Additional GIMP layers contain traps and secret doors that can be separately enabled as the players discover these items (intentionally or not) in the game. This "fog of war" hides secret rooms until the players find them in the game. When we play I use a "fog of war" as a GIMP layer on top of the map and slowly reveal the map as the players explore. Map 11 & 12: Again, the original isometric projection doesn't fit perfectly so the sizes of some of the chambers are a little larger than in the descriptive text.Map 3: The original isometric projection seems to take some liberty with spacial reality so there are some minor changes in structures within the castle.A stockade is present close to the main entrance. Strahd's carriage is outside of the carriage house to show it off. Map 2: I've added swinging steel gates to the portcullis' to make them visible from above.I've made a few minor (I hope) deviations from the written text in the adventure: Here are eleven Ravenloft maps (numbered map 2 to 12 for some reason?): If you're a DM like me, I hope you find them useful.
If you plan to play this adventure be advised that these maps contain spoilers. This allows me to create maps of any size which is very handy in the case of Ravenloft as the first map is huge - 135"x80" - and would require a very large sheet of paper.
When DMing I use an old 32" LCD TV laid flat that I've modified by adding a sheet of protective acrylic on top of the LCD as a "tabletop" and drive the TV with a laptop running GIMP. The adventure comes with battlemaps for all of the other encounters but Ravenloft is presented as an isometric projection, which is nice but not suitable for how we play. Best practise is to ignore the border and align to the grid itself.I've been DMing the excellent D&D 5e adventure Curse of Strahd for about a year and a half now (our group likes to take our time) and we're about to get to the climax, Castle Ravenloft, the home of Strahd von Zarovich. Regardess, I'd like to see these ones here turned into a module.but I can't seem to get the grid perfectly aligned with the one the artist had drawn on the maps - which has led to disappointment and disinterest in their use.I can't speak for the others, but on my maps the yellow border surrounding the map is "outside" the grid - so if you try to align to the grid with that yellow border inside your grid, you'll likely run into problems. Regardess, I'd like to see these ones here turned into a module.but I can't seem to get the grid perfectly aligned with the one the artist had drawn on the maps - which has led to disappointment and disinterest in their use. Strahd8 = Spires of Ravenloft with North Tower Peak and High Tower Peak The maps on the website compared to the module are as follows:Ĭurse of Strahd 2 3 - Walls of Ravenloft with Main FloorĬurse of Strahd 2 4 - Walls of Ravenloft with Court of the CountĬurse of Strahd 2 5 - Walls of Ravenloft with Rooms of WeepingĬurse of Strahd 2 6 - Walls of Ravenloft with Spires of RavenloftĬurse of Strahd 2 7 - Walls of Ravenloft with Spires of RavenloftĬurse of Strahd 2 8 - Walls of Ravenloft with Spires of RavenloftĬurse of Strahd 2 9 - Walls of Ravenloft with North Tower PeakĬurse of Strahd 2 10 - Walls of Ravenloft with High Tower PeakĬurse of Strahd 12 - Dungeon and Catacombs To add.I've examined both packs carefully, and each of them covers the castle fully as expected, just a difference in visuals, alignment, and layout. Either way, both would serve the same purpose, so it more or less comes down to how visually accurate you want your maps to be compared to the isometric ones and if you want the map to align with the bridge to the west as it should, or to the north as Zacchaeus has done it. There's slight visual alignment issues with some of the outdoors sections when compared to the other maps in the same set, but otherwise they seem to more or less provide the same need, though perhaps a bit closer visually to the isometric ones. That said, these are obviously better quality because that artist has probably had far more time spare to put into them, of which any number of the artists here could do if they had the time, including Zacchaeus. These particular maps seem to line up along with the labelling of the adventure's isometric maps themselves, and they effectively provide the same purpose as Zacchaeus' ones.
The map count is the same, though the outside one is merged with one of them and another has been done elsewhere.