Community Atlas - Desperate Caves - Cave 4
JimP
🖼️ 280 images Cartographer
This is the cave marked number 4 on the overland map.
Different color floor areas... could be a trap, or just a change to puzzle players. Note the rather large trap door and cage. edit: Added the overland map.
900 pixels of a 1200 pixel map.
Different color floor areas... could be a trap, or just a change to puzzle players. Note the rather large trap door and cage. edit: Added the overland map.
900 pixels of a 1200 pixel map.
Comments
On the third one, the crate is a substitute for a lantern, or glowing sphere, that I would like to place there.
Any suggestions ?
All rooms have a roof, 10' ceilings, except the one with cave walls, that is open to view from the nearby stairs.
960 of 1200 pixels wide.
For that glowing sphere you could do a hovering white circle with two glows - one set to inner and a colour, and the other to outer and white? That would create the effect of a coloured sphere glowing with white light... hopefully
Map units 3. Inner glow lighest yellow in the color pick, outer glow color 15.
Second picture is the entire dungeon.
There are a number of traps, which will detail... one is about stepping on the wrong floor area, sinking into the floor, and coming back up covered in flour. Locations 21 and 18, which is why they are in the same room.
The wood stairs in room 17 lead to a secret compartment. Moving the stairs is necessary. No monsters in water area 11, but the water swirls like there is one, cloudy water.
Room 9... a ghostly apparition rises up out of the trap door and goes into the cage. It will try to block anyone trying to open the chest in area 24 which has no ceiling and low walls. Some percentage, say 15%, of the appararitions are real. The rest are illusions.
Room 22, looks like an easy walk through ? Well, there are invisible walls there. Kha-thump.
The hidden door to room 23 is behind 2 feet of stone, or it could be a secret door with a small catch, then the door opens easily.
While all rooms have ceilings, room heights are 10 to 15 feet, the platforms have no sides. A mis-step, can cause a fall, but thge characters can see around the area.
Area/room 12 could lead to a further cave area, or just a small room.
The map border is still there, I just made it white so it wouldn't detract from the map.
The Bleakness, The Churning Mountains, The Desperate Caves, Cave 4.
Some of the mountains are volcanos, some are extinct.
Symbols from Annual Issue 66 and Perspectives add-on.
Rooms: enclosed unless noted in the description. Rooms are 10 to 15 feet high unless noted in their descriptions.
Water: Ocean_MS from Mike Schley.
Clouds/fog are cloud symbols from the Alysa Faden Annual.
Several areas and rooms would be an excellent place to put monsters who try and ambush the characters as they explore this cave.
1) entrance from outside. No enclosure, easy for a character to fall to the stone floor below. A character here can see the floor below. Rooms/areas 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22 can be seen or partially seen from here.
2) a wobbly walk down to room 3. Rooms/areas 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22 can be seen or partially seen from here.
3) a 7 x 7 foot platform. The stairs leading down are partially obscured by fog.
4) A small room, one locked wooden chest. The stone door opens outward.
5) two ways to get in: the stone door from the main floor area, or the secret stone door form room 7.
6) a large thick walled room. The metal doors are attached to the walls, the wood spikes are attacked to the stone floor. The chest can be seen past the spikes and so can the pit. Some random darker floor stone will lower 1 foot, or one-third a meter, when stepped on by the third character to step on it.
It will slowly raise back up to floor level after all weight it taken off of it. Placing one of the three skulls on it and it wont sink again. The pit in the far left corner is an illusion. In one of those walls is a secret door leading out.
7) room is 8 feet high. The two vertical wall pieces hide a hidden door. The door to room 5 is a secret door.
8) an open cave wall area. If any character jumps up and down, or says 'where is the rest of this cave ?' or similar words, it will sink 10 feet downwards.
9) a ghostly apparition rises up out of the trap door and goes into the cage. It will try to block anyone trying to open the chest in area 24 which has no ceiling and low walls. Some percentage, say 15%, of the apparitions are real. The rest are illusions.
10) a small open area.
11) No monsters in water area 11, but the water swirls like there is one. The water is cloudy.
12) leads to a small area. There could be a treasure n there, or a monster.
13) An open area. Rooms/areas 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22 can be seen or partially seen from here.
14) a small platform. Stairs leading up to 13 and down to 15. A careless character can fall as there are no walls. Rooms/areas 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22 can be seen or partially seen from here.
15) a small area of rocks. Could be giant centipedes, spiders, and/or treasure mixed in with them.
16) stepping on this darker stone area will play a small chime. To make it more interesting.. a clock should then start ticking.
17) a small stone room with skulls and bones blocking the stone door. There is a hidden small enclosure, to search for it the wooden ladder will have to be moved. The enclosure is about 10 feet above the floor.
18) A nice globe lights lights up this room. Any character stepping on location 21 will rapidly sink into the floor. They will come up between the light and the number 18 on the map. They will be covered in flour.
19) a stalagmite on a pedestal. Nothing there, its to puzzle the players. Of course, you could put small spiders or snakes in there or in the stalagmite between the two stairs.
20) an open pit. It moves to one of the other dark floor squares when the characters aren't looking in its direction. The skulls and bones nearby are a warning.
21) Any character stepping on location 21 will rapidly sink into the floor. See location 18 for the rest of the information.
22) Looks like an easy maze of walls to pass around... but there are invisible stone walls to deal with as well.
23) A small cave room, hidden behind a secret door. Here is where the main boss and the treasure is located.
Congratulations
I'll be working on the side room and the hidden room noted in rooms 12 and 17.
The debris of stalagmites and bones are to make it look hard to reach.
I have thought of making two of the chests illusional... characters can grab at one chest. Only the real one has treasure, grab at one of the illusional ones, all 3 disappear.
I thought of putting these two areas on the approxmate level they would be on the main map, but I'm not sure 1) where that would be, 2) doing it this way is okay.
Desparate Caves 4
I'll submit the zip and text later today or Thursday.
The Bleakness, The Churning Mountains, The Desperate Caves, Cave 4. Two side rooms.
Some of the mountains are volcanos, some are extinct.
Symbols from Annual Issue 66 and Perspectives add-on.
The two side rooms.
The one on the right has ceiling only 5 feet up. The other one is 6 feet up.
The debris of stalagmites and bones are to make it look hard to reach.
a) stalagmites. Rock and skeleton debris on the floor. The two stone doors are traps. The two vertical wall pieces to their left covers a secret door, the only safe way to get to room B. But beware the hole trap just in front of it.
room 12 leads to room A) Two of the chests are illusional... characters can grab at one chest. Only the real one has treasure, grab at one of the illusional ones, all 3 disappear. You left your illusionist in town so you have no way of checking for illusions ? Too bad.
The other side room.
room 17 leads to room C)
Small, narrow, low 5' ceiling. This could hide monsters, traps, or treasure.
Now that I've started using Realm Works, putting these up on the a TV and using the Fog of World to reveal them as the players go will be a breeze. Plop down the Dwarven Forge tiles for the rooms where combat takes place, and the two methods together make for a smooth and organized game night.
Thanks for these Jim!
Also used was Annual issue 66. I think it would be great if another Annual issue to add more symbols for these type maps was added.