Hollowdeep Cells
Torchlit stone corridors, a guard room, cells and a treasure vault.
It builds in your browser in a few seconds, models, lights and miniatures included. No sign-up needed to try it.
The place
Setting: Underground, torchlight and long shadows
The classic dungeon crawl, built to the 5-foot grid. A stair comes down into an entry hall with a brazier and the jailer's straw bed, and a long corridor runs east past three cells behind iron gates: an iron cot and a slop bucket in the first, a torture rack, an iron maiden and manacled bones in the second, a stone coffin in the third. At its end is the guard room, with the garrison's mess table, a keg rack, straw bunks and a table of weapons. North of it the rock opens into the Drowned Cistern, a flooded cavern with a colonnade standing in the water and a flagstone causeway across it to the vault, where the chest waits on an altar on a marble dais between the old lords' sarcophagi.
The garrison never left: two goblins, their boss and a hobgoblin warden in the guard room, a zombie in the corridor, a giant rat swarm in the first cell, a spider in the dark beyond the torchlight and a bone priest in the vault, with the dead thing in the third cell and a drowned ghoul under the cistern hidden from the players. The scene has no sky and no sun; the braziers and wall sconces are the only real light, and a low mist runs along the corridor floor.
What the recipe places
- 8 floor and road ops
- 16 wall runs
- 71 props, lines and scatters
- 19 lights and effects
- 14 miniatures
Encounters it was built for
- A corridor fight where the archways are choke points and the guard room is the flank.
- The cells: something is still in the third one, and its gate is standing open.
- The causeway: one way across the cistern to the vault, and something under the water on either side.
- A goblin patrol with a hobgoblin warden: the goblins hold the corridor while the warden waits at the guard-room arch for anyone who tries to flank.
- Something in the dark: the giant spider waits beyond the reach of the torchlight, and the party sees it only when someone carries a light in.
Tips
- Press T for the top-down view when the players need to see the whole layout.
- Every torch on the shelf is a light source; add one per wall sconce and the corridors light themselves.
- The undead are painted-miniature style and stand where you put them; drag one and the ruler counts the feet.
- Cover the map with Fog everything, then reveal each room as the party opens its door; players are not sent what stands in the fog.
- Start combat and every mini on the map, from goblin to ghoul, joins initiative with its own HP on its token card.
Other starter scenes
The Weary Traveller
A roadside inn at dusk: bar, hearth and long tables, a stranger in the corner.
Crypt of the Pale Knight
A moonlit graveyard above a black mere, its crypt standing open and the dead rising.
Ambush on the Forest Road
A felled pine across a forest road at dawn: goblins in the trees, a ford ahead.
Castle Gate at Dusk
A moated castle at dusk: gatehouse, wall walk, bailey and the keep's great hall.
Smugglers' Cove
A golden-hour beach: smugglers' bonfire, a boathouse, a sea cave, a ship at anchor.
Neon Alley
A rain-soaked neon street at night: a noodle bar, a corporate checkpoint and a warmech.
Rooftop Run
A cyberpunk heist across rain-slick rooftops: stairs, a gangway, a gap to leap, a mech.
Sunwell Caravanserai
A desert caravanserai by a palm-ringed spring, its market raided by gnolls off the dunes.
Ashgrave Cemetery
A walled cemetery in a storm: a necromancer's circle, ghouls, the dead clawing up.
The Witch of Blackfen
A foggy swamp at dusk: wisps over black pools, a witch's hut, spiders in the dead wood.
Wolf's Tooth Bandit Camp
A bandit palisade in the pines: the chief's hall, campfires, captives, a watchtower.
The Drowned Tower
A wizard's tower on a misty lake isle: standing stones, a drowned causeway, a jetty.
Market Day at Millbrook
A cobbled market square on a bright morning: stalls, a fountain, a church, a smithy.
Frostfall Hamlet
A snowbound hamlet at dusk: a mead hall, a frozen pond and wolves at the palisade.
Raiders' Fjord
A fjord at cold dawn: a longhouse on the shingle, raiders running their longboat ashore.
Free top-down battle map
A flat, gridded version of Hollowdeep Cells for any other tabletop: straight down, north up, 35 by 31 squares at 70 pixels per 5-foot square, with no miniatures on it. Set your tabletop's grid to 70 px and it lines up.
Free under CC BY 4.0: use it, share it and change it, in paid work too, as long as you credit TerrainTale. Some buildings in it are other artists' CC BY models, credited on the About page.
Questions
Can I change Hollowdeep Cells after loading it?
Yes. A template is a normal scene once built: paint, drag, delete and add to it, then save it as your own project.
How long does it take to load?
A few seconds. The recipe compiles instantly and the models it uses download from the built-in library on first use, then stay cached.
Can I make my own template?
Write a recipe (see Build with AI) and import it with File ▸ Import Scene JSON, or save any scene as a project and reopen it from the welcome screen.
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