The Tower of Mourning (Patreon)

The Tower of Mourning tapers up to its peak about 70 feet over the ground, but is nowhere near tall enough to pierce through the canopy of the forest that has grown up around it. Built specifically for the funeral rights of a great queen, the tower was also used as a watch tower but was never home to much of a garrison. Over the years since it was forgotten, the land has changed hands between kingdoms and smaller fiefs

The tower is the current bastion of a small order of paladins of vengeance, who use the pyre throne of the fallen queen at the top of the tower as their focus. The throne is made of stone and is cracked and scorched by the pyre that was built around it for the fallen queen. With repeated pyres (whenever a paladin is lost), the chair is slowly falling apart – cracking and splintering. The order is quite small and most members are on the move, leaving only a castellan who oversees the tower and a few paladins who remain in house at any one time.

Because the structure was more of a folly than a functional tower, it lacks some essential functionality that the order has had to rectify in their own ways – adding a kitchen to level 2 for instance, and cutting a waste trench into the ground in the forest nearby where they transport trash, old food, and wastes.

Tower 1 – the entrance to the tower is a good 8 feet above ground level. This level is primarily a great hall with throne at one end (and stairs down to the dungeons on each side of said throne) and arrow slits for defending the structure. A trap door in the north defensive room leads down past the cellars into the deeper dungeons.

Tower 2 – With an area overlooking the throne, this level is mostly stairs and a small room to defend the front of the structure (with arrow slits and murder holes). The order has added a kitchen on the south side and seating for meals on the north.

Tower 3 – One chamber here has been taken up by the castellan.

Tower 4 & 5 – Were dedicated to the queen for whom the tower was built and contain trophies and mementos of her reign.

Dungeons 1 – Typical cellars with supplies and some significant cobwebs.

Dungeons 2 – Mostly forgotten dungeons that were once memorials, now a mess. Pits cut into the circular chambers descend 30 feet to the level below.

Dungeons 3 – A sepulcher with statues of long-forgotten heroes and a secret door to the crypts beyond (also accessible via the pits above)

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,200 x 13,200 pixels (34 x 44 squares). 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 recommended 10‘ squares that make sense with the design) – so resizing the image to 2,380 x 3,080 pixels or 4,760 x 6,160 pixels, respectively.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2024/02/12/the-tower-of-mourning/