Heart of Darkling – Deception’s Bridge (Patreon)

The Darkling River works its way through the underdark beneath the grey hills to depths unknown. This is the fourteenth mapped location (and 17th map total) along the Darkling River and the Darkling Lake beyond.

This small colony of cavefolk along the darkling river has has generally been xenophobic and resistant to allowing outsiders in except for the most basic of trade – and even then they trade mushrooms and fish for red meat and occasionally weapons. On incredibly rare occasions they offer other trinkets that they have acquired from other travellers. But even the trade is usually done asynchronously – traders bring goods up the stepped stone cave from the dock and leave it there, then the cavefolk come out, take what they want, and leave their counter trade in its place.

But times have changed. The chief has been slain and is now inhabited by an intellect devourer. Her two subchiefs are suspicious of the changes, but they know they cannot get the tribe to rise up against her. Now the cavefolk signal that they would welcome one or two ambassadors to come into their homes from any group that lands here. But instead of trade negotiations, the chief is looking for a better host… Someone who could bring the flayer away from here – preferably someone with loyal companions and good survival skills.

There’s always one or two of the tribe assigned to the stone arch that goes over the darkling between the main homes of the cavefolk on the left and the trade landing on the right. They used to be here to warn the tribe of visitors, but now they stand on the bridge, light a torch, and wave to travellers signalling for them to pull over at the docks.

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

https://dysonlogos.blog/2021/08/06/heart-of-darkling-the-lost-stop/