Battle Maps for Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall and the Red Wizards of Thay

Wizards of the Coast releases Arcana Unleashed today, September 15, 2026, and alongside it comes Deadfall, a levels 11 to 20 spy-thriller adventure that pits your party against the Red Wizards of Thay. If you are already hunting for Deadfall maps to bring the campaign to your table, you have probably discovered the problem: Thay battle maps barely exist. Commercial map packs are built around taverns, forest roads, and mid-level dungeon crawls, not red-stoned wizard towers, necromantic laboratories, and tomb-lined necropolis streets. When your table reaches the infiltration of a fortress-monastery, a generic castle map simply cannot carry the menace.

In this guide, we will look at what makes Thay one of the most distinctive regions in the Forgotten Realms to put on a battle map, share six copy-paste prompts for the locations a Deadfall campaign is most likely to visit, and walk through the practical demands of mapping high-level play, from oversized spell footprints to the multiple escape routes a spy thriller demands.

Why Thay needs its own visual language

Thay has been part of Forgotten Realms lore for decades, and its identity is unmistakable. This is a nation ruled by the Red Wizards, where necromantic legions march under crimson banners and fortress-monasteries watch over gaunt volcanic plateaus. Nothing about it resembles the green heartlands that most fantasy map collections depict. The stone is dark and volcanic, the architecture is built to intimidate, and the dead are a labor force rather than a tragedy.

That identity hands you a clear art direction for every encounter. Reach for red and black stone instead of gray castle walls. Replace cheerful torchlight with brazier flame, sickly green alchemical glow, and the purple shimmer of active wards. Let ash drift across outdoor scenes where other settings would show grass. Because Arcana Unleashed ships with a full Thay gazetteer, your players will be soaking in this atmosphere between sessions, and the maps at the table should reinforce that tone rather than undercut it.

The fastest way to get there is generation rather than searching. An AI battle map generator lets you type the exact scene the session needs and receive a clean, top-down image in seconds, with no pre-baked grid to fight and no character tokens to crop out. The environmental storytelling techniques from our guide to otherworldly fantasy battle maps apply directly here: pick two or three signature details per location and let them carry the mood.

Six Thay battle map prompts

The six prompts below follow the arc of a typical campaign against the Red Wizards, from the first tower break-in to the climactic escape. Paste them as written, then adjust the details to fit your scenario. If you want more raw material to riff on, keep our library of 50 AI battle map prompts open while you prep.

1. The wizard tower sanctum

The private conjuration chamber at the top of a red-stoned tower, interrupted mid-ritual.

• The Setup: A silver summoning circle glows in the center of the circular chamber, ringed by iron braziers. Lecterns hold open grimoires, and scattered scrolls suggest the resident left in a hurry, or is about to return.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a circular wizard tower sanctum, red stone walls, glowing silver summoning circle, iron braziers with blue flame, lecterns with open grimoires, scattered scrolls and ritual chalk, gridless digital art."

2. The necromantic ritual laboratory

A working laboratory where the Red Wizards refine their craft, equal parts morgue and academy.

• The Setup: Stone examination slabs stand in rows beneath racks of instruments. Glass vats of green preservative line one wall, and chalk diagrams cover the floor between the slabs.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a necromantic laboratory, stone examination slabs in rows, glass vats glowing green, shelves of jars and bones, arcane chalk diagrams on dark stone floor, cold green lighting, gridless digital art."

3. The fortress courtyard

The parade ground of a fortress-monastery, crept across at night or fought through in daylight.

• The Setup: Crimson banners hang from iron poles around a basalt courtyard. Arched doorways lead to barracks and stables, a central statue provides the only cover, and braziers mark the sentry posts.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a fortress courtyard, dark basalt flagstones, crimson banners on iron poles, arched barracks doorways, central obsidian statue, watch braziers, overcast gray light, gridless digital art."

4. The necropolis street

An avenue through a city of tombs, where the patrols do not need to breathe.

• The Setup: Mausoleum facades line both sides of a cracked stone avenue. Iron-barred tomb doors, funeral urns, and drifting ash give the street rhythm, cover, and places for things to be standing very still.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a necropolis street, avenue lined with stone mausoleums, iron-barred tomb doors, funeral urns, cracked paving stones, drifting gray ash, cold moonlight, gridless digital art."

5. The volcanic plateau pass

A switchback trail through obsidian country, the overland route between strongholds.

• The Setup: Black obsidian outcrops flank a narrow trail as it climbs past steam vents and ash drifts. The outcrops create firing lanes and blind corners, and the vents punish careless movement.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a volcanic plateau mountain pass, black obsidian outcrops, steaming sulfur vents, narrow switchback trail, gray ash drifts, faint red glow in rock crevices, gridless digital art."

6. The teleportation circle chamber

The climactic infiltration target: the warded chamber that connects a Red Wizard stronghold to everywhere else.

• The Setup: A large runic circle glows on polished black stone, ringed by red marble pillars carved with wards. Guard alcoves cover every approach, and the circle itself is both the objective and the way out.
• The Prompt: "Top-down battle map of a teleportation circle chamber, large glowing runic circle on polished black stone floor, red marble pillars carved with wards, guard alcoves, brazier flame and purple arcane glow, gridless digital art."

Mapping for levels 11 to 20

Deadfall runs from level 11 to level 20, and high-level play quietly changes what a good battle map looks like. Most published maps are sized for mid-level parties, which is another reason generating your own pays off here.

First, spell footprints get enormous. A single fireball covers a 40-foot-wide sphere, which is an eight-by-eight block of squares, and by tier three your table is throwing several effects of that size every round. On a cramped 20-by-20 map, one evocation ends the encounter. Give high-level fights room to breathe: aim for maps in the 30-by-30 to 40-by-40 range so that positioning still matters after the first salvo. Generating at 2K or 4K resolution keeps the art crisp when players zoom in on a map that large.

Second, plan for verticality. High-level characters fly, teleport, and climb sheer walls without slowing down, so flat arenas waste their abilities. Prompt for balconies, mezzanines, rooftop walkways, and open shafts, and use lighting cues in the art, such as a brazier-lit upper gallery over a shadowed floor, to make the elevation readable at a glance.

Third, a spy thriller needs exits. Infiltration encounters are at their best when the party can choose between fighting and fleeing, so every map should offer at least two ways out: a window over the courtyard, a servant corridor, a rooftop route, or the teleportation circle itself. When your players improvise an exit you never drew, area regeneration editing in Text to Tabletop lets you select that section of the map and regenerate it with a collapsed wall or a blasted-open door, so the environment keeps up with the story.

Bring Thay to the table tonight

Cracking open a new adventure on release day is one of the best feelings in the hobby, and Deadfall gives Game Masters a rare excuse to run high-level intrigue in one of the most atmospheric corners of the Forgotten Realms. If your group develops a taste for sinister villains and dread-soaked locations, our guide to Ravenloft battle maps covers the gothic side of that coin. When you are ready to prep the first tower break-in, sign up for the Text to Tabletop app today and start generating custom maps in seconds.