Sangalor's Home

roflo1

A couple of weeks ago, I had to come up with a battle map for use in my VTT of choice... and I didn't have much time.

I didn't actually time myself, but judging by the files' timestamps, this took me about an hour to complete from scratch. Maybe one day I'll be able to match Ralf and Remy and come up with something more elaborate in just one hour, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

DaltonSpence

No windows so I assume it's underground but the stairs go down. Also burning torches: how is it ventilated? (Cough!)

roflo1

Yes, this is underground. It's supposed to be in Skullport, but I had no canonical information at hand, so I just winged/improvised given the time I had.

I decided it would be carved into the cave (maybe we could say that there are "natural" chimneys in the ceiling?). Do note that there's a ladder leading up in the room with the pool and a trapdoor below the barrel and sacks in the room with the bed.

Rob_Wordsmith

I like it. Being underground, ventilation would probably be cracks or chimneys through the ceiling, as you said. I might scale down the width of the floor planks. A human-scaled chair seat is about 18" to 2' across, so that means those planks are about 20-ish inches across.

DaltonSpence

I would recommend candles or lanterns instead of torches; less problems with ventilation that way. Maybe a small night table next to the bed? One chair in the room between the bedroom and the dining room? And what's in the tub in the room with the ladder? (Blood would get a bit stinky after a while.) I hope one of those "natural chimneys" is connected to the fireplace (although someone up top might spot the smoke). Also a wood floor? Tile, dirt or stone might be better. I'll assume food, water and sanitary facilities are below.

roflo1

This was pretty much a "throwaway" map for me, so I didn't expect to revisit it.

However, my favourite VTT is now defunct and now I have to worry about lighting effects and nighttime. So I wanted to test it out and this seemed like a good candidate.

Lessons learned:

Light effects are best placed at the top of the list (unless you really know what you're doing).

Make sure you check which symbols shouldn't cast a shadow..

... of all the above recommendations I only changed torches to candles, and then I totally missed the tiny candle symbols when moving the chimney, tables and shelves to another sheet. I'm not proud to admit that it took me a long time to realize it.

Oh, while I type this message I'll add: blurring the shadows is a good idea (totally missed it until now).