August Updates

Wow, here we are in August already. I can't believe how quickly the months move along the older I get! First and most importantly, I want to thank each and every one of you for your patronage and support. You all provide such inspiration and motivation for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed our interactions. I always love hearing stories of how my maps are used in your games so please feel free to share any fun stories you might have! 

Last month I spent a lot of time working through maps for Vallaki. And as most of you know, that town is HUGE! Not to mention the large amount of possible map areas, but the level of detail in which I add to the city maps. Those maps also take me quite a while to finish (some taking 40+ hours) such as the Town Square or the Slums. I was excited to include some homebrew maps as well such as the Slums of Vallaki and the Gitrog cave from the awesome Pyram King guide. I also turned a fun farm map contest into a grim dark version of a farm (very sleepy hollow inspired) and released a map perfect for any headless horsemen encounters. Barovia has so many classic horror themes... but only mentions a skeletal rider as a random encounter. I believe us DM's can do better! 

Speaking of homebrew, I am hard at work on finishing the Sanguine Rose. A brothel encounter I ran in my personal game which adds some more depth to Ernst Larnak along with some fun (albeit a tad racy) encounters at the brothel. For the first time, I'm trying my hand at writing my own encounter to go along with it. I am no expert like Pyram King, but I figured a map like this should be accompanied by the craziness of my own use for it. It will be my first written adventure and I welcome any feedback. I am by no means an expert in this area and this may or may not be a regular thing. With that said, I'm hoping to have the Sanguine Rose map finished and the encounter written up and released by next week.

So what is my focus this month? I will be working through the following areas (time permitted): 

Vallaki

• Alleyways of Vallaki including the "Larnak Publications" shop. A print shop, which will be mentioned in my Sanguine Rose encounter write up. The focus of this map is more on the exterior and I am only planning on creating an interior version of the print shop. I want this map to have lots of rooftops and narrow alley ways for plenty of street encounters, including a possible ambush of Izek, should your party accept Fiona's offer. 
• Wachterhaus & Baron's Manor. I may or may not get to these maps in Aug. The maps from the book are decent enough to where at least you are not lacking a map. I will eventually do these locations just to bring them in line with the rest of my maps for consistency sake. 
• Mandymods Reformation Center / Orphanage. I really want to hit these locations and we'll see how much I can get done this month. I'd like to take a quick break from Vallaki to focus on some Krezk maps but these are certainly on the radar. 

Krezk

• Pool & Shrine
• Shops / Inn (This is not in the module but I know some DMs like to run shops here. I personally had the Martikovs kicked out of Vallaki thanks to sneaky Ernst and now they are looking to set up an inn in Krezk)
• Switchback road up to the Abbey
• The Abbey of St. Markovia
• Fidatov Manor from the Mandymod guide

General Maps

I want to start putting together some generic maps that you can use throughout Barovia as well. This includes roads, forest, and camp encounter maps with a grim dark feel to them. 

Of course this is just one month and I am only one nerdy DM so there are plenty more areas to cover. I have been asked by some patrons for wider area maps such as my Berez Hex crawl map and I do have plans to make area maps for:

• Village of Barovia
• Vallaki
• Krezk
• Lake Zarovich
• Tsolenka Pass (including landmarks from the Dragna guide)

Lastly, I have not forgotten about the other locations that still need to be tackled. This includes: 

• Werewolf areas (Forest, den, other locations such as lairs and caves)
• Wizard of Wines
• Yester Hill locations I have not yet covered
• The Mad Mage
• And of course.. Castle Ravenloft 

So there it is. As you can see I have my work cut out for me, so please be patient if I have not yet tackled your area. I will try my best to jump around a bit so I am producing content for various areas in the event your party is not quite where I'm making maps for. 

As always, I look forward to another productive month of map making and I THANK you from the bottom of my heart for your support. 

Much love, 

DM Andy