zachmoeller

Mines and Mountains

Added 2021-07-15 01:57:52 +0000 UTC

A broken wagon lay in pieces in a little wooded hollow along the mountain road. A makeshift campsite sits adjacent to the damaged vehicle, where two bedrolls lay in the open grass next to a firepit. Sheltered from the wind by rocky walls, it seems as if whoever rested here had no challenge starting a fire, for a few red coals can be seen scattered about the ashes.

A gust whips through the narrow channel in the mountain pass. The road is wide and level enough for a caravan to traverse, though the tall canyon walls of the passage would make any such parties vulnerable to falling rock and even ambushes. Best to keep your wits about you..

It is said the duergar guarding the outpost have found a great treasure hidden within the mountainside- so great in fact that they’ve recruited the aid of a red dragon to help them guard it. Heat can be felt from below as you descend into the compound, but it is hard to say whether it comes from the dragon or from the legendary forge housed within.

The mine sits abandoned with an empty cart resting at the end of the rails. A cave-in closes off the main tunnel through which the rails pass. Tunnels burrowed into the walls of neighboring passages suggest that you are not alone here in the dark.

So I’ve kept it under wraps, but I have been working very diligently here behind the scenes on a big project, hence the surprise second release today. I am excited to announce my new partnership with Adventures Await, who has brought me onto his team to create all the maps for his self-titled publication featuring over 40 original 5e adventures. I will be redesigning about 70 maps that have been created to accompany these written encounters, and will be rolling those maps and their variants into my regular Patreon content.

What this means for you is an increased variety of future content. The opportunity to work on such a big project is enabling me to push out a ton of extra stuff for all of you. As you have probably noticed, this post includes four separate original base maps, each with several variants. In the past I have typically created a single base map and then developed a dozen or so variants, but I am hoping that sacrificing those extra variants will be a worthwhile tradeoff for getting additional original maps.

I strongly encourage you to check out the Adventures Await Kickstarter, which funded several months back but is still offering hardcover and pdf preorders for those who missed the campaign. Already backed the Kickstarter or subbed to the Adventures Await Patreon? That’s great too! You’ll have early access to all the maps as I release them, the ability to influence their progress on my Discord channel, and depending on your tier, will have access to exclusive variants, assets and Foundry VTT modules.

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Get this week's maps here: