An ominous altar buried beneath a featureless hill. Who might have built it, and what is its purpose?

It’s 2018! This year, thanks to my Patrons, I’m quitting my second job to focus on creating full-time. With all the extra time I will soon have, I want to do a lot more experimentation with my art. This map is the first tentative something-new, where I put my new tablet to the test in order to prove I can make a map with nothing else. I’m also trying to push my shadows darker, and am still working on balancing these out. I like it a lot, but hand-drawn pencilwork will still be my staple!

The goal in all this is to try new styles and methods, fail occasionally, but in the end find a bunch of techniques and practices to adopt into my main style. I hope you’ll enjoy the journey as much as I do, and bear with me with the not-so-good maps. It’s all part of a positive process.

In this particular map I wanted to play around with both topside and underground line work, so I created this altar under the hill composition. I think it could make for an interesting travel encounter; perhaps there is an interesting or dangerous ritual going on, or an opportunity to worldbuild a bit with a religious NPC, or simply something nasty has been attracted by the blood and wants a fight?

Let us know your encounter ideas in the comments!

Patrons also gain access to this moonlit nighttime version!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, thanks to our generous supporters. If you would like to use this map commercially, please contact me 🙂

This encounter map is FREE thanks to Patreon supporters such as:

Owen Eli Cook, Jackobi Forsyth, Patrick O’Hagan, Nicholas O’Sullivan, Joe Needles @Hi_Average_Joe, Sam Wise, Bernard Howell, Dantemagnum, Brian Barron, Shawn park, Jeff Sorensen @DelugeIA, Ryan Littlefield, charliefewsmith, Cansin Akcasoy, James Ball, Joshua Renz, Austin Auclair, Glenn, superducky, FableButt @FableButt, eddy zrout, Rhea, Matthew Kammes, Håkon Eirik Grønlien, Wilhelm Lehnhardt @3mporio, m00am, Jain Deaux, Julien Therrien, Holger Anderson, Poptard, Connor Scott, Tyler Crompton, Stephen Bowyer, FreedomXIII, Mladen S., RoninDude, Tiana, Dawnbright., Joel McKinnon @joeliemckinnon, Jake Raiju, Jeffrey, Michael R Lynch, Peter Fox, Tad Bumcrot, evilhomer10 @evilhomer10, Robert, spookyrumba @spookyrumba, Allin Knight, Ashfall Art @Ashfall_Art, Jesper Ohlsson, Justin Hunter, Scott Kohn, Matt C. @mc_momo, Jonathan Petersen, Bruce McDonald, Charlie Crea, Michael Snow, Brittany Cole, Geoffrey Ingenbleek, Jens Nielsen, Calvin Clark, drag drag, Marleen Kaiser, Truxtun Roethel, Matt Carroll, Jamieson Mockel, SomethingWyqued, Zachary Robinson, David Mckinley, and all my other wonderful Patrons!