adjective or property that can be applied to either, a peculiarity of the region, and something that is happening there. These can be shuffled and interpreted in all sorts of ways – and in particular I think they’ll be useful for world building in my games.

As an experiment I ran through the cards and came up with a combination that I turned into the following description:

In a windswept forest lies the ruins of a forge and workshop that legend declares to have once been the home of unknown gods. When the wind whips round and the moon is bright, the sound of roaring flames still lingers here. Animal life that comes close to the ruins seem to become confused while near, but soon recover when they leave.

I then fired up Dungeon Alchemy and created the image in this blog post – showing a clearing in a hilly forest. Within it lies the ancient forge, bits of fallen masonry, an abandoned temple building behind it, a well and an overgrown path leading away into the forest. I’ll post the finished map when I’ve added a few more trees and bushes along with some ideas for encounters. I might even use a version of it in one of the D&D games I’m currently running as it has turned out rather well I think.

Map – Coal’s Clubhouse

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

This map featured in our recent one-shot and was a good chance to flesh out the local suburb and bring the group up to speed on what their erstwhile companion had been up to while they were out saving the world.

A shiny metal human-shaped robot in a smart suit cut for a male, and wearing a long coat. He is standing half turned to the viewer. He holds a sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left. A spiked mace appears to be slung on his back. He has a cigar in his mouth. Behind him is a wooden chest that has opened to reveal big teeth and a tongue and seems to be protecting rather than menacing him.

The club house was founded by Coal, a warforged rogue, to provide a safe space, meals, and general support to local youths – and it is almost certainly only a vicious rumour that it is also a front for a small guild of thieves with a side line in community support.

Just to remind you, this is what Coal looks like: a lithe robot in a suit, with a flowing long coat, various blades and spiked objects close to hand, and quite often a tame mimic nearby as backup.

So, here’s the clubhouse. I only created the main public area – mostly due to time constraint – but also to save some surprises for the future. There’s a large hatch in the main area in the floor suggesting a cellar. There are also stairs to an upper floor.

The general layout was inferred from the more generic area map of the suburb we’ve been using in the main campaign, and created using Dungeon Alchemist. This allowed me to then embed support for dynamic lighting, doors, windows, and movement restriction for walls. As it is on the edge of a public gardens, that provides a pleasant backdrop, while there are buildings either side, suggested by the free-standing walls. In the wider area map, the building to the left is a tea shop and cafeteria famed for its range of produce and cakes. To the right is the home of Iron Ryan, who is a renowned pit fighter, rival to Thorin, and general friend of the DDC who dated Kerne for a while. He’s a regular visitor at the club house and teaches self defence classes – and is most definitely not working as muscle for Coal, and you won’t repeat that rumour unless you fancy waking up tied up and on display somewhere public.

Top down map of a building with rooms as described in the main text. Various tables, chairs and other pieces of furniture fill the rooms and show a moderately comfortable level of living

There are two entrance lobbies from the street that lead into the main hall – and the ground floor contains two study/lounges, an office, a toilet, a kitchen, and a pantry. In our game it made a good place for the group to receive their rewards, debrief Coal on the mission, and give young Odif a present.

I have, as usual with a Dungeon Alchemy map, created a zip file with the original file, a jpg export, and a text file giving all the additional sizing/doors/windows/dynamic lighting support. To use it in Roll20, upload the jpg to a blank map and put it on the map layer, then cut and paste the text file into the chat box while you have the Dungeon Alchemy API script running. It will resize and label the map accordingly.

Feel free to download, and if you use it, drop me a note to let me know what stories unfolded: coalsclubhouse.zip