Swamp Village, Adept (Patreon)

Hello Adepts! This week's map is the Swamp Village (30x30), a little collection of wooden pathways and thatch-roofed cottages in a bog/jungle with very few viable paths for adventures who walk. With that in mind, you know I'm going to recommend you face your earthbound party off against flying or swimming enemies! I personally think giant bugs would be perfect here, but lizardfolk or a hydra would also make for a fun encounter.

So, your alternate version for this map is another 'blighted' one, where I sorta went for a more typical swamp palette that feels more mucky and rotting than vibrant and verdant. This one feels a little less welcoming than the original, so maybe the folks here aren't so welcoming of outsiders either.

1. I always have a bit of a hard time designing swamp maps, which typically include a tricky balance between water and ground that I never got the hang of. Fortunately this map has the stilt village to take the focus, so I didn't have to work too hard to add somewhat natural feeling patches of land and trees along the edges. 

When designing the layout of the village, I wanted to make sure the place felt a little chaotic, like additions have been made with little actual planning taking place. Something that would have helped that feeling even more would be if I didn't make the walkways square against each other, but I decided it would be more important for the grid to align than to force that little extra bit of chaos into the map. 

2. Once again I've taken a crack at drawing better thatch roofs. I keep drawing these things and I've never once liked the way they look , so I thought maybe this time I would just take it easy on the little extra details and see how that looked. It's fine, I guess. I doubt I'll ever be happy with these roofs, they're not exciting and they probably never will.

The little wooden walkways though, are fun. They hide the grid lines more than I'd prefer, but they add a nice bit of complexity that I appreciate. If they weren't a mild annoyance to draw then I'd find ways to fit them into more maps, but that isn't to say I won't cram these exact walkways into future maps with a little cutting and screwing ;)

3. Once again, I find myself struggling to color swamp maps. I have yet to make a swampy map that I'm happy with, and I'm still not sure I have. I'll know by tomorrow if I like this one or not, but I suspect it's a major improvement- but only because this actually a twist on my new jungle palette rather than an iteration of my previous swamp maps. My previous attempts have been a lot more foggy and brown, which feels right for a swamp but doesn't look very nice. This time I thought I might take a page out of Afternoon Maps' book and whip up a boldly colored, verdant swamp, and I'm fairly happy with it. The only issue is that it probably won't feel right for the swampy environments in many campaigns, though I suppose I can't make everyone happy.