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Halloween Noble Estate Map Pack!
🕑 Added 2020-10-22 14:45:29 +0000 UTCHalloween Noble Estate [52 x 31] & Lower Level [39 x 23]
Your party has been invited to attend a masquerade ball, the reading of a will or perhaps a private dinner with the host of a remote Noble Estate. You have heard rumors of the estate before, eccentric family members, missing townspeople, mysterious circumstances. Nothing was ever discovered, but no one has set foot on the grounds for years.
Not until now.
The party arrives at the estate, welcomed by the attentive staff and given accommodations for their stay. They find that there are other guests, as well, all invited to dine with the host, where they plan to make a special announcement. Dinner is delicious, the conversation engaging, and the sights and sounds of the estate and grounds a feast for the eyes, but something does claw at the back of the mind. A tiny warning.
When evening comes and everyone retires to their rooms, the party awakes to the sounds of screaming. Guests in the hallways, running toward the locked gates -- a greenish glow surrounding the property like an impenetrable shield. No one can escape.
The host suddenly appears and informs them that they have the honor of being the last guests to be invited to the manor, before the True Lord returns. And, oh yes, there is the little matter of the blood. They need it.
So, run, if you can. Or solve the mystery of the family and the estate, before it's too late.
--
The Upper Level has kitchens, a formal dining room, 6 guest quarters, baths, a main foyer, grand hallway, grand ballroom, library and the host's quarters, along with the expansive grounds of the gated property.
The Lower Level has a guard barracks, captain's quarters, servants barracks, head servant's quarters, armory, mage quarters, food prep and storage in the "accessible" wing, and in a secret part of the lower level, the host's private experimentation room, prisoner cells, a blood collection chamber and the grand ceremonial chamber where the summoning shall take place, once all of the blood has been collected.
Best of luck to the party! ;)
Tier Rewards will be going out shortly, and I hope you enjoy!
Best,
Jeff @ Morvold
Comments
Alessandro Masi
I felt that the basement was very well designed, with its two separate sections (one secret and nefarious, the other totally ordinary). The players didn't get a chance to see the whole thing, but I appreciated it from a layout perspective. And since my players will likely return here one day, they'll see how I gussied-up the holding-cell section. The main floor was also quite nice with its ballroom, main hall, dining hall, and maze of private rooms. The only thing I'll say about it is that the colour scheme was a bit garish... I know, I know, it's a Halloween map so you want to use bright orange and black as the main colours. But it also meant that the palet of the map is designed JUST for Halloween, rather than a map that can be used year-round. I tried modifying the colours on my own, to mute them a bit and make them look more like fine marble, but I'm absolutely not an artist so my efforts resulted in nothing. So I used your map as-is. Still, the map was exactly what I needed when I needed it. What worked really well with Roll20 dynamic lighting was the mix of claustrophobic corridors on the west side of the map, and big open spaces. I had slow-moving zombies wandering through, so the party had to think about whether they wanted to risk getting caught in the corridors where they might get trapped, or in the open spaces where they might get swarmed by a mob. And with everything being darkly lit, it provided some interesting narrative and strategic choices. All this to say: very well done!
Alessandro Masi
I'm biased because I'm thinking about the purpose this building serves in my setting (victorian-steampunk-horror): it's an estate currently being used by an occult society of psychics, which has been secretly taken over by vampires. So since this building was once a private estate but is now used as a social club, it's purpose is to be very inviting to club members (who are occult magic practitioners) and the upper-class guests they want to impress. They want people to feel at home and well taken care of so that they let their guard down so that the undead can feed upon them. So some ideas I had for possible rooms include (and are not limited to a single floor, btw): • Several very large, luxurious bedrooms and bathrooms -- not for everyday use, but exclusive parties / orgies • A bar and smoking room • A game room • A balcony to overlook the outside of the property • A workout room and sauna • A separate living section for service staff • A library with fancy items in glass displays, globes, etc. • A laboratory for psychic magic practice and item crafting • A panic room / spy room that connects to secret passageways throughout • A storage area where the staff keeps seasonal necessities.
Jeff Todd
Regarding the additional floors - what would imagine them holding? One of the harder parts of laying out spaces is deciding what the purposes of the rooms should or could be. I have some ideas for an expanded setting, but let me know if there were types of rooms you would envision being on that 2nd or 3rd floors!
Jeff Todd
I love that so much! I'm glad it worked out for your session and that the players enjoyed it! I would be interested in anything that you felt worked really well or didn't work the way you had hoped.
Alessandro Masi
I used this map last night for my Halloween one-shot: a decadent secret society hosted a party for the city's rich young elite. In attendance were three mismatched characters who became fast friends (i.e. the PCs): a young reporter, a socialite acting as arm candy to a noblewoman, and a celebrity fortune-teller. The hosts then suggested a game of hide-and-seek, opening up the mansion for participants to hide anywhere they wanted, with a substantial prize for the last person remaining unfound. But when the game began, that which was seeking them out were bloodthirsty undead. The map worked great, especially with the dynamic lighting. The party lost each other several times and some of the players moved their tokens too far into the dark on their turns, and the others didn't know where they went. I set up random creepy encounters (not combat encounters, more like "in this room there you touch something you soon realize is a body," or "the door slams shut behind you," or "you startle one of the house cats, who meows and hisses at you... and you know that will likely draw attention," etc. Anyway, thanks for this map, it was exactly what I needed. And if I could possibly persuade you one day to revisit this map and modify it to add one or two more floors to this mansion, I would be so, so grateful. The basement is already very nice, but adding floors on top (maybe even an attic or something) would be really cool.
Jeff Todd
Ah, sorry -- the Estate Map is 52 x 31 and the Lower Level is 39 x 23.
Alessandro Masi
What are the dimensions of this map?
