So, this was another project spurred by something said on Twitter. Two nights ago Jerry LeNeave (@DreadGazeebo) asked the following via Twitter…

Anyone know where I can find a nice high-res copy / fan-recreated map of the Caves of Chaos (aka B2 KotB). The 20+ year old scan is meh #dnd

Well, I had been looking at the map myself recently and decided to do a quick check via Google – see if I couldn’t link him to something. At a glance I couldn’t find anything and I thought… maybe I should make one!

Last night I started, and tonight I finished (I spent about 8-9 hours on it). Some quick numbers: It is high res (300dpi), 17″ wide by 11″ tall (5100 pixels wide by 3300 tall). The Photoshop .PSD file is about 760 megs and has somewhere around 400 layers. The full-sized higres JPG itself is almost 17 megs.

I want to thank @chattydm, @eldritchreverie, and @merricb for glancing over it really quick a bit ago. It’s nice to have a fresh set of eyes to make sure there is nothing glaringly obvious that I overlooked.

Download Options

Please feel free to download this and use it as you wish (even print it) I would just ask you keep credit to me in the image, and point people to this page to download it (as opposed to linking directly to an image). Each size has 2 options. The first is the regular version, the second (“No Trees”) has had the tree overlay removed, incase they get in your way.

Great for gaming use…

Large – (JPG, 479kb – slightly reduced quality – 1200×776)
Large, No Trees – (JPG, 454kb – slightly reduced quality – 1200×776)
Large, “Player” Version* – (JPG, 445kb – slightly reduced quality – 1200×776)

Good for printing…

HiRes – (JPG, 4.2mb – full quality – 2500×1618)
HiRes, No Trees – (JPG, 4.2mb – full quality – 2500×1618)
HiRes, “Player” Version* – (JPG, 4.1mb – full quality – 2500×1618)

And finally, this one is overkill unless you intend on printing it poster size, but here it is…

Full – (JPG, 16.8mb – full quality – 5100×3300)
Full, No Trees – (JPG, 16.9mb – full quality – 5100×3300)
Full, “Player” Version* – (JPG, 16.9mb – full quality – 5100×3300)

*The “Player” version of the map has no trees, secret doors, secret rooms, traps or room numbers.

Follow Me on Twitter!

Prior to mid-2011, when it came to my online activities, they were primarily Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) related. A majority of those who are watching me (I hate saying “following”) on Twitter came from this period of time before Epic Inventor (a video game I designed and do art for) existed. With that said, many have begun watching me lately due to my work on Epic Inventor. It is from these people that I have been asked the following question many times now… That question being, “What is this ‘D&D’ thing you have been talking a lot about?”

A Quick Recap (it’s relevant)

Last year was crazy, let’s start there. Right at the beginning of 2011 I played Pathfinder for the first time. A die-hard Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) DM/Player since the age of 12, putting 4th Edition D&D aside for Pathfinder was a little difficult initially, even if Pathfinder IS essentially D&D. The first six months of the year involved a lot of Pathfinder gaming, but also a lot of Terraria playing as we got close to the halfway point.

By the time July (2011) came around, Terraria was hot among my circle of friends. I had convinced most of them to try it earlier and many were still playing at this point. I could not have guessed, even at the beginning of the month, that in a few short weeks I would be designing and doing the art for a new game inspired by Terraria; a game that myself and two friends would work on together called Epic Inventor. By the end of July we were already a week into development with plans for a December(ish) release.

My D&D and Pathfinder playing came to an immediate halt. I was working 40 hours a week at “the day job” and around 40 at home on our new game. As we closed in on December there were weeks that we worked 60 to even 80 hours on the game. My “day job” was starting to feel like a side job – I could barely remember what I had done there by the time Saturday rolled around. On the other hand, I was having regular dreams about Epic Inventor and could tell you everything about any aspect of it, whether it was completed or not. Needless to say, there simply was no more time for D&D.

By mid-December (2011), we had released the beta version of Epic Inventor to the world… or at least to those interested in trying it out (they were indeed from all over the world though!). An article in Rock Paper Shotgun said the game had a “Bright Future”, and the attention spurred a huge wave of downloads on Desura as well as from our website… things got kind of crazy (a good crazy, mind you).

Today

Work on Epic Inventor is still regular, but the hours have toned down a lot. We are re-discovering what it is like to have free time and we’re beginning to relax a little (just a little). My free time has always involved a lot of D&D, so I felt like this was a good time to address the question I mentioned earlier. For many watching me now, D&D is something they are only just hearing of, or they have heard of it but never play it. As such, I will try and quickly explain what my involvement in D&D means.

D&D Is The Best Game Ever Made (IMO)

I’m not joking, I usually lead with that. That was my answer when asked about it last week, and it wasn’t the first time I have so boldly stated my opinion on the subject. The thing is, I truly believe it. You can do anything. Your imagination creates, and the rules help set your creations in motion. No video game has ever come close to being as enjoyable to me as D&D – and I love me some video games.

I rarely have time to explain exactly what D&D is (especially because when I am asked about it, an answer would usually require typing it out) so I generally link to the wikipedia article when I’m rushed, and say “Scroll down to ‘Play Overview’”. Sometimes I link to the Chris Perkins video, it depends. Often times I have found that directing people to the first Robot Chicken video gets them really hooked in (“That looks awesome!”). They get to see D&D in action which can explain a lot in a way that can’t be done well with words. Of course, I usually throw in a “it may not show the RP aspect as well, but you certainly get an idea for it and for combat, etc”. Your examples may vary, but that’s usually how I start.

Weem and D&D

I’ve been a huge fan of D&D for 23 years now. I love DM’ing it (running the game) and I love playing it. I also love talking about it, and as a graphic designer I love to find interesting ways to incorporate it into various visuals – usually stuff at least I will find amusing. Much of this was being done over at the popular D&D/RPG site ENWorld(.org), but I decided that I needed one central place to locate all of my creations for easy finding later (searching for things via EN World was getting harder and harder). That place would be a new website – one I would call weem.com (for my RL nickname of “Weem”), only that was taken… so THEweem.com it was, followed immediately by the Twitter account @theweem.

It is from here that I launched a number of projects – from “The Golden Girl Gamers with Wil Wheaton” (which Wil Wheaton himself enjoyed) to an April Fools prank site dnd5.com. But for all of the parody that happens here, I do get serious about the game and have written a number of articles about D&D as well as created tools and props, the most popular of which are my 4th Edition Condition Cards.

My involvement in D&D in this fashion (as well as playing it) is my hobby – I enjoy it a lot. I have no ads here, and am not paid for the work – it’s all done for fun. Additionally, I consider myself an ambassador for the game (as I feel many others are that I watch/follow) – not from a place of any authority or anything official, but simply as someone who wants to see the table-top gaming industry grow, especially this game. What I say, do and create here and on Twitter (when related to D&D) always has the goal in mind of bringing more people to the game.

The End (finally, am I right?)

I hope that answers the question to those of you who are new to watching me and were not sure what D&D was about, or why I was talking about it a lot. I also hope this wasn’t a TL;DR kind of thing, but I understand if it was – I’m long-winded, so it comes with the territory. If you are still with me, please hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions about anything (D&D or Epic Inventor related – or anything really). I do my best to reply to everyone when it comes to Twitter (I’m pretty good at making it happen).

Thanks for reading!

Follow Me on Twitter!

I had been thinking about names that day… words came to mind like “Era”, “Epoch” or “Age”. These words covered spans of time – something that could evoke a feeling and understanding that this game was meant to bring in players of all types… of all editions.

When I thought about D&D Generations as a name, it really made sense (to me at least). The second time I played D&D (I was 12) I played in a game that was DM’d by my friend’s Dad. Now, I have friends with kids old enough to play. Additionally, Generations really relates well, I think, to editions of the game as each edition is essentially a child of the previous.

The exercise of pondering all of this was being done purely for my own entertainment of course. My day job often involves trying to come up with names for various projects, businesses or websites. It also involves a lot of graphic work…

I’m a very visual person, and it was hard for me to imagine “D&D Generations” as the actual name of a D&D version without seeing it… so I decided to create it…

(Click images for a closer view…)

An interesting note here… the font used for the word “Generations” is the same font used in the “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition” logo.

Anyway, I just thought I would share this. I was not asked to make this, nor do I expect WoTC to use the name or anything like that – they probably have plenty of their own ideas. This was strictly for my own enjoyment!

What do you think? Let me know on Twitter!

Dear Internet: we need a photoshop of the Monopoly Guy driving @amyokuda around in this car: pic.twitter.com/d8Xo5N51

So, here it is (click it for the full-sized version)…

I had just arrived home from visiting family and had a text from @SmittyHalibut about the challenge. It sounded like something I wouldn’t have time for, but when I quickly looked into the images available, I figured I would give it a whirl. Official time on this from start to finish was 45 minutes.

Click the image for the extreme close-up view!

Anyway, it started with a tweet from Monte Cook today…

Someone with better photoshop skills than me needs to make an Occupy Waterdeep image. #fb

To which KatoKatonian mentioned me…

@theweem Hey Weem, I think @MonteJCook could use your PS skills.

…sometimes, that’s all it takes…

For a brief few seconds the radio blasts a song from the 80′s before being abruptly cutoff by a slam from my palm. Sometimes this song ricochets through my brain throughout the day, and in some cases I will even find myself humming or singing it. It might happen while furiously typing out CSS code at my desk, or while standing at the urinal… well… urinating – you never know.

But no song would distract me this morning – something else was occupying my mind as I sat up in bed. We are often inspired by our dreams, and in my case (and those of a few of my fellow web developers), we often discover the solutions to a work-related problem we had the previous day. We have those “ah-ha!” moments somewhere between deep sleep and just waking up. Sometimes, we pull out something much more random, and in those waking moments/minutes this random thought can appear to be something very deep and important.

Jorba was a circus bear... but huge... his claws could block out the Sun. This picture does not properly portray the magnitude of Jorba's presense...

I recall one morning, while living in Cupertino (across the street from Apple), I sat up at the sound of my alarm as I always had. As I sat up and gazed out the window, a voice echoed in my head… “Behold, the amazing, JORBA!”. It was such a strange thing for me, to hear a voice from my dream while knowing I was awake. It was 4am and raining outside, but the orange glow of the street lights offered me a clear view of the reality that I was indeed awake, but I simultaneously knew (without a doubt) that Jorba was a giant bear, the star of a circus show I had attended (even if only in my dream, as I would soon discover).

I would go on to use “Jorba” as my online handle for a number of years, the incident had clearly meant something to me for whatever reason.

So, back to this morning… queue the music. It was Aerosmith. “Walk this waaay, talk this waaay” was all I heard as I silenced it, and then it hit me. As the room filled once again with the dull hum of my air filter, I heard it… an echo of a voice… it said, “Beards are serious.”

This phrase would follow me to the bathroom. Even as I started the shower, eyes half open, I was pondering the implications… what could it mean? Beards are serious… Okay, but why… I must be missing something.

My beard and I having a drink in 1997. I shared more beer with my beard than I would care to admit...

In the shower, I continued to mull it over. For some reason I imagined the phrase printed on a shirt, and all of a sudden this serious phrase (or at least it felt like something serious and important) became utterly ridiculous, likely marking the point at which I had finally become fully lucid. In fact, the idea of a shirt with this printed on it caused me to laugh – you know, that half laugh you emit when you are barely awake. That laugh that, at least in my case, feels more like a Sheldon laugh than a real laugh. Your body says it’s funny, but your brain is still trying to “get it”.

Dreams can be inspiring and give you ideas. They can help you solve problems, or give you a better understanding of things…

…but sometimes they just give you beards and giant dancing bears. Take what you can of value and run with it.

If you have some time (and love games!) check out his YouTube channel!

At this point we have a build that let’s us do the following…

- Move around in the world (including jumping) and can explore the entire map including randomly generated caves
- Gather resources (which go into the inventory and includes a timer window indicating how long the gathering has left)
- Manage inventory (move items around, merge stacks and trash them)
- Equip armor and have it display your total armor value
- There are some crafting aspects in, but we aren’t going to go into details there just yet

Anyway, we’re very excited about it! This weekend I put up some forums so consider checking them out – come learn more about the game!

• Check out the Epic Inventor Forums!
• Follow me on Twitter!