Ratking's Nest Battle Map - Launch

Hello Adventurers! Here is our third and final map for the month, I call this one ‘Ratking’s Nest’. It's a sewer mini dungeon map which should fit well under any medium or large city. When designing a sewer map layout I wanted to make sure there were a few places to have fun fights in both enclosed and more open areas, so I made sure to create a couple of larger rooms to allow for bigger encounters. I also left the base map a little more generic, so it could be used for a number of different encounters, be that oversized alligators, a secret cult staging post, thieves hideout or a crazy multi-tailed mutated rat creature!

Maps for next month

I’m still in the process of working out what maps to draw next month, I think currently I’d like to create a ‘shipyard’, imagine half constructed ships, cranes and piles of lumber. Should fit well in most city docks. Maybe some kind of ‘prayer gate’ or ‘forest shrine’, influenced in style by the many beautiful shines found throughout Japan's forests. And for our wilderness map I’m thinking I’d like to create some kind of ‘tidal causeway’, a narrow strip of land connecting an island to the mainland. I’ll let you know more when I finalise the schedules.

I’d like to thank you all for your support, for new joiners and for my longer term supporters, simply put it's you that allows me to keep making my maps and adding to this wonderful community! You’re amazing, I love each and every one of you! Have a fantastic week and as always happy adventuring! Now let's write some stinky tales of sewer delving!

Introduction

You didn’t think the stench could be worse than when you first cracked open the manhole cover and smelt the fetid aroma of humanoid waste drifting up from the sewers below. Unfortunately for your olfactory senses you were horribly wrong. “I think we are under the Goliath district at the moment sir” your young Halfling companion pipes up. “Oh gods no!” You hear from your Tabaxi friend, “I was hoping they were logs or maybe submerged alligators…”. One of the many pipes above starts to flow, pattering onto the slick walkway behind you. You hear the Tabaxi retch a few times. You are having second thoughts about this job, even if it pays well.

Moving deeper into the sewer system you notice this area is not well maintained. Bricks have fallen from the walls and ceiling, mold and fungal growths cover every surface, ahead a small subterranean river has broken through the sewer walls. Beyond is another tunnel, its bricks and walkways crumbing with age and decay. The rough map you have been given ends here with a question mark. If the sewer workers are correct, this is the location of the creature's nest.

Moving as silently as possible you make your way forward, stepping over loose tiles and detritus that litter the walkways. After a few moments you reach an open area, it’s walls made up of collapsed stone, rotting wooden struts and damp earth. Maybe this was once a cellar or underground vault, long since forgotten by the citizens of the city above. As you stand there squinting into the dark you hear a hissing noise, a threatening sound. Something is living here, and it doesn’t like visitors. You feel your Tabaxi friend step up close behind you and grasp your shoulder. “You know I can see quite well in the dark my friend” he whispers with obvious fear in his voice. “What I am seeing is something we do not wish to anger, let us leave before it decides to introduce itself”. But before you can reply another hissing sound starts up from the tunnels behind you. It seems there is more than one of these creatures.

Notes and Tips

• Map grid 30x35
• Sewer settings should be gross!
• Sewer encounters can be as diverse as city encounters. These locations are out of the way and rarely visited, so are perfect for nefarious and illegal acts, as well as being perfect for unusual encounters with monsters of every type.
• Sewer alligators may be a bit  cliche, but they are a fun encounter and having one drag a party member into a river of sewage is maybe too much fun for one DM to handle.
• Swarms of rats and insects can be great to add to the grossout elements of this setting.
• Kobolds, Grimlocks, Troglodytes, Wererats and Goblins make great encounters in sewers. Kobolds especially like this kind of environment.
• Thieves guilds will often use sewers to move unseen through a city, so encounters with cloaked, dagger wielding figures may be on the cards.
• Smugglers may store their contraband in the sewers. Or a cult has set up shop down here and is kidnapping citizens for unholy rights.
• Obviously oversize creatures are a staple of sewer systems, Alligators, Rats, Spiders and Slimes are all fun encounters. Try also Gibbering Mouthers, Ropers, Cloakers and any number of undead.

Variants

Smugglers Den version - Could be used as a thieves hideout

Spider Nest version - As if sewers weren't bad enough, lets add to the ick!

Sewer vampires! - Because why not?