Floating Oasis, Adept (Patreon)

Welcome back, once again, for another map! This time I made the Floating Oasis (35x35), a small cluster of rocky islands high in the sky, apparently above the clouds. It's a trope, I know, but it's fantastical, interesting, and a fun location for sky-traveling adventurers to take a moment and stretch their legs. Just watch out for those air elementals that the old hermit warned you about, and maybe keep an eye out for mischievous Djinni too while you're at it, just in case. 

1. What's fun about floating island maps is that you can really just do whatever you want with them, none of it makes sense anyway so there are no logical rules to follow. I wanted a little verdant island oasis, and that's all there is to it. 

I made the layout with a bit of care, placing islands so that some can be easily accessed with simple jumps while others cannot. This will probably give some characters a very very hard time here, but ain't that just how it is sometimes. What did you expect, you're in the sky? This place wasn't laid out to accommodate people who don't got jumps. That said, you could throw your players a bone and place your own bridges between some of the islands, or say that there's a field of small, floating rocks between the islands that can be traversed with difficulty (and fall away if you try to end your turn there). 

2. Outlines! As you can see, I dabbled with a small amount of perspective here, which I normally don't do. I felt like it was worth the attempt on this map however, since top-down perspectives don't quite express floating islands very well- instead giving the impression of floating rock pancakes. So, after I had blocked out the grass and rock walls, I shifted the grass upwards, giving it the impression of being extruded slightly above the visible edge of the rock walls while also implying that the map is being viewed from a lower angle than directly above (not much lower, mind you, just a bit). 

I'm not 100% into the effect personally. I've gone on record saying I prefer that all battle to be viewed from above without any 3D effects, but this kind of environment needed some help from perspective. 

3. Color! Last time I made a 'floating island' map (as one of the $2 or $5 rewards for the Astral Circle map), I whipped up a fairly quick and simple cloud background which I ended up very much disliking. This time around I put a lot more effort into it, going a little bit artistic with painting some fluffy clouds back there as well as the shadows/silhouettes of other islands. I'm pretty happy with how it looks, too! One of my favorite things about making maps is making pretty, colorful locations with plenty of variation in color, and nothing's better than a forest map with plenty of blue.