dysonlogos
patreon
The Lost Ossuary
🕑 Added 2016-03-18 15:58:26 +0000 UTC This complicated little map started with a simple request from Christian Klauser over here on Patreon who asked for a "Map that is intended to be folded into a cube (warped space)."The Lost Ossuary is a small dimensional rift beneath the Lobachevsky Church. Cut out of the stone beneath the church as a set of crypts and ossuaries, the Lost Ossuary displays bizarre geometries to those who would try to map it out. Routings through the Ossuary make little sense, with paths connecting with far less than 360 degrees of angle between them, and some secret passages connecting areas that should be hundreds of feet apart.
To confuse matters more, the ossuary has two types of construction - rough hewn crypts and the carefully built ossuaries and tombs. Both areas are completely contiguous, and yet seem to cut each other up at times. In all, the structure is a nightmare for any who would try to map it out.
This is of course because the planar topology of the Ossuary is a cube - however this is never apparent to those within it - the faces do not involve any changes in angles - the floors remain consistent and flat instead of switching by 90 degrees as one walks over the "angle" in the cube.
Exploring the cube will probably result in some weird maps... (I've included a very simple example of how the cartography within the Ossuary will be difficult at the blog post).
In time, any attempt to map the Ossuary from the inside will result in a map that crosses over itself and comes back from point A to point A with those two locations at wildly different parts of the map.
The Lost Ossuary works not only for classic fantasy gaming, but would be a perfect spot for a bit of adventure in a Call of Cthulhu campaign (non-Euclidean geometry), or for other games that deal in strange places and possible hyper-tech (Numenera, The Strange, or something happening just inside a rift in Rifts).
Once the adventure is over, however, it might be fun to show the party exactly what was causing all the chaos - so I included a quick overview of how to assemble the Ossuary into an actual cube to show off to the players.
You can find the map at 300 dpi (with and without grid) along with the instructions for making the final cube and some photos of said over at the blog post at https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/the-lost-ossuary/
Comments
Dyson Logos
I'm particularly chuffed that you like it, since it was inspired by your request. :)
Christian Klauser
Awesome! Will definitely be using that in my Numenera campaign. Thanks!
