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Vatican City: The Sistine Chapel – Lower Level

The undercroft of the Sistine Chapel is a bit less picturesque than the floor above. In the late 1800s, it was mostly used for storage. 50 barrels of wine, 20 crates of incense, 7 tons of communion wafers, that sort of thing.

I’d like to give a shout out to Paul-Marie Letarouilly, who drew some excellent floor plans of the Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace and the Vatican Galleries. He’s been dead for 170 years, but his work will save me a huge amount of time and headaches on this project and the man deserves a mention. Also, look at that cape. God, we gotta bring capes back.

I need to get caught up with the Cartographic Congress maps again, so I’ll be drawing two in a row next. The first is a sprawling palace complex, with centuries of new construction concealing disused rooms and hidden passageways. I’m imagining it as a place that could make a good dungeon. After that, I’ll be drawing an orphanage that’s used as a hideout by a secret organization. Maybe I’ll call it “Kults for Kids” or something. After that, I’d say we’ll be back to the Vatican.

All right, that’s it for now. Hope you like the map!

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Vatican City: The Sistine Chapel – 2nd Floor

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that not a lot of people spend hours and hours studying the interior of the Sistine Chapel in detail and pay zero attention to the ceiling. I can now count myself as one of the strange few who have.

The Sistine Chapel is the long, horizontal room with the red and green floor. That floor is so intricate that it was basically impossible to draw. Let me show you what the actual floor of the Sistine Chapel looks like. Sorry, but I can’t draw that. And if I tried, I’d end up in a padded room. Do you see that rectangle in the bottom left corner? What color is that? What color am I supposed to make that? What color am I supposed to make any of this? Anyway, I hope you understand. I tried my best.

I’ve got the lower level of the chapel about halfway colored, so I should have that for you pretty soon. In the meantime, let me know what you think!

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Sistine Chapel: Upper Floor (Work-in-Progress)

The Sistine Chapel is the long, horizontal room near the top– the one with the insane floor. The room to the right with the patterned floor is the Sala Regia (Regal Hall). And below that is the Pauline Chapel. In the upper right, the map runs into the Apostolic Palace, which I’ll draw the rest of in the future. For now, I’m going to get this colored.

Let me know what you think so far!

Also, if you want to see the rest of the Vatican City maps I’ve made so far, you can find them all here.

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The Black Nail

The Black Nail is a demonic tower that’s been driven into the ground. There’s a bunch of bizarre stuff on each floor, all of which leads down to a giant hand holding a large, stone chest at the bottom. The chest probably contains a demon, artifact, magic item or something pertinent to your campaign. Let me suggest you go one of two ways with this:

  1. There’s a demon/monster/enemy in the chest, or
  2. The hand holding the chest is the monster and it attacks once the players open it.

Or you could do both. I put some suggestions on what to do with the other rooms in the DM notes, so patrons may want to check those out.

Next, I’m going to make a variant of this map for patrons. It’s nothing too elaborate, so I should have it done in a couple days, but I think it might be useful to some of you. Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that. Let me know what you think!

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Rhynstock Lighthouse

Those of you from Spain might be thinking this place looks familiar and, yes, this is the Torre de Hércules (Tower of Hercules). Except it isn’t. The Tower of Hercules is an amazingly unique lighthouse, but it has one big problem, which is that it’s a terrible D&D map. The interior is just a staircase. So this is the Tower of Hercules on the outside, but not on the inside.

I was a little conflicted about whether to title this the Tower of Hercules or not, but I decided against it. My longstanding policy is that I only give a map the title of a real place if it’s a reasonably accurate depiction of that place. If I’m using a real place for inspiration, but still getting creative with it, I give it a different name. Still, I try to be as open as possible about my inspiration when I take it from real life. I don’t want to get accused of taking credit for designing any famous landmarks.

Next, I’ll be drawing a great, demonic tower driven into the ground like a giant nail, with only the top floor sticking out. After that, it’s back to drawing more of the Vatican. You know, there’s a nice holy/unholy mix here at Milby’s Maps lately. Widely varying levels of holiness available. I hope everyone’s enjoying that.

Anyway, I’m gonna get started on that demon map. Hope you like the kinda-sorta Tower of Hercules!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 3rd Floor

There’s remarkably little information out there on a lot of the non-public parts of the Vatican and that includes some of the sacristy. One of the few things I read about the uppermost floor is that there were apartments and a salon there and that’s how I depicted it. I also saw a photo of one of the terraces (where the gardens are in the map above) with a bicycle on it, so I suspect there might be people living there now. Either that, or people are really paranoid about bicycle theft in the Vatican. Actually, that’s not too hard to imagine. Rome is, like, 50 meters away from here, after all.

Anyway, that’s the sacristy done, so I’ll probably be drawing either the Sistine Chapel or the Apostolic Palace next. But first, I need to get caught up with the Cartographic Congress maps, so I’ll be drawing a few of those next. First up is a fortified lighthouse based on the Tower of Hercules in Spain. After that, I’ll be drawing a great, demonic tower driven into the ground like a giant nail, with only the top floor sticking out. That’s a high-concept kind of map, which I always like. Hopefully, I can come up with some suitably disturbing stuff to fill it with. Fingers crossed.

Well, I believe that’s it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions about the sacristy or anything else, let me know!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 1st Floor

Here’s the first floor of the sacristy finished. It’s occupied by the Vatican Archives and the workshops of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, which is the organization responsible for the maintenance of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Okay, I’m gonna get back to work on the third and final floor. Be back with that before long!

By the way, If you want to see the rest of my Vatican City maps, you can find them all here.

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Vatican City: The Sacristy – 2nd Floor

If you’re wondering if you missed the first floor, you didn’t. I started with the second floor because it connects with the main floor of St. Peter’s Basilica. If you recall, there are quite a few steps leading up to the entrance of the basilica, so its main floor is higher than that of other buildings. It’s a little confusing and I’d estimate that there’s approximately a 100% chance that I’ll get emails asking if I connected the ground floor of one building with the second floor of another by mistake, but there’s nothing to be done about it.

Anyway, I’m going to push ahead and draw the other two floors of the sacristy next. I’ve got quite a bit done on the first floor and the third shouldn’t take too long after that.

All right, I’ll be back before long with some more Vatican!

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Vatican City: The Sacristy (Work-in-Progress)

Here’s the linework for the sacristy, or at least the middle floor of it. There’s a level above this and a level below. There’s an attic as well, which I’ll draw if I find out there are rooms in it. If it’s just bats and insulation, I’ll probably skip it.

The sacristy is where the clergy and choristers get ready before a mass. The vestments, chalices, candles, censers, and various other clerical equipment are kept here. This is also where the Vatican Treasury is located, as well as the Vatican Secret Archives. Today, most of the archives are in the Vatican Library and can be browsed by academics, but before that, they were all kept here.

By the way, here’s a fun fact: a few years back, Pope Francis changed the name of the Vatican Secret Archives to the Vatican Apostolic Archives, presumably in an effort to stop the spread of conspiracy theories and Dan Brown novels.

Well, there’s your Vatican update for the moment. I’m gonna get started on coloring this thing. If you’ve got any questions or thoughts, let me know!