Farm Track Battle Map - Launch

Hello Adventurers! This will be the last map for the month from me, a more general use map with a rural theme, the Farm Track. I wanted to create an encounter battle map which could be used as a travel map for when your party isn't quite out into the wilderness. A good transitional map for traveling to a farm, or entering the outskirts of a village. I took a look at farmland locations from around the UK and Europe for this, which tend to have rolling hills, dry brick walls and abandoned tumbledown farm buildings.

October maps

October is the spooky month, so I’ll be dropping a few creepy maps. I’ve taken a look at the suggestions document I keep to hand, which contains suggestions from Patrons and came up with a couple of ideas:

• The Orphanage - An (abandoned) orphanage which would fit well into a city campaign or just positioned on the outskirts of any settlement.
• The Ballroom - A section of a manor house closed off for ‘mysterious’ reasons, cue the ghostly waltz music.
• Witching Wood - A clearing in a wood with a large bonfire at its center, all the better to jump over at midnight while cackling evilly!

Hopefully these maps spark some ideas for future encounters, I’m certainly looking forward to creating them quite a bit :). As always I want to thank you all for your continued support, welcome new Patrons and wish you all a wonderful end of the week. Now let's head on down to the farm and write some map notes.

Introduction

The day is warm, the sky clear of all but a few wispy clouds. The surrounding countryside consists of a patchwork of fields and meadows, broken up by hedgerows and dry brick walls. The track you are walking down is rutted and in places thick with mud. Birds and insects fill the air with the sounds of nature. A light breeze blows across the fields, creating ripples in the sea of barley, wheat and wildflowers.

Ahead you can see some abandoned farm buildings at the side of the track, roofs partially collapsed. To your right are rolling grassy meadows, but strangely no livestock graze there. To your left are fields of Barley, wildflowers sprinkled among the golden crop.

As you make your way along the track you begin to notice a change in the air, first the birds stop singing, then the insects. Ahead is a disturbance in the ground, as if part of the track has collapsed in on itself. You pick up a slight astringent scent in the air, a strange bitter citrus smell that catches the back of your throat. The fields take on an air of disquiet, as if something is out of place, unwanted. In the quiet you pick up a clicking sound to your left, but no source is apparent. As you listen the tempo increases and as it does you notice something else, a rumbling in the ground below your feet. As you step back in alarm the track erupts in front of you, a huge many limbed creature covered in thick chitinous plates rears up out of the earth. The lack of livestock suddenly becomes clear as the creature lunges at you with razor sharp mandibles.

Notes and tips

• 30x30 grid map
• It's always fun to try to tell a little story even for a simple travel encounter. Has the party stepped into something's territory? Why is this creature so far away from its usual range?
• Rack up the tension and anticipation of an encounter by making sure to give your perceptive party members hints at what is to come.
• Farmland seems like a safe place for the party, correct that assumption with a nest of Ankhegs. Maybe watch Tremors for reference :D
• If you go with Ankhegs look for ‘The Hive’ battle map in my back catalogue for an underground Ankheg nest!
• Roving bands of ‘humanoids’ often terrorise farmsteads. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Human Bandits are all staples.
• Have the party stakeout the fields for a ‘sheep thief’ and surprise them with something more scally and toothy!
• A farm has been cursed and all its livestock is now deadstock! Zombie sheep and cows with some kind of necromancer as a ‘boss’.

Variants

Day/Night versions

Caravan Camp - Someone has stopped for the night

Or the day

All the circles - Aliens? Fairies! Druids? Pixies? Or maybe its all of them working together!

And a day version!