Champion Tier - Interactive Tome: Chapter 8 - [40x40] & [20x40] (Patreon)

All "Interactive Tome" maps are inspired by the well-written work of The Aciduous Adventurer, and the original adventure can be found on the DMs Guild here.

Hey everyone and happy Release Monday! For today's release we continue down the journey of mapping out the amazing supplemental adventure, The Interactive Tome of Strahd written by The Aciduous Adventurer. Today's release covers chapter 8 which includes the Berez Standing Stones, Morgantha's Hut, and The Heart of Sorrow in Castle Ravenloft. If you have not yet heard of or seen this amazing supplement, I highly recommend it! It is a platinum best seller over on the DMs Guild and you can find the PDF here.  

For this release I create two core maps to cover the change of location outlined in the chapter. You players start off at the standing stones of Berez while Baba works on desecrating the Swamp Fane. I took my existing Standing Stones map and made some general updates to it with my current map standards (added tree shadows, spruced up the foliage, etc). Then I went through and added small details as outlined in the chapter such as the animal remains and rope tided to the four larger stones. I also changed the north, south, east and west stones to make them appear slightly larger (I missed this detail the first time around) and lastly I added a "blood ritual" version. While you probably won't get much battlemap use out of that version, it'll be great to to show your players the corruption of the fane before you "fade to black" :) 

The 2nd and 3rd location takes place in Morgantha's Hut and the Heart of Sorrow. For the hut I created both an interior and exterior version with some additional space around the hut. I added the details for your players to do the cooking skill challange and of course, lots and lots of raven feathers! For the Heart of Sorrow I wanted to emphasis the crystalline heart, but wanted it to look more like a heart than a crystal. For here, the dramatic red lighting contrasting with the void of darkness in this tall tower was the mood I really wanted to capture. 

Lastly, I'm trying out a new technique for rain and created versions of the hut / tower with rain on it. Added a bit more grey tones to show the overcast sky and this new technique allows me to easily create rain in the exterior locations only.  

For my Champion Tier patrons you will see the following variants in the attached .zip files:

• Gridded / NoGrid
• 4k / 8k
• Day / Night
• Rain (Hut and Tower only) 
• Blood Ritual Versions (Standing Stones) in day and night
• Clean versions of both maps
• Interior / Exterior for the hut
• Webp files in both 4k and 8k with all variants (Sized for VTT) 

I have a few projects on my plate that I'll be juggling over the next few weeks. I'll be making maps for Lunch Break Heroes' first adventure, The Hunger as well as his latest upcoming adventure for August. I have a generic road / campsite location I'll be making (Can't have enough generic locations!) as well as working on the first of my Castle Ravenloft series which will cover the Svalich Road fork as it branches toward the West Gate and east toward Castle Ravenloft. And of course I'll be working on the next chapter for the Interactive Tome of Strahd. 

Stay tuned! 

Cheers, 

DM Andy