The fort map generator draws a timber frontier fort on five-foot squares. A palisade of sharpened logs encloses a square of trampled ground, with a firing step running along the inside and a blockhouse overhanging each corner. The gate is in the middle of the front wall, two heavy doors under a platform for the sentries, and a track runs out of it through cleared ground, past the stumps of the trees that were felled to build the walls, to the treeline. Inside, the buildings stand against the walls and leave the middle open. The barracks run along the back wall. The commander's house, the stables, the storehouse and the smithy stand along the sides, two each side, in a different order on every roll. The parade ground in the middle has the flagpole, a fire pit and the well, and a supply wagon and a woodpile stand in the yard. Every building is numbered and keyed.
How the fort is laid out
Frontier forts were built fast, out of whatever the forest provided, and to a plan any soldier would recognise. That plan is what the generator follows. The walls come first, then the blockhouses at the corners where they can fire along two walls at once, then the gate. Buildings go against the walls so the open middle can be used for drill and for mustering when the alarm goes up. The barracks take the long back wall because they're the longest building. The stables are open-fronted with horses in the stalls and a trough outside, the smithy has its anvil and quenching tub, the storehouse has crates stacked by the door, and the commander's house has a chimney and a porch.
Running a siege or a stay
A fort works as a base, a battlefield, or both. As a base it's where the party gets orders, supplies and a roof. As a battlefield it's the classic siege: attackers come out of the treeline, across the cleared ground with no cover, to the gate or the walls, while defenders fire from the blockhouses and the firing step. Inside, a fight moves between buildings, and the stables, the storehouse and the well are what a long siege is really about. For a mystery, the fort is a closed community where everyone knows everyone and the relief column is late.
Free SVG and PNG downloads
Both formats are free for your games, streams and published adventures. The PNG is a 1920-pixel render ready for Roll20, Foundry or Owlbear Rodeo, and the Print button gives you a black-and-white sheet for the table. The SVG is the vector original: open it in Inkscape, Affinity or Figma to add a second gate, move the stables or set the barracks on fire. Everything on the map is drawn by our own code, so there's no attribution to carry and no asset licence to read.
What it won't do
It draws one timber fort at battle-map scale. It doesn't draw a stone castle, the inside of the buildings, or the army outside. For a stone stronghold with towers and a keep, roll a castle map; for the forest around the fort, a forest map; for the bandits who are besieging it, a bandit camp map.
Name the fort, then hold it
The knight name generator and the fighter name generator name the commander and the garrison, and the orc name generator names whoever is waiting in the trees.