Sunday, July 3, 2011

More Holmesian Geomorphs: The Great Chasm

Another of my favorite dungeon design tropes is The Pit, seen here in the Sample Cross Section found in Holmes:


The idea is to give an adventuring party easy access to lower levels without having to trudge through all those levels in between. My favorite iteration of this is what I like to call The Great Chasm. In essence, it is a giant crack in the earth that cannot be crossed without aid — such as a bridge or a spell. What I really like about this iteration is the image of looking down (or up) and seeing various bridges below (and/or above) connecting different parts of different levels. Thus, I wanted some geomorphs that would allow me the ability to have The Great Chasm be a part of my version of the Chateau des Faussesflammes. Using these, I'll be able to include it on several dungeon levels. Enjoy:

3 comments:

Alex Osias said...

Did you make all these geomorphs yourself? What tool did you use?

Stefan Poag said...

I like 'the pit' concept because not only does it allow determined adventurers with a lot of rope and spikes to reach level 6, but it also allows whatever lives on level 6 to crawl, climb or fly out to the surface if it really wants to... thus explaining why the players might run into a large dragon while strolling past the blacksmith's shop.

FrDave said...

@KaBlog!
Yes, I do my own maps. I use an old version of Adobe Illustrator from the days when I was agraphic designer to do most of the work; I use Photoshop for some of the textures.

@limpey
Which is why "Do we want that cool house rule to be used against us?" is always a part of the rules negotaitions that happen at my table — because my players know that it will be...