Dungeons of the Ghost Tower of Inverness (Patreon)

When my friend Andy was discussing his D&D campaign and how they were going to take on the classic weird funhouse adventure of “The Ghost Tower of Inverness”, the discussion moved to the maps in that classic adventure.

I find that the non-repro blue maps of the old school modules is difficult to read, and in Andy’s case, also difficult to use in a VTT environment. So one afternoon as we were chatting, I put together this redraw of the map from that classic adventure.

Unlike most of my maps, this one is specifically designed for VTT use. Each square on the map is 140 pixels (since the module uses 10′ squares, this comes out to 70 pixels per 5′, which is the scale that most VTTs use). I’ve provided both a full replica of the map (above) with room numbers and secret doors marked, and an “in play” copy (at the blog) without those tags.

This map also got us to talking about old school adventures and the number of “empty” unkeyed locations on the maps. On this map there are a score of unkeyed rooms with no text whatsoever. While non-encounter rooms are fine with me, I realize how spoiled I am by being introduced to dungeon design via B1 – In Search of the Unknown. Each room in B1 is described with a some detail, giving you a feel for the structure and the purposes of the rooms. In an adventure like this I would end up writing some “dungeon dressing” into the empty rooms (if uninspired, I would roll on the DMG dungeon dressing tables) – just to have something to mention when the door is smashed open into yet another empty side room.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2020/06/25/the-dungeons-of-the-ghost-tower-of-inverness/