Astral Island, Adept (Patreon)

Hi folks, I'm back this week with something different, the Astral Island (30x30)! And, for your additional version, you're getting a cropped and rearranged version of the smaller islands, which I'm calling the Astral Debris (22x20). The smaller version will often be more useful, I think, in situations where you want your players to have to deal with extremely reduced terrain and play around with low gravity combat. I'm not quite sure how often a map like this will come up in your campaigns, but I'm thinking it could be useful without terribly much effort. 

This map was made with Archvillain Games, by the way! Check out the $1 post for more information as well as a link to two of their 3D-printable minis they've made to accompany it!

1. So, after chatting with Konstantinos from Archvillain Games for a while, we eventually decided on an Astral Island. While brainstorming, we really wanted to make sure that, no matter what, the environment we settled on would have to be able to accommodate the size and mobility of any of their May Celestial minis.

When creating the rough sketch, I wasn't too sure how I wanted to get across the feeling that the islands were floating nodes of rock. I knew that I would have to include some amount of rock walls in order to add some complexity to the islands' shapes, but I didn't think that ledge 1-2 grid squares wide would look right, instead feeling like I had re-skinned a regular ocean island map. After some experimenting, I settled on a very thin rock wall, which I think lets the viewer know that there is a small amount of depth to be seen from the top and likely more beneath the surface. 

2. For the outlines, I imitated the same design as the crumbling rocky platforms of the Volcanic Path. The floating crystals I thought added a little more detail to the otherwise empty portions of the map, and also help give the impression that everything is floating through space. 

I decided not to put down outlines for any of the background space.  I was concerned that if I made anything beyond the foreground terrain too sharp or detailed then it might be confusing as to where on the map is safe to travel. I've played many board games with people who have issues parsing 2D images (hi mom!), so I try my best to keep the terrain as clear as possible when I can. 

3.  I went through a couple of palettes before I came up with one I was happy with. There isn't terribly much reference for DnD's Astral Plane, mostly cloudy images with pieces of earth floating through and monstrous shapes lurking in the background. I liked the idea of this one perhaps working as both a fantastical astral map as well as a general-purpose sci-fi space debris map, so I kept the colors somewhat realistic in a sort of vibrant 'deep space' kind of way.