Let's Build A Dungeon! - Part 4 - The 'Basement' Map!

On Monday we went over the surface map for our dungeon we're building. Today I have the basement map ready. I did something different with today's map that makes it less complete, but also more usable because of that and we'll go into it when we get into 'running the dungeon.' Remember, for the purpose of this we kept to three goals:

1. Keep it simple
2. Keep it functional
3. Meet the needs we laid out in Part 2

So, without further ado, the map!

Once again I used DungeonDraft to make the map. I did this mostly for simplicity's sake, and also because I don't have a scanner. Besides this way we get clean lines.

The difference from the last map though is I didn't set down what each room is. The only symbols on the map are the door ways and the three sets of stairs. The two on the right side match up with the stairs down on the previous map for the above level. The stair case on the left leads down to our third and final level of the map.

The second thing I did is I took advantage of this section being underground to surround the main map with other rooms. These rooms are not tethered to the map for a reason. If you, as the GM wants, you can make them secret rooms linked to any room on the map through a secret door. If you want to ignore them you can. I like this as it gives the map some flexibility not otherwise in the map.

Finally, keep in mind that the only thing this part of the map really 'needs' is living quarters, and that only because we didn't have them above anywhere - and it makes sense to me that people would live in the middle with easy access to top and bottom levels. But we'll get into that more when we talk about running the dungeon, after the third and final map which is a caverns map.

• Back to part 1
• On to Part 5