I've also added a new level for "other dimensions", since I'm pretty sure Thomasina's Refuge goes off the edge of the map.

Edit: I've also been keeping versions of the old maps as I update them. If anyone's curious to see our progress, the full log is here.

Here they are!

Misha, do you still have your originals floating around somewhere?

Warning: even at a stupid-huge filesize it's unreadably small.

Maybe I should make a big side-by-side one that shows what order we found stuff in. It actually wouldn't be too hard…

Check it out!

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Surface

Level One

Please note that Charlatan had the same idea and posted it to the G121 postsession page.

It makes more sense for Knorr to teach us how to use them. I imagine him sniffing at Coutelain's fancy silk rope, like Cut was a tourist at a dude ranch with brand-new boots.

Chateau Level One
Chateau Level Two
Chateau Level Three
Chateau Level Four
Chateau Level Five
Chateau Level Six

Finally, he approaches.

"Mebbe I don't know much about much, but let me tell you about deep mining for the basalt ore that contains adamant. The ore is hard and magical to boot - it produces magical darkness and even dwarf-sight does not work around it. We have to map underground caverns most careful-like by torchlight to figure out where the ore is. When drilling for a seam of ore you do not want to be off by even a few feet."

He produces a length of heavy hemp cord. While they watch, he carefully paces out 10' segments of the cord and ties together lengths as necessary to create a 50' long cord marked at 10' intervals with special knots.

He explains that two somewhat practiced delvers can use such a cord to quickly and accurately map straight line distances as they walk along, leapfrogging and saving the time and uncertainly of having to pace out distance. This works especially well for refining existing maps, as a team can verify distances very quickly against the pre-measured cord.

Knorr offers to buy material sufficient to make several 50' cords for the company, and offers to practice this technique with anyone willing, first in daylight, then later in darkness until they have a good sense of how to hold the cord and work in pairs to calculate distances as they move from place to place.

I haven't done any work on mapping the towers…do you think it's worth it? They generally seem pretty self-contained and self-explanatory—both unlikely to be revisited and not difficult to navigate through if you do.

I tend to agree. We have this forgotten page tracking The Towers of Chateau d'Ambreville. This is meant to be a catalog of what we have and haven't searched, with some notes on what we've found or learned. That said, I don't think it's 100% up to date (if anyone has better info, please update the page!).

How does the watchtower relate to the rest of the chateau? Did we ever go back and explore that passageway?

We suspect this might be something like the long corridor in the NW of level 2, a tunnel connecting back to the dungeons.. The way is blocked with a huge stone, but Snickwick has expended considerable resources building a contrapulator that may be able to raise the stone.

How does the watchtower relate to the rest of the chateau? Did we ever go back and explore that passageway?

For instance in session 119, the two corridors that led into the shifting room did not line up, so I altered the length of the southern (east to west) corridor to make them fit sensibly.

Also note the additional set of stairs descending to level 4 on my map that I think is not reflected in your current version. They are south of the Eternal War room, on the west end of the wide corridor.

The biggest help would just be to let me add your maps to this

All my maps are posted to the Redbox site. Voila!

The Ruined Watchtower outside of the Chateau (Session 29)

The initial foray down to the third level under Alinor's Tower. (Session 105)

The Bastion of the Boglings, unrelated to the Chateau… (Session 117)

Deeper into the third level to the carrion crawler lair. (Session 119)

I just realized that the room I labeled as 'gnollpocalypse' is actually a big chunk of wall and not a room at all. Did gnollpocalypse happen in one of those two-level rooms or something?

It happened in the big room just to the south of your notation!

The original L2 compilation map has a staircase (down? up?) off the west side of the room just northwest of the aviary. edit: I think this must be a mistake, but it's a relatively strange mapping mistake, so I'm curious about what's actually there.

Ugh, yeah. On L1 there's a stairway just about there, too, that I wasn't sure if it led up or down. I sure hope it doesn't lead down, though, because is is noooooooowhere close to the room you're talking about. That whole area just south of the Grand Stair is a huge mess, to be honest. The map I was working off of had one of those big "whoops, pretend these two halls connect" spots right in the center of it, and I just bullshitted my way through making things fit. Maybe some day we have a real light crew we can clear out a few final rooms on level one and double-check a few questionable mapping spots.

Oh god, I just realized that the room I labeled as 'gnollpocalypse' is actually a big chunk of wall and not a room at all. Did gnollpocalypse happen in one of those two-level rooms or something?

Not sure how I can help with this, but let me know - I want to add this material to my maps and them overlay them in the GiMP to see if we can guess where more stairs should be.

The biggest help would just be to let me add your maps to this, either by sending my scans of them or just bringing them to a session. They're actually already in GiMP, all on the same scale, and I've added a few speculative stairs scattered around via that.

I want to talk with Eric about how okay it is to use real-life computers to help in our mapping before I give out the .xcf file, though. I don't think I've done anything that Ja couldn't do (albeit using a lot more time and patience), but if he wants mapping to be done primarily by hand I'll respect that.

I expect a 3-D model connecting the stairs, etc.

This is a huge effort. I think unified maps like this lead pretty directly to goal-setting and -achieving instead of trial-and-error.

Not sure how I can help with this, but let me know - I want to add this material to my maps and them overlay them in the GiMP to see if we can guess where more stairs should be.

1. LoBo's original map of the Jester pit trap suggests that there are a couple of staircases to L3 further east down that hall (one in a room near the corner, and a big one just off the hallway when it turns south). They would deposit us in an unmapped part of L3 north of the grand stair.
2. The original L2 compilation map has a staircase (down? up?) off the west side of the room just northwest of the aviary. edit: I think this must be a mistake, but it's a relatively strange mapping mistake, so I'm curious about what's actually there.

Ja's doing all this with rulers, parchment, and a continual light spell cast on a desk-top that he can lay the parchment on when he wants to compare two layers against each other via direct overlay. But yeah, it's all in the lodge and the final results will be a set of large parchments to be hung from the lodge's walls that any expedition-maps can be copied from.

Also, thanks for the extra maps! Their results have been added in, and I've updated my previous 1-6 post with links to the updated images.

Whoops, looks like this is a new page. I'll copy them over into this post for ease of access:

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Level 6

BTW, Misha, I think you might like these books, the protagonist reminds me of Ja'Tubis.

"Look, look! I've connected them all! A dozen maps into one!"

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3

Any thoughts or corrections?

I actually sort of want to check out that long L of rooms right by where we estimate the dragon tower to be at some point. We didn't find any connections when we actually went into the tower, but some day we're going to have to deal with an angry dragon bursting the hell out of that thing, probably while we're inside the tower itself, and if we know a secret door that takes us into a dungeon too tight for it to follow it could save a lot of lives.

Probably obvious, but the scribblings like "Dragon Tower" are guesstimations of where these areas would connect to surface towers.

1. The wider part of each stairs is the upper portion of the stairwell. If the wider section is what connects to the current level, then the stairs go down.

2. The Aviary is pretty confusing, but is two stories. Yes, it is where we fought the Moar Birds and most lately the night goblins. I am not sure what is shown is correct, that there is a double doors across from the other double doors on the right.

3. Dotted lines denote the balconies overlooking gallery spaces on the floor below. The stairs here go down into an open area. You read correctly.

Also, is the Aviary one of those giant multi-level rooms we run into every so often? If so, is it a full three stories tall?

Also also, north and east of the Aviary, what are those dotted lines? Are those also multi-level rooms, and are those stairs just leading down into the sunken areas, or did I misread the map?

This is all working off of this page, for reference.

This is what I've copied so far. This is a pretty big undertaking both in and out of character, so I figure I'll post my progress and ask for clarifications of people's scribblings here.