Written by: Zachary Velcoff
That’s right, all dungeons and all dragons. Perhaps making a definitive list of the top ten battlemaps for a fifty-year-old game is an impossible task since every Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign is different. Every edition, every module, every homebrew adventure, every combination of players and Dungeon Master to have come together around a table and pretended to be magic users, fighters, and clerics; there are no ten battlemaps that would be best for them all. However, certain locations are so iconic that no top ten list of battlemaps for the world’s oldest tabletop roleplaying game would be complete without them.
1. Ages of the Vale: Tavern
We begin in a tavern, as many adventures do. Although starting in media res lets you fling your PCs right into the action, taking a calmer approach to a campaign’s first session is a great way to ease in newer players, to test out the dynamics of the group, and to meet the characters in a low-stakes environment. The Ages of the Vale: Tavern map, part of Czepeku’s Starter Village series, makes for a cozy place for your PCs to meet over a pint of mead. Start them in the Indoors New Beginnings Day variant, with a friendly bartender in one corner and a mysterious hooded stranger in the other, and see where things go from there!
2. Overgrown Magic Forest
From the tavern, our newly formed adventuring party embarks on their first quest. At the behest of the mysterious hooded figure, they venture into the deep, dark forest on the edge of the village. Locals reported hearing strange noises from within these woods at night, livestock in the area have gone missing, and rumors tell of an ancient ruin within its depths. Depending on the time of year your adventure begins, you might use a seasonal variant here; otherwise, if you want to foreshadow the campaign’s main themes early, you might opt for a variant such as Ancient Symbols, Derelict Torii Gate, Fairy Rings, or Giant Shrooms.
3. Modular Caves
It wouldn’t be Dungeons & Dragons without dungeons. In the depths of the forest outside our Starter Village lies the first dungeon of our campaign. Is it a prison? A mine? A tomb? The answer is up to you, of course, and Czepeku’s Modular Caves map gives you a ton of options. This map’s variants include everything from runes to roots to ruins. You might lay out a maze of minerals, magitech, and moss or a cavern of chasms, cave-ins, stalagmites, and cenotes. Ancient altars, long-abdicated thrones, and terrific treasures could await your PCs, along with natural springs, monster hives, and liquid hot magma.
4. Crossroads
Having completed their first quest, our heroes depart the dungeon, traverse the forest, and return to the Starter Village. There, depending on the tone of your campaign, the mysterious hooded figure either gives them their well-deserved reward or betrays them spectacularly, destroying the village and killing their mentors. In pursuit of revenge, or perhaps just the next adventure, the party proceeds from the village (or its smoldering remains) to the big city. On the road, they might encounter anything from bandits to traveling merchants to wandering monsters. Random encounters have been a staple of Dungeons & Dragons since the early days of the game, and the Crossroads map is a perfect place to stage some! Use a seasonal variant depending on the time of year, a barricade variant for a bandit ambush, or a variant like bad harvest, flood, or rain for weather events. If things are not well in the land, you might use a variant such as No Troublemakers, No Witches, or Gallows to allude to the challenges that await your players in the big city.
5. City Marketplace
The big city: where up-and-coming adventuring parties can make a name for themselves by helping (or helping to overthrow) the powers that be. Here, your players can pick up quests, meet the main power brokers of your campaign, and–perhaps most importantly–buy things. Shopping, whether for arms and armor, magic items, or potions, is a prominent part of any campaign. With the City Marketplace’s variants, you can add a little bit of unique flavor each time your players visit the market. Perhaps the circus is in town, a local adventurer’s guild is holding a fighting contest, or a crowd has gathered for the public execution of a group of rebel leaders. Ideally, each time your players visit the market, they’ll have an opportunity to witness–and get involved in–the local goings-on.
6. Grand Cathedral
One of the underlying assumptions of every edition and almost every published setting of Dungeons & Dragons is that the gods are real, that their divine followers can channel their powers, and that they exert their influence upon the worlds of mortals. Given the prominence and potency of religion in this game, it’s likely that members of your party will be involved with–or opposed to–some deity or other. For a particularly powerful church, perhaps that of the dominant domain in the big city, the Grand Cathedral map is perfect. In addition to its many variants, it also has several companion maps, including an Interior, a Crypt, and even a Lich Catacomb!
7. Royal Throne Room
As your party’s level, visibility, and influence grows, they’ll eventually draw the interest–or the ire–of powerful political figures. The average Dungeons & Dragons setting is a pastiche of Medieval England and Renaissance Italy, among other real-world influences. While not every realm has to be a monarchy, they’re common enough that the Royal Throne Room is a natural map to include in our list. Whether the party is here to accept a quest from the queen, to assassinate the king, or to expose the traitors in the imperial council, this battlemap is perfect for a dramatic scene at the seat of power.
8. Adventurers’ Guildhall
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an adventuring party in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a headquarters. Enter the Adventurers’ Guildhall, with rooms aplenty for each of your PCs to make their own, as well as chambers for their retainers, sidekicks, and servants. Here is a chapel for your cleric, a garden for your druid, a library for your wizard, a forge for your artificer, a stage for your bard, a secret treasure chamber for your rogue, a stables for your paladin’s noble steed, an archery range for your ranger, and practice dummies for your fighter, monk, and barbarian to beat to shreds. Your sorcerer can get their beauty sleep in the master bedroom while your warlock takes a long soak in the tub down the hall. With a high wall and guard towers to protect them and their loot, the Adventurers’ Guildhall is a great base of operations–and gold sink–for higher-level parties.
9. Nightmare Dragon Lair
As with dungeons, it wouldn’t be Dungeons & Dragons without dragons. The earth rumbles beneath the clawed feet of these immense and ancient beings, the wind howls with the beating of their wings, and their breath can turn a foolhardy adventurer into a pile of dust. Whether a dragon is the final foe of your campaign, a powerful lieutenant of your main villain, or an unlikely ally of the party’s, you’ll want a dramatic battlemap for their appearance. Czepeku offers lair maps for many varieties of dragons, but the Nightmare Dragon Lair is so stunning, and its variants so versatile, that it easily makes the cut for our top ten.
10. Dragon Hoard
So your players have completed the quest, slain the serpent, and saved the realm (or destroyed it). Now their reward awaits them: the Dragon Hoard, replete with gold and gems, art objects, and magic items. This last map of our top ten list gives your heroes a glorious glimpse of their newfound unimaginable wealth. And perhaps–in case their celebrations are premature–gives you one last chance to challenge them. Perhaps the dragon they’ve just slain returns here as a dracolich, or the boss they think they’ve beaten enters its final form before they can claim its riches as their own.
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