Secluded Oasis, Adept (Patreon)

This week's map is the Secluded Oasis (30x30), a fairly small pool in the dunes alongside just a handful of palms and some ruins. Really, just a grab bag of stock deserty things which you will likely have no issue with when integrating this map into your campaign. 

Your alternate version of this map is one which I'm calling 'Mystical', a twist on the regular Night map where I had a bit of fun with the colors and kept the water a nice and crisp blue, with some little magical sparkles on top of everything. Kinda fun, I think, it feels like an interesting concept to build upon!

1. This map came about during one of my rare bouts of productivity, where I managed to churn out 2 maps in a single week. This sort of thing is usually only possible when I start off with particularly straightforward and focused map concepts, concepts that don't mix and match prompts. For example, the prompt for this map is 'Desert Oasis', but during a regular week where I might focus on this map alone I could perhaps spend time developing the area outside of the oasis with ruins, a camp, or further natural elements such as mountainous rock walls or caves. 

But, as I said, I was working quickly, and it's nice sometimes to work on focused maps that fulfill a specific purpose. 

2. Once I got around to the outlines, I decided to make a few small changes to the original sketch, for the sake of the map's flow. Primarily, I nudged the rock walls a little further away from the water, giving a little more room to maneuver, and I cut one small rock wall altogether, replacing it with a bit of ruined column. The columns perform the save function as the rock wall, giving some additional cover, while replacing a patch of wall which I felt was placed a little too neatly to feel natural. With those bits of column in place, I decided to add a little more to the other side of the oasis, in hopes of making the first patch feel somewhat less out of place but creating precedent elsewhere.

3. Once again, I always start the colors for any map by searching for another somewhat recent map with a similar environment and using its base colors. I'm starting to feel a little iffy about the desert palette I've been using however, but I honestly can't imagine what changes I would make. I guess the only real issue I have is that anything not yellow/orange/red doesn't feel quite right somehow, but that might be my imagination. I get the feeling that I'll be making a few more desert maps in the near future, so I suppose I'll have the chance to work this feeling out. I kinda get the feeling that I won't change anything major however, but that's just how I work!