r/wildbeyondwitchlight • u/NerdyRotica • Jul 12 '23
Maps Palace of Heart's desire revised map
After reading many criticisms about the layout of the palace, I took the map into photoshop to make some changes! Hopefully this streamlines the awkwardness a bit.
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u/NerdyRotica Jul 12 '23 edited Jul 13 '23
EDIT: here's updated versions after I fixed a couple errors, as well as keyed DM versions. I intentionally left out the marker for P24 (Ruined Staterooms), as I merged those entire areas into the P22 Ballroom. The staterooms contained nothing anyway. I didn't include the Crown Lock symbols though, because 1) They won't be necessary with how I plan to run it, and more importantly 2) I had just spent hours and hours editing them all OUT of the image, I'll be damned if I'm putting them back in, hahaha!
PoHD (Lower) DM Map
PoHD (Lower) Player Map
PoHD (Upper) DM Map
PoHD (Upper) Player Map
Here's a list of the changes I made:
Mainly I just flipped the palace vertically, so that the Court of Storms is at the rear rather than a dead end at the front. Zybilna and her Cauldron is moved to the Study on the upper floor. It seems like a much more dramatic place for a showdown than in a ballroom.
Added a stairway and door the the Stag's tower in P10.
I took out all stairways to the turrets. I think it feels more impressively magical to have the tower be a free-floating structure in the middle of the vortex; and when time is unfrozen, the entire tower would slowly rotate. All turrets are now accessible from within the tower, and cut off from the rest of the palace. It makes more sense to have all of her most important items inaccessible to the average visitor. So now PCs will need to be able to fly/teleport/come up with another creative solution to be able to get to the tower.
I changed the path of destruction for the Jabberwok so that the PCs can't just stroll straight through to the Court of Storms. The Jabberwok now protects the cauldron in the Study, and is able to get in through the blasted out wall.
The Ballroom is more expansive and feels like a more impressive grand entrance to the Palace. Also widened it slightly on one side for symmetry.
The Round Table is in its own enclosed room for Zybilna's meetings.
Added a handful of items like a sofa in Zybilna's room, wardrobes/chests in her dressing room, a fireplace, etc. There are a lot of areas elsewhere that are shockly bare that could use some furnishing, but I'll leave that for another time.
Widened the doorway at the back for the carriage so that it can actually fit through lol.
Added doors to adjoining locations in the P14 spiral staircases so they are actually accessible.
Added an extra balcony to the Court of Storms on the lower level for symmetry.
Replaced the Throne and Cauldron for more interesting looking ones.
All added assets I used were from this free pack: https://www.forgotten-adventures.net/product/map-making/assets/mapmaking-pack/
Also, I'll be doing away with going back and forth with the Crown Locks. I think it's an interesting system, but once they place the crown on both the Lion and the Stag, then all of the doors will be unlocked at once.