Scavenger’s Deep – Map 3 (Patreon)

The Scavengers’ Deep is a reminder of the amount of work that went into underground structures during the great war. Generally, the elves only built underground when hiding their breeding and research facilities, whereas the forces of the kingdoms, assisted by the dwarves, were constantly building underground as the elves were unrelenting and would completely raze any surface defences that they defeated.

But the structures now known as the Scavengers’ Deep are atypical, an elven complex mixing some (ruined) surface structures, natural caves, and significant sprawling underground complexes dedicated to research, training, and breeding their slave races.

This is the third map in the Scavengers’ Deep series – sitting just east of Map 1. This map extends along the hill face that the deep is dug into and is notable as one of the Deep’s water sources as a large stream fills a pond against the hill here and then flows down into the caves where the water is joined by the small stream in map 1 before looping back into the southern caves in this section. The main access isn’t over this steep watery descent, but a cave in the hill to the west of it that is flanked by two massive caryatid columns, a pair of 19 foot tall armoured elves cut out of the stone of the cave walls and seeming to hold up the ceiling.

This part of the Scavengers’ Deep only has two sections that are provided as upper level vignettes – galleries above two of the larger caves that are reached by climbing natural stairs up from the caves below. The first overlooks the entrance cave beyond the caryatid columns and provides a vantage point for observing interlopers or likely harrying them with ranged weapons. The second looks over the “lake cave” (with the house on an island in the middle of it) and is accessed from the back of the cave to the east of the lake, beyond a pair of “houses” that have fallen into ruin.

On the southwest side of the map we have a small complex of cut stone chambers with a secret entrance to the river cave, and a door from the tunnel that exits the map to the east, west, and south. This small complex was for guards and elven scientists keeping an eye on the mutant wretches of the experimental slave races that had been abandoned to these caves.

Besides the two north entrances (along the water or through the caryatid columns), access to this map is either by the two flooded passages or the cavern corridor to the east (to map 1), the very narrow stream or narrow cave to the west (to a yet unknown map area), or via the cave, tunnel, or stream to the south leading to map 4.

Expect more maps of the Scavengers’ Deep over the coming months, probably at a rate of one map per month.

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 the suggested 10′ squares that this is designed around) – so resizing it to either 3,360 pixels wide or 6,720 pixels wide, respectively.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2024/01/29/scavengers-deep-map-3/