Drawing Dungeons: Site Maps in Fantasy

Hello, adventurers, and welcome back to the Red Quills for another entry in our mapmaker's resource book. Today, we're taking a closer look at drawing maps of sites and significant locations. As a writer or a game master, you're going to want to plan out the encounters that your protagonists face, whether they are in a peaceful village, a bristling castle, or a dank mine.

This month, we've looked at the tips and tricks I have to creating maps of trade, battle plans, and charts of culture, and when we did, I talked about the worldbuilding tools I use to write as well as draw. Today, I'm going to outline the questions and techniques to designing these sites and determining your intention when creating them.

This blog post is part of our weekly topic, How to Draw Site Maps. We have focus shorts coming out on our social media, and a full video tutorial in which I create a site map while discuss these tips, on our YouTube channel here.

If you want to give out other Journal posts a read, you can find them here.

To fully flesh out your fantasy world, you can't stop at a map of the realm. If your heroes are sneaking between the alleyways of a rainy city, or hopping over the rooftops of the palace, you will want a layout or blueprint to use as reference.

Here are the five kinds of map I tend to use, and the methods to create them:

TOWNS

Towns are not like castles: they aren't built. They are grown. The decision to make a town isn't made by one person, but by hundreds, thousands. They are an organic creature, and they follow certain laws. Whether they are only in town to infiltrate a criminal organisation's hideout, or their entire adventure is spent within the city's walls, a town always follows these three rules:

Rule #1: There must be water

It can be a river, a spring, or a well, but if a city is large enough to be interesting, it needs to have water enough for its citizens.

Now, this might not seem to be the most relevant fact for someone creating a fantasy world — you aren't a town planner, after all — but remembering this rule will give you more angles to consider, more corners to explore.

What does the drainage look like beneath the city? Does the river run through the main keep of the town? What secret things or hidden ways could hide by the running water?

Rule #2: There will always be a division of space

No matter what, unless it is the most squalid place in the universe, a town will always keep its industry aways from its living spaces. The rich will live away from the poor. The docks, the animal pens, the processing plants and foundries all stink to high heaven. The shops and artisans will gravitate to roads and highways.

The different districts are:

- Industrial. (Docks, forges, tanneries, slaughterhouses) Always kept away from living quarters, though beggars and thieves will hide there to avoid scrutiny.
- Commercial. (Shops, stores, crafters) Generally mixed into the lower-class residential areas. Where they are mixed, shops are ground floor, living quarters are above.
- Cultural. (Inns, arenas, libraries, theatres) Mixed into the middle-class areas, on high roads and gates. They generally take up a whole block and do not share immediate space with private dwellings.
- Residential. (Apartments, shared dwellings, townhouses, estates and manors.) Lower and middle classes are mixed in with other districts, but upper classes have areas to themselves.

Rule #3: They grow and shrink over time

As people move towards or away from cities, their borders will breath - in and out, flowing with time. From the oldest core of the city to the newest outskirts, the age will determine what the buildings are like, and who lives where.

A town will only very rarely fit perfectly into the wall erected around it. The wall will enclose the older, more prestigious parts such as the town hall or the landmarks, but the new areas will spill outwards if there is not enough space. This means that a city is never as well-defended as it should be: the gates have to always be open to allow the outer districts to come and go from work in the interior, and much of the population will not have walls to protect them from invasion.

But settlements can also shrink over time: areas less desirable will become abandoned, a hive for criminal activity or squatters.

CASTLES

Castles, forts, and baileys are very different: they are generally planned from the ground up, though there may be a new wall, wing, or tower added every few decades. They have one overriding purpose: defense. And at this, they excel.

Here are four questions to help you to plan out your castle and add some details to it:

1. Do they expect / invite visitors?

If a castle is home to the nobility, they will need somewhere to receive visitors. If it is a military outpost, this is not as much of a concern.

But a fortification will generally have a central location, a large open space, in which to gather those within it for muster or morale. It could be a great hall, a large courtyard, or both.

If the castle expects visitors, it will need an entrance hall, where visitors can be received or searched. It will have an audience chamber or great hall for feasts or ceremonies. And it will have guest rooms.

2. Where do their supplies come from?

The best defenses have farms and food beds within the walls, and a large store of grain or flour for long seiges. Without question, a castle needs a source of water: generally a well or a spring turned into a fountain. If they don't have water, they won't be able to withstand a seige.

If they grow everything for themselves, they will need a dedicated group of farmers, who will need shelter, amenities, and grounds large enough to feed everyone. If they have it brought in, they will have a supply gate: large enough for a laden cart, with an outer gate and an inner gate, so that the cart can be searched as it enters.

3. What are they defending against?

A castle built to withstand an army has much more intense requirements than a motte designed to repel bandits. But the more extensive a build, the more expensive.

The extra cost of a massive fortification can't be justified without a good reason. But once built, they can stand for centuries — millennia, with maintenance.

The level of threat they were built to repel will determine the level of detail that they will have gone to in securing the site. Here are some ideas to increase security:

- Towers on corners and increasing in height to eliminate blind spots
- Concentric walls, with outer courtyard, inner courtyard, and keep.
- Double-gated entrances and exits.
- Grid-covered wells and chimneys
- Moats and drawbridges
- Granaries and stores for long seiges
- Ballistas and oil reserves for repelling

CULTURAL BUILDINGS

There are a whole host of buildings that come under this banner, and I have made many maps for writings and gameplay for them. Whether are universities, colleges, palaces, arenas, or libraries, they tend to follow the same basic guidelines. So here's a short list of cultural buildings you can add to your cities, and the main points for each.

- UNIVERSITIES

Always built on grounds by rich benefactors or councils, they have extensive estates and tend to gain money by gathering resources or land, and lending them.

Universities and colleges always have three distinct population groups: workers, students, and scholars. Each will need somewhere to sleep and eat, away from the others.

They tend to have several entrances, but employ private security to repel unwanted interlopers. They also tend to have curfews in effect.

The central, oldest building will contain the most prestigious facilities, generally the library and the bursary. Centres of learning also generally have a strict pecking order of social rank based upon a scholar or student's subject.

- ARENAS

Arenas obviously require a large open area in the centre, and the audience areas around it for viewing. But they are also primarily a business, and they will have extensive "backstage" areas for competitors, equipment, or animal control. Blood sports will have sand brought in to soak up the bodily fluids, and they will need a sand store nearby.

They will need a main office nearby to hold all of the ticket money, and their entrances will be heavily monitored by bouncers and ticket sellers. The audience areas will have food vendors, water vendors, and shade for comfort.

- PALACES

Beautiful, sprawling buildings or complexes, palaces boast the best art, the most awe-inspiring architecture, and the greatest value of any building around. This is a separate entry to castles for a specific reason: castles are meant to repel, and palaces are meant to invite.

A palace is as much a cultural hub as it is a dwelling for the powerful. It will have several wings dedicated to different functions, and employ hundreds of workers to maintain and power it. Here are some ideas for contents for a palace:

- The Entertaining Wing. Containing guest rooms, dining halls, and meeting rooms. It can also contain the private library and any museum artefacts.
- The Festival Wing. Containing the ballroom, a festival courtyard, change and makeup rooms, palace wardrobes and costumières, and instruments.
- The Audience Wing. Containing the grand chamber, the throne room, the audience antechamber, meeting rooms, war rooms, and offices.
- The Servants Wing. Containing the living spaces for the workers, the kitchen and pantries, the gardener's sheds, and the stores.
- The Crown Wing. Containing the residential areas for the nobility residing there.

- BANKS & PRISONS

These two are under the same heading for a reason. This heading can also include libraries, museums, galleries, and arcanums. They all contain gathered stores of high-value items, and are devoted to the care and recording of those items.

Banks are often though of when it comes to high-security buildings, but that is a simple measure of reputation. A museum or gallery contains items of a similar value. The difference is that a bank or prison does not invite the public to view their contents.

The idea of public-access libraries or museums is not a universal one. Much like banks, they may well choose to allow only the powerful and wealthy within their walls, and charge for the service of keeping items safe.

They will have a monitored entrance for their visitors, as well as a workers entrance. Ticket holders at the first, and a supervisor at the second, ensure that no one leaves with any valuables. Their interior is patrolled regularly, and generally designed for ease of monitoring. A central area with wings extending outwards maximises visibility.

MINES

Mines and delves are a large part of fantasy lore. They hold a significant place in cultural development: the use of precious metals or iron is extremely important for societies. But they are dark and dangerous places.

Here are some kinds of mine layout to help you design yours:

- Underground mines are more expensive and are often used to reach deeper deposits. They are the tunnel mines that we think of when we picture mines. They use beams and scaffolds to help support the tunnel ceiling, and require air pumps for the workers to breathe.

- Surface mines are typically used for more shallow and less valuable deposits. These are open air mines, large pits carved into the earth. Carts can drive into and out of the gates at the surface.

- Placer mining is used to sift out valuable metals from sediments in river channels, beach sands, or other environments. They use meshes and grids in moving water to catch the sediment and remove the metal.

- In-situ mining involves dissolving the mineral resource in place then processing it at the surface without moving rock from the ground. Less common than the others, and creates fumes. It often requires a chemical plant nearby.

DUNGEONS

Last in this list is the humble dungeon, the staple of role-playing games and fantasy epics. Sprawling underground temples, ancient complexes buried by lava flows, or dark burrows extending into the earth.

When you are creating your dungeon, it can be difficult to come up with ideas to fill your chambers. Here are five kinds of chamber for your dungeon:

Ambient

- An introductory or informative chamber. There are no threats, and your characters have a moment of peace and quiet. Perhaps some books on dusty shelves or carvings on the wall illuminate some history.

Environmental Danger

- Crumbling ceilings, poisonous fungi, or choking fumes fill this room. The danger can be visible or hidden, but it provides an obstacle for your heroes.

Puzzle

- A maze, a riddle, or a trap waylays your quest. There can be a danger in answering wrong or taking too long.

Dead End

- A wrong turn, a bad feeling, or doubling back by mistake are all problems to have in the dark tunnels.

Conflict or Enemies

- Finally, you come across an inhabitant of the dungeon, and it is not friendly. Blades flash, teeth shine in the dark.

________________________________________________________________________

Designing a site is a completely different undertaking to drawing a map of the realms. It requires a lot more detail, a basic understanding of architecture or town planning, and a healthy respect for practicality. But hopefully this guide gives you a little bit of help and insight.

Thank you for reading, I hope that you found this helpful. Comment below if you did, or if you want me to focus more on a specific point in future!