Pit of the Beast Battle Map - Launch

Hello Adventurers! I have a simple encounter map for you this week. It's a cave with a few entrances. So basically, it's a pit full of bones. How they got there is up to you. Most likely, some man-eater has been eating a LOT of people and animals. It has some spooky vibes for spooky month, and I’ll leave some spooky encounter ideas in the Notes and Tips section.

Next Maps

I’ll be working on the Djinn’s Palace next, with the Fey Portal coming later in the month.

• Djinn’s Palace
  I want to create a fun supernatural map for October. I’ve already got a few crypts and graveyards. So, I will make a Djinn’s Palace that could be used as a desert-themed palace/residence or a pocket dimension for a Genie. There’ll be a courtyard with a pool, rooms running around the outside, a throne room and some other features I’ll add once I’ve done some research!

• Fey Portal
  I want to create a map with a portal to the fey realm. The portal is likely in a desolate location, but lush, fantastical vegetation and fungus surround it. It should be a great location to fight your way into the Fey or a place to stop something escaping the Fey realm.

Thanks, as always, for your support. I’ll keep asking for new map ideas from you all. Both map ideas on the current list have come from Patrons, so please post your suggestions. Have a wonderful week, and as always, happy adventuring! Now, let's follow these tracks. They kind of look like massive wolf prints, but maybe a little like human tracks as well. Oh well, I’m sure this mystery will be solved once we crawl through this narrow entrance into this dark, foreboding cave.

Downloads

The files, thumbnails, and tags can be accessed on the Map List Page. You must be logged in to Patreon and signed up to the correct tier to access them. Remember, you are only charged for map releases; you can download all the old maps at no extra cost!

Map Descriptions

The pine trees creak as the wind whistles through the forest canopy. Darkness shrouds the space between the trunks. The forest floor is covered with bracken, deadwood, and a thick layer of brown pine needles that muffle your every step. Aside from the wind, the forest is eerily silent - no birdsong, no rustling of creatures. It's as if all life has withdrawn from this part of the forest.

Ahead, a clearing emerges. At its far edge stands a rocky cliff, its surface dotted with scrub and pine trees. Concealed at the base, hidden by dense foliage, lies a dark opening - a tunnel entrance no more than five feet wide.

As you enter the cave, a sharp, acrid musk assaults your senses. Something lived here once, perhaps still does. The narrow passage winds deeper into the cliffside, its walls a rough blend of rock and packed mud. Further ahead, the tunnel expands into a large cave, sloping downward into a shallow pit. The sides are slick with mud and loose gravel, treacherously unstable. Scattered across the pit’s floor are bones of all sizes - some small, belonging to prey animals; others large, the remains of fearsome predators. Many are ancient, bleached white by time, while others are disturbingly fresh, with bits of flesh and skin still clinging to their bloody surfaces.

Notes and Tips

• 30x45 Grid Map

• Use a wilderness map for an initial encounter with whatever lives in the cave. Maybe it retreats from the party. If there is more than one monster, maybe lower-level monsters attack first, with the final encounter against the main threat.

• This cave can be very dark or lit by shafts that let in light from above.

• The gravel covering the ground can hinder stealth. Movement across this surface will not be silent without extreme skills or magical means.

• The bones can be as deep as you wish. They could just cover the ground or be many feet deep.

• Have something at the centre of the cave the party needs to recover. This will make it imperative for the party to interact with the bone pit and think outside the box to retrieve the item. Reward problem-solving, but also make sure to add complications. For example, the object could be stuck in the bones or too heavy to be carried by one person.

• The many bones in this place should have some explanation. Is this an ancestral home for some creature? Was this a mass grave? Some ritualistic offering?

• Undead: This cave most likely has some supernatural elements. Undead are an obvious choice. Skeletons could animate from the bones, while ghouls could live under the bone pile. Maybe this is a Werewolf den or an undead bone dragon's lair.

• Monstrous: Living monsters could also inhabit the cave. Giant vampire bats could roost above the pit. A colossal snake could slither below the bones, maybe rattling (like a rattlesnake) when the party approaches. Giant leeches or insects are always a good choice!

• The Hungry Cave: At night, howls can be heard from the region around the cave. It's a pack of extra-cursed werewolves. They can only rest on the bones of their victims. They could be undead, rotten creatures with a vibe of Wendigos. Forever hungry.

• The Wyrm and the Pit: A Bone Dragon uses this cave as its lair. Its ‘hoard’ is the bone pile; it is obsessed with collecting more bones.

• Cursed Ground: Someone has moved a graveyard to allow for building something, probably a mansion for some wealthy family. The place and family are now cursed, and the party must find out why. It turns out dumping a graveyard's worth of bodies in a cave is not the best way to respect the dead. A blessing must be performed in the cave to quiet the dead while fighting off the skeletal hordes!

Variants

Day/Night for all variants

 A sandy Desert variant with crumbly dry bones!

 A windswept Moor variant with mossy, damp bones!

 And a frigid Snow variant with 'frozen to the bone'... bones.

 To make this map more useful, I've created a variant without the bones (all biomes included).