The Caves of Still Grotto

**The Caves of Still Grotto**

Still Grotto is a sea cave on the coast of Shu-Qune along the southwestern cliffs near the border of Iesta. The grotto itself is quite large, but the entry cave is almost entirely underwater – entry by boat requires a small boat with no mast, and is impossible during rough seas. The grotto and associated caves have been used by fishers, pirates, and smugglers over the years – a good place to hide oneself from the elements or illicit cargoes from prying eyes until the heat is off. The main cavern chamber is filled to a depth of 40 feet with seawater, and the small cave to the northeast brings fresh water down from a small river that falls into the rocks before reaching the coast – the river used to run through the other caves here before finding the current shorter route to the ocean.

Sturdy doorways have been added to the caves in two places by the pirates and smugglers over the years to restrict access to their stowed goods. The doors have large locks on them, placed by the last group of smugglers to use the caves to hide their goods (and a number of boxes of contraband remain in one of these locked caves). But the smugglers aren’t coming back any time soon – chased away by the new resident of the grotto.

Still Grotto has become the “summer lair” of a dragon – wyrm of great length but narrow girth who can just barely fit through the entrance where it widens below the water’s surface. The dragon hatched here hundreds of years ago, and has retreated back to the lair of its childhood after its mountain lair (more suited to its larger size) was ransacked by adventurers and dragon hunters. The wyrm is recovering from the wounds of the battle, and is its head low until autumn when it plans to search out a better lair, further away, and preferably with something tastier than fish to hunt.

*The original Still Grotto was drawn eleven years ago for the blog. It has been slightly modified in this update, which was drawn for Sly Flourish‘s upcoming book.*

*The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 15,900 x 12,000 pixels (53 x 40 squares) wide. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended traditional 10′ squares) – so resizing it to either 3,710 x2,800 or 7,420 x 5,600, respectively.*

[**https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/10/the-caves-of-still-grotto/**](https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/10/the-caves-of-still-grotto/)