Scavengers’ Deep – Map 9 (Patreon)

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven complex mixing some (ruined) surface structures, natural caves, and significant sprawling underground complexes dedicated to research, training, and breeding their slave species.

This is the ninth map in the Scavengers’ Deep series – sitting east of Map 6 and south of last month’s Map 8. This section of the Deep is mostly the natural caves that twisted through this area and inspired the construction of the Deep. But in addition to these caves we have the western portion of one of the “dungeon complexes” – a three-story structure built around a pinpoint gates into the positive and negative elemental planes (these were used to invest the original thralls with a twisted parody of life). This produces a pillar of black and white crackling “flame” that reaches up through all three levels, as well as summoning the occasional xag-ya and xeg-yi. One of the three staircases running between the levels has collapsed, leaving one section of the second level inaccessible and essentially untouched.

This map also contains some of the pipes that once moved water to drier parts of the complex. The pipes in this area are mostly damaged and destroyed, but a few remain. They are 35 inches across, making them a tight fit for medium-sized creatures.

The caves were inhabited by the thralls of the elves who crawled around the dark recesses between this area and the larger pool-filled caves to the west. Many of the descendants of the twisted output of the elven breeding pits remain deep within the dungeons and caves – while a great many are too twisted and warped to be of any threat, there are some true-breeding variants that are dangerously clever, carnivorous, and deadly.

This map connects to Map 8 via the two caves on the west side (both direct routes to the waterfall pool cave in Map 8 – one supplying the water to the fall, and the other providing easier and drier access to the cave floor) as well as the three-tiered energy complex that connects with the dungeon complexes that span the south sides of maps 5 and 8. This complex continues to the south in the upcoming Maps 13, 14, and 15. Pipes and caves extend eastwards to Map 12 and the water that runs through these maps is the only connection to Map 8 to the north.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 14,400 x 14,400 pixels (48 x 48 squares) in size. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the suggested 10′ squares that this is designed around) – so resizing it to either 3,360 x 3,360 or 6,720 x 6720 pixels in size, respectively.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2024/07/29/scavengers-deep-map-9/