Barbarian Village, Adept (Patreon)

Hi Adepts! This week I made the Barbarian Village (30x30), which I made to be reminiscent of Conan's home village from the 1982 movie. I made several adjustments to make it feel more barbarian-y than druidic, though I did try to cut the difference down the middle so that it can be useful for situations other than exactly a village of barbarians.

Your alternate version for this map is one without the village, just an open stretch of snow in the woods. I've made snowy clearings before, but never one without something in the middle to break up the line of sight. This one is much more versatile than the others and gives you the most control over the encounter, and of course I made a night version to accompany it. Cheers!

1. My original plans for this map were pretty different than this, featuring a much more open layout without a wall and a with a few more buildings. I eventually decided that any barbarian village would absolutely require a wall however, and went about scrunching everything together into a compact cluster which would fit neatly inside a log wall. I kinda liked how this process left some pretty big gaps in places where I could fit in larger props, so I ended up being less efficient with space than I normally would. 

Also, with the wall surrounding the village I liked how reminiscent it was of the Orcish settlements from Skyrim, which I later decided have the exact vibe I wanted to imitate. I almost went to far as to include a longhouse as the centerpoint of the settlement, but I felt that felt too 'built-up' for what I was aiming for.

2. Lately I've been avoiding thatch-roof buildings in my maps, especially my city maps. I used to include one or two of them in just about any map with buildings, but I never liked their vibe, that's not the kind of fantasy I like in my cities. I decided that they would be staples of villages only from now on, and it felt right that they would be the only type of roof in a sorta ramshackle settlement in the woods.  Around this point I also had to make a decision about whether or not I would include stretched hide huts, like Tauren buildings in World of Warcraft. I decided against them, even though I like the look of them, but it was close- it just doesn't feel right for a walled settlement in a snowy environment to have hide buildings like that. 

3. So, I wanted to keep moving away from using the vignette in my maps, but my winter maps just don't look right without that blue tint around the edge. The effect does a great job of expressing the iciness of the environment while letting me color the snow mostly white like I want to. 

Also, I decided to mess around with my winter palette a little, tweaking everything to offer a little more contrast, since I can't stand maps that end up too monotone. The trees especially are a little darker and the dirt is a little yellower, which together with the snow give a nice range of colors for a tundra palette.