afternoonmaps

Crossroads Battle Map - Launch

Added 2022-03-31 18:23:15 +0000 UTC

Hello Adventurers! March is nearly over and with it comes my last map of the month, a general use travel map of a crossroads in a rural setting. I imagine this is outside a small town or village, the kind of place you may find bandits holding up the local merchants coming into town for market day. Crossroads have some quite dark myths and folklore around them, which I’ll incorporate into some encounter ideas in the Map Notes below.

Next Maps

I’ll be working on the Viking Fishing Encampment next with either The Great Machine or Drow Surface Outpost coming after that:

Viking Fishing Encampment (Working on) - Suggested by Bart Heird
A small group of Viking-style huts next to a lake or shoreline. I imagine this would work for a general tribal village. This will probably be a frosty or snowy map.
The Great Machine (Orrery)
I love the way machinery looks, the cogs, chains, pistons and spinning doodads! Orreries (models of the solar system) are fascinating and I’d love to create a giant machine room map based on this idea. Perfect for that doomsday machine the party just has to stop!
Drow Surface Outpost - Suggested by Caerdwyn
I imagine some kind of bunker, hidden from view, with a place to muster troops, stage invasions, or hold captives before they are transported into the Underdark. This should work well as an entrance to the Underdark for any campaign.

And in case you haven't found the list of my previous maps its here: Full Map list
Patrons can download all my previous maps at no extra charge.

Thanks for the support and kind messages, if you do want to suggest new ideas for maps please do, I have a list of suggestions I pull from when coming up with new map ideas. Once again, thanks for being you, have a great weekend and as always, happy adventuring!

Map Description

As day becomes evening the air cool, shadows creep across the fields as you make your way out of town. The hedgerows lining the fields buzz and rustle with wildlife, their dense foliage creating walls of greenery, obscuring the view of the farmlands around you. Rough wooden fences or drystone walls mark the boundaries between fields, some in dire need of maintenance.

As you approach the crossroads you sense a change in the air, a chill that doesn’t feel quite natural. The place has an energy about it, a feeling of foreboding and ill will.

Notes and Tips

30x30 Map Grid
As well as being a good general use map for travel encounters, folklore around Crossroads is rather cool and could inspire a number of fun encounters.
Summoning demons and spirits! One of the most well-known pieces of folklore around crossroads is their connection with the devil and his summoning.
- A farmer has summoned a minor demon or spirit to haunt his neighbour's land, it appears at the crossroads at the setting of the sun.
- Local children tell a story. If you say a particular phrase three times at the crossroads (at midnight) the boogeyman appears. Is this true? Maybe you can try it out.
- A bard is unbelievably talented, the locals say he used to be terrible. Leave clues to him summoning a devil at the crossroads. Maybe he wants to get out of the deal, or it's actually a curse.
Rituals of protection and purification were also performed at crossroads, or offerings were left to gods there.
- Hanging from the hedges and fences are small offerings and talismans. People leave these here for good luck. If they are removed bad things happen ;) If you feel your party will not steal anything, have an ‘innocent’ traveller rush to the party shouting about monsters. Turns out they have stolen offerings and demon hounds or other spirit creatures are hunting them down.
- A ritual of purification is being performed in the middle of the road, as the party approaches something seems to go wrong, the subject of the ritual transforms into a were-beast of some type and runs amuck. This could be an opening encounter to something bigger going on in the nearby village.
- There is a small altar at the edge of the road, a few copper coins, a sacrificed animal and other offerings sit in a copper bowl. At sunset, they are collected by a shadowy figure, anyone that sets eyes on the figure is doomed! Or so the legends say.
Crossroads were a place to bury the dead, often criminals. They were also used as places of public executions. A Gallows tree (Dule tree) used at or near a crossroads was not uncommon in medieval Britain.
- Many criminals have been hung here and some are buried along the edge of the road. Maybe someone is raising them from the dead for whatever reason and a few are wandering the fields, attacking livestock.
- Angry spirits of the dead gather here when the mists are thick, to waylay weary travellers.
- For years criminals, bandits and the like, have been hung in the field next to the dark forest and their bodies buried at the edge of the trees. Now the dead are crawling from their graves at night and attacking the neighbouring farms. Turns out the local bandits are dressing up as zombies to terrorise the farmers.