The Crucifixion on Ghost Hill (34x22)

Good morning! And for once, it actually is morning here, at least as I write this. This week's map is an execution - a crucifixion, specifically - atop a rocky hill. I don't need to tell you that this is probably one of if not the worst ways to die in a preindustrial society. Whoever did this had to have been really angry. And maybe they're still there; after all, Roman soldiers weren't allowed to leave until they were sure the criminal was dead.

Or maybe, it's just an imminent execution; maybe your party is simply being led to their death. There's a version of the crucifixes without the corpses, after all. Or maybe it's just a rocky hill. Or a sacrifice in the making? A wizard's tower? I made a lot of special variants today, so there's a fair choice of options here! A full list of variants is included in the images above.

Technical Details

• Resolution: 4,760 x 3,080
• Map Size: 34x22 tiles
• Grid Size: 140ppi

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Notes

"Crime scenes" is actually ... a really painful theme to work with. It's hard to quantify a crime scene since by definition it is an event that takes place, and reasonably, any time your PCs show up on these maps there's probably going to be at least a couple of crimes committed. I hope that between the possibly unjustified crucifixion and the stone table sacrifice, it's enough crimes to qualify. I think next time I'll focus on theft. I finally have a good idea for that.

I hemmed and hawed over a few options and ended up picking the crucifixion because it seemed like the most gruesome of them all. And also because I liked the sketch the most. (And also because I was running out of time to decide.) The sunset colors are a nice change of pace, I thought, and I ended up trying to vary the daylight and nighttime colors for every variant. So the cherry blossom hills has nice green grass, the Wizard's Tower has a sickly bluish tint, etc. I'm happy with how it turned out.

I figured, that if this was meant to be a crime scene, then the people on the crosses were probably innocents, and that it was probably the work of a warband or the local Big Bad Evil Guy. This would be a pretty terrible fate to bestow upon known NPCs. Please don't execute beloved NPCs without careful consideration.

A Wizard's Tower was inspired directly by A Wizard, a lovely and horrific OSR adventure made by Donovan Caldwell. It is essentially fanart, since I have no affliation with him, but being a fan of the adventure, I recommend you check it out.

In other references, the Stone Table was directly inspired by Narnia, and the Oxenfree variants were inspired by the game of the same name - which is also recommended, and might give you some great ideas for how to use them. The Onceler's Shack isn't quite as direct a reference as the others, but it was basically inspired by his home, so I suppose it counts. This might be the most reference-dense map I've drawn to-date.

Anyways, thanks for reading, and thank you for your support!