Crumbling Ruins, Adept (Patreon)

Hello again, folks! This map is the Crumbling Ruins (35x50), another fun Underdark map but the first to feature ruins! You had to know they were coming eventually, it never takes me too long to get around to filling any environment with devastated buildings and destroyed chapels/shrines.

Moving on, your alternate version of this map is Desolate, a word that isn't very descriptive but it's what came to mind here. It's dreary, it's eerie, it feels a little spectral, and it feels a little poisonous, essentially no one would consider this a friendly variant of the map and should expect bad times ahead.

 0. Not super relevant now, but this was the initial sketch of the map I eventually passed on. As you can see from the webby design in the center I was imagining this would be a destroyed temple to Lolth, which is fun but the rest of the map didn't hold up to how neat that might be. I still will probably return to that concept but less ruined and with a more interesting patch of the Underdark outside of it.

 1. This version is more interesting and feels much more natural, it doesn't feel nearly as fake or staged as the other. I wanted the water to be arranged in such a way that all this felt like an old settlement that was flooded, abandoned, and partially reclaimed by nature. That said, I probably could have tried to slip in a little more solid ground and removed some of the cave walls, but cave walls are just so nice for establishing the environment.

 2. Surprisingly I had a hard time with the outlines here, though I think it was mostly indecision that slowed me down. I played around with placing more ruins, mushrooms, rubble, and water all over the map but couldn't decide if any of those extra props were adding anything of actual value. These decisions took way too much time to make and I was already short on time this week, so I eventually decided to throw it all away and stick to the original sketch, trying not to think to hard about anything else along the way (though I did slip in some bonus rocks/mushrooms here and there after I had a better feel for the map later on).

The shrine itself was something different for me, I went with a patchy mossy ground in there instead of plain tiles like I usually would have done. On top of that, I left some of the cracky texture in there along the edges, something I normally would never have done, in an attempt to leave some of the details in the mind of the viewer. Oftentimes I find that I kinda overexplain with the details in my maps, so I'm trying to be a little more intentionally vague with little things like this.

 3. Gotta say, I think I'm getting the hang of this Underdark lighting. The glowy and shadowy vibe is coming naturally to me and the purple/cyan/indigo palette feels great to work with. I don't have a lot to talk about here, but I'll just say I'm excited to do more with this palette and maybe get back to more crystal-filled Underdark maps!