Cozy Land is back

Get the print version here: https://portablecity.gumroad.com/l/kvhJW

Download the version with numbers to key the map: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pS2zmSQouxaT1HsOBH2L0lWQjbbwIaN6/view?usp=sharing

Tomb of the Butterflies

I drew a dungeon using Isometric Blanks, a small isometric maps zine that Geoff offer to print with Zine Quest 3. 

I will maybe try to describe the rooms more in details the next time I procrastinate. 

My collection of maps

I assembled all my maps into a collection on Artstation, I was surprised by how many I drew.

I have to admit that I did that because sometime I feel like my map work is a bit under appreciated/celebrated. Probably simply because I am a bit shy and that my anxiety make it difficult for me to participate to big projects and events (like cons).

(Note that you can open most of these projects to reveal additional maps.)

Anyway, enjoy. 😊

https://www.artstation.com/evlynmoreau/albums/2782193

The Forgotten Garden

Contributions by: Cleo, 3toadstools, 𝓸𝓻𝓫 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮, Alex C, Etherik, Qwo and Alex T.

The garden vegetation spread over it crumbling pastel pink brics square walls.
The secondary entry is a small hole in the garden walls and is well camouflaged, it require a find secret doors test to be found.

(01) Whispering Tunnel
You can perceive movements behind the brambles, if you investigate you hear whisperings and glimpse a random encounter. This encounter will happen the next time one is triggered.

(02) Heart of Thorns
The branch walls of this area pulsate to the rhythm of an unseen beating heart. Thorns and spines protrude everywhere, making passage difficult. The slightest touch agitates the thorned branches tremendously, increasing the heart's rate.

(03) Chromatorose garden
Wafting from this room is a greenish gas, its thick and visibility is low. Within the room is a heart shaped wooden bookshelf (with 1d100 odd books on it). The greengas ward off the doppelgängers.

Rising above the greenish gas throne the chromatorose: the petals of this flower shimmer with endless colours. The gardener picks through the spines on stilts, pruning and watering, blindly and mechanically. At a first infraction he will gently shoo the characters away, but he is willing to die for his crop.

(04) Mimicry glade
A small glade with berry bushes which hum a song lulling you to sleep. When you wake up, there is a perfect doppelgänger of you present in the glade. Make a reaction test: on a negative reaction the doppelgänger secretly want to murder you, on a neutral reaction it is afraid of you and on a positive reaction it have a secret crush on you.

(05) Campsite
Acrid, yeasty odour, furniture of unfired clay and scrap metal, clockwork geegaws on tripods trained at the bramble "island" to the right. Campsite of A DISHEVELED MAN, who is convinced the rabbits living in the bramble "island" are more technologically advanced than they let on.

* He's been here for twenty years; has forgotten his name.
* Strong odour comes from his attempts to make bramble kimchi and bramble wine.
* Geegaws are motion-detecting clockwork cameras of his own design, hold three photographs.

Wants (descending order):
* to be proven right
* denizens of [2] and [4] to let him set up his geegaws there too.
* chocolate
* a new mirror
* other sundried supplies he can't improvise
Has:
* geegaw schematics, but not the parts to make more
* wine and kimchi (standard rations)

(06)
A sleeping young man is embedded in the brambles. He is not in a glass coffin, so the thorns have pierced his skin in multiple places, but no blood is coming out, instead the brambles have grown tiny red flowers.

(07) Reflecting pool
Brambles stalactites and stalagmites glisten with water around this still pool of water. if you have a light source and you look in the poll, roll 1d6

1-3 see yourself as others see you (this affect how your doppelgänger appear in area 04).
4-5 watch event distant in time or space.
6 glimpse misfortune just before it occurs.

(08) Serpents Den
On entering, a hive mind of poisonous snakes form into a gestalt giant serpent and demands knowledge of the occurrences of section 05. If given, they'll reveal a secret exit. If refused, they attack.

Random encounters (d10)

1. Whispering spiders (their poison make you perceive all sounds as deafening)
2. Crown of thorns: a vampiric spider like ball of brambles that pulsate like a beating heart.
3. Gardener apprentice: a small animal walking on stilts, speak common.
4. Lost doppelgänger (afraid of other doppelgängers).
5. Doppelgänger of the disheveled man (or maybe he is the original?)
6. Clockwork rabbit
7. Doppelgänger of the sleeping young man in area 06, want to murder other doppelgängers.
8. A living patch of light from a distant time and space, it can be subdued by the chromatorose.
9. Lone snake spying for the hive mind of area 08
10. Bramble sprite

Treasures (d10)

1. Secrets weaved in spider web
2. Ruby like blood drops
3. Tarnished silver jewelry
4. Vegetation mimicking pretty silver jewelry
5. Rare wild rose (1 moonlight, 2 bleeding, 3 blue, 4 sentient, 5 poison, 6 chromatic)
6. Magical fruit (1 healing, 2 dreaming, 3 doppelgänger mind melt, 4 shimmering aura)
7. Clockwork part, mastercraft work
8. Family heirloom
9. Gardening tool with engraved initials
10. Magic ring (protection against: 1 thorns, 2 sleep, 3 poison, 4 charm, 5 thirst, 6 life drain)

Keywords maps

As a experiment I used keywords instead of names to fill up a map. I selected the keywords using free associations but I guess that you could also randomly generate them or use a mix of both techniques. Generating them collectively could also be fun.

I think that I like the result, I could easily use the map to improvise a point crawl session. The only annoying thing is that you have to figure out how to actually name things in the game world, I guess that you can combine the keywords with other words to craft names. Like the town with the keyword "sad" could be Sad Street or Sad Sparrow.

You could also use the keywords to generate random encounters. Let's try this.

The red keywords are regions or kingdoms, lets try with Diaspora of Remembrance. 

On one table we put up 20 keywords located in the region. 

1. Remembrance 
2. Sad
3. Moon
4. Quiet
5. Buried
6. Paintings
7. Healing
8. Light
9. Ghasts
10. Joy
11. Old
12. Memories
13. Abandoned
14. Forgotten
15. Ribbons
16. Milk
17. Exiled
18. Mourn
19. Roots
20. Rest

On a other table we put 10 types of encounters

1. Group of people
2. Loner or outcast 
3. Trader
4. Small beasts 
5. Large beast
6. Undead
7. Spirit
8. Monster
9. Conman 
10. Figure of authority  

If we combine some rolls to craft a d10 random encounters table we get:

1. Healing + Figure of authority 
2. Joy + Outcast 
3. Memories + Undead
4. Exiled + Spirit
5. Remembrance + Conman
6. Ghasts + Small beasts
7. Light + Undead
8. Buried + Group of People 
9. Milk+  Group of people
10. Forgotten + Trader

I could easily work with this. You can apply the same formula to generate treasures and magical items. 

Keyed version of the map from Lacustres.

I was thinking of doing a more gameable version of Lacustres but I never finished it. I am sharing you what I wrote, in case that you would like to use it with the zine. (there is also a free PDF version in my side links)

The Lake

1. Abandoned Hunting Lodge, cursed trophies, one random recipe.
2. Quiet River, encounters are more peacefuls, strong current. 
3. Birds Island, lair of small birds and the elder bird (+2HD).
4. Shallow Beach, a bit more chances of making random encounters.
5. Dark Forest, nearly no sunlight, encounter are more creepy.
6. Gentle Whirlpool, lost rowboat with a bird nest in it, baby bird can be kept as pet.
7. Algae Forest, lots of tiny fishes hiding among the algaes, good for aquatic ambushes.
8. Dead Forest, giant insects (+1HD).
9. Old Daddy or Mommy, roll a d12 on the random encounter table, this monster is unique, old and very wise (+2HD).
10. Tombstone Island, lonely 2HD undeads and a forgotten treasure.
11. Algae Island, sentient algae colony, guard a shipwreck for sentimental reasons.
12. Cattail Beach, tasty cattail, heal 1d4 HP when used to prepare food.
13. Hag Cave, recipes book contain 4 recipes, d6 cursed talking skulls.
14. River Dam, made by a random monster (roll d12 on encounter table).
15. Islands Delta, long poles with trinkets, some are protection charms.
16. Fisherwomen Family, all women, husband was transformed by the Hag into a monster.
17. Forbidden River, haunted (charms from #15 protects against ghosts)
18. Bushes, eerie wind chimes, tiny people and a cursed giant badger.
19. South River, giant storks (+1HD)
20. Swamp Tree, strange fruits that give visions and may have other side effects.
21. Haunted Mountain, old ogre hermit who make ghost sounds to scare people away.
22. Grass Beach, good hiding place, old crab who weave baskets and put shells in them.
23. Beached monster, larger specimen (+1HD) roll a d12 on the random encounter table.
24. Good Fishing Spot, gain advantage when fishing here, fisherwomen from area 16 sometimes fish here.
25. Moles Hills, crafty giant moles hunt nasty but tasty evil worms.
26. Lake Weather, roll a random weather that affect the whole lake for d6 days.
27. Lost Dog, a big friendly dog (3HD) guard the remains of his old master.
28. Buried Treasure, multiple exploratory holes awakened something that burrow.
29. Poachers Trail, bandits who hunt lake monsters to sell their body parts.
30. Burrows Hills, complex network of abandoned burrows big enough to crawl through them while walking on all fours.

Aquatic or shore encounters (d20) 

1 to 12. Lake monsters (in page order)
13. Fishes and mollusks
14. Amphibians and crustaceans
15. Birds
16. Mammals
17. Insects
18. Special algae
19. Wreckage or carcass
20. Lonely fisherman (or ghost)

Land Encounters (d10)
1. Mollusks or snails
2. Amphibians and crustaceans
3. Birds
4. Mammals
5. Insects
6. Special flora
7. Abandoned camp or trash
8. Group of bandits (d6)
9. Hunter or woman gathering herbs
10. Lonely traveler (or ghost)

Lake weather (d10) last d6 days.

1. Soft rain and distant thunder
2. Heavy rain and close thunder
3. Hail (last d6 hours only)
4. Fireflies or whispering will-o-the-wisps (last d6 hours only)
5. Small lightning balls slowly drifting over the water (last d6 hours only)
6. Muddy or troubled water, some dead fishes and debris, things are too quiet...
7. Faery fires and wind chimes or tiny bells (last d6 hours only)
8. Light breeze and soft waves (lots of birds)
9. Windy with big waves
10. Sunny and calm, clear water (but lots of bugs)

Vertical cut map test

I am experimenting with video-game inspired vertical cut maps. 

I plan to add more points of interest to the map.  

More about the doodles maps

Thinking back about how this little community project went.

Starting with a fun and inspiring artwork map really helped to trigger enthusiasm, 32 people contributed and we keyed the 41 areas in 24h. (I notice that we were only 3 women, this is only 9% of the of the contributors, a percentage common to OSR discussions threads).

The tone was overall whimsical but imaginative. I only edited out one element that was too pop culture reference gonzo. But thinking back about it, I could have turned this element into a silly rumor.

Some people contributed different descriptions for the same area, this was not a problem and I even encouraged it. I fused the multiple interpretations together or I turned them into rumors. Rumors are a good tool to keep descriptions that may contradict each others.

Once I compiled everything, I wrote a d6 encounters and a d6 treasures tables for each area. To write the tables I based myself on the description of the areas, sometime incorporating stuff from other areas, I also had to extrapolate and invent some stuff for some of the areas that had a very short description.
I really like this d6 encounters and d6 treasures tables formula. I think it help a lot to bring the areas to life and to make the map more gameable. Having more time I would maybe have added a d6 rumors table to each area. I think these three elements work well together: dangers, rewards and opportunities. The d6 tables are also a good tool to glue together the content of the contributions as you may create link between them.

Having one or two persons who add a other layer of content (the d6 tables) over the collective material make the content stick more together. Doing it alone was a lot of work (I wrote 82 tables) but it was also super fun to jam with what the community contributed.

I enjoy these community creations projects a lot, I especially love the cross pollinisation of ideas (including illustrations and text), it feel a bit like playing a game of How to Host a Dungeon or of Microscope.

...

Eventually I would like to draw more maps to have a full 3x3 grid. But that would be a lot of work as it would give us a total of 360 areas to key (and a lot of d6 tables to write!).

If we ever complete the grid, I would like that someone better than me work on the layout for the compilation to have a nice book. Maybe we can also print the maps on PoD cardboards.

Here are the North-South axis and the West-East axis b&w unkeyed maps:

Doodles Map collaboration

I doodled a small map in my note book and we collectively filled the areas' descriptions on G+

Feel free to reshare the PDF and to use it content as you wish.

The Doodles Map PDF file

Work in progress: pocket dimension, part 01

To relax I am drawing into my Pocket Dimension book (thanks Daniel!).
I am only using a pink and a green pen to create this dimension.
I will post the result when it will look completed.

Moon Jungle Map

For the next issue of the Dungeon Lord zine: 

Generic hex crawl map encounters.

We are filling a hex crawl map on Roludo (a Montreal gaming community forum).

I made a random encounter table to play our collective hex crawl at our next Roludothon (our local very micro convention). 

Since we want to explore the map, I guess we could check for encounters (or roll on the table) for each hex. 

roll 2d6
2: Unique location or feature of the hex (dangerous but can be helpful).
3: Encounter between two hostile predators.
4: Alpha predator (territorial) (near lair). 
5: Beta predators (hunting) (looking for prey). 
6: Pest (scavenging). 
7: Landmark or clue pointing toward a adventure location (or toward #2 & #12).
8: Humanoids travelling toward a settlement (check reaction).
9: Humanoids busy doing something (check reaction).
10: Humanoids in refuge, camp or small settlement (check reaction).
11: Humanoids needing or offering help.
12: Unique location or feature of the hex (helpful but can be dangerous).

• Unique location: a small adventuring location build around a "special" trick/feature. 
• Predators: can be natural or supernatural. 
• Alpha predators: won't chase the party, keep close to their lair. 
• Beta predators: may chase the party or stalk them to ambush them later.
• Pest: have low moral and will hesitate to attack. May chase the party if they outnumber them. May be busy scavenging something. 
• Landmark: give clue about the hex content. 
• Clues: can point to other clues or directly to the adventuring location. 
• Adventuring location: can be bigger than a unique location.  
• Humanoids: can be any negotiable sentient being. 
• Humanoids:  use the reaction test for inspiration about the nature of the encountered group. They can be bandits or worse on a bad reaction test. 
• Traveler: can be locals traveling to a local settlement or strangers traveling toward a other hex (roll a open d6 to find out how many hex away).  
• Busy: again use the reaction test for inspiration. A bad result may indict something they don't want other people to disturb or see (like burying a corpse). 
• Camp: more then one group can be present. Again use the reaction test for inspiration. A bad result may indict a conflict between the groups present.  
• Help: you may reroll on the table to find what they need or offer help for.