Channel Updates - May 25th, 2022 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last update so I thought I would ramble a bit over text and give you all some updates on what's next and what direction we are headed in.

First and foremost, a huge thank you to you all for your continued support and engagement. I know there are so many amazing map makers out there and I'm always so honored and humbled my page made the cut. I am always so thrilled to hear how my maps have enhanced your games and I hope I continue to create maps which help you bring the game to life! DM'ing is hard on a good day so I hope my maps can help elevate some of the work you already need to do with each session. If you have cool stories, pictures, or any other content you'd like to share with the community, let me know and we can do a community spotlight post for you! 

Before I get into my map direction, I did want to share some personal info regarding the next Sneak Peek and Release days. I have a minor surgery scheduled tomorrow and will be put under for a bit. I'll lose a few days of map work so I am going to take this next upcoming release day off (Monday May 30th) along with the sneak peek for tomorrow. It's rare that I miss a release day, but I've been working pretty hard on producing weekly map content so I welcome the break. But don't worry, I'll get back on track for the June 6th release! 

Now let's talk about maps! Here are the new few maps I'll be working on releasing for you all:

Berez: Overgrown Garden from Burgomaster Ulrich's Mansion. This map is going to be a massive 60x60 map (which matches the size shown in the official book) and will include a tiered garden full of planters flooded with stagnant water.  I added a massive fountain in the center, a collapsed gazebo in the back and plenty of overgrown trees and bushes to give the swamp feel. I personally dislike the encounter as written in the book but our beloved Pyram King will cook up some great content for this location for sure! Stay tuned for that. 

Argynvostholt. A four story fortress map is going to be quite challenging! But I'm excited to give this location some love. Just like I did for the Abbey, I will create a "Road to Argynvostholt" map which will be a mountain switchback trail leading up to the keep. I found myself looking for a mountain trail map for my personal game as my players were ambushed on the road so I figured this would be useful. Once this is done, I will work on the keep itself. 

Interactive Tome of Strahd. These maps have been unique, fun and challenging to work on! You'll notice I've had to re-visit some of my older maps like the Amber Temple and it's given me a great chance to re-do some of my older work. The next chapter (chapter 7) features the Gulthias tree and I've already started engineering how I'm going to create this awesome location. 

V2.0 Versions of the Amber Temple and Gulthias Tree. Per the above, I've had the chance to revisit these location for the Interactive Tome of Strahd. I will be re-working these maps to create 2.0 versions of the Amber Temple and Gulthias Tree locations for the present day module much like I did with my 2.0 version of the Tsolenka Pass. 

New Lunch Break Heroes Adventure. Though I can't share the details yet, I've had a great time building maps for the original Lunch Break Heroes adventures. They capture the dark fantasy feel that I love so much and think they compliment the channel very well. Many of those adventures are plug and play and can be slated into Barovia or used as introductory sessions for your players. I'm looking forward to the next installment! 

Castle Ravenloft. That's right! Once I'm done with Argynvostholt, I will begin turning my gaze toward the Castle itself! *dramatic lightning strike* I know this is a long awaited and anticipated release and I hope I can live up to your expectations. The Interactive Tome of Strahd maps will give you some ideas of the direction I'll be going while building the castle. I'll get into the details with my next update as I finish my research and approach to map out each release for this massive apex of CoS!  

As you can see, I'll have my hands full for a while! Beyond what I've listed above, there is still plenty to do. In no particular order, I 100% plan on hitting the following:

• More Generic maps for various locations
• Maps for the Mad Mage encounter. I'd love to collaborate with Pyram King on making this encounter more engaging than the module as written. 
• Maps for other content creators such as MandyMod and DragnaCarta. There are a few new locations both authors have added to the game that I plan on hitting (The Orphanage, Reformation Center, etc)
• Version 2.0 of my older maps. I'd love to create a new, bigger and creepier Village of Barovia  and some of the earlier map locations like the Gates of Barovia. Over the last year, my skills have increased and I think I can do a much better job on those older maps! (Just look at Tsolenka Pass for example!)
• Larger locations maps such as a full map of Barovia and city maps. 

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading my rambling! As a thank you, I'll share some potentially exciting news with you all. I've been working with the team over at Ghostfire Gaming (the creators of Grim Hollow and publishers of a few other great titles like Dungeons of Drakkenheim, Sunken Isles, Quest-O-Nomicon and their new Kickstarter Arora) and I've asked for their permission to create some maps for their Grim Hollow series Fables. They seem excited at the idea and I just need to clear some red tape before I can publish those maps here on the channel. If you're unfamiliar, Fables is their subscription service which gives you monthly adventures and content such as tokens and maps. To be clear, my maps won't be featured with new Fables, but I plan on re-creating the maps that have already been released. If you have not yet heard of Grim Hollow of Fables, I highly recommend checking out the Ghostfire Gaming site and content. If you like Dark Fantasy (and if you are here I assume you do!) then you'll love this. I've personally subscribed to Fables and the content is massive each month and very well written. If all goes well, I'll be making maps for some of the really cool locations that you'll be able to use in your own Fables game, or as other locations around your Dark Fantasy world. Stay tuned! 

Well that's all for now. As you can see, my roadmap is jammed packed with content that I hope you'll enjoy! Stay awesome and I'll catch up with you on my next release. 

Cheers, 

DM Andy