5e Dungeon Master's Guide and 5e mini review

I picked up my pre-ordered DM's Guide at my local game shop the day before Thanksgiving. First a mini review of 5e, then some random bullet points from the DM's Guide that stood out to me.

Color me thoroughly impressed with D&D 5e now that I have the three core rulebooks in my possession. Compressing the modifier range, AC and to hit bonus across levels almost makes it more old school than old school, but there are plenty of cool options available to appeal to new school players.  Compared straight across, 1st -3rd level 5e characters will be much more powerful than their B/X or AD&D equivalents, but that quickly evens out and probably even flips towards the older systems being more powerful at higher levels.  Consequently, converting B/X or AD&D material to 5e looks to be extremely easy.

 I still had some unanswered questions and gripes about the game after reading the PHB and MM, but the DM's Guide really took care of most of these for me.  If I had to choose my top D&D edition just based on the core rulebooks, I would have to take 5e at this point (although 1e still gets the nod for best DM's Guide even with it's Gygaxian organization).  Player options are presented without being overly complicated or resulting in too much power inflation.  Monsters strike a nice balance between simple to run and having some memorable and unique abilities (I particularly like the lair based powers of the legendary creatures). The core system is very solid, as is the treatment of the planes and the cosmology presented in general. There are an awful lot of rule variants and DM's tools provided that allow you to customize the game in many different ways.  If you don't want to play with skills, the DM's guide gives you a purely attribute based resolution system for a more old school feel. The default, relatively "heroic" (read practically superheroic) out-of-combat healing presented in the PHB is now just one of many options available to the DM.  Tools for running a Call of Cthulhu style campaign (Sanity attribute) fit in nicely with the focus on factions, organizations and secret societies.  High marks for consistently emphasizing that the game can be customized, and providing many extremely useful examples of how you can do so.

Also, laser guns, antimatter rifles and frag grenades.  Need I say more?

Of course this is not a perfect game.  I have many small quibbles. Some areas of the DM's guide seem like unpolished, hasty add-ons that could easily have taken up the same amount of space and accomplished so much more  (e.g the hodge podge of maps that is Appendix C) and almost every single random chart should have been expanded upon significantly.  Maybe I am spoiled from years of browsing the amazing (and free) online content produced by D&D players and DMs, but I expect a lot more than 10 results for a "Short-Term Madness" table (especially when two of those results are stunned and unconscious - p.259) or 9 entries on a "Lingering Injuries" table (p.272).  Rolling on a table to see what kind of injury your PC gets should be one of those awesome d100 moments where the world stops and hangs on the rolling dice, all manner of calamities looming, not "Oh I lost another (insert 'eye' or 'arm/hand' or 'foot/leg')" or "I got another scar".

The art is also all over the place between and within the core rulebooks, and ultimately that is good and bad for me because I don't trust the art direction at WotC enough to want them to go all one direction or another.  This way I at least get some stuff that I enjoy.

Physically the books themselves are relatively impressive but I have some complaints here.  My MM is the best quality with no obvious printing errors, but there are noticeable problems with my PHB and DM's Guide.  My PHB had numerous instances of smeared ink from illustrations blurring text on facing pages and in several places there is fuzzy text in side bars (which almost seems like a layout error not a printing error, it seems like digital fuzziness).  The only printing flaw I noticed in my DM's Guide was that the black ink from the illustration on page 124 bled all over the text on page 125, smearing and blurring the entire first column.  I can still read everything on that page but it is a very noticeable smear.  I like the look and feel of the books, especially their heft in my hands when holding all three together, but I do not like the red and white Dungeons & Dragons logo on the spine and front cover and the white lettering for the book name.  I'm not sure why, but I just really don't like the new red and white banner logo.  I think it is mostly the red color, and now that I am focusing on it and asking myself why I don't like it, I think the stylized tearing at the end of the banner also grates on me.

Now for some bullet points from the DM's Guide:

• The generally flattened power curve of 5e is reflected in the bonuses for magic weapons and armor, which only range from +1 to +3 in this edition.
• Speaking of magical items, the magical item creation rules on pages 128-29 make it impractical for PCs to make anything but a common or uncommon magical item.  It would take a single PC 200 days of working 8 hour days to create a rare magical item (+1 armor or +2 weapon are rare magical items for reference).  It takes 2000 days of working 8 hour days to create a very rare item (+2 armor or +3 weapon) and 20,000 days (54 years!) to create a legendary item (e.g. cloak of invisibility or iron flask) .  Multiple PC spellcasters can split this time up, but I don't see any party using the rules as written to craft anything but common or uncommon items.  It takes 4 days to craft a common item and 20 days to craft an uncommon item (potion of healing is common, broom of flying is uncommon - illustrating a seemingly arbitrary assignment of rarity to magical items, as the broom of flying is pretty bad ass, carrying up to 400 pounds and coming with the ability to park itself anywhere within 1 mile and then come when summoned - compare with the carpet of flying which is nearly identical in terms of flying and lifting capacity, does not have the 1 mile self park and summon ability, and is rated as very rare!).
• Still on magical items, some of my favorite illustrations in the book are of the items but I go back and forth on their inclusion.  The item illustrations are awesome and mostly very well done. I really enjoyed seeing familiar items from my gaming past rendered in full color.  On the other hand there are a LOT of them - if the magic items were presented sans illustrations, it would have opened a lot more space for even more content. And ultimately, as cool as it is to see one artist's rendition of a Ring of Feather Falling, magical items have to be unique in appearance in game and are probably better left the province of the imagination.  I would have loved to see a lot more space allotted to random encounters and honestly if those had been lavished with illustrations instead of the magic items, they probably would have been the showstoppers for the book!

• There are some strange/illogical decisions made on the many (otherwise helpful) charts provided as DM's tools.  For example "Improvising Damage" (p.249)suggest being struck by lightning is equivalent to falling into a fire pit (2d10 damage), while I would have guessed a lightning strike to be at least worth 5d6 if not more.   Also the "Maintenance Costs" (p.127) of an abby or keep seem extremely high (20gp/day for an Abbey and 100gp/day for a keep) considering that any money the property could earn to offset maintenance costs by charging fees, collecting tithes or donations or selling goods is supposedly taken into account on the table.  You have to spend 3000 GP a month to have a keep on top of sinking all the taxes you take in for protecting the surrounding lands back into upkeep and on top of what you save by consuming what your own fields produce?  Ouch!  
• I like the quick resolution rules for mob/group attacks (p.250).  Large groups of low level combatants are much more of a threat to even high level PCs than they have been in any other edition with the compressed AC ranges and attack modifiers, and this is a great way to run that style of combat quickly.
• The "Epic Boons" (p.231) are a cool variant to allow progression past level 20, for those who like a high powered end game.  E.g. "Boon of Planar Travel" allows plane shifting once a combat (once between short rests) to one specific plane (and back to the Material Plane); "Boon of the Fire Soul" grants immunity to fire and the ability to cast burning hands at will.
• I wish Appendix C Maps had been replaced with something more closely tied in to the content generators provided for dungeons, settlements and wilderness areas.  I am probably spoiled by Dyson Logos and many more, but 6 full pages dedicated to maps could have delivered a lot more content.  Two pages each of dungeon, settlement and wilderness geomorphs comes to my mind.  
• The "Random Settlements" generator (p.112-114) is great. The PCs are wandering up to a town that is not detailed.  Let me roll a few d20s and give you an example: Mostly wealthy townsfolk, known for its flowers, with tension between races, ruled by a religious leader. Undead are stirring in the cemetery.  A tavern named "The Mysterious Lamb" is a gathering place for a secret society.  All in all a relatively uneventful set of rolls but they would give me plenty to riff on.  A few ideas that these rolls prompted in me just now:  While the undead stirring in the cemetery is beyond hackneyed, the detail about flowers made me think of tulips, then bulbs, and I think the secret society is developing new varieties that required the bulbs to be planted in undead flesh but produce stunning flowers which are upsetting and outcompeting the established, racially divided flower growing guilds; and the undead flowers probably also have magical properties that allow the secret society to manipulate people (pollen emitted in the homes of the wealthiest and most fashionable).  
• The chase rules (p.252-254) are simple but seem like they would work well, and I hope to see some bloggers publish expanded chase complications charts because I think they are a cool idea.
• I really like the illustration on page 248 that shows examples of creature sizes Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge and Gargantuan:

The Saint's Shrine - Map

Another old map. This is one of two maps that I made back in May of 2009 for the now defunct megadungeon.net project that James M. had going on.  I don't think this one ever was keyed, or if it was the key never was put on the website before it was taken down and James never forwarded it to me.  Click this link for the full size image in a new tab.

Here are the original instructions from James M. that I worked off of to make this map:

 "Let's go with the Saint's Shrine, which is wholly man-made level without any cavern areas. There's one connection to the Bulwark above it and two to the Last Stand below. As I envisage it, the highlight of the level is the Shrine of St. Gaxyg, which is a large, temple-like structure at the heart of the level. All the other rooms should be arranged in a defensible fashion around it, providing fall back positions the monks could use if creatures from the lower levels invaded. There should be lots of secret doors, hidden rooms, twisting corridors, and the like."

After I finished the map, I gave a brief explanation of the map to James to pass on to whomever he had lined up to key the level:

 " I designed the level with the idea of the monks' defense foremost in my mind, so in some places it might be a little more linear than I might have otherwise done. The central shrine itself I made fairly interconnected, but there is only one exit (strafed by arrow slits) to the rest of the level from the shrine. A few notes to pass on to the person keying the level: I imagine that the secret doors in rooms 10 and 1 would be relatively easy to find from the inside, as they were designed to conceal the way up from outside, not to prevent people from coming down from above. However, if a party does not find them they might wrongly conclude that this is only a small sub-level and that might be interesting as well. The large pool of water in chamber 67 held back by the floodgate is ten feet deep. At ten feet deep it contains exactly enough water to fill the passageway it floods into from floor to ceiling assuming a ten foot ceiling for the passageway. The staircases down to that passageway should drop at least ten feet of elevation so that the water would be contained in that passage. I envisioned that the flooded passage would slowly drain out over the course of several days through small cracks where the wall joins the floor, and the pool will refill slowly from an enchanted basin affixed to the bottom of the pool (of course the level keyer could change any of that). The floodgate itself gets pulled up a slight incline to open it, so if the winch is released the floodgate would slide back down to its closed position. The many pit traps throughout the level could be relatively deadly to a party (depending on their depth, spiked nature, etc) as several are in positions where you might not expect one (directly in front of a door, for instance); I envisioned these pits as part of the defenses of the level as the monks could easily avoid them through the many secret passages. Of course, I could remove any or all of the pit traps as requested. The eastern exit to the Last Stand is guarded by a stretch of passageway with murder holes in the ceiling; room 99 is above that stretch of passageway, I tried to make that clear on the map but it may look a little confusing; the passageway from room 98 to 100 goes underneath room 99. Once again, I went a little over the suggested room count at 101 numbered chambers"

 Below is a detail of the shrine of St. Gaxyg:

Dungeon in a Cave

I was just poking around in the D&D folder on my computer and found a map I had completely forgotten about.  I created this five years ago for no particular reason besides messing around with mapping in Photoshop. It doesn't look like I finished putting doors everywhere I wanted doors, and I definitely never keyed this or had any real back story in mind when I was creating it.  The entrance is a stair coming down from a above and there is only one exit on the map, a stair heading down farther below.

I remember that I drew the cave layer first and then drew a dungeon inside the caves. This definitely led to some interesting and organic dungeon design.  The dungeon walls are relatively thin, just over 1' thick according to the scale.  I was picturing stone and mortar construction for the dungeon.  The way it is laid out, if you never detect a secret door you would never see the natural cave system and would assume the entire dungeon was a constructed space (instead of a construction in a natural space).   There are numerous secret doors (red rectangles according to my key, I honestly have no idea why I wasn't using the tried and true "S" for secret doors) which give access to the caves outside the dungeon.   Most of the larger caves have high vaulted ceilings, with 10-20' or more of space above the roof of the dungeon to the ceiling of the cave.  Many sections of caverns that appear to be completely blocked off by the dungeon construction could be accessed from outside the dungeon rooms by climbing up onto the roof of the dungeon and dropping down into the "blocked off" section of caves (e.g. the caves at the very top left of the map) Click this link to see the full size image

D&D 5e New Class - Old School Fighter

I want to take a stab at something I feel is lacking in 5e.  I love the design decision to allow completely different mechanics from class to class, but despite all the options there really isn't a completely basic fighter for those people who really just want to play an old school fighter. In the older editions of D&D if you chose the fighter class your character build choices were extremely simple (determine ability scores, HP, weapons and armor).  Your special powers were pretty much limited to having more HP and being better at attacking than other classes.  All you had to know how to do was get in a fight and roll d20s.  This is my stab at a similar "old school" Fighter class for 5e that is balanced for play alongside other 5e classes.

Why do I feel 5e has not provided such a character option?  Even the basic fighter class features will raise some old school players' hackles.  Second Wind is the first example - every fighter has a "limited well of stamina" that restores 1d10+fighter level HP.  Second wind can be used once between rests.  Next, fighting style - at 1st level every fighter also has to choose a fighting style.  There are six options here, ranging from Archery (+2 to ranged attacks) to Protection (Tank anyone? 5e allows one "reaction" per round, and Protection allows the fighter to impose disadvantage on any creature that attacks a target within five feet of the fighter as a reaction provided the fighter is wielding a shield).  At second level, all fighters gain a new ability called action surge - once between rests the fighter can take an extra action. At 9th level fighters can reroll a missed save (once between long rests at 9th level, twice at 13th and three times at 17th level). And of course one feature of all 5e classes is regular ability score increases.  In the case of the fighter, seven times total, between 4th and 19th level, one ability score is raised by 2 or two ability scores are raised by 1.  No ability score can be raised above 20 in this fashion.  And that just covers the basic class features.

Every 5e fighter has to choose a martial archetype at third level. The closest 5e comes to an old school fighter is the "Champion" martial archetype fighter. The champion archetype scores critical hits on a 19-20, at 7th level grants 1/2 proficiency bonus to any STR, DEX or CON check that does not already use the fighter's proficiency bonus, at 10th level chooses a second fighting style from the first level list, at 15th level crits on 18-20, and at 18th level a 4e-ism creeps in.  In 4e any creature is bloodied when it is reduced to half it's original HP or less.  The 18th level class feature of the champion archetype  allows the fighter to regenerate 5+CON mod HP per round while bloodied but not dead.  (to be clear 5e does not name this condition, but it is the bloodied condition from 4e)

So that doesn't sound very old school, right?  The other two martial archetypes are even less so.  The "Battle Master" martial archetype gets special dice called superiority dice which are used to perform special combat maneuvers (there are 16 different combat maneuvers to choose from here!).  The "Eldritch Knight" martial archetype casts spells (from the schools of abjuration and evocation only).  Need I say more?  

New Class:

 Old School 5e Fighter

 (all design decisions explained below)

 Hit Dice: 1d12 per fighter level

Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + CON mod*

Hit Points at Higher Level: 1d12 (or 7) + CON mod per level after 1st **

Proficiencies: All armor, shields, simple weapons, martial weapons, Strength and Constitution Saving Throws (at 11th level add 1/2 proficiency bonus to DEX, INT, WIS and CHA Saving Throws as well)***

Skills:  Athletics and all other Strength based skill checks****

Old School 5e Fighter progression chart*****

Level	Proficiency Bonus******	AC Bonus*******	Damage Bonus********	Number of Attacks*********
1	+2	+1	-	1
2	+2	+1	-	1
3	+2	+1	+1	1
4	+3	+1	+2	1
5	+4	+1	+2	2
6	+4	+1	+3	2
7	+4	+1	+3	2
8	+4	+2	+4	2
9	+5	+2	+4	2
10	+5	+2	+5	2
11	+6	+2	+5	3
12	+6	+2	+5	3
13	+7	+2	+5	3
14	+7	+2	+5	3
15	+8	+2	+6	3
16	+8	+2	+6	3
17	+8	+2	+6	3
18	+9	+3	+6	3
19	+9	+3	+6	3
20	+9	+3	+6	4

[I had to make some hard decisions (e.g. including baked in AC and damage bonuses) but my main criterion was simplicity of mechanics in play.  A level based bonus to damage or AC is definitely not old school, but in play the bonus is just recorded on the character sheet and no further action is needed.  The player does not need to learn a new mechanic.  I tried to balance each point of variance from the standard 5e fighter as detailed below.]

* +5 starting HP to balance out the 1d10 HP restored by Second Wind

** d12 for HP: Average increase of +1 HP per level to balance out the + fighter level HP restored by Second Wind

*** +1/2 Proficiency Bonus to DEX/INT/WIS/CHA saves at level 11 is intended to balance out two things: the Indomitable 5e fighter class feature (at 9th level reroll any failed save, usable once between rests, twice between rests at 13th level and three times between rests at 17th level); and one set of ability score increases in a non-STR/DEX/CON stat (level 19 increase) not accounted for in the AC, Damage and Proficiency bonus increases detailed below.  

**** Without houseruling out Skills altogether, I felt giving proficiency on all STR based skills was the closest to Old School I could get.  At lower levels this might outweigh the second skill choice of a regular 5e fighter, but at 7th level the Champion archetype fighter gets 1/2 proficiency bonus on any STR, DEX or CON check which probably outweighs the full proficiency bonus on just STR skills up through 10th level.  Close enough for me.  

***** Please note there are no ability score increases for this class.  What you start out with is what you end up with as far as ability scores if you play an Old School 5e Fighter.  I have attempted to bake in equivalent bonuses to the class progression chart to account for the ability score increases of the standard 5e fighter (as detailed below).

******Proficiency Bonus: Increased +3 over 20 levels compared to standard 5e fighter to roughly balance out stat increases (assuming standard array fighter at 1st level [STR15 CON14 DEX13 INT12 WIS10 CHA8]) - Standard 5e fighter's STR mod and CON mod would both go from +2 to +5 with STR increased to 20 max (by level 8) and CON increased to 20 max (by level 16), and I pretty much ignored the level 19 ability score increases (which would not directly impact combat anyway as STR and CON are maxed out and DEX at +2 mod after level 8 ability score increase is the highest mod allowed by medium armor anyway) 

******* AC Bonus:  +1 At 1st level to balance out the Fighting Style (rough equivalent to Defense fighting style which grants +1 bonus to AC while wearing armor); +1 at level 8 to account for DEX bonus increase from standard 5e fighter stat increases;  +1 at level 18 to balance out Champion archetype fighter's regeneration while bloodied ability.

******** Damage Bonus to all attacks:  +1 at 3rd level is intended as a rough balance to the critical on 19-20 of the Champion archetype fighter; +1 at 4th, 6th and 8th level balances out STR mod increases from regular fighter's stat increases; +1 at 10th level is intended as a rough balance to the second fighting style selection (roughly balanced with dueling, which grants +2 to damage while wielding only one weapon); at 15th level +1 to balance out crit on 18-20

********* Number of Attacks is unchanged from base 5e Fighter

Lost City of Eridu (Early Temple Period)

Up until 50,000 years before the present day of my new world campaign, the landscape of the new world was considerably different.  A basalt ridge left behind from a volcanic eruption and lava flow in the distant past divided the drainage basin of the jungle roughly in half, and what are now the two main tributaries of the Zamonas were separate rivers, the Maita to the north and the Ilyapa to the south.  The Maita fed into an immense coastal swamp, while the Ilyapa snaked through the southern hills before going underground and flowing through a series of lava tubes to the coast.

50,000 years ago a great rock demon of tremendous power was drawn forth from under the highest volcano in the range by a powerful sorcerer.  This was in the time of heroes when many men had great powers that rivaled the gods.  Still, Asag was nearly invulnerable to magic and harbored a great hatred for it and he boiled the blood of the sorcerer with his presence, killing him instantly.  The sorcerer's name has been lost but all the cultures of the jungle basin remember when Asag came smashing through the basalt ridge almost all the way to the coast, exploding it in a shower of lava as he went.  Much of the northern swamps were covered in a lava flow and a good portion of the central jungle burned. When Asag's wrath began to cool in the surface air he returned to his kingdom under the mountain, and the Maita and Ilyapa rivers flooded the wreckage left behind and formed a new river, the Zamonas.  The entire jungle basin was now drained by this one great river.

One of the earliest city states (~30,000 YA) to arise in the region was Eridu, situated along the banks of the Zamonas where it flowed nearest the southern hills.  The patron deity of Eridu was Marduk the Sun, whose avatar had been persuaded to reside in a large gold statue and led the Eriduan people to many military victories.  The priesthood of Marduk in Eridu grew extremely wealthy and influential, and many of the religious traditions that characterize the early temple period  first arose in Eridu, including the proliferation of many specialist priest types.  Priests for the purification of the temple (masmasu), priests to appease the wrath of the gods with song and music (kalu), female singers (naru), male singers (zammeru), swordbearers (nas patri), masters of divination (baru), penitents (sa'ilu), priests for individual purification against demons and magicians (asipu) and the supervising or watchman priests (sesgallu) who served as mouthpieces of the God-statue - these and other specialized aspects of the priesthood that arose in Eridu soon spread to the other fledgling city-states and the early temple period proper (25,000-20,000 YA) starts with the adoption of the stepped-pyramid or ziggurat as home of a patron god-statue in all of the city-states of the coastal region.

Typical early temple period ziggurat: god's house in blue at the top
 holding the god statue inhabited by the patron deity's avatar  (25,000 - 20,000 YA)

The demise of Eridu came about in the middle of the early temple period, around 22,000 YA.  Eridu was left literally high and dry when the Zamonas  changed course and formed a new path to the sea hundreds of miles to the north.  Not long after, Asag was summoned to the surface world again by a powerful sorcerer who dangled himself and his arcane energy as bait in an attempt to use Asag against an amassed army.  Asag laid waste to the greater part of the jungle basin, annihilating all life in his path.  A delegation of sesgallu priests from all the affected city-states met to take action against Asag, and it was decided that Asag must be summoned and bound with divine energy to prevent him from ever raging across the jungle again (Asag's magic resistance only working against arcane magics).  The priesthood of Marduk from Eridu saw an opportunity to stay relevant and offered Marduk's assistance to bind Asag inside the metal pyramid of the sun in Eridu.  This proposal was accepted, and with the power of Marduk and his consort Sarpanitu the moon goddess, Asag was summoned and bound without loss of life.

Unfortunately for Eridu, Asag proved incredibly powerful once he had gathered himself and Marduk and Sarpanitu had to devote all their power to keeping him restrained.  Marduk's golden statue no longer strode at the head of the Eriduan army.  The name of Marduk no longer kept evil spirits and demons at bay in the night.  The people of Eridu revolted against the priesthood, accusing the sesgallu of betraying Marduk by forcing him to summon and bind Asag.  The priesthood stayed behind in the ceremonial complexes while the people of Eridu migrated to the coast.  Some people of Eridu married with the tribes of the southern jungle; men of these lines kept alive the secret cults of Eridu while women of these lines have passed on memory of Sarpanitu and still access the sacred moon grottos underneath the temple of the moon to conduct ceremonies in her honor.

The bulk of the people of Eridu made their way north along the coast toward the new mouth of the Zamonas where they had been promised land to farm near the emerging city state of Siss-Anor.  Shortly before the Zamonas changed course, the old fishing city of Anor-Anor had been sacked by foreign invaders called the Siss, led by sorcerer kings.  A new city known as Siss-Anor was built on the rocky outcropping above the ruins of the old city.  When the river changed course it flowed right up to the basalt outcropping of Siss-Anor, instantly making the city a new power in the region. When the people of Eridu neared Siss-Anor they were ambushed by a Siss army.  All the men of Eridu were killed and the women and children taken as slaves to work the fields.  Siss-Anor grew wealthy on the backs of Eriduan labor.  The women of Eridu in Siss-Anor also kept alive the knowledge of the moon cult through the ages.

After hundreds of years the priesthood eventually died out and the old city of Eridu and the sacred complex of the pyramids of the Sun and Moon were completely abandoned.  Marduk and Sarpanitu continued to bind Asag in the metal pyramid, locked in an eternal struggle.

Toward the end of the middle temple period, a sorcerer discovered that Asag was still bound under old Eridu and attempted to draw him forth.  The sorcerer was killed by cultists of Sharur, one of the old cults of Eridu still kept alive in the southern jungle, but the magic he had already set in motion made the metal temple of the sun glow so brightly it lit the night sky of the jungle like daylight.  A delegation of priests from the city states was called together and they summoned a landslide from the south hills that buried the old city and its pyramids.  All the way to the end of the late temple period (up to 10,000 YA) each city state offered a tribute of warriors and priests to guard the site against trespassers.  This tradition did not survive the upheaval that marked the beginning of the modern temple era, when the Siss gods of Siss-Anor replaced the old gods throughout the region and all the old temples were destroyed.  The cult of Sharur still persists and watches the site, and the moon cult of Sarpanitu is still active, the grottoes of the moon accessed through a larger cave network that they are connected to by a submerged passage.

The Archaeology of Minoan Crete (Maps + d87 Random Runes Chart!)

The Archaeology of Minoan Crete

by Reynold Higgins

I bought this $2.25 hardcover at the St. Vincent's thrift store and this bad boy is a treasure trove.  It could be shipped to you by the wizards at Amazon for around $5.50 total.  There is a short summary of what has been learned through archaeological excavations at each site, but the floorplans and reconstruction views are the real gems.  87 characters in Linear B script are also given with their phonetic values where known, so if you have a d87 time to break it out (scroll to the bottom for the d87 random runes chart). The book also had an interesting but much too short section on the sacred caves of Crete (no maps / surveys there unfortunately).  I would just go to Wikipedia for each of the site names listed below for more up to date information than the book can provide, but it is extremely difficult to find quality high-res floorplans let alone isometric restoration views online.  Enjoy some scans!

Early Tomb (floor plan, front view, overhead side reconstruction view)

Palace at Phaestos (overhead reconstruction view)

Palace at Phaestos Floorplan

Palace at Knossos (artist's reconstruction)

Palace at Knossos Floorplan

Villa and Village at Ayia Triada

Palace at Mallia (overhead reconstruction view)

Palace at Mallia Floorplan

Palace at Zakro Floorplan

Linear B Script (d87 Random Rune Chart)