Castle Ravenloft Awaits...

"I called for my family, long unseated from their ancient thrones, and brought them here to settle in the castle Ravenloft." - Strahd von Zarovich

Hey everyone! I thought it was time to talk about the 1,000 ton Goth Elephant in the room; Castle Ravenloft. As those of you who have been with me since the beginning know, my goal was always to map out all of CoS before tackling this beast. I felt it important to start with unmapped areas from the book first and then re-work the mapped areas second. My hope was to produce more content in the time it would have taken me to do the Castle so you had more ground to cover for your campaigns. I'm pleased to say after almost 1.5 years of mapping out every last inch of CoS I am ready to start thinking about mapping out the castle! 

I have a few projects I'm wrapping up with this month so will most likely start work on this map in Aug. Along with finishing the Interactive Tome of Strahd and the Lunch Break Heroes adventures, I'll be working on the Castle maps as well. 

After sitting down and re-reading the castle section (phew! What a section that is to read!) I have finally worked out my map approach and map releases for this monster of a location, which I'm happy to share with you all! 

As it stands now, I will have a total of ten map releases for the castle as follows:

• Section "I" of the Barovia map: This will feature a branching "Y" road which will head up from the south and branch east and west. To the west will be the western gate and to the east will have the road leading to Ravenloft. I will do a version with and without the black carriage here. I'm also thinking of making this a pretty massive map, something like 80x40 to add as much road as possible and give you plenty of wilderness space for any potential encounters.  
• Road to Ravenloft: This map will feature a switchback, mountainous road that will lead up to the gates of Ravenloft. I want to feature both sets of gate towers and the drawbridge / chasm and give plenty of space for fights here. The map will stop right at the main gates to the castle. I am thinking of doing a version with and without the drawbrige lowered along with the interiors for the outer gate towers. 
• Castle Ravenloft Exterior: This will be a pretty massive map as well and will encompass the full exterior of the castle, starting right at the main gates. I want to extend a bit past the walls to show the rocky terrain the castle is built on and also show the depth below if possible. Rain will be heavy here along with lightning (of course a clean version for users who add their own weather). 
• Floor 1: I will scale down the map to only fit the floor plan for the 1st floor. Since the outdoor map will be huge, I don't want detail quality loss for the 1st floor map so will shrink it down to only what I need. This will cover the entire 1st floor however. 
• Floor 2: Same as above but will cover the 2nd floor of the castle. 
• Floor 3: Same as above but will cover the 3rd floor of the castle. I plan to do a roof top version for the main castle section along with the two towers to the west. 
• Spires: This will be a total of 5 maps to show the various levels of the spires of ravenloft. Depending on the work / scope of these maps I may do them as part I and II but we'll see. I will include the surrounding rooftops below and try to fit in the chapel roof top while maintaining a good size for the map to ensure no quality loss. I like the idea of the players looking out toward the roof tops as they climb higher and higher. Depth of field will be my main focus to really drive home the height. For the heart, I will do a version with and without the heart. 
• Larders of Ill Omen: This will cover the entire basement level of the larder
• Dungeon & Catacomb: This will be the biggest interior map so I hope I'll be able to keep my high level of detail without too much quality loss! The size here is the entire size of the 1st floor plus all the way underground to under the overlook of the castle. It will be almost the size of the full outdoor castle map! 
• Pillars of Ravenloft: This is a request by Pyram King to include a secret passage through an underground cavern from before Ravenloft was built. This will include the ruins of the kingdoms before Strahd and will provide an alternate, secret way into the Crypts of the castle. 

I still need to go through other popular content creators work such as DragnaCarta, Lunch Break Heroes, MandyMod and Pyram King to make sure I include any other variations they might have added. Depending on the complexities, I may do these as separate releases. 

So there you have it! The Castle alone will keep me pretty busy over the course of the next few months (plus I'm moving in Sep so will need to take some time off for that). After this work is complete, I plan on doing version 2.0 of some of my older maps (I might work in some 2.0 versions in between castle maps to give my sanity a break!). Thankfully, the Interactive Tome of Strahd has already provided me a solid basis for re-works on the Amber Temple 2.0 and the Gulthias Tree 2.0 so you can look forward to that. 

Lastly, I still do plan on covering other new locations added by popular mod content such as MandyMod's Orphanage and Reformation Center. And I want to do some maps for Mt. Baratok to cover the encounter with the Mad Mage as written and work with Pyram King to create some custom content for this very underrated section of the book.

Once the fog clears and beams of sunlight start poking through the rain clouds again, we can discuss what module / maps you all would like to see going forward! Though I suspect I still have may more moths of work ahead of me. My heart is always keen toward Dark Fantasy maps and I don't suspect I'll ever stop making those. There is so much to drawn inspiration from and build outside of CoS, including greater Ravenloft lore and other sources of inspiration such as games like Diablo, The Witcher, Dragonage, Elden Ring, etc all of which could provide great additional maps for your adventures inside and outside of Ravenloft. I also plan on working on the maps for Grim Hollow's: Fables Citadel of the Unseen Sun!  

Thanks again for all your wonderful support, engagement, and enthusiasm for my work. I know this is often heard by content creators but seriously, you all mean the world to me and your support has made the many (many) hours of work worth it and drives me to keep improving my skills at map making. To each and everyone of you, a humble thank you from my wife and I. 

Cheers, 

DM Andy