The Witch of Blackfen
A foggy swamp at dusk: wisps over black pools, a witch's hut, spiders in the dead wood.
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The place
Setting: Dusk, a green fog lying on the water
Blackfen is barely land at all: low, sodden ground with black-green pools lying in every dip, wet grass and black mud between them, reeds crowding every edge and a drowned wood of dead trees, roots and fallen logs. An old boardwalk of planks crosses the pools and the mud, floating where it crosses water, from the south edge up to the one dry rise in the north-east. There the witch built her hut: a small plank house under mossy tiles with a lantern, a broom and a rain barrel at the door and skull totems on stakes either side of the track. Lift the roofs in Play and her cauldron hearth, her shelves of jars, her bed and her book are inside. At the west edge an abandoned thatched house sinks into the mud.
Fog lies thick on the water and will-o'-wisps drift over it, each with its own sickly green light. Granny Blackfen waits at her door, two giant spiders stalk the dead wood with a third unseen, and something drowned lies under the black water. The party, a fighter, a druid, an elf ranger and a bard, is wading in from the south through the Drowning Pool.
What the recipe places
- 48 props, lines and scatters
- 18 lights and effects
- 9 miniatures
Encounters it was built for
- The boardwalk: one plank wide, spiders on either side, and a long fall into deep black water.
- The Drowning Pool: what lies under the water rises when the party is halfway across.
- Follow the wisps: the lights lead off the boardwalk and into the deepest pools.
- The witch's door: a bargain on her doorstep, with her cauldron at her back and the spiders listening.
- The sinking house: shelter in the old thatched ruin while the fog closes in.
Tips
- In Play, press U to lift the roof off the witch's hut and see what she keeps inside.
- Mark the third spider and the thing in the water Hidden from players, and show them when they strike.
- The swamp pools are water bodies you can grow or drain with the water brush.
- Drag the time-of-day slider to full night and the wisps and the witch's lantern become the only light.
- Wading counts for the ruler: a mini in a pool stands on its bed, so the depth reads as a drop.
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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.
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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
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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 The Witch of Blackfen for any other tabletop: straight down, north up, 55 by 50 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 The Witch of Blackfen 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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