Dead Gods maps and battle maps

Cultists have taken over a townhouse and repurposed it. Now it is a heaving warren of evil and intrigue as they try to bring their dead gods back to terrorise the world.

Dead Gods map 1 created in ANAmap. This is the ground floor.

This is what it actually looks like as a battle map, ready to be loaded in to Fantasy Grounds. Battle map designed in Dungeon Painter Online.

The 2nd floor of the townhouse has balconies overlooking the garden and lots of beds - this means lots of cultists. 

D&D 5E Character Sheet

None of the editable PDF character sheets I could find worked well - the font sizes were too big, or too small, or not consistent. So one of the first things I set about doing was creating my own character sheet in Word 2016. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It isn't perfect; it doesn't have space for spells for example. It will do as a starting sheet.

Of course, about 3 picoseconds after doing it, I found the wonderful character sheet builder at OrcPub. Oh well!

D&D 5E Character Sheet

Bargulg's Lair map

This map is from the Bargulg's Lair adventure I created for my children's campaign using ANAmap.

The Greenslade family have lived in Dire Keep for many generations, and the top left corner of this map their cellar area.

The rest of the map is of a long-forgotten abandoned underground temple belonging to some ancient sect. It has been taken over by a gang of goblins and hobgoblins commanded by an orc chieftain known as Bargulg. After making the lair safe for himself and his band, the orc has had the goblins digging tunnels to add to the original rooms of the sect. One of the tunnels dug out in this way backed on to the treasury of Dire Keep. Using some explosives found on a previous raid, the goblins blew a massive hole in the stone walls and poured in. 

Bargulg's Lair adventure

All the files required to run Bargulg's Lair.

Bargulg's Lair maps produced using ANAmap.
Dire Keep map produced using Dungeon Painter.
PDF and letter produced using Microsoft Word 2016 :)

Bargulg's Lair PDF
DM map Bargulg's Lair
Player map of Bargulg's Lair
Player map of Dire Keep
Player letter

The aftermath

This session started with a bit of a quandary - Ciarda and Dion realised they were badly beat up and out of spells and needed to rest, but they were (correctly) nervous about camping in a massive hall with several entrances. They eventually decided to try to camp in Bargulg's private quarters.

This was a good choice, especially with the door locked behind them - as they'd find out in the morning. One long rest later, they were good to go. Walking out of the locked door, they realised the remains of the goblin band had staked out the hall. An angry hobgoblin and 4 scared goblins rushed them while they were startled!

Ciarda's magic mace and Azrael's Burning Hands felled the goblins, and Dion's new arnour saved him from a blow or two, meaning excitement levels were high again right away. Finding a their first secret door hidden in the fireplace after the fight helped stoke it further.

Two guardian skeletons later, they were stuffing their backpacks with silver, trinkets to sell, and a couple of potions. Two treasure chests clearly marked as the Greenslades' offered my children a moral dilemma:

"can we not just take some of the gold, daddy?"
"How will anyone know if we take some?"

They made the right choice (for the story!) & returned the chests. This triggered more rewards from the Greenslades, and enough experience to hit level 3. Gaining more hit points and some new abilities on top of the magical toys has made them keen for more!

They've had a think about the various little adventure hooks I left lying around, and have decided on the path that'll take them to The Lost Mines of Phandelver (via some one shot adventures to make the journey interesting, and to link the two areas).

Bargulg's Lair has been declared a success. I'm really happy with it, and had a lot of fun designing it and writing it up. I'll not pretend that it's anything other than hackneyed and amateurish, but for a target audience of 7 & 8 it seemed to work. If the adventure invokes fear, excitement, real tears and a sense of achievement, it has done its job, hasn't it?