Black and White - Map Complete

Complete, but not done. This was really a test map, so calling it done is a bit of an overstatement. There are things I like and things I don't about this particular version. The speckled wall shadows and background fill pattern are pretty solid. The lava and water fills work, and the general look of the wall lines and doors are good. I'm less happy with the boulders, and I don't know about the shadows around statues and fountains now that I've used a speckle shadow for the walls. I inadvertently flattened a bunch of those objects, so I'm not going to rebuild them in this map.

So, complete. I added a border to tidy things up a bit, and that, as they say, is that.

Tile of the Week #5

The latest Tile of the Week entry. This is a more complicated moving wall piece, with multiple versions provided.

Wilds - Tick Tock

Barricaded in the fire room, the party waits out the holds placed on Durego and Mordikarr, while examining the loot they've managed to recover.

WIP Black and White Revisited

Another iteration of this WIP test map. Since this is only a test it has some odd features (like matching crevices). It doesn't really make much sense as a dungeon any more, but it's been a nice little testbed for this style.

Wilds - Fortified!

While some of the party goes exploring in the nearest areas, others work on fortifying a position to hole up until the held party members recover.

Tile of the Week #4

The latest Tile of the Week entry. This time we have the classic rotating dungeon section. In this case, the rotation feature can be emulated on the VTT by rotating the entire tile, since the non-moving parts are symmetric. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to deal with moving walls on the VTT, something that allows the GM to show the players the various altered positions.

Player Version

GM Version

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

Wilds - Aftermath

The party survived the battle much worse for wear. Now they need a plan, or at least a course of action. They know a zombie-brute headed east, back toward the stairs, and they're pretty sure someone else, possibly the necromancer / spell caster, headed south. Now what?

WIP B&W Dungeon Map

This is another iteration of the map I posted yesterday. I did some work on the staircase, lightening up the shading a bit so it's more legible. I've also added a few features to test out how some things work at this scale. I've also added some light shadows to the walls and around various features, and rebuilt the doors.

Of course the features are pretty haphazard, because this was an exercise piece, not a planned dungeon. Also, looking at this now, the altar in the SW area is kind of huge, almost ten feet across. I kind of like how the water worked out in the rectangular pool, but I'll have to redo the statue / fountain combo in the center room, as I refined the water process a bit after I did that piece. Best of all, I actually took some notes, so I can remember how to do all this next time I need a map in this format.

Dungeon in B&W

I've been playing around with black and white maps lately, working on something that looks good on a printed page. This is a WIP of today's test, a simple dungeon layout with doors and a set of steps leading down to it. Nothing fancy here, but it did turn out fairly well when I ran off a copy on my cheap laser printer.

Wilds - Doom!?

Last time, the party was in dire straits. Two members downed by spells, two more sorely wounded, and multiple brutish foes lined up against the fighters. Add to that the sudden appearance of two brute-zombies, who rose behind the party, cutting off escape. Things are looking grim for our plucky heroes. Will they survive?

PBE Games - Updates

I haven't done one of these since the end of February. Behind schedule! Here are the latest releases:

• Uncommon Ground - Ruined Earth - A stone surface with scattered smooth depressions.
• Uncommon Ground - Streaky Stone - depicts a streaked stone surface.
• Uncommon Ground - Battered Wall - depicts stone that may have been worked or shaped.
• Uncommon Ground - Cells Hatching - an organic-looking hatching pattern.
• One Page - The Great Outdoors Collection - a bundle deal on outdoor-focused tables.
• Items of Power Trilogy - All three Items of Power collections in a single discount bundle.
• Dungeons in Blue - Tunnel and Cave - Sixteen geomorphs depicting worked to natural cave connections.

And a couple preview images...

Tunnel and Cave - One-third scale preview

Battered Wall - Preview

And finally, there's a 50% discount on Tunnel and Cave available right now. Good until the end of March.

Happy gaming!

Tile of the Week #3

The latest Tile of the Week entry. Sometimes you just need a looooong hallway. This one features elevated balconies, a large crevice, and decorative pillars and statues. Perfect for a running battle.

Wilds - Wild Swings

Lots of ups and downs this session.

Nameless Coast - First Hexes

I've spent some time this past week getting organized and doing some map tweaks to get moving on this project. I'm using TiddlyWiki 5 to record ongoing developments, along with a spreadsheet to provide a tabular look at the various groups that come out of the group / event simulation I'm doing.

Wilds - Brute Squad? No Brute-Bridge!

After a fiery introduction the party has taken the initiative, for now, from the shaggy foes. Will the group follow Raúguey's bold leap into the next hall, or will they die of smoke inhalation? Let's find out!

Tile of the Week #2

The latest Tile of the Week entry. This is a more random-dungeon style entry, with several secret passages, a nice slime-room, and a large, fancy room with lots of pillars, statues, and fountains/pools.

Player Version

GM Version

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

Wilds - That's the way we do it in Blackpool!

In which a very poor tactical situation is turned on its head, possibly leading to another poor tactical situation.

TiddlyWiki 5 - How Does This Work?

A few years ago, I wrote a two part tutorial on using TiddlyWiki (part 1 and part 2). Time marches on, and there's a new version of TiddlyWiki available in beta form, TiddlyWiki 5. I decided it was time to check it out, because it's pretty and modern and has a huge amount of functionality out of box. This post is an ongoing collection of summary notes about my experiences switching over to TW5 from classic. It'll be updated as I work through various features.

Nameless Coast - An Update (of sorts)

No, I didn't give up on this project. I've been working out how exactly I'm going to be mapping this out, and my first snag was applying some sort of coordinate system to the map. The tool I used to lay out the initial map didn't include a coordinate option, and I was trying to avoid doing it all by hand in Gimp. After messing with other hex tools I finally bit the bullet and did it the old-fashioned way. 2500 hexes later...

Wilds - Flames of Battle

Things get interesting as the party faces off against a couple of brutish creatures armed with pole arms and deal with tight spaces!

Wilds - A Brief Backgrounder

By request, here's some of the background on my Wilds game. It's fairly brief, because this game was proposed as a dungeon crawler, so there wasn't great need for world-building. This post covers local geography and the main population centers nearby.