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The Pyramid of Sobek
🕑 Added 2021-03-21 02:37:52 +0000 UTCSobek is the Egyptian god of the Nile and is depicted here a few times. Fun fact: Sobek was history's first dragonborn. A lot of people thought Wizards of the Coast came up with them in 4th ed. D&D, but the truth is, the Egyptians came up with them around 2500BC. True story, look it up.
The bottom level of the pyramid was inspired by Tutankhamun's tomb, the red stone sarcophagus being a good example of that. Some of the upper levels, on the other hand, get a little less historical and a little more this guy. That may not be quite what everybody's looking for, but that's why I made an alternate version that dials things back a bit.
I spent some time looking at the insides of actual pyramids while drawing this. Not because I was trying to make it historically accurate, but because I wanted it to have a similar sort of feel. One of the pyramids I looked at quite a bit was the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the pyramids of Giza. I briefly considered designing this map around that, but that wasn't going to work. I do still want to draw it, though, and I've decided I'm going to do that next.
Let me explain why. It's not a perfect place for an RPG map, but it has some things going for it:
- It feels authentic, because it is. I think that counts for a lot.
- I want to draw it as it was before it was looted. This lets you give your players the experience of being the first people to break into the Great Pyramid and I think that would be pretty awesome.
- Breaking in without boring a hole through the side (which is what happened) would involve this: smashing a stone seal over the entrance, heading into a tunnel that leads deep underground, finding the entrance to a narrow passage concealed behind a wall, then climbing 150' (50m) up that nearly vertical passage, which runs through a small, natural cave. There's more, but are you intrigued yet?
I don't know if this sounds as interesting to anyone else as it does to me, but I really think this could be an amazing experience and I've got a powerful urge to draw the place. In any case, it shouldn't take that long.
Well, I'm gonna get started. I hope I didn't talk up the next pyramid so much that people lost interest in this one. In any case, let me know what you think!
There's an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.
Comments
Milby's Maps
Well, I'd say it fits that pretty well. This was a Cartographic Congress map and the person who proposed it was using it for Egyptian-themed dragonborn, so I drew in Sobek since he looks a lot like a dragonborn. I didn't expect anybody would need a Sobek-themed map, but hey, looks like I was wrong!
Pope Dezzicus
I'm starting a new one and had a demigod of sobek feature as an npc, found this while rooting around for maps for the game, I guess he'll have to have a bigger arc now
Milby's Maps
Using this in your game soon?
Pope Dezzicus
how serendipitous!
