Dungeon Map Playing Cards

Dungeon Map Playing Cards is an Inked Adventures pack of hand-drawn cards for building a dungeon during a tabletop role-playing game. Place the cards beside one another on the table, with each draw adding another room, passage or other dungeon area to the map. Each card has a standard playing-card rank, three dice values, a title and a floor plan. The maps include Guard Rooms, Arena Pit, Ziggurat Temple, Flooded Room & rockfall and Wretched Courtroom.

Above: a map card showing the dice results, playing-card suit and number, title and floor plan used to build a dungeon area.

The three figures beside the symbols are the card’s D20, D6 and D100 results. The large suit symbol and number identify the playing card; here, Songmead Rest Hall is the four of diamonds. The title names the area and the floor plan shows its layout.

The numbers at the top work with the polyhedral dice used in Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games: the D20 has twenty sides, the D6 six, and the D100 is a percentile roll. They simulate those dice, so drawing a card provides the results without a separate roll. The pack does not include every possible D100 result (see table below) and the values are unevenly distributed, so some numbers occur more often than others.

The pack is arranged in four suits and includes two jokers. When a joker is drawn, draw two map cards. With the Joker A, discard the less favourable card and use the other; with the Joker B, discard the more favourable card and use the other. Players can also treat the jokers as special map cards, using them for a quest area, plot twist, special exit or change to the existing map.

The map occupies most of each card. Corridors, chambers, stairs, pits and irregular cave edges are drawn in loose ink over a warm yellow ground. Most maps have eight exits; the spade suit includes entrance, transition and edge tiles.