B: Orc Lair #1

Here's day 2 of my map-a-day-athon. Orc lair #1:

The obvious new thing about this second map is that I've included the corridor beyond the secret door in grey - other maps I've seen include interconnected lairs in the same map, which isn't helpful when running the game. I'd put the map for each lair along with the room descriptions, at the same scale as the overall map.

This map also reveals some minor issues about the original map. Several lairs have items of interest at or near the entrance that are only mentioned in the Lair entry, so are easy to forget when running the game. For this lair it's the heads in niches on the wall, which I've marked on the map as a reminder.

Secondly, the guard at 9 is supposed to stick his head through the wall and pretend is head is one of the trophies, then when he spots intruders replace it with a Goblin head and go to room #7 for help - except that he can't get to that room!

For #12 Orc Leader's Room the original map has just one tapestry on the west wall. The description says "The room is carpeted, has tapestries upon the walls (note one of these covers the entrance to the cave to the west)" but then later says "If hard pressed, the leader will wiggle behind the tapestries on the south wall and attempt to work the catch on the secret door to the south". When DMing it's fine if no tapestries are marked on the map, or all of them, but it's misleading to have just one, especially when there's a second important one.

Finally - what's that loop on the south side on room #9 supposed to be? As I was working on all the other maps I wondered if that's supposed to be the fireplace mentioned in the description? We'll consider possible fireplaces on the map again tomorrow in the second Orc Lair.