The Velvet Hood - A Svirneblin Fortress (Patreon)

Looking almost like an upside down castle embedded in a bridge, The Velvet Hood was initially a nameless toll fortress along the passages of the underdark. But the fortress was ransacked on two occasions, and it was only on the second that the svirfneblin discovered that whatever had ransacked it had carried off all within, but left behind the tolls (the first time the svirfneblin weren’t the first to find the empty fortress, and the toll chests had likely been sacked by opportunists).

They redoubled efforts around the fortress and discovered that whatever was taking their kin and leaving the fortress a quiet doorless hulk was coming from far below. Depending on the story, one or hundreds of foul, pallid beasts flowed up the walls of the chasm that cuts deep into the stone below, tore the fortress open and left with the corpses of the deep gnomes between their teeth.

The tales grew into a bogeygnome of the local svirfneblin colonies, and they found themselves unable to abandon the fortress because it linked two colonies and because no one really wanted the chasm to now sit undefended, but recruiting new guards to work the old fortress was nigh impossible. So finally under the cover of brilliant magical lights, the old fortress was converted into the velvet hood by a team of svirfneblin and summoned earth elementals.

The Velvet Hood is still not a favourite assignment for the local gnomes – the fortress is full of murder holes and arrow slits and wind makes strange noises flowing through it. And there is always the fear of the foulness that waits to steal away the gnomes from far below.

This map was drawn in a single draft using Mitsubishi Uni Pin pens on 4 square per inch Canson graph paper based on a request by patron J. Brian Murphy. I occasionally ask my patrons at the $2.50 level and above for ideas for maps and try to draw as many of them as I can (basically I give most of them a shot on paper, and the ones that turn into full maps I post, with about a third of them sitting forever in my partially complete maps pile).

You can download the map at its full 300 dpi glory from the blog post at https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/the-velvet-hood-a-svirfneblin-bridge-fortress/