Swamp Temple Remnants, Adept (Patreon)

I'm back again with yet another swamp map, the Swamp Temple Remnants (30x35)! And yes, I did give it such an unusual name because I've already made a 'Swamp Ruins'- believe me, I really wanted to call this one Swamp Ruins. 

Your alternate version of this one is a 'Bloody' variant, which has a palette that's somewhat similar to my Autumn palette but with more vibrant red water. Now, you obviously can reskin this bloody water in any way you want, but I can't help but imagine the look on my players' faces when I would tell them that the water in the swamp is actually thick and bubbling blood- a mix between horror and unhealthy interest, I think.

1. So, I wanted to try to go a little more extreme on this set of ruins than with the Swamp Ruins, which was a bit too light on the crumbling walls and ancient altars for my taste. Half the fun of fighting in ancient ruins is using all the crumbling architecture to your advantage, so I wanted to really lean hard into that for this one. With that in mind, I whipped up a symmetrical building and erased big chunks of it so as it make it asymmetrical. This way, each section of the map offers different kinds of cover and can allow for unique pathways and lines of sight. 

I did also try something a little unusual too, I drew in those three square rooms in the corners which only have one entrance each. Obviously these rooms offer great cover from many directions (other than above), which I thought might make for a fun encounter where the players could hide in one or two of these cubbies and prepare an ambush, or perhaps an encounter where ranged enemies hiding in these rooms and taking potshots at the players. Kinda fun, I think!

2. As you can see in the image above, the ruins have a much heavier outline than the rest of the map- this was intentional. While it's not quite so obvious in the final version of the map, I thought it might be an effective way of emphasizing the walls so that they don't get lost among rubble on the ground or any other props. Essentially, since these walls are tall and critical pieces of cover, they ought to be perfectly clear and visible to both the DM and the players so that there's as little confusion as possible. I don't usually like to let line thickness vary so much, which I feel makes a map look a little amateurish, but I feel that the effect isn't eye-catching enough to be an issue.

3. Colors! I, once again, workshopped them even further. I know that the end result is that each swamp map I've made looks dissimilar to each other, but I really hate leaning on old palettes just because it's what I've established for myself. Maybe once I've finally settled on colors I like I'll go back and recolor all these swamp maps to match, but I'm starting to think I'm not going to find one I like for quite a while. 

I think this one is another nice step, but perhaps a little heavy on the yellow. I feel that yellowish grass is necessary for swampy vibes, but perhaps the greens of the trees are only serving to make it feel too yellow. Either way, the plants' colors look really nice alongside the water's blues, so at least that's nice and satisfying.