[WIP] The Octopus' Garden
Royal Scribe
🖼️ 194 images Surveyor
I'd like to be
Under the sea...
Here is the second of the three Marine Dungeons I've planned. The first was the Sea Elves Outpost, and the third will be a full-scale, multi-story underwater fortress (though it may take me a bit to get to it, as I'm letting myself get sidetracked).
My goal with this one was to go for speed. I wanted to see if I could create a nice dungeon in a reasonably quick amount of time. Like, imagine it's a Friday evening and I have to whip something together for my players who will be coming over Saturday morning.
I have a collection of public domain images produced by the Society for Creative Anachronism for use as heraldry symbols, and I used one of an octopus to use as a tracing guide. All told, it took me about four hours, I think, to do the first draft. I then went back to rip out the gardens that require sunlight (per the conversation in the Sea Elves Outpost thread) and replace with things that wouldn't require sunlight.
This one is called The Octopus' Garden. It's unknown who first excavated this realm beneath a marine mountain, carving it out in the shape of an octopus, but it has now become the lair of a Sea Hag.
Here it is unlabeled:
Here it is with labels:
The octopus' eight arms serve as wings in the lair (or maybe we should say tentacles instead of wings), with the suckers becoming small rooms in the lair. The southernmost tentacles open to the sea, becoming entrances to the lair, while the other six are fully enclosed. The chambers in tentacles 1, 2, 3, and 4 are used to produce food for the lair's residents.
As you enter -- if you can get past the sharks that the Sea Hag has enchanted to guard her entrance -- you'll see that the chambers closest to the entrance get just enough sunlight (improbably) to grow vegetation. The other chambers grow things that don't need sunlight, particularly marine mushrooms. (True story: freshwater aquatic mushrooms were discovered about 15 years ago. They're only found in a single mile-long stretch of the Rogue River in Oregon, in a spot where my family has a cabin that has been in the family for generations. But in my fantasy realm, saltwater mushrooms are abundant.)
Other chambers are used to raise shellfish, sea urchins, and anemones, who are all fed with vegetation harvested from the kelp forest outside of the lair on the northeastern side.
The chambers in tentacles 5 and 6 are all prison cells. If you look closely, you'll see a double set of gates in the entrances to those chambers. They all have hammocks for the prisoners to sleep in, but they are also all equipped with shackles bolted to the lair's walls for situations where a prisoner may need extra restraints. If you look closely, you'll see that two of the cells have humanoid creatures (probably sea elves) shackled to the walls. Another has a humanoid skeleton, while a fourth has the skeletal remains of some other creature. A fifth has an imprisoned mermaid, and the others in this closeup are unoccupied.
The chambers in tentacles 7 and 8 are are bedchambers, each equipped with a hammock and one or more chests so the resident's valuables don't go floating away.
The "head" of the octopus is a Great Hall, where the Sea Hag holds court. Today she has chosen to take the form of a giant octopus.
The two spots labeled #10, where the octopus' eyes would be, are extraplanar portals. Some say that one goes to a dangerous swamp in the Feywild while the other goes to an even more dangerous fen in the Shadowfell. Others say they go to the Elemental Plane of Water, or to soggy planes of the Abyss.
Why would our adventurers go there? Perhaps they are trying to rescue the mermaid, or the other NPCs. Perhaps they need to use the portals to get to the next stop of their missions. Perhaps they need to negotiate with the Sea Hag for help with something. (Maybe one wants to trade her voice for a love potion -- no, not that.) Maybe the Sea Hag has a magical artifact that they need to complete their quest....
Comments
Amazing work. I am in awe. Wish you would consider adding some of your maps to the Atlas.
I will, I promise! I am scoping out a good place for them. I just get overwhelmed every time I peek inside, but I promise to make it a priority.
Not like I am an expert at sheet effects, but I think this one needs a little edge fade or something. The top of the head just seems a bit harsh.
The rest is pretty freaking awesome.
Now I am going to have to go into the wikipedia rabbit hole on freshwater mushrooms.
Hi Don,
I'm not sure which part of the head you think is a little harsh. The edge where the rocky mountain reaches the outside (#A), the part where the the rocky part reaches the inner wall (#B), the part where the inner wall reaches the sandy floor (#C), or something else entirely?
I have some effects in mind, depending. Maybe like the double glows that Remy used in the recent "Hiding in the Forest" tutorial, to create more shape? (I think they're already on the wall but I can play with the settings.) Maybe a slight bevel? Maybe adding a little shingle on top of the rocky part? I can play with it but curious for a little more guidance.
Another part that bothered me is how the inner stone wall has a wall shadow onto the rocky part. I was going to add a Wall Mask, but doing so by tracing the stone wall would cut away half of the stone wall. (Maybe it would work with a heavy edge fade? I can play with that.)
I accomplished my mission for seeing if I could get a nice map done relatively quickly (like in an afternoon), but now I can invest more time in perfecting it.
A, is the one I think is a bit harsh. Can you put the plants above that edge and see how that looks?
I think the inner ones look just right.
Looking great!
It does seem a little bright, clutter-free and cheery for a Sea Hag's lair though (or any Hag's). I've only done one so far, and that was for a Deep Sea Hag, Aunty MacKassa, in the Atlas. She does though have a couple of vehicle-lairs as well - a ship and a hut (linked from the linked map if anyone's interested!).
Very Cool! I will experiment with vegetation and maybe saturation/brightness, or maybe shadows, though I want to make sure I don’t lose the beauty of the Marine Dungeons.
Okay, I've had a chance to do some experimenting.
@Don Anderson Jr. -- here's a test putting things on the SYMBOLS WALLS MARINE sheet. #A is from the Weeds symbols, #B is Seagrass, C is coral, D is the Wall Weeds, and E is Weedy Rocks. What do people think? Any favorite combinations here?
@Wyvern -- I experimented with creating a murkiness by adding the ADJUST HUE/SATURATION effect to the DEEP WATER sheet (which I moved above the walls so that the walls would block it), and then lowering the Hue and increasing the Brightness. I then used the "Water, default, deepest" for the areas closest to the Sea Hag and the "Water, default, deeper" for the murky water farther away.
Honestly turned out better than I expected. I created a DEEP WATER 2 sheet so that I could have different settings for the Deeper and Deepest water. Doing it this way allows me to keep the rest of the ocean untainted. Now I have to decide how pervasive the murkiness is. I could make the entire head area the murkiest, with the less murky fill permeating the rest of the lair, or maybe most of the rest of the lair. Or I could keep the murkiness just in the head area.
I will also add some bones and other debris, though probably won't add too much clutter.
I like the top one, but I'm not sure about the bottom one.
Should I just use one murkiness? That would certainly be easier!
It's very much something that will always be down to individual preferences. See what other's say, and also make sure to take note of your own preferences too ;)
I like A and E.
The murkiness looks pretty decent. Wyvern was right on his opinion of being bright.
A & E are my favorites, too, but I wanted to see what others said first.
amazing work Royal <3
Thank you! I definitely plan to submit this one to the Atlas. Nothing would please me more than to get a message from a stranger saying they used it in their campaign, and all of the antics that ensued.
Here's what I've done with adding murkiness to the heart of the Sea Hag's lair, and softening the cliff edges with weeds and rocks and weedy rocks. Oh, and a pile of bones and other debris.
More bones please.
You could put them all over. Make parties think there are traps everywhere.
Or that the SeaHag has lived here for a hundred years... and not taken out the trash lol.
I think your work is magnificent, and I would go with your own instincts in the final analysis.
Have you picked a spot in the Atlas for this?
No, that’s on my weekend to do list. If you have recommendations, I am all ears.
What are the environ requirements?
I don’t really have any requirements. I think it would go well with the Sea Elf Outpost in the vicinity, but I haven’t really thought it through. Tropical? Or maybe a little outside of that? Not really sure. No specific requirements.
What about the rocky reefs (Spiros Reefs) to the east of the land mass in the Irisian City States in Artemisia? It is subtropical.
Or the reefs around Menina island (mapped but not yet in the Atlas) - the island is just under the text Spiros Reefs. The mermaid figure could always be seen as a sea-elf. I could also add a volcano here before I hand the map in.
As soon as I saw this map, my eyes pulled to Spiros Reef, not even exagerating.
You could add a small island for the outpost there - your island is less than a mile wide, I think. Or I could add one to the Menina island map before submitting it to the Atlas, whatever you want. And rename the Mermaid Grotto.
The murkiness looks nice, but is maybe a little too uniform. A few darker and lighter patches scattered about might reduce that effect, or maybe just a bit more clutter in places. And you could add more clutter too anyway, of course!
Must admit, I'm not sure what that sharp outer edge you've been planting weeds across is meant to represent. Are we looking at a cross section through solid stone, to where the octopus tunnels have been carved out inside, or is the whole open to the sea? I thought originally it was a cross-section through a stone reef, but now I'm not so sure, as adding weeds along the edge has made it look like the whole is completely open to the sea.
If it had been a natural stone reef - the surviving base of an old offshore stack, for example - a slightly less regular exterior line for the grey stone polygon might have worked better, for instance, although then, the vegetation, etc., would have had to more closely follow that outer line.
@Wyvern - I’m experimenting with adding some patches to the murkiness, and can add more debris. Yes, it was intended to be a cutaway, where we are looking at caverns entirely enclosed by the rock. The idea is that the weedy rocks cover the entire cavern but we’re only seeing the edges that aren’t cut away. The rocks were meant to cover the sharpness of the cutaway line. Would adding a shadow layer above everything help cover that it’s underground, distinguishing between the outer sea and the inner non-murky parts of the water? I will experiment.
@Quenten - The reefs around Menina Island look great, and a small island for the Sea Elf Outpost would be wonderful. Yes, the island is small. The whole map is 1000x800 feet, and the above-water stretch of the hill along the beach is about 650 feet.
That is exactly waht I imagined. If you intent for this to be an adventure. Half of the adventure could almost be wandering through the coral reef to try find the entrance to the lair. Imagine how confusing that would be, especially if they adventurers had no naivgation or applicable skills of underwater survival.
@Royal Scribe commented: Yes, it was intended to be a cutaway, where we are looking at caverns entirely enclosed by the rock. The idea is that the weedy rocks cover the entire cavern but we’re only seeing the edges that aren’t cut away. The rocks were meant to cover the sharpness of the cutaway line. Would adding a shadow layer above everything help cover that it’s underground, distinguishing between the outer sea and the inner non-murky parts of the water? I will experiment.
In that case, I think you had it right the first time, with the sharp boundary without the plants over it. An Outer Glow, not too strong, might work better than a shadow effect here.
You might also consider masking the shadow effect on the interior walls where it shows up on the "internal" rock, as those wall stones should be in the same cut-through plane as the solid rock.
This could mean too that the internal octopus tunnel floors should be darker generally than those on the external sea floor, to help give the impression better that they're completely enclosed. I think that would work better than a general shadow layer, as the internal solid rock seems suitably dark enough now.
In that case, I think you had it right the first time, with the sharp boundary without the plants over it. An Outer Glow, not too strong, might work better than a shadow effect here.
I like that idea. I will experiment. The rocks and weeds I added are all on the Walla Symbols sheer, so it will be easy enough to hide them to experiment. Maybe I will move them to a separate “Lair Cover” layer and add a covering for the entire lair that can be “cut away” by hiding that layer.
You might also consider masking the shadow effect on the interior walls where it shows up on the "internal" rock, as those wall stones should be in the same cut-through plane as the solid rock.
Just so I’m following you: right now, the solid stone is on one wall sheet, with the stoneworked walls on a second sheet afterwards. Are you recommending a wall mask after the first wall so that the stoneworked wall’s shadow doesn’t fall onto it? It’s something I considered, but seemed like a lot of work. Not something I could do for my “speed test” (making a dungeon in an afternoon), but now that I’m moving on to the prettification phase, I can invest the time.
Self-correction: the wall mask would be after both walls.
Okay, here are the changes I made:
Thoughts?
Thoughts?