Fourteen Adventure Maps
The following illustrations best capture what I love about visual storytelling through maps. I’ve included production notes with each map to share my design-thinking process.
One:
The Caves of Chaos
In the mid-1970s, Dungeons & Dragons was experiencing runaway popularity. When I was about 12 or 13 I got the D&D Basic Set for Christmas. I was fascinated by the intersection of heroic literary fantasy with sophisticated technical diagrams. My step-brother and I haphazardly investigated the rules, trying to figure out how to play the game. We didn’t know anything about it except that it looked really, really fun.
That Starter Set came with a prepared adventure called The Keep on the Borderlands. The premise of the adventure was delightful. The players acted as traveling adventurers — warriors, wizards, rogues, or clerics — that are enlisted by the authorities at a remote stronghold to investigate the increased activity of monsters in the area. If the opportunity presents itself, the party should put an end to the monster raids on nearby farms.
I’ve recreated the Caves of Chaos map in several ways over the intervening years. For this isometric version I used color to demarcate the various factions that exist within the Caves. While I did make small positional adjustments to the original, the access and paths are fundamentally consistent. I will certainly make this map again in the future.
Two:
Assassin’s Run
Dungeons & Dragons published rules and adventures. The rules were contained in two essential books: The Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. There were also sourcebooks containing monsters, literary settings, and other material to enhance one’s D&D experience. TSR, the publishing company behind D&D, also published Dragon Magazine.
Dragon presented even more gritty detail and information for improving the game; new types of characters to play, adventures, traps, and powerful magic items and spells. In 1982, a short adventure was published in Dragon #33 called Assassin’s Run. This might have been the first short adventure that I ran as the Dungeon Master. I was eager to test my friend’s characters in this lethal challenge course. I still really love it!
The premise of Assassin’s Run is that the PC is applying for membership to the local Assassin’s Guild. In order to prove that they’re worthy they must pass through a complex of dangerous traps and situations, like a gauntlet of trickery. I loved the ingenuity of the environment. I eventually created my own version of the “Run” that updated some and clarified some of the challenges. This is the kind of challenge course that can be easily adapted in whole or part to another adventure.
The challenges of illustrating this adaptation was figuring out how to present all three dimensions. The various chimneys and chutes are an important (and dangerous) aspect of the adventure.
It was a great privilege to be Dragon Magazine’s art director for the rollout of D&D’s 3rd-edition rules. It was an exciting time for the game and being able to contribute my design sensibilities to this important magazine was truly a bucket-list experience.
Three and Four:
Phandalin and Environs,
Phandalin Town
Wizards of the Coast published a new starter set in 2014 that contained an adventure called Lost Mine of Phandelver. It remains an excellent adventure that I used so often I decided to make a set of tribute maps.
I made illustrated maps for each of the principal locations. The first two are maps of the town and its surroundings. These two maps represent two similar approaches to “bird’s eye” maps. The first is a regional map meant to geolocate the various site-based encounters that the players will eventually visit. The second is a map of the Village of Phandalin and its principal residents. In both maps I explored a “fog of war” treatment to emphasize the most important parts of the map. The two maps use slightly different color palettes and illustration treatments to convey their details. I like them both for different reasons.
Five:
Cragmaw Hideout
The first major encounter of the Lost Mines of Phandalin adventure occurs just after the party is ambushed.
The goblins, overpowered by the party’s skill and strength, flee into the woods just off the main road. When the party investigates they discover a trail used by the goblins that follows a small creek. The creek flows from a small cave in the side of a hill. The trail runs right into it!
This map was a fun challenge because it depicts several connected attractions that can be investigated. This was the first map I drew for the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure. My personal challenge was to depict the spatial qualities of the setting and invite readers to explore the caverns visually.
Six:
Cragmaw Castle
The residents of Phandalin have a lot of problems that they need help with. The mission, should the party choose to accept it, will take them to an old castle ruin where hobgoblins and bugbears have moved in. The party will also be able to recover the supplies that they were originally supposed to deliver here.
This was a fun and challenging map due to the barrel towers and cut-away views. I’d always loved illustrations like this as a kid so it was fun to learn more about how visibility and form work against each other.
Seven:
Old Owl Well
Another side-quest in Lost Mine of Phandelver brings the party to the Old Owl Well. I took several liberties with this illustration. It departs from the original written description quite a bit because I was interested in the verticality of the forms. I love the idea of old stairs and catwalks with MIGHT hold one’s weight.
For this map I also included a plan-view vignette. In general, however, I don’t care for the extra visual complication. I do enjoy how the barrel towers are expressed.
Eight:
Thundertree Ruins
One of the side-quests available in Lost Mine of Phandelver involves the exploration of an abandoned village called Thundertree. The people are long gone. Only their buildings remain. However, the village is infested with a horde of strange plant-like beings.
For this map I wanted the vignetted edges to introduce a sense claustrophobic enclosure. The murky green and gold tones are in keeping with the toxic plant-life that has taken over. The line-work and calligraphy is rougher than the other maps in an effort to reinforce the wild nature of the place.
Nine:
Tresendar Manor
One of the principal locations in the town of Phandalin is the old Tresendar Manor. The manor is nothing but a pile of ruins. However, the cellar is intact and is being used as the headquarters of a local gang of thugs that harass the village and adventures.
The party will eventually explore this cellar and confront its dangers.
Given the formality of the old manor I decided to use typeset labels. This is also likely one of the first locations that the party will explore after the arrive in town so I want to maintain a structure of “civility.” The sparse, relatively light-toned surrounding color makes the cellar map easier to read than had I chosen a darker, moodier hue.
Ten:
Wave Echo Cave
The final site in the Lost Mine of Phandelver is the Wave Echo Cave. For a typical D&D game, the players will reach the finale after four or five sessions. By now the party knows what they’re looking for and where they are likely to find it.
I made some adjustments to the original map to fit the rooms into the tableau more comfortably. For this map I also included the monsters that are present at each area for easy reference. The bright labels are meant to create a sense of playful excitement without being gaudy or overwhelming. I opted not to include much decoration around the map and instead let the map be the main attraction.
Eleven:
Escape from the Tower of Midnight
This short adventure was originally published in Dungeon Magazine in 1987. The premise, like Assassin’s Run, was straightforward: You find yourself in some kind of prison and you must escape. Unfortunately, your cell is at the top of a 10-story tower. New dangers await escapees at each floor.
While I never played this adventure when it was first published, I came to appreciate its novelty and structured several of my own adventures on its rough format.
For this map I attempted to create everything a DM would need in one visual product. For the surrounding foliage I found inspiration from Chris Tolkien’s method of drawing forests. Small nods.
Twelve:
Scourge of the Howling Horde
This stand-alone adventure was published while I was working at Wizards of the Coast as a senior art director. I was fond of this particular adventure because it was for 1st-level characters. Meaning, this would be the first place that a new adventuring party would explore. Higher-level adventures don’t interest me as much because they are so often filled with such extraordinary creatures and environments that they are hard to relate to. This adventure is a classic from the v3.5 edition of D&D rules.
This adventure’s climax takes place in a classic dungeon-crawl setting. The party explores the labyrinth and confronts each new unique challenge.
For this map I was interested in a sparse color palette. The challenge was to see how much I could encode with little color. This map includes creatures from each site within the location, their Hit Points, and their Armor Class. An experienced DM could run this entire encounter with this one visual aid.
Thirteen:
White Plume Mountain
This classic adventure was originally published in the 1970s, then revised as part of its 25th anniversary in the early 2000s.
This funhouse-style dungeon has all kinds of strange environments and situations awaiting the exploring party. My interest was both that it was a classic and legendary adventure but also that it was vast and complex. I enjoy that kind of challenge.
Fourteen:
Sunless Citadel
The final map in this series of visual explorations was adapted from the 3rd-edition adventure module Sunless Citadel. I’m fond of this adventure for several reasons. I mostly love it because it’s rational and reasonable. It also happens to have been created by some of my favorite coworkers and collaborators from my time at Wizards.
The climax of the adventure occurs in a subterranean complex of two sprawling floors.
My goals in this exercise was to include as much pertinent DM information into the single page while also inviting readers to explore the spaces and their occupants. Like the other maps, I restrained the color palette and used encoded color for certain purposes. This is one of the few maps where I used extensive hatching. I think it adds a hand-crafted appeal.
All of the fourteen maps here were hand-drawn using Procreate software on an Apple iPad and Apple Pencil stylus.
For inquiries, process questions, compliments, or insults, please drop me a line: petermwhitley@gmail.com.