Cave Village, Adept (Patreon)

Hi Adepts! This week's map is the Cave Village (25x25), my first attempt at an underground town map. I've gotten many requests previously for underdark city maps, but never had the guts to try it or a good enough idea on how to make that a reality, so this time I decided to take a running jump at it and see what I could do. Overall, I think it's interesting- maybe not quite what I was expecting it to turn into when I started, but it'll do as a first attempt. 

Oh also, your alternate version is Volcanic, which is the best name I could come up for it (despite the lack of lava). This version features lots of reds and oranges replacing the stock version's blues, as well as some additional sparks floating about to help imply volcanic activity nearby. I think it looks really cool!

1. So, I started off planning on the look of this map being somewhat similar to a desert village, flat-topped buildings with stairways connecting various levels. I figured that would make sense for an underground village, since sloped roofs would be unnecessary without weather. 

Beyond that, I wanted the rest of the map to be essentially a plain ol' cave, with some solid cave props to help set the scene- crystals (locations tbd at this point), and obviously big mushrooms. I felt that this would overall be plenty of setting for the village, which would be focused on the buildings primarily anyway.

2. Of course, I quickly realized after the sketch that I had set myself up for a map which would require almost 100% newly drawn props. I wasn't going to use the buildings from the Desert Bazaar, since many of them were partially cut off by the edge of the frame and the rest didn't fit the buildings I had blocked out. The rock wall I had planned for was too short and long to be easily assembled from bits of previous walls I had drawn. Also, I have yet to draw mushrooms that I've been completely satisfied with, so I knew I would need to make another attempt at those as well. 

Pretty unfortunate, overall- I had no way to save time for myself. When you've set up a schedule where you make a new map every week and are also a one-man operation, like I am, time savers are very high up on the list of priorities. At least I can take comfort in knowing that the new props I drew up for this map will help fill out another map someday.

3. Yeah, I still don't think I've nailed cave colors and lighting yet. I wanted to imitate the effects from the Underdark Ruins map, with some tweaks, but this turned into a mess of uninteresting browns and shadows which just weren't feeling right to me. I got a little frustrated and eventually make some big changes which were a step in the right direction, altering the palette to be more blue-ish, but still it didn't quite come together as I was hoping. By Friday, I knew I wasn't making any real progress and I wasn't in the right headspace to come up with solutions to the issues I was seeing, so I eventually got to the point where I found it 'good enough' and left it alone. 

If there's ever a map that I actually will take another stab at someday, it'll be this one- I still think it could turn into something really cool, but I just couldn't do it this week. I'm sure I'll have some ideas given a little time, so we'll see.