Old School Dungeon Mapping: The Castle of the Mad Archmage

jaerdaph · February 2009

Greyhawk Grognard Joe Bloch is doing this really cool old school Castle Greyhawk-esque mega dungeon called The Castle of the Mad Archmage: http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2009/01/castle-of-mad-archmage-january-release.html

I decided to try mapping this out in classic retro old school module blue and white using the December 2007 Cartographer's Annual. Here are the first two maps (the northeast and south east sections of level two). I hope to have the last two map sections (northwest and southwest) completed by Sunday. I intend to paste all four maps together for a single "giant poster" PNG when I'm done as well.

Northeast section, level two: http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level02NE.PNG

Southeast section, level two: http://chillingtales.com/images/Level02SE.PNG

Monsen · February 2009

Nice. I love these old-style maps, and these looks just like the real deal...

jaerdaph · February 2009

The latest edition of The Castle of the Archmage has been released: http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2009/02/castle-of-mad-archmage-february-release.html I've updated the map for the southeast section of level 2 to reflect the changes made in the new version http://chillingtales.com/images/Level02SEa.PNG Now that level 3 is live I've got a lot of catchup mapping to do!

jaerdaph · February 2009

Here's the southwest section of level 2:

http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level02SW.PNG

jaerdaph · March 2009

Here's the final section of Level 2 - the northwest section: http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level02NW.PNG

I should have a "poster" size image of all four sections of level 2 tomorrow after I do some minor touchups.

jaerdaph · March 2009

Here's the first map for level 3 - the northeast section: http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level03NE.PNG

AWizardInDallas · March 2009

Thanks for posting these. It's good to see that people still enjoy the old-style maps. I guess my chosen dungeon mapping style is old school too, but I like lots of notes on my maps, like where monsters, treasure and major furniture/fixtures are.

AWizardInDallas: Cartography

jaerdaph · March 2009

Here's the next map of level 3 - the southeast section http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level03SE.PNG

jaerdaph · March 2009

Here's all four sections of level 2 in a single "poster" map: http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level02POSTERa.PNG and the same thing in black and white http://www.chillingtales.com/images/Level02POSTERabw.PNG

thornrd · March 2009

Error 404....

sdavies2720 · March 2009

try Level02POSTERbbw.PNG

thornrd · March 2009

It doesn't work..
sorry

Alvin Plummer · April 2009

It might help if you go to the top image directory, and click on the desired image there:
http://www.chillingtales.com/images/

Click on the "Enable Image thumbnails" at the top to quickly spot the old-school white and blue maps.
(Which are quite faithful to the original style, BTW)

jaerdaph · May 2009

Thanks Alvin for pointing people in the right direction. Sorry about all the confusion - many of the maps have been corrected and updated so that's why they disappeared. I'm thrilled to say that Joe Bloch is now including my CC3 maps of his magnum opus megadungeon in The Castle of the Mad Archmage PDF! I moved out of New York City this past weekend to upstate New York, but now that I'm settled in I'm back to this project. The Level 4 maps are done and Joe Bloch is reviewing/proofing them, and I'm working on the level 5 maps now. I will be re-posting links to the final corrected poster map PNGs of levels 2, 3 and 4 shortly. Some folks had difficulty viewing the PNGs created directly out of CC3, but this issue has now been resolved thanks to the message boards here and at The Cartographers Guild. When Joe releases the next update of The Castle of the Archmage (which will take us to level 6), it should include all maps at least through level 5. Enought excuses from me - back to work! Thanks everyone for your continued interest.

jaerdaph · May 2009

I'm running out of bandwith for hosting maps at my Web site, so I'm going to post links to where you can check out the PNGs of the poster maps for levels 2, 3 and 4.

Level 2: EN World http://www.enworld.org/forum/4785369-post34.html The Cartographers Guild http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showpost.php?p=62253&postcount=31

Level 3: EN World http://www.enworld.org/forum/4785370-post35.html The Cartographers Guild http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showpost.php?p=62260&postcount=32

Level 4: EN World http://www.enworld.org/forum/4785418-post36.html The Cartographers Guild http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showpost.php?p=62262&postcount=33

You can also get GIF versions at the home of The Castle of the Mad Archmage, Joe Bloch's Greyhawk Grognard blog http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Castle of the Mad Archmage

Ralf · May 2009

Very cool stuff, Jaerdaph. Nicely old-school.

Monsen · May 2009

Very nice. I especially liked the undermountain style ones, but they are all nice.

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Old School Dungeon Mapping: The Castle of the Mad Archmage

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