Heart of Darkling - The Waystation (Patreon)

Last month I introduced the Heart of Darkling series of maps. Unlike my other ongoing megadungeon (the Tekumel Undercity maps), the Heart of Darkling series is being released for commercial use as the maps are drawn. The goal of the project is to produce 20 maps that are all tied together by a single underground river and lake.

This stop along the Heart of Darkling is a small “village” put together by a team of mercenaries and bandits (more of the latter than the former). They deal with the kobolds upriver of them and are paid by the surface merchant who also deals with the kobolds and their master to interdict traffic from the surface further down the river. They only half-heartedly do this job, and spend most of their time fishing for blind cave fish, travelling back and forth from the surface by boat, and occasionally heading deeper downriver in order to trade or seek employment from the mudfolk and darker creatures in the depths.

The cave where the “village” is built is a fairly tall limestone cave – the houses were built to make the place feel less alien and hostile to the humans who dwell here. There are usually 1d3 boats tied up here. Northeast of the village is a water-filled cave with an exit to the east. This can lead to any number of other dungeons, dungeon levels, or other maps such as last month’s Infested Hall. If the attached map has a route to the surface, then the mercenaries might have another escape path or means of acquiring reinforcements – however the assumption is that whatever is that way is hostile, thus they keep the door between the village and the flooded cave barred and locked at all times.

You can download this map and the previous two maps in the series from the blog at https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/heart-of-darkling-the-waystation/