Mystical Ruins, Adept (Patreon)

Hello there, Adepts, your map this week is the Mystical Ruins (40x40), a large map featuring a pleasantly ominous platform with a particularly large and mystical gem inset in the center. This giant and freaky gem is absolutely causing all kinds of trouble in the nearby forest, perhaps animating the trees, awakening the animals, or drawing in creatures from distant and unfashionable planes. 

Personally, I think I would have it attempt to charm/brainwash travelers and locals, perhaps prompting them to rebuild the ruins and protect them against an ancient and long-defeated enemy. It could have been suddenly and accidentally activated by some scholars/wizards from a distant magical university, perhaps? I imagine a fun scene would be when the players first stray into its range, hopefully at least one player gets caught by it and the rest have to stop them from straying off. That's an adventure right there!

Anyway, your extra version of this map features a dimmed version of the gems, as well as some small changes to the rest of the map in order to help tone down the previously magical nature of the ruins. This version is perfect for scenarios where the players might be intentionally trying to activate the ruins' magic, or perhaps as a new map to drop in to show your players that they've succeeding in ending the threat. Cue victory music!

1/2. I thought it might be fun to show my initial sketch of this map, where I started off with a concept for a smallish fortress where large glowing cracks were bursting from the ground. I actually had gotten fairly far drawing this one too, almost finishing all of the ruined walls, when I realized that it was going to be a little boring and not terribly mystical. Maybe someday I'll build on the 'magical cracks in the earth' concept, but not for this one. 

1. My 2nd pass, much more my speed. Some nice rocky walls, to offer some fun height variation, several key locations to build an encounter around, as well as multiple changes in types of terrain, like the water, to offer prompts for the types of enemies you might encounter here (such as water elementals, swamp creatures, or frenzied water-dwelling animals). 

Also, I like making ruins like this, with a central platform that can be approached from any direction. It's very open ended, and while it doesn't allow for me to lay out any clear paths through the terrain, it does make for fun arenas. 

2. As I mentioned, I had gotten fairly far in drawing the first version of this map before I scrapped it and started over. This put me nearly 2 full days behind schedule, which meant I had to find some ways to cut some corners while still making an interesting enough map to satisfy all of you who voted enough to make this one top the poll. 

I decided that my time would therefore be best spent on the focus of this map, the ruins, and I could cut some corners elsewhere. I was originally planning on drawing more new trees to fill out the edges of this map, but since those aren't vital to this map's concept I reused as many as I could from my recent Village maps, then padded out the rest with my previously newest batch, which according to my files I had made last October. Similarly, I reused stretches of rock walls and rocks from recent maps, which left me with enough time to sketch out some fun and interesting ruins and roots, which are more than engaging enough to focus a full map around.

3. Moving on to the colors, I got it in my head that my regular forest palette wasn't going to feel appropriate for a magical-themed map, but I also didn't want to go too far and use my Fey palette either, which I felt would feel magical, but not the type of magic I had in mind. Instead, I tried to imitate some of my previous jungle maps, but leaning toward brighter and more vibrant colors, which I felt would help the pink of the large gem stand out nicely and pop with the blues of the smaller gems.

Did I overthink the colors here? Probably. It's just as likely that the map would have looked similarly cool with my typical palette, but darkened a little so the gems wouldn't get lost in all the bright colors. This new palette feels a bit more appropriate though, and is pretty similar to what I had in my head, so I'm going to call this a success and start planning out the next one.