Village Shrine, Adept (Patreon)

Hello there, Adepts- this week's map is the Village Shrine (35x30), another fine location to hold out against endless hoards of zombies! I know I pitched something similar to you with the last map, but it feels even more appropriate for this one, right? I imagine zombies emerging from the graves to join those lurching out of the mist, villagers holed up inside the shrine while the undead throw themselves against the stained glass windows, and your adventurers doing their best to keep the situation under control. 

And, that's why your version of this map is another Foggy version, so it will accompany the foggy Village Hall map well, as well as set up nicely for some spooky zombie-style adventures!

1. As usual, when I have a name for the map, I like to make sure that the namesake is the focus as I start the sketch. However, I also felt that a small village like this wouldn't necessarily have a particularly large or impressive shrine, so I decided to keep things a little small, developing more of the surrounding area than I might have otherwise, such as with the Village Hall map, which featured a somewhat small slice of the surrounding village. 

Also, I don't know why but I had decided early that this map was going to require a creek, an enclosed pasture, and a cemetery. I think I was trying to imitate some of the local tiny chapels we have here in Indiana, with a little cemetery next door and farms on all sides, just the kind of place I'd expect to find in an RPG adventure honestly. 

2. Outlines-wise, I decided to finally go ahead and reuse the roofs I've been drawing recently, deciding that there weren't enough in this map to warrant whipping up fresh ones again. Also, I went ahead and tried out mixing my most recent batch of freshly-drawn trees with several of my older ones, from the Jungle Ledge (the map I return to most often to cherry pick parts and drop them into new maps). I can certainly identify which trees are older, now that I'm taking a fresh look at the outlines-only version, so I'm going to have to come up with a stance on doing this in the future- I simply don't have a ton of new trees drawn yet and they're not exactly quick or interesting things to whip up, unfortunately.

3. Colors! What do you think, folks, has this new and more colorful palette been working for you? I personally enjoy the heightened colors, but I can easily imagine how it would be a little obnoxiously vibrant for some people. Either way, I don't think I'll be making many more village maps for a while, so I'll have decent period of time to collect your input and try some new palettes out if necessary. 

I'm a little excited to move on to different environments, specifically whatever you all end up picking in the upcoming poll! It has been a long, long time since I had you all pick what I make next, and I feel like that process ends up making me work on things out of my comfort zone in interesting ways. I'm looking forward to it!