Last November I stumbled on Miska Fredman‘s Instagram account and noticed he was drawing maps with #Mapvember. I got hooked. I even draw some maps myself too and Aki wrote about automated map generation.

Since then Miska has gone on Patreon and is drawing maps in addition to his job as the founder of Ironspine (Finnish rpg publisher). It seems like his map drawing has really paid off. At the end of August he published a neat booklet called A Dozen Dungeons (link to DriveThruRPG).

This supplement consist of twelve hand drawn maps for any fantasy themed rpg. Not only are they beautiful to look at they are each presented with their own spread. The map fills the right page and on the left you have space to make your own notes. Now I know this might not be a totally original idea but still. I like Miska’s work and the dungeons are interesting.

Though there is a lot of variation in the maps I did notice over half of them having a river running through the map. I’m willing to suspect this was not intentional. Now that I’ve seen them one after another I immediately thought about linking them all into one mega dungeon.

One of the river dungeons. Published with permission.

Most maps are pretty basic dungeons with square grid but of the maps take a different perspective.

First of them is drawn in semi-3d to show the difference in elevation and levels. I must admit I like this style even though it might be harder to draw. It gives a more visual look on the dungeon and may spark more ideas than your basic bird’s-eye view.

The second map with a different point of view is about a floating island with dead trees, some mushrooms, giant spiderweb and some houses. Though it is quite interesting I have to say it might not live up to the expectations set by the other maps. It gets more interesting the longer you study it but it still looks – maybe a bit hasty? In any case it still is a good and different map.

All in all I’m happy with the PDF. I might end up ordering the actual print via DriveThruRPG for writing my notes. At least when we eventually get back to the Dungeon World.

You may purchase A Dozen Dungeons HERE.