Throne Room / Royal Tomb - Launch Post

Greetings, travelers! I bring to you my second pack, the Throne Room!

While drawing the map, I was aiming for an aesthetic that could pass for dwarven or giant architecture (though in the latter case, you might want to double the map's size). Each of the five theme variants (Day, Night, Fire, Ice, Dark Magic) has at least two variations - the throne room and the tomb. Different variants of the map should work well as giant or dragon lairs (especially red, white/silver and shadow/dracolich), though anything that could reasonably take over a dwarven ruin should also feel right at home here. Hopefully you'll find some use for this pack!

Oh, right; all variants of the map feature a destructible balcony, if you'd like to spice your encounter a bit or just prefer the aesthetic.

Moving forward, expect updates around the mid-point of each month, give or take a week. If you'd like to check up on my progress or just chat, feel free to drop by my Discord server. Until then!

Base - Day/Night

Your blades dripping with Orcish gore, you carve your way through the maze of crumbling corridors, slaying any stragglers that dare stand in your way. Oddly enough, the further you go, the less resistance you encounter; eventually, eerie silence overtakes the ruined fortress, like the quiet before a storm.

Finally, you reach a set of large stone doors. Where once sat fine adornments of mithral and gold there is now nothing but empty, jagged grooves running like scars through the rock. You brace and push against this once-majestic gate, and as soon as you feel  it move open, a wild, cacophonous chant of many orcish voices bursts forth through the crack.

As you march into the former heart of the fortress, a large host of orcs awaits to welcome you in the throne room of their warchief. They are just about everywhere you turn your gaze to, growling at you from both side aisles and laughing from the elevated gallery above you; the throne itself, however, is empty.

One orc stands alone straight ahead of you across the hall. Bulkier and clearly better equipped than his brethren, the warchief is sitting astride a large horned beast. Splintered shields and shattered pieces of armor cover his mount like a grisly barding fashioned from the spoils of war. As you step closer, the orc shouts something in his strange tongue, and his tribe howls back, echoing his call. 

A long, primitive lance in his hand, the warchief prods the side of his mount with his heel and you hear how the auroch's makeshift armor rattles as the beast kicks the ground, preparing to charge.

Captain Tier ($3) - Fire

Hot air ripples all around you as you enter the enormous chamber, making it seem as if your surroundings were melting right in front of your eyes. A trick of light though it may be, it seems believable enough; the heat is nigh unbearable here, to such a degree that each breath you draw in burns your throats a little. The thin vapors that cloud the place don't make the task of breathing any easier on you, but it is still managable - if barely.

It is fairly bright here, thanks to a massive window far in the opposite wall of the room; rather than look outside, it seems to open straight onto some raging inferno, perhaps overseeing a pool of lava. Various hues of red, orange, pink and yellow make up the ever-shifting patterns that light up the walls, with the warm glow of the fire reaching all the way to the arched ceiling dozens of feet above you - dim, but present even there. 

Deeper in the chamber, in the direction of a raised platform hosting a majestic throne, you see hoards of treasure - coins of gold and platinum shine in the warm glow of this place, sprinkled here and there with a splash of vivid colours that mark the presence of precious gemstones. Before you can make even but one more step in the direction of that treasure, however, you hear how something massive shifts its weight on the gallery directly over your heads.

Veteran Tier ($5) - Ice

The gate to the throne room stands open in front of you, both of its wings covered with crude giant graffiti; rows of sharp icicles protrude from the arch above the entrance like teeth of some massive beast. Snow crunches beneath your feet as you approach that maw. Eyeing warily the spikes of ice, you cross the threshold and enter the giants' abode.

Two massive white wolves lift their heads and turn to look in your direction; standing up from their beds of snow, they bare their teeth in a snarl, but are quickly ordered to stand still by their master - a frost giant tall enough to treat the over-a-story high throne platform like some sort of a stool.

The Jarl eyes you up and down, and you repay him in kind. His massive frame is protected by an armor of fur and shiny white scales, with a large dragon skull in place of his right pauldron. Icicles sparkle in his white beard and long hair that spill from underneath his horned helmet. By his side, leaning against the side of the platform, lies a mighty warhammer with its head made of a dragon's tooth, covered with a thick layer of ice.

Seemingly unimpressed by your stature, the Jarl chuckles under his breath and with a sharp nod of his head points towards you; at his silent command, two of giant bodyguards that have been watching the scene from the sidelines start marching towards you, brandishing their enormous greataxes.

Veteran Tier ($5) - Dark Magic

Despite there being no source of light to be found anywhere nearby, the chamber is drowning in an unnerving purple twilight. Within, tendrils of shadow or perhaps dark smoke sway and slither about the cracked tiles; sometimes you spot how they seem to take some recognizable shape, only for the silhouettes to disappear the moment you turn you gaze in their direction.

You start making your way across the mighty hall, slowly approaching an elevated platform on the opposite end of the room, where a regal throne stands empty and forgotten. An echo answers your footfalls as you march onwards with your weapons on the ready; each time a loose stone crunches beneath your boots, its jarring sound is amplified to a hair-raising degree.

As you step onto the granite of the central aisle leading to the dais, motes of purple light come to life along your path; they swirl and dance in the air for a bit, eventually taking on short and stout humanoid shapes of armed warriors clad in heavy armor. A few seconds pass and the once-empty path in front of you is now lined on both sides with rows of ghostly guards. As you look beyond them, towards the throne, you realize that the seat is no longer empty; your audience has just been granted.

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PS. Yes, I know that this "launch" post is a few days late compared to the map packs themselves, but please bear with me; life got in the way a bit so the map companion got slightly delayed. Apologies for that.