

Following our chaotic announcement with Colin about Project Penguin we’re moving into a slightly calmer area – albeit a dark and foreboding dungeon where danger lurks around almost every corner.
Today we’re looking at the Crypts and Caverns terrain set. It’s a fantastic expansion to add to your Fantasy Dungeon, and is ideal for creating multi-level scenarios and detailed bespoke rooms for your party to discover during their quests, whether playing Maladum, Dungeons and Dragons, or any other fantasy game. The box contains 211 pieces of Battle Systems goodness including unique walls, alcoves, furniture, accessories and floor pieces, and as with the core dungeon set this is fully modular so you can create a wide variety of combinations to suit your needs.
Within this blog we’ve built out a few maps for using the Crypts and Caverns set to help give you some inspiration. As this year progresses, we aim to do this more often and post content that isn’t our standard tutorial explaining how to achieve what’s on the box.
As well as this article we’ve also created an accompanying video which you can view on our YouTube channel.
Crypts and Caverns Overview



To demonstrate how well this set complements the Fantasy Dungeon, we arranged all the pieces centrally within the dungeon walls.
When started to build out a map we’ve found people tend to use on of two approaches. There are those who set out the pieces in this fashion and start to create with a goal in mind.
And secondly those who seem to be similar to master builders from the Lego movie, who can just visualise their creation, and almost without looking, it appears on the table in a blur of motion.


As with all of our sets the little details of the crypts and caverns really change the dynamics of your core set. Our searchable terrain for this set includes several pieces but our particular favourites are the Treasure Chests with a token that can be placed inside to represent the riches that every party lusts after yet always seems to be just out of reach. The Plinths also come with a removable sword and a lid that allows you to stow scatter items and quest tokens inside.
Want to go through the doors? Then you can.
All doors, as with all our terrain sets, can be interacted with. How difficult it is to progress through the door however is up to your DM or the game system you’re playing. May the dice favour you!






Also included within this set are walls featuring alcoves and scenes for creating areas like a forge. It also comes with a Portcullis, which we’ve found works well in its traditional sense of being an entrance to a fortress or as an obstacle to overcome in an internal area.






Exterior Castle Setting Inspiration
In our video we cover a couple of exterior examples, one where it is quite a spread-out area, ideal for a skirmish or a more roleplay heavy area for DND with the potential to turn volatile if the players don’t address the residents of the keep correctly.
From the Crypts and Caverns set we’ve used the balcony, walls, portcullis, buttresses and spiral staircase to create a small watch tower along a front wall. Perfect for a “Who goes there!?” moment in your worst Ye Olde English accent.


Moving into the castle grounds itself we’ve set a small area where there is a forge for repairing armour and weapons. In the centre we created an area using the well from the dungeon set with two of the floor tiles and a broken bench from Crypts and Caverns. Which leads us onto the main keep which we’ve represented with a wall 3 rows high again with a couple of the buttresses. Adjacent to the stairs we’ve built a strong room filled with some scatter terrain from Crypts and Caverns, one of the alcoves and the other floor tiles. Whilst we’ve used it to store treasure this might be the main objective room of a ruined fortress that bandits have taken over, or could be an armoury you want to stop the guards from getting to if an alarm is raised.




This first example was a very quick setup, if you spend more time on your setup then you can achieve something like our second setting.


Utilising every piece from the Fantasy Dungeon and the Crypts and Caverns sets this setting runs your party up and down multiple levels. Over a ropey looking bridge (pun intended) and is finished off with some Lichen from Woodland Scenics.
The floor tiles on both their stone and wooden sides have been used to create outdoor areas and exposed interior areas. They are combined with the searchable terrain pieces to create points to be reached and areas of interest and really complement the dungeon set throughout and over multiple levels.








Interior Castle / Dungeon Inspiration
That’s probably enough time outside right? This next setting we’ve built is using the Vaults of Enveron terrain which also comes in the Starter Set for Maladum: Dungeons of Enveron.
This could be an area of a dungeon that the party stumbles upon in a larger map, a cellar or lower level that houses a strong room from a manor house or castle. There is also a possibility given the vines and weathered walls you could even swap out the gaming mat and make it something not too dissimilar from an end location in an Indiana Jones picture. We’ve utilised both the portcullis and the strong room door as a very obvious “there’s something cool this way but we don’t want you to have it” entrance.


Throughout we’ve used the walls, alcoves, searchable terrain and floor tiles from the crypts and caverns set to create this area. One of these walls includes a bookcase that slides to reveal a hidden passage.




We hope that this has given you some inspiration of what you can achieve with this expansion terrain set, whether you’re incorporating this into your next game of Maladum, Moonstone, Age of Sigmar, DND or anyone of the many phenomenal game systems we’re all lucky to have available to us. Please tag us in what you create and share with #battlesystemsterrain.
Until next time, from everyone at Battle Systems
Happy Gaming
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Azi
January 27, 2025 at 2:02 pm
Was this part of the Kickstarter?
Tom Wood
January 27, 2025 at 2:28 pm
Hi Azi,
Yes it was.
The contents of this pack were part of the stretch goals that everyone managed to achieve; so it was including in the Dungeon KS Edition or the Combined Pledge for Maladum and the Dungeon KS Edition.