Secret Garden Battle Map - Launch

Hello Adventurers! I’ve finally put the finishing touches to our next map release, The Secret Garden. This is a formal garden with open areas for dynamic combat, a bunch of structures, different levels, a maze, and even a water feature. It could work as part of a larger garden, or as a posh backyard for some noble’s townhouse. It’s a little unkempt so could be abandoned, or it could even be a pocket dimension for some weird spirit or minor deity.

Next Maps

The next map on our list is a White Dragon’s Lair, which should be with you around the end of the month.

• White Dragon’s Lair
  I want to create a new Lair battle map and I think this would be cool and useful, not just for housing a dragon but for any frozen mountainous dungeon. So I’m thinking this will be an icy cave (cave system), with an entrance open to the side of a mountain. Maybe some ice tunnels, stalactites/stalagmites, glacial formations, cracks, and ice holes. I’ll probably drop in some old ruins to add to the interest as well.

And going forward I have a bunch of map ideas I’ll be working on over the next month or two, plus at least one collaboration :) The order may change slightly but these are my current planned maps:

• Troll Cave (Collaboration project)
  I’ll be collaborating with some awesome tabletop creators for this one. The Troll cave will be part of a larger release and you’ll be getting extra stuff as part of the collaboration. I’ll give you more info once I’m sure I can ;)
• The Crossroads
  I wanted to create some general use maps along with my more heavily themed maps, so this one will be a useful Highway/Crossroads map, great for simple travel encounters. However, Crossroads have a lot of significance within myth and folklore, so I’ll be sure to provide some encounter ideas around that!
• Viking Fishing Encampment (Bart Heird suggested)
  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.
• Drow Surface Outpost (Caerdwyn suggested)
  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.
• Kobold Den
  This map will be a complex cave system with plenty of tunnels and passages, along with locations for traps and ‘kill rooms’. Very much inspired by the ideas behind Tucker’s Kobolds (Google them, it's a fun story).

I say it every release but it doesn’t get any less true! Your support allows me to continue making maps for tabletop games and I can’t express how much that means to me. Thank you so much and I hope these maps help you tell amazing stories with your friends and family! I’m still looking for more suggestions for future maps, so please continue to suggest them. Have a great week and as always happy adventuring!

Map Descriptions

Entering the garden
The old wrought iron gates are rusty and overgrown with ivy and creeping vines. As you push the gate open its hinges protest with an alarmingly loud squeak. Passing under the stone-arch you enter an enclosed garden. Green lawns, box hedges, and flower beds look slightly unkempt, the grass a little too long, the flowerbeds are overgrown with weeds and the box hedges are in need of trimming.

Layout
In the center of the garden is a white-painted Gazebo next to a lake, behind is a rock feature with a stream running through it. Further back is a Folly, a stone structure artfully placed to appear as if it were a ruin from some ancient civilization. On the other side of the lawn is an entrance to what appears to be a Hedge Maze.

The Hedge Maze
Dark passages of closely cut hedges loom over you, their dense foliage impossible to see through. The sun fades and is obscured by a suddenly cloudly sky. The temperature within the maze seems to drop slightly, goosebumps raise on your exposed skin.

Notes and ideas

• 30x45 grid map
• The players could start by entering through one of the two gates, however having them materialize in the Gazebo, or the Folly would be a fun way to start.
• The map could be trimmed down at the entrance to the Maze, then have the steps lead up to a manor house or Townhouse.
• The owner of these gardens is quite evil and is currently practicing their shooting by making servants hold targets. They ask the party to participate, refusing would be a… let's say social faux par.
• A demigod or spirit teleports the party to this garden as a way to test their metal, have them fight some monsters themed to the garden. Stone statues, large chess pieces, ornamental Karp that have grown legs and arms (use Kuo-Toa as a template).
• The Folly at the rear of the garden has been built with stone from a cursed temple and as such the garden is now cursed, some effects could be:
  • The Folly is haunted by evil spirits
  • Evil flying beasts come to roost in the Folly at night
  • Those that enter the Folly’s walls are compelled to pray to its evil god
  • Use different blights for monsters throughout the garden. Theme them for the different areas (Box hedge blights, flower blights, Vines, with maybe a full-blown tree at the Folly itself.
• This would work as a strange pocket dimension prison, designed to hold some monster or person.
• By day the lord walks these gardens, taking tea in the Gazebo and hosting parties, but at night he transforms into a grotesque monster that stalks the maze. Have the Lord take his leave at dusk, entering the maze, warning the party not to follow. Is he cursed? Maybe servants are forced to enter the maze as his prey?

Variants

Nighttime stroll through the gardens anyone?

How about an ice-cold walk through the Hedge Maze? (Day/Night)

Or maybe you are trapped in a pocket dimension of some weird nature deity?