ETCR - Expedition to Castle Ravenloft in DD3

[mearrin69]

Very nice work. I ran this adventure back shortly after it came out. We didn't finish it entirely but did make it to the castle itself. Would have killed for battlemaps. I drew out the town and forest encounters on large sheets of 1" graph paper from one of those presentation tablets you can get in office supply stores. Trying to do the same for the castle was making me crazy so I just drew it out as the PCs moved through the castle on a vinyl mat. Again, great stuff. Have some rep!
M

[Shindig]

Here is some more, starting with levels four and five. I was starting to get the hang of the program at this point, and the maps were smaller, so these went by pretty well. There are actually two files attached here, but only one is showing up. I suspect that it will after after some time has past as that is what happened with some of the previous attachments.

[charcon]

I have access to huge printers and small color printers both....what size should i print this out to so i can lay them out for miniatures while we play? Please help!

[Shindig]

These are the top three tower levels. Level 6 was difficult to capture properly; I may end up redoing it at some point, but for now it will work.

Also, I didn't realize until I got towards that upper levels that the towers taper as they ascend. None of the original maps really work this in very well. I tried to go back and work this in a little better on the other levels, but I never got it to work well, so the last two levels of the towers appear to suddenly shrink in circumference. This is the way the original maps were done, but if you use these, make sure to explain to the players that the outer walls seem to press in on them as they ascend the towers.

[Shindig]

This level was fairly simple, but fun. It is interesting trying to add the descriptive atmosphere to the maps rather than just simply draw out the rooms. The pit on the right is for when the trap is activated where it belongs.

[Shindig]

This was my favorite to map out! I didn't think it would be, since I enjoyed the first three levels so much, especially level 3, but it turned out being a blast to map out. I think part of it was that I was getting used to the program, finally, and could figure out how to pull off effects as they came. I am not an artist so I had to really figure out how to pull off the 'underwater effect' in the one corner of the dungeon. I was able to figure it out fairly quickly and it came out looking just how I wanted it. It was a bit tricky, but doable. Lots of atmosphere to pull off here.

One of the reasons that I did this whole project was that I really enjoyed the 'feel' of the 3.5 edition maps, even though they weren't isometric. I really liked the default blue color that they tiled it with and I wanted to do some of the sepia maps (that they had for the castle rooms) with that same color. However, as I got going I kept finding better tiles to work with (thank you Shessar!) that gave the castle a better appearance. When I got to this section, I decided to keep the blue for that 'otherworldly' chill effect and see if it worked. I think that it did. I split the file up to upload it here. This is the basement side as opposed to the crypt side.

[mearrin69]

Nice stuff. I can't rep you again yet...but I shall!
M

[jtougas]

Awesome stuff

[Shindig]

Thanks for the encouragement! It can be intimidating posting maps here after seeing all the fantastic work on this site, especially for a novice like myself.

Here are the crypts of the castle, done in the blue tile as mentioned above. Getting the coffin in the south room to look like it was sitting on earth was the only tricky part. The description has it that the stone floor had been 'dug up' and the coffin is on 'loose soil'. I placed it exactly where it is placed on the tactical map, but it does look 'off' a little bit. I may move it at some point, or not.

The crypts themselves were tedious.

[Shindig]

These are the smaller offshoots that can be accessed in the crypts. This should finish off the mapping of the castle itself.

For those that are interested in the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft campaign, there are some more maps that I will be posting as I get them completed. I have a few done already, but still have more to do.