The Drowned Tower
A wizard's tower on a misty lake isle: standing stones, a drowned causeway, a jetty.
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The place
Setting: Dawn, mist lying low on still water
A still lake fills the map from a reedy shore to the mist, and in the middle rises an isle. On its knoll stands the Drowned Tower, tall and old, blue wards drifting round its door and its roof. Beside it is the wizard's library, an L-shaped house of grey stone under slate. Lift the roofs in Play and it is furnished: shelves along the walls, a reading table with candles and books, an armchair and a cabinet, and in the wing a bed and an alchemy bench. South-west of the tower seven grey stones stand in a ring with a violet ward turning inside it, and a jetty runs out from the island's south-east spur.
The causeway that once joined the isle to the shore now lies a hand's depth under the water, broken pillar stumps either side of its flagstones. The wizard Master Orrin waits at his door, a stone guardian stands before the tower, and drowned thralls are rising out of the shallows by the causeway, with two more still under the water and hidden from the players. The party, a fighter, a cleric, a sorcerer and a halfling rogue, has rowed over: two are on the jetty, two still in the boat.
What the recipe places
- 1 floor and road ops
- 53 props, lines and scatters
- 14 lights and effects
- 9 miniatures
Encounters it was built for
- The landing: thralls come out of the shallows while half the party is still in the boat.
- Wade the causeway: the drowned flagstones are the only footing, and the deep water on either side is not.
- The stone guardian: it does not move until someone steps between it and the tower door.
- The ring of stones: the ward is a puzzle, a door or a trap, depending on what Master Orrin wants.
- Into the library: shelves, an alchemy bench and a wizard who has had all night to prepare.
Tips
- In Play, press U to lift the roof off the library and see inside.
- Mark the two thralls under the water Hidden from players, and show them when the party steps onto the causeway.
- A mini in the lake stands on the bed; the ruler reads the depth of the water as a drop.
- Drag the time-of-day slider from dawn to dusk and the mist turns from grey to gold.
- The water brush can raise the lake or drain the causeway dry for a different crossing.
Other starter scenes
The Weary Traveller
A roadside inn at dusk: bar, hearth and long tables, a stranger in the corner.
Hollowdeep Cells
Torchlit stone corridors, a guard room, cells and a treasure vault.
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.
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 Drowned Tower for any other tabletop: straight down, north up, 58 by 56 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 Drowned Tower 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.
From the blog
PBR materials vs. flat textures: why the floors look real
What separates a PBR-generated floor from a flat cartoon texture, and why TerrainTale's 96-piece surface library reads as real stone and marble instead of a painted pattern.
· 5 min read
Prone rules in 5e: standing up, crawling and attacks against you
The prone rules in 5e as the 2024 books write them: what knocks you down, what standing up costs, how crawling works, and how melee and ranged attacks change against a prone creature on the grid.
· 5 min read
Using Meshy AI-generated models on your virtual tabletop
What to do with a model generated by Meshy once you have it: how it imports, what happens to a dense AI-generated mesh automatically, and where it sits next to the library.
· 4 min read
All articles on battle maps, grid rules and running the game
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