Village Drawbridge, Adept (Patreon)

This week's map is the Village Drawbridge (35x25), my 2nd 'city gate' kind of map! Since I've made one like this before I wanted to make sure not to make it too similar, so I added a 2nd gate, drawbridges, and of course a moat (since a drawbridge without a moat would be tricky, though I suppose not impossible).

And, for your extra version I've whipped up a Fall recoloring! I was looking back at some older maps and I realized it had been quite a while since I've made one of these, even though I know it's a fairly popular type of map. I think it was that streak of swamp maps I made that caused me to forget, or something like that. Anyway, it comes with both raised and lowered bridge versions, of course, so go nuts!

1. I went into this one with fond memories of my previous City Gate map, whose PSD I've sadly flattened and saved over long ago. On top of that, I've never been too impressed with a lot of choices I made in that one, so I wanted to take another go. 

This time, I wanted to make the walls a little more expansive, while providing a better flow to combat on top them. So, this one features a bit more space, as well as a clear way to climb up on top- the two long staircases which I included in hopes of someone doing some Legolas-style shield surfing. 

Additionally, I felt that a moat would be a perfect way to spice up the map. It always seems silly to me that there wouldn't be an easy way to dissuade people from approaching the base of a city wall, and moats do the job. This offered the option to include a fun drawbridge system, which really pulls the map together with a feeling of complexity. 

2. Outlines, woooo. Thankfully I was able to stitch the rock walls together from the Jungle Ledge map, which featured a huge length of perfectly-sized walls. This saved me enough time to whip up some fun new props and figure out some little details, such as how long the stairs would have to be, within reason, in order for the wall to be a decent height. I decided on 25 feet long staircases, which at a 45 degree angle would make for an equally tall wall, which felt about right. Maybe you can fudge that number a bit by saying that the stairs are particularly squat or tall, altering the height to your needs in a way that even your most persnickety players won't question. I have one of those players and he recently questioned the height of my platforms in relation to the length of my stairs in an arena combat, so I have to think about these things now. 

3. Colors! Since I wanted to have the ground be dirt rather than cobblestone, I felt I couldn't quite stick to my usual 'city' palette, and instead chose something more similar to my 'village' palette. Fantasy cities, in my mind, must feature stone streets, while villages don't. Additionally, for what it's worth, I sometimes add thatch-roofed cottages to village maps, but never in cities. 

Anyway, I decided to base the colors off of the Cliffside Village, which had a somewhat more yellowish palette than I wanted to end up with, but otherwise felt about right for the map I wanted to end up with. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result- I might have gone a little too vibrant with the palette and bit too heavy with the brightness, but it feels just about right. The biggest change I made this time is the vignette, which I left pretty subtle (for once). I didn't want this one too feel too restricted, since so much of it feels like it's leading off-screen, and the vignette felt like it was blocking off those paths, or at least was bringing the eye back toward the center. I've been considering cutting vignettes in general for these reasons, but I'm a little hesitant, since they are helpful in creating a range of colors and values which I enjoy.