Heart of Darkling – Darklingtown South (Patreon)

The Darkling River works its way through the underdark beneath the grey hills to depths unknown. Darklingtown is a trading community built into a series of claustrophobically low-ceilinged caverns on the banks of the Darkling and a number of its tributaries. Darklingtown (which in turn will be made of 9+ maps) is the seventeenth mapped location (and this the 21st map total) along the Darkling River and the Darkling Sea beyond.

Darklingtown South is essentially the same neighbourhood, if slightly denser in housing and businesses, as Darklingtown North. Again the low-ceilinged caverns are tucked full of odd single-story structures that go from floor to ceiling of the cave, or often just shy of the ceiling to allow for a roof to help keep moisture out.

Most residents call the north half of this district “dockside” as it has a few docks and warehousing (as well as the Sinking Xorn tavern that serves the shipping trade). On the right side of dockside we see the beginnings of the mushroom caverns – a series of caverns dedicated to mushroom farming to keep the populace of Darklingtown fed as well as the “Gift of Zuggtmoy” – massive mushrooms that are used as construction material that we will discuss when we get to the map of the mushroom caverns themselves.

The southern half of this district is filled with both homes and businesses, but not nearly as densely as the Frogsport district further to the south. This is by design, with public spaces staked out by the residents to make sure no one attempts to build up the area even more. They have built a small park with a pond and benches in one “plaza” and in the other they erected a statue of Vrokog Cheese-Eater, an ogre hero who used to live here and was a champion of the local militia. The dense homes along the right wall of the area lead into the “low rent” portion of Darklingtown known as “the Tunnels”.

Exits from this district (clockwise from the Darkling river on the upper left)

The Darkling River – the river comes in here from Darklingtown North.

Darklington Passage – this 30′ wide cave leads into Darklingtown North.

The Mushroom Caverns (3 entrances) – These caves and the “Shroomflow” river all lead into the mushroom caves where mushrooms are farmed for Darklingtown.

The Tunnels – This 20 foot wide cavern leads into the lower class “Tunnels” district of Darklingtown and eventually to East Frogsport.

Frogsgate – Even though there is no gate, this passage is considered the dividing line between the northern districts and the busier urban excess of Frogsport.

The Darkling River – the river flows between Darklingtown South and Frogsport via this unlit cavern.

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/2021/11/09/darklingtown-south/