Underdark Spiral, Adept (Patreon)

This one is the Underdark Spiral (30x30), a somewhat smaller map than my recent stuff but this specific kind of terrain can get visually confusing when scaled up. Anyway, check out the main post for this map you want to hear my idea of how to set up a combat for this map, I think there's a lot you can do here but I think my plan is a pretty solid one!

 1. I knew I was asking for trouble with a layout like this- I have to be so careful with ledges in my maps usually but especially so with caves, I find it much harder to express variations in height with cave lighting and props. On top of that, spiral ledges are even trickier to depict in ways that make sense and clearly display which side is higher than the other. In short, this map was doomed to be mildly confusing straight from the start but even so I think I didn't do so bad.

 2. Gotta say, I'm getting pretty quick at whipping up these cave maps! The cave walls can all be done quick enough, and the mushrooms and rocks are all predrawn, so really the only thing taking up all my time is detailing the ground.. and arranging everything into an interesting and visually attractive map.

And, if anyone's wondering, yes I still hate drawing ledges/rock walls and, yes, circular ones like this are the worst type of rock wall. Just a huge pain in my butt, the perspective never looks quite right and they never come out looking like how I imagined it.

3. I feel like I'm starting to say this every week, but I had a tricky time shading this map. I think I had a trickier time of it than usual, probably, because of the spiral ledge requiring some special attention. Properly shading the changes in elevation here is definitely the most important part of the map since any vagueness in the elevation would make the map much harder to use. Having to clarify to your players over and over which point is higher than the other gets old pretty quick, so I really wanted to ensure that this was clear.

However, the primary way that I express that sort of thing is by making the top point brighter than the bottom, but my cave lighting tends to lean toward being fairly shadowy so already much of the map is about as dark as I'm comfortable making it. If I go much darker than that then the corners of the map become hard to see. So, this one was an extending balancing act. Maybe next week's map will be an Underdark field or something, a stretch with no rock walls or cave walls to worry about, that would be nice.