Hey everyone!
We're back with Part 6 of this year-long collaboration with Kelfecil's Tales & D&Demetrius!
Info for Heroic Maps supporters - you'll find the collab files attached to this post. The full versions of the battlemap will be out for you shortly.
Release #6: The Mourning Gulf
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The Mourning Gulf curves around black water, broken cliffs, wreck fields, and old harbor lights. Sailors once came here for safe-passage rites before crossing the gulf. Families left lanterns, rope knots, and coin-weighted prayers at Tidecrown Ruins, hoping the sea would guide the living home and carry the dead onward.
Keelgrave is crowded with wrecks. Blacktide Harbor still opens its piers by day, while bells toll for ships no living dockhand can see. The Weeping Growth spreads through old mourning grounds, the Umbral Merchants collect sealed samples, and the Undead Leviathan carries the broken Mourning Star toward the coast with the Tidebound still aboard.
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The Mourning Gulf is the sixth release in The Broken Expanse, a location-focused mini-setting built around haunted salvage, old sea rites, sorrow-fed blight, and undead crews bound to unfinished duties.
This release presents a coastal region with wreck fields, ritual ruins, floating islands, an inland refuge, and blight growth that reacts to grief, names, and offerings. Its featured battlemap takes place across the back of the Undead Leviathan, where the party can release its fin anchors, extinguish the ghastly brazier, break the Tidebound’s control, or stop the creature before it reaches Blacktide Harbor.
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The Broken Expanse is a collaborative content line created by Kelfecil’s Tales, D&Demetrius, and Heroic Maps, developed through close coordination between writing, regional cartography, and battlemap design. Each release focuses on a single area within a shared region, allowing the setting to expand gradually while remaining easy to use at the table.
The content is system-agnostic at its core, with optional guidance written for use with 5E. Skill checks, encounter suggestions, and creature reskins are provided as tools rather than requirements, allowing Game Masters to adapt freely.
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Included in this release:
A zoomed-in regional map of the Mourning Gulf
Nine detailed points of interest and two additional regional locations
A featured battlemap set across the Undead Leviathan and the wreck of the Mourning Star
Objective-based mechanics for releasing, calming, redirecting, or defeating the leviathan
Five original creatures: Drowned Sailor, Widowtide Spirit, Blighted Pilgrim, Tidecrown Warden, and Oathbound Captain
GM-facing environmental pressure, blight behavior, haunted salvage guidance, and exploration tables
Recommended Use: Haunted coastlines, ghost ships, cursed salvage, old sea rites, sorrow-fed blight, and undead crews with unfinished duties
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Lore, writing, PDF and cover design: Kelfecil’s Tales
https://www.kelfecilstales.com/
Regional Map Artwork: D&Demetrius
https://www.patreon.com/c/dndemetrius/home
Battlemap Artwork: Heroic Maps