D&D Battlemaps for Ravenloft: Beyond the Core

Written by: Zachary Velcoff

Some who enter the Mists of Ravenloft never emerge. Others cross from one Domain of Dread into its neighbor, as if there were no border between them. Others still enter from a fixed point and step out somewhere else entirely, routed by the inscrutable logic of the Mists into an unconnected Domain, distant and deadly.

In the first post of our duo of horror, we suggested battlemaps for adventures in Ravenloft’s Core. This post takes us through the Mists to Domains of Dread even more terrible. Adventurers in these Domains are likely to come into conflict with their denizens and Darklords, and when conflict arises, a good battlemap is a Dungeon Master’s best friend. So here, without further ado, are D&D Battlemaps for Ravenloft: Beyond the Core!

Elder Brain Lair

Above the surface, Bluetspur is an inhospitable, non-Euclidean nightmare, a maddening place where the laws of reality break down. Beneath the towering psionic amplifier of Mount Makab lies Citadel Subterrene, a mind flayer metropolis and home to the Chamber of the God-Brain, where Bluetspur’s Darklord lies dying. Infected by a flesh-eating disease, the God-Brain rots away, as its horrified servants scramble in search of a cure. Perhaps your PCs have been enlisted against their will to help find that cure. Perhaps their sacrifices will buy the dying God-Brain more time. Or maybe your players aren’t here to save the God-Brain, but to accelerate its demise.

Use the Gore variant of Czepeku’s Elder Brain Lair for the Chamber of the God-Brain of Bluetspur.

Other Battlemaps for Bluetspur

Elder Brain Sacrum Shrine. Turn your players’ Bluetspur adventure into a dungeon crawl by starting them off in the Gore variant of Czepeku’s Elder Brain Sacrum Shrine. Let them awaken in pods, with no memory of how they arrived, and fight their way out against the mind flayers of Citadel Subterrene.
Elder Brain Spine Mine. Let your players’ rampage through Citadel Subterrene take them through the Gore variant of Czepeku’s Elder Brain Spine Mine, facing increasingly deadly psionic defenses as they draw closer to the God-Brain.

Marketplace Festival

The Carnival, unique among the Domains of Dread, travels beyond the Mists. Its arrival in settlements on the Prime Material Plane is heralded by fliers that appear on walls and signposts when no one is watching. Many are the amusements of the Carnival, and many more its dangers. Beyond the spectacles of the Big Top and Hall of Horrors lies the Litwick Market. These shops, unaffiliated with the Carnival, are operated by fey profiteers with nefarious agendas: to exact prices dearer than coin from their patrons, to sabotage the Carnival’s performers, and to turn the Carnival’s patrons against the institution.

The Darklord of this domain is the sentient sword Nepenthe, which drives its wielder, the eladrin ringleader Isolde, to acts of brutal retribution against those who steal from the Carnival.

Should your players attend the Carnival, fall prey to the machinations of its barkers, or become embroiled in its leader’s vendetta, use the Original Night variant of Czepeku’s Marketplace Festival.

Another Battlemap for the Carnival

Monster Festival. Come see the organ grinder, snake charmer, fire juggler, and more! For the sideshows, use the night variants of Czepeku’s Monster Festival, switching between them each night that your party revisits the Carnival.

Oasis City

In the rain shadow of the Sun’s Throne Mountains lies the sweltering desert of Har’Akir. From the golden pyramid of Pharaoh’s Rest in the City of the Dead, the Darklord Ankhtepot broods over his lost ka. Over the long ages of his corrupt reign, most settlements of Har’Akir have been buried beneath the sand (though a Labyrinth of monster-infested tunnels still connects their ruins). Nearly all the remaining inhabitants of this parched domain live in the city of Muhar, on the southern bank of the oasis that shares its name.

It is the likeliest jump-off point for adventures in Har’Akir, and a perfect fit for the Original variant of Czepeku’s Oasis City.

Other Battlemaps for Har’Akir

Oasis Expedition. Although the only city in Har’Akir, Muhar, is not the only oasis. The Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Oasis Expedition is a fitting map for Sek’s Tears, whose healing waters are guarded by sphinxes. For the Red Oasis, a hunting ground of lions, the Massacre or Blood Oasis variants work well.
Desert Ruins. The Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Desert Ruins is a great match for the White Oasis. Its limestone ruins can have been quarried from River’s Shelter nearby. Its soothing waters serve as a destination for the dying.

Bone Dryad Ossuary

I’Cath is both a city and the dream of a city. In the dream, it is a hilltop utopia, where identical streets extend from a golden palace in perfect radial symmetry. From the buildings to the gardens, everything is painstakingly maintained to achieve Darklord Tsien Chiang’s ever-shifting ideal of perfection. In contrast, the waking city is a ruin. Thousands of sleepers lie still in its moldering tenements. By day, monstrous incarnations of Tsien Chiang’s murdered daughters roam its labyrinthine streets. By night, hungry jiangshi hunt those few inhabitants who have not succumbed to unending slumber.

If your PCs dare to enter the Palace of Bones, use the No Coffins variant of Czepeku’s Bone Dryad Ossuary.

Other Battlemaps for I’Cath

Arcane Clocktower. Each dusk, Tsien Chiang climbs Ping'On Tower to ring the Nightingale Bell, which lulls the sleepers anew, and summons forth the jiangshi to rebuild the city. Set this scene with the Bell Chamber variant of Czepeku’s Arcane Tower.
Zen Monastery. During the day, the jiangshi sleep within their graves in the Gemstone Garden. Its fruit-bearing trees and carp ponds make it a perfect match for the Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Zen Monastery.
Forbidden Gates. The crumbling tenements of I’Cath, wryly called “the Mansions” by the city’s few waking citizens, sprawl outward in all directions from the Palace of Bones. The Shadow variant of Czepeku’s Forbidden Gates makes a good match for the Mansions outside the palace gates.

Mountain Monastery

Once one of the founding civilizations of the Radiant Citadel, Kalakeri fell from grace when its Maharani, Ramya, uttered a dying curse upon the siblings who murdered her. As a supernatural monsoon battered the Cerulean Citadel, in the capital city of Jadurai, the Maharani returned from beyond the grave, and Kalakeri was claimed by the Mists. The Vasavadan dynasty continues to war with itself, and the skulls that line the Tower of Traitors are stacked higher and higher. Beyond the Backwaters of the Harvest Peninsula rise the Vochalams, two mountains, each with a temple. One temple is rumored to contain a great treasure, the other, a terrible curse.

Use the Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Mountain Monastery for the temples atop the Vochalams.

Lightning Rail

Aboard Cyre 1313, the travelers are dead, and do not know it. Delayed by the late arrival of a single wealthy passenger, the Mourning Rail left its station in Metrol too late to escape the plague that wiped out the city. Now the train has left Eberron behind, and it hurtles through the Mists of Ravenloft, in a futile flight from the fate that has already claimed it. Use any combination of the cars from Czepeku’s Lightning Rail for Cyre 1313.

Another Battlemap for Cyre 1313, the Mourning Rail

Lightning Rail Pt. 2. Czepeku has not one Lightning Rail release, but two! Make this terrible train even longer with another batch of cars.

Grand Cathedral

The starving populace of G’henna, at the command of their Darklord, Yagno Petrovna, is called upon to sacrifice the majority of the crops they grow to their hungry god, Zhakata the Destroyer. The hungry citizens make a pilgrimage to the cathedral city of Zhukar, where they sacrifice their food in hopes of drawing out Zhakata’s beneficent aspect, the Provider. Unbeknownst to the people, both the Provider and the Destroyer are a sham, an invention of the delusional Darklord Petrovna.

The Desert Day variant of Czepeku’s Grand Cathedral is a great match for Zhukar.

Chrono Chaos Ruins

Klorr is both the name of this realm and the name of its Darklord, a mad clockmaker. In Klorr, a sun goes dark each hour, and one of the floating islands that spiral through the void is drawn into a vast burning eye to be consumed. The people trapped on these islands do not know how they wound up here, nor how new islands appear to replace those consumed.

If your heroes are trapped in Klorr, use the Original Day variant of Czepeku's Chrono Chaos Ruins to stage their escape attempt.

Another Battlemap for Klorr

Chrono Chaos Ruins Interior. Let your players take the fight to the Darklord Klorr himself on the Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Chrono Chaos Ruins Interior.

Goblin Bridge

The Rider’s Bridge is a domain that appears between other domains, connecting them through the Mists. But to cross the Rider’s Bridge is to brave a danger deadlier than the Mists: The Headless Rider, Darklord of this domain. In pursuit of its lost head, this headless horseman tries to behead any who would dare to cross its domain. Use Original Night variant of Czepeku’s Goblin Bridge for the Rider’s Bridge.

Haunted Ghost Ship Exterior

Every body of water in Ravenloft borders the Sea of Sorrows. This murky ocean, awash with seaweed, flotsam, and jetsam, is home to islands whose location can be fixed on no map. Its Darklord, the undead pirate captain Pietra van Riese, pilots her ghost ship, The Relentless, across her domain, towing the corpses of her victims behind her.

Use the Original Day variant of Czepeku’s Haunted Ghost Ship Exterior for the Relentless.

Other Battlemaps for the Sea of Sorrows

Haunted Ghost Ship Interior. If your PCs stow away aboard The Relentless, they’ll have to evade a ghostly crew whose members speak in unison with the captain’s voice. If they are brave or foolish enough to confront Pietra van Riese belowdecks, use the Original The Lower Deck, Middle Deck, Upper Deck, and Captain's Quarters variants of Czepeku’s Haunted Ghost Ship Interior to stage their showdown.
Chthonic Lighthouse. Atop a tower of fossilized creatures unknown in the sunlit realms, a strange light beckons. Its purpose is not to warn ships of dangerous shoals or rocky shores, however, but to call out to some dark entity far beneath it. Use the Storm variant of Czepeku’s Chthonic Lighthouse for the Lighthouse.
Dead Angel Reef. The submerged island of Vigilant’s Bluff is the site of an undead paladin’s unending vigil. This coral reef is strewn with bones of those who flouted the paladin’s religion. Use the Original No Angel Night variant of Czepeku’s Dead Angel Reef for Vigilant's Bluff.
Island Fort. Blaustein was once a Domain of Dread in its own right, ruled by the Darklord Bluebeard. Now Bluebeard's ghostly wives have ousted him, and the island fortress from which he ruled is the site of his unending misery. Use the Ground Floor Night, Roof Night, and Underground Tunnels Isolated variants of Czepeku's Island Fort for Blaustein.
Plague Hospital. On the island of Dominia, Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth runs an Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed. Here, the vampire doctor attempts to drive his patients insane so that he can observe and treat their madness. If your party seeks to charge Dr. Heinfroth with medical malpractice, use the Roman Hall Night variant of Czepeku’s Plague Hospital for Dominia.

Honorable Mentions

The following maps didn’t make the cut for the Top 10 but may still prove useful for your players’ journeys through Ravenloft:

Remote Ice Village. In the Shadowlands, the Knights of the Circle venture forth to do good in the name of Kateri Shadowborn, founder of their order. Many evils dwell within the forests of this domain, including Ebonbane, the sentient sword that claimed Kateri’s life. The knights meet to plan their quests against evil at a circle of standing stones in Avonleigh. Use the Ancient Stones Coming of Spring variant of Czepeku’s Remote Ice Village for this meeting place.
Medieval Jail. Souragne is a swampy domain of above-ground cemeteries whose largest settlement, Port d’Elhour, is slowly sinking into the Murky Sea. Souragne’s Darklord, Anton Misroi, is the tyrannical warden of a prison that towers above the bayou. For this prison, use the Flooded variant of Czepeku’s Medieval Jail.
Clifftop Warcamp. The Burning Peaks is a cluster of two domains: Cavitius, named for Vecna’s citadel on the Plane of Ash; and Tovag, the realm of Vecna’s treacherous former champion, Kas the Bloody Handed. From his lair of Tor Garok, the vampire musters army after army, sending them into the Mists toward Cavitius, not knowing that Vecna has long since departed the Domains of Dread. Use the Light Night variant of Czepeku’s Clifftomp Warcamp for Tor Garok.
Sewer Tunnels. Zherisia is two domains atop one another. Above, there is the smog-choked city of Paridon, where the doppelganger Darklord Sodo changes its shape to hunt. Below are the sewers of Timor, where the Hive Queen of the carrion stalkers seeks her prey. Use the Original Night variant of Czepeku’s Sewer Tunnels for Timor.
Grand Opera House. Scaena was once a playhouse in Dementlieu, but on the eve of the bloody premiere of its playwright's magnum opus, Apparitions, it became its own domain. Here, the Darklord Lemont Sediam Juste can bend reality to his will, putting on show after macabre show. Use any variant of Czepeku’s Grand Opera House for Scaena, which should depend on what sort of play you’d like to put on.
Tropical Island Village. Dr. Frantisek Markov created a formula that temporarily enhances the wits of the imbiber, but at a long-term cost to their intellect. Addicted to his medicine and despairing at his own mental decline, Markov retreated to an island he dubbed Markovia. Here, he works to refine his formula and test it on the local beasts, which grow smarter as Markov regresses. Use the Natural Night variant of Czepeku’s Tropical Island Village for Markovia.

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