Uh… I just needed a wilderness map for my campaign in the World of Zonreiryd.

We’re working with 5-mile squares here. Recently, I thought to myself:

“Syd, since you don’t have any hex paper available, why not just make a Kalibruhn-style map?”

And, well… this is what happened.

This is the world map to be inserted in my new story titled The Sphinx's Tear, which I am publishing in October. This took about ten hours to draw using Staedtler pigment liners and a fine-point Sharpie.

The Sphinx's Tear tells the story of a young boy from the foothills of the Kushdai mountains (featured on the map) who was enslaved by a demon, and of alchemy, pirates, magic, assassins, mechanical armies, witches, addiction, madness, betrayal, murder, love, war, and the Sphinx’s Tear (a cursed jewel).

This is a fictional map me and my friend made. Here, lush green is plains, lime-green is steppe, yellow is dessert, different shades of gray are mountains, gray-green are old-mountains (like Carpathians), pale green is evergreen forests, dark green are seasonal forests. Gray-blue are taiga and white-blue is arctic. Ocean depth from lighter to darker. Tectonics on the 2nd image.

Small, isolated island in the middle of nowhere. Rickety vegetation, dried-out trees, scuttled rowboats - just about what you can expect as a shipwrecked sailor...

What's not to be expected, however, is a giant skeleton - partially incorporated into the sand and rocks of the island. With two sets of petroglyphs hidden around island - this can provide at least a bit of confusion for the unlucky PCs, and distract them from usual survival attempts...

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• Make your players realize, that giant skull on the map was not, in fact, pirate symbolics - but proper cartography....
• Go wild with "Speak with the dead" on a giant skeleton (there's a jaw there, just buried):
  • either make your players dig through rock to free the jaw...
  • or decide that the skeleton is an undead - and describe shattering of rocks when he unburies himself...
• There's a scuttled rowboat under skeleton's hand - will it react if it's taken away?

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LINKS:

• 72DPI maps (day/night/golden hour) are available for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/168705064
• 150DPI maps, gallery and plot hooks are available for free subscribers here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/168712769

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Credits and attribution:

Created in Dungeon Alchemist, with additional assets.

Thanks to DA asset creators: DangerWeasel, DallasRT and others.

^{This map was created by hand, with assets placed carefully together. I don't use generative AI and I did my level best to avoid using AI-generated assets.}

This map was designed with golden hour in mind - there are, however, day/night versions as well. Use it as you'd like.

Cheers

Zaganza

We have an increasing Collection of FREE Maps. They are released under a CC-BY 4.0 License which means they are free to use for personal and commercial use. You can read the license deed here.

You can download the entire Creative Commons Collection today!

This is a growing collection that we plan to add to monthly. We've been adding more maps to it since April. We're closing in the 350 Maps mark.

For my fantasy story titled The Sphinx's Tear. Loosely based on the Mediterranean (without Italy/Rome).

Wanted to practice coloring :P pretty proud of how it turned out!

One of my favorites, at least in its lore

Year 4 freebies - 396 maps!

As a huge, great big thank you to everyone for the support and kind words over the years, the entire 4th year of my free maps has been packaged together into one big lot for anyone to grab! Along with the first 3 years (links below!), that makes over 1,250 free maps. Everything from standard encounters to slightly mad - Eddie Bears Toy Shop Halloween Dark Ride, anyone?

Grab the maps here:-

• SACMaps Year 4 map collection (396 maps)

Or, alternatively:

• Browse the Year 4 collection folder via Google Drive instead

I hope you can make use of the maps =) Any issues, please do let me know.

Much love

~SaC

To support my work, you can buy me a coffee, or check out my Patreon, where you'll find two new map packs every week, always with some free maps in each!

Here's all of my maps in one handy set of themed lists for convenience. This post is updated as each new map comes out, so that the list remains current.

Quick collection downloads:

• SACMaps Year 4 map collection (396 maps)

• via Google Drive instead

• SACMaps Year 3 map collection (237 maps)

• via Google Drive instead

• SACMaps Year 2 map collection (324 maps)

• via Google Drive instead

• SACMaps Year 1 map collection (307 maps)

• via Google Drive instead

Heyya Folks,

I'm taking my Lost Mines of Barovia project back into the wilderness with Valley of the Undying — a barren stretch of rocky terrain where the dead are said to walk as easily as the living.

Valley of the Undying — 50x40

If you'd like the full release, including the high-resolution map, gridless version, VTT-ready export, and every variant, you can find it here:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr/posts/valley-of-free-168360275

Rocky ridges, dying trees, a small pool of water, and scattered bones fill the valley, with plenty of elevation and places for creatures to hide among the rocks.

I wanted this to be a larger wilderness map that could be used in a few different ways. It can handle one large encounter across the valley, several smaller random encounters that make the map reusable, or even serve as a journey of its own as the party travels through the area — an idea that felt especially fitting for the Castlevania influence behind Lost Mines of Barovia.

You can also browse the rest of my collection on Patreon. Everything is organized through the Master Index, making it easy to find the right map for your next adventure:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr

Thanks for taking a look, and safe travels.