How to Draw a Druid Enclave

Hello, adventurers, and welcome back to the Red Quills: this week, we’re diving back into a combination map - I’m using painting, inking, drawing, coding, and practically every method over the past five weeks to bring this newest map together. Today, we’re looking at How to Draw a Druid Enclave. I’ll be drawing the map below, which is a map of the ruins of Rostivale and its inhabitants, the Druids of Firn-na-Bolg. 

Here, we can explore nature, ancient civilisation, non-human golems and automatons, and the next step of the mystery of the Pirate King’s Treasure! I’m Ryan of the Red Quills, and I’ll be taking you through this map of the Druids of Firn-na-Bolg. 

If you'd prefer to watch this in video form, you can check it out here: How to Draw a Druid Enclave

Or, if you would like to download the map, you can find it here: The Druids of Firn-na-Bolg

So far this month, we’ve been following along on the journey through the Goldhunter’s Sea, with treasure maps, pirate kings, floating cities, and mystical isles. What we’re aiming to do is demonstrate, through a short series, all of the different kinds of maps that you can use in your campaigns, and how we create them. 

Additionally, as we go along, we are discovering more and more of the story of Yemoke, the explorer who has set out to kill the Pirate King before he can ascend to godhood.  Quite apart from being a fun little exploration of all of these locations, he gives you a quest that you can then hand on to your players. 

Back to this map, it’s a decorative naturalist’s map of the area with sketches of the golems, the ruins, and the devastation of an ancient calamity. All in all, it’s usable as a map, but its main function is as a very appealing lore-dump to hand to your players. And, as always, if we end with a product that we would be happy hanging on our wall, then we’re good. 

________________________________________________________________________

We have five distinct stages in the creation of this map, before we even go into the worldbuilding of it. We start by drafting the layout, measuring out where the illustrations, text, map, and inserts will be placed, and colouring the borders and the compass rose. Then we paint the illustrations themselves, the pictures of the overgrown golems, before moving on to the main map itself. Finally, the last two steps are the insert map and the lore text written in the gaps. 

When we’re done, we end up with this. You can hand it to your players during the campaign, give it as a gift to them when they complete the quest, or keep it for yourself. It’s as much a work of art as a piece of worldbuilding, but it can be used as a map. 

But let’s start at the beginning, with a blank piece of paper. Then, you’ll want to make your sketch: an inch-wide border, a compass rose and legend tucked into a corner. If you’re making a location-specific map like this, then an insert map is required. I’ve isolated where the illustrations will be and done some quick doodles for the shapes of them, and I’ve placed the map itself front-and-centre. 

Aesthetics, Concepts, and Overarching Elements

We’ve created other maps in other videos since this channel launched, and every time, we discuss what you want to achieve as a worldbuilder. What your theme is, what your intention is, what you want to explore. And, of course, this map is no different. But I’ll take you through the process that I went through to demonstrate the process in action, and I’ll talk about specifics in the mapmaking here for you. 

The City as Ruin

I started this sketch by creating the shape of the city. Whenever you create a ruin, I’m sure it will come as no surprise, you should sketch out the shape of the complex or the city when it was at its height and then cut pieces off to make a ruin. It’ll help you to get the overall shape, give inspiration for details that you would not have normally thought of, and give you more opportunity to worldbuild. 

In this case, that’s precisely what I did for the city. In the last Lore Archive video, The Keys of the Pirate King, I discussed some elements of the ancient and mysterious Golidi Dominion, which led directly to this map. I had a vision in mind: ancient, broken towers rising out of the thick jungle canopy. Cracks running through the ground, dark vapours rising from them. Aeons-old golem wandering through sunlit clearings, flowers growing on their stony skin, feeding the birds. 

The theme for this location is that sense of wistful loss, thinking about the forgotten past. As a worldbuilder, I want this location to make the viewer wonder about the craftsman who made the golems. About the people that painted their blank faces. About whether, in their cold silicon hearts, they miss the times that the city was filled with bells and laughter. 

The Overgrowth as Nature

Which brought me smoothly to the next concept that I wanted to explore: while I like the idea of the ruin being silent except for the wandering golems, I had already mentioned that the Druids of Firn-na-Bolg would be the focus of the next leg of the adventure, and so I would need to bring them in. Their symbol is nature, growth, and the forest. I already have the image in mind of the city being swallowed by the jungle, so I can use that. The golems with flowers on their backs arrive to mind too, so we only need to make a slight change. 

Now, some of the growth on the golems is on purpose. Some giggling child plants a flower on a golem’s back with her mother. A lumbering stone creature carries the vegetable garden for a family on its back. The growth of the trees, which seems like the chaotic and inexorable march of nature to the outsider, is the purposeful cultivation of an ecosystem that thrives on the bones of a civilisation. 

This ties in nicely with the druids. As a rule, nature mages tend to feel that cities, metropoli, the choking influence of thousands of souls crammed into one place, is an unnatural and selfish order of things. This outcome, then, where the hubris of the city crumbles to allow the natural order to establish, is the ideal outcome. 

The Golems as Legacy

Now we get to the golems. They were the focus of my imagination. I mentioned in that previous video that the Golidi Dominion were credited as the inventors of golems, magic circles, and language. I’ve used all three of those ideas in this map. But being the inventors of golems gives the opportunity to explore all of the different options for their creation. 

In classic lore, golems are humanoid. Clay sculptures given the shape of men and with a command planted in their heads to animate them. Taken further, the next natural progression is using other animalistic shapes to specialise them to given tasks. That is the true focus of this map, I will admit. The several specialised golems. 

Before I discuss the golems themselves, which I’ll use as an opportunity to explore creating memorable creatures and NPCs, I want to touch on why I used them as a focus. Because I have the ruin theme and the nature theme, and the two work in harmony for a druid grove. The golems combine the two as well: they are moving relics intertwined with plants and overgrowth. 

There’s a rule of thumb that I use with worldbuilding, if you’re basing it off themes. The rule is: “Big ideas, small examples.” This whole city is a combination of ancient technology and natural magic. That’s a big idea. But to make it appeal, I made a small, easily-digestible example of those concepts that you could isolate on its own and still have those qualities. Hence, the golems. 

Additionally, they have the benefit of their use as obstacles and NPCs. 

Choosing or Creating Obstacles and NPCs

We’re well into the drawing of the golems now. For this process, I had sketched out a quick shape of each of the creatures, in different poses and angles, and given them some rough shapes. I know what I want them to look like before I put brush to paper, so I start with the light colours and work my way to darker and darker shades. In this case, I start with the light grey stone, and then move to the greenery and the clay. I use complimentary colours to shade: purple for the grey, red for the brown, and a blue for the green. 

By the way, if you’re watching this and thinking, ‘I can’t paint like that,’ then don’t underestimate yourself. It’s tricky, sure, but if you take your time and have a bit of practice, you’re capable of doing it. It takes a little while to get it down, so if you have the time to spare, give it a go. I’ve put a list of my equipment in the description, so you know what to use. 

Step One: Decide on your Major NPC

I always start my dungeons by planning who the big bad is, or who the head honcho is. In some cases, it could be a dragon. It could be the oracle of the doomsday cult. It could be the evil wizard or the head druid. 

They are the thematic choice, and you build your army around them.

Step Two: Choose your Variations

We’re using a content generation rule later for the mapping of the city that we’ll go into in more detail, but while we’re on the subject of NPCs and creatures, let’s talk about filling out your locations with mobile obstacles. In this case, I have the golems themselves. There are - or will be - references to other creatures throughout the ruins, and the overhanging threat of the darkness curling from the cracks in the fundament, but as always, there’s an applicable rule of thumb. 

In this case, it’s the one-three-five rule. Every area that you’re filling with NPCs, creatures, or bad guys has one major character, three heavy-hitters, and five brawlers. Another way you could do it is the Fibonacci sequence: one major, one lieutenant, two heavy-hitters, three specialists, and five brawlers. 

In either case, when you’re populating your areas, you will need three to five variations of enemy. In this case, I’ve made five variations of golem, but this is applicable to any location at all. So, select your variations, and then take the next step. 

Step Three: Write your Lore

The next step, as it will help you to figure out more about their relationships with one another, their interactions with the heroes, and more. You chose your major NPC for a reason - it could be to do with what you want your heroes to encounter rather than any in-world reason, but they should have a reason for being in this specific place. Then you work on their lieutenants. Why are they there? Why are they highly ranked? 

For the golems here, each kind of golem was created to perform a specific function. Their animalistic forms allow them to specialise, which makes them unique amongst golems. But their creators are long-gone, and they cannot repair themselves. So they dwindle over time. 

The Rule of Ruins

In any case, we’re in the next part of fleshing out this location. We’ve determined what the theme is, what we’re going to fill the city ruins with in order to explore the concepts of the Golidi Dominion. Now, we move on to the inhabitants. 

This is particularly applicable when you’re designing a city. I’ve spoken about the process for that in previous videos, check them out, but when you have a sprawling complex like this one, where your heroes can explore each crack and corner, you need to be able to fill those corners with details. Too many times have I come across a dungeon sprawl where every second room is a chamber with some crude decoration and no discernable function. Why is it there? Why bother making it? I’m bored already. 

Here we have a ruin nearly a mile wide, inhabited by golems, built by the first empire in history. There should be history teeming from the very stones. There should be nooks and crannies to explore. A hero should be able to spend the entirety of an archaeological expedition here. And if that sounds like it's impossible, then keep watching. That’s what we’re going to try to achieve. 

There’s a rule of thumb that we use for cities that we’re going to bring back here: 

“Each city is three towns, and each town is two villages.” 

What you want to have, when working with content creation is, simply put, fractal rules. Ideas that, when you put them into place, you have a pattern that takes a relatively small amount of effort, but allows you to fill it out more and more as you explore it. The rule before is one such rule. 

In this case, we’re going to put a fractal rule in place for this city, so that you can continue to explore it going down. We’re going to base it on the five-chamber rule from How to Draw your Dungeons, and tweak it a bit for ruins like this. The five chambers are:

Ambience - Environmental Danger - Puzzle - Trap or Dead End - Conflict

So let’s take this idea, and build a rule to keep going all the way down. The map here is of an area so large that we could not record all of the details on one page. Each of these towers is a town on its own, and each floor of those towers could be villages. Writing out the content and function of each room would be a complete waste of time, as its very unlikely that a hero would stay there for long enough to go through the whole thing. 

But we want to be prepared in case they do. 

Let’s combine these rules into something more suited for a ruin like this: 

“Each area has five locations, three variations, and one focus.”

You can use this rule in combination with the above rule about the five chambers. If you build a tower in one corner of the map, and you haven’t given it any details other than that it is the tower in which astronomers gather, then you can apply this rule. 

The tower will have five levels, three rooms in each level, and one room at the top which is the focus of its function - in this case, probably an enormous bronze telescope. You can connect them all: the environmental danger could span the height of the tower as a crack running through it: if you fall in, you fall to the Underdark. The puzzle could be an ancient door that requires a key hidden in another room. 

Details to Include

Let’s move back to the practical questions: when you’re making a map of a druid grove, what should you be including, what don’t you want to forget? We’ll run through the list and discuss each point: 

Central Motif

As always in any place of worship or veneration, the whole thing will be built around one central area that the inhabitant gather. It will be some place of significance or power. In this case, the Sanctuary sits at the heart of the ruins. It is a circle of six tall stones of ancient and incredible protective power, and the druids venerate it. Once, in ancient history, a cataclysm attempted to destroy the city, but broke on the protections of the Sanctuary. The result is the shatter-pattern of cracks in the bedrock of the city. 

Living Spaces

Druids live in harmony with their surroundings - particularly if those surroundings are nature. In this case, they inhabit the more central, structurally-sound towers, where the sides have crumbled away to leave their rooms open to the elements. They can feel the breezes wafting through, see the dawn with their own eyes every morning. 

Sources of Natural Magic

All druids source their power from the forces of nature, the cycles of life and death, and the flow of time. In this overgrown ruin, nature’s power is evident: it is a slow, patient power, but it stands as a testament. What’s more, the cracks in the bedrock open this environment to another, darker environment. Dark power curls from the rifts like smoke, and the druids harness and guard this power, keeping the balance. 

Libraries and Archives

All learned scholars keep the sources of their knowledge safe. It could be a library, a store of artefacts, or just the old sages that pass their wisdom down from mouth to ear. In my case, a tower on the southern wall serves as a library, protected and maintained by the golems. 

Staging Areas and Planning Rooms

A large part of the veneration of nature is the protection of nature. Druids can be calm, quiet, and retiring. But as civilisation ever threatens to eat away at the boundaries of the forest, their peaceful veneer can be replaced with something more ferocious. They will have a headquarters for a more active protection of the natural forces, somewhere that they store their weapons, talk strategy and tactics, and work together on patrolling the area. 

Creature Areas

A connection with animals is almost a requirement of being a druid. Living in harmony with nature means opening your sanctuary to all who need it, no matter whether they are furred, scaled, or feathered. In this case, the significant animals in question are the golems, which have their own area in the northwest quadrant, but creatures of the sky and forest are also welcomed and cared for. 

Connection to the Campaign

Now we get to the part where we talk about the history of this particular map, and how it connected to the wider campaign. If this is your first time watching the Red Quills, welcome! This is the fifth part of a six-part series, following a quest map by map. By illustrating the maps as we go and fleshing them out into the parts of an adventure, I can demonstrate the different kinds of maps that you can use in a campaign, and how you can use them. 

This map of the Druids of Firn-na-Bolg is the fifth and penultimate part of the series. We started with a map of the Goldhunter’s Sea, marked with notes and scrawls that revealed it to have been the treasure map of the Pirate King, Amador Smoke-Eye. As well as hinting at the location of his treasure, an account written by the mapmaker on the back warned about Amador’s intention to become a god. 

Sailing to the Goldhunter’s Sea, we stopped first at Smug Rock, the City of Ships, nestled on the carapace of a giant crab, and then sailed on to the Isle of Dreams, where we found the door to Amador’s Vault. Beyond it lies the immeasurable hoard of the Pirate King, but the door requires two things to open it: a key, and a password. 

The password is hinted at here and there through the maps, and particularly into the accounts that can be found with the maps, all written by the Pirate King’s nemesis, Yemoke, who is attempting to find and kill Amador. The last map we found, which was a coded map that Yemoke left while still captured by the Pirate King, leaves clues as to how to discern the password, find the key, and open the door. 

That map pointed here, to the Druids of Firn-na-Bolg. If you’re following along with the quest, your heroes will need to sail across the Goldhunter’s Sea, over the Rift, finally to Fir Tallis and the ruins of Rostivalen. Here, they can find the enclave of the druids and the key. 

The druids hate and fear Amador, and if travellers earn their trust, they will happily reveal critical information: that Amador vanished some two hundred years ago, after ruthlessly conquering the seas for decades. That when he first rose to power, he came to the ruins and easily overpowered their defenses - the golems that the druids live in harmony with turned against them and obeyed the Pirate King without question. 

Amador left the key under guard in the Highwalk Tower, guarded by the one golem that still obeys him - a Pah golem called Urakh’pah. In order to retrieve the key, they will need to overpower the golem, which may activate some dormant self-defense mechanism in all of the others. 

_______________________________________________________________________

And we’re finishing up now. If you want more lore on the Golidi, on Yemoke and Amador, on the Goldhunter’s Sea in general, you can check out the Lore Archive series and the episode that we will be releasing to pair with this map, titled Firn-na-Bolg. 

Now we have a usable map. Something decorative and practical. I hope that this video has proven helpful - as always, you can chuck a question in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. 

Thank you as always to our supporters, it’s wonderful to be involved in this community. I’ll see you next time. Good luck on your adventures.