This map was drawn over the weekend. Unlike several of the maps I have posted so far, this one did not originate as part of the Friday Five Minute Map challenge. Rather it was some doodling during downtime over the weekend.

A lot of my previous maps have been done on plain sheets of paper, no grid lines to help square things up. This map was done on printed graph paper. The lines were faint and removed during the scanning/Gimp/Inkscape process I have been using to clean-up the maps.

I have been relatively happy with how my cave maps have been coming along. This map includes some cave work off the side. It also includes several man or dwarf created rooms as well. I am working on “spicing” these rooms up with some objects and such to keep them from being so plain. Still need some more work in this area, but the rooms on this map have a little more going on than in some of my previous maps.

Bandit Stronghold

This stronghold is nestled deep in the rocky hills just outside of town. A maze of game trails cross the hillsides, winding their way in and out of the the small valleys and hollows.

Several small caves dot the area, most only a chamber or two in size. The one’s closest to town are frequent play places for the children of the town. Others are protected by animal inhabitants who call the caves their own.

One hollow is particularly rocky, several deer trails leading in and out of the area. The rock covered slopes nearly make traversing the slope on anything but a game trail near impossible. The slopes keep the valley in the shade most of the day, the temperatures a good couple of degrees cooler in this hollow.

The entrance to this smuggler’s stronghold is obscured by an oblique stone. Behind it is the entrance to one of the more expansive tunnel complexes in the area. Apparently abandoned by dwarves of centuries past, a group of enterprising smugglers known as the Blue Hoofed Bandits found the location and began using it as a base of operations for their illegal activities.

The Blue Hoofed Bandits primary use this stronghold as a storage place for good in transit waiting to be fenced and as a rendezvous point before and after their operations. The front portions of the complex are used for short term storage.

Should the stronghold ever need defended the bandits use the worked dwarven carved rooms as an initial defense point. The group only makes a cursory defense in this front portion of the stronghold, preferring to fall back to the natural caves which act as a natural choke point.

Though there are no obvious exits from the back of the stronghold, the well in the northern cave chamber is said to act as a quick exit to a lower level of the caves. Where these lower chambers of the caverns lead are unknown to all but the bandits that call this stronghold their home.