Oasis Shrine, Adept (Patreon)

Hello again, Adepts- this week's map is the Oasis Shrine (40x40), a tidy little shrine with just a single platform and altar jutting out onto the water, which honestly gives me slightly sinister vibes somehow. It makes me think that something happens at that altar which then translates into the continued existence of this oasis, and just how terrible that act is is up to you!

Your alternate version of this map is one which I'm calling 'Blessed', which features heavy highlights and god rays on the shrine while the rest is greatly subdued. All this feels to me like a big ol' thumbs up from the heavens, so you can be sure that whatever combat you set up here is being watched from above by a greater power. Great!

1. The set up here was fairly straightforward- a platform on the oasis with a bit of town surrounding it, enough to imply perhaps that there's much more city just off screen if that's what you want. This time around I decided to get a little wonky with the buildings and set them up at odd angles, which I felt was necessary for them to wrap around the oasis like I wanted. While it makes the city portion feel more jumbled than I'd normally like, I do enjoy how that contrasts with how the shrine is perfectly aligned to the grid and centered on the map, granting a feeling of order among chaos. Is this all very artsy talk and entirely in my head? Absolutely!

2. Outlines! I set up the style for all of these with last week's map, which was built off of the ideas I had while making the one before. This time I stuck to what I learned last week and tried not to shake things up, instead focusing on ways I could streamline the creation process and quickly produce a map with this setting and style. I didn't particularly succeed on doing this (this post is coming out a day late), but I certainly learned a lot while doing it. I think I could probably make a more reasonably-sized map (around 30x30 instead of 40x40) in a desert city much much more quickly now and probably do so moderately more quickly than this time. And you know what, I guess I'll have to put myself to the test on that point because I made 2 less maps than usual this month and there are only 4 more days until April- let's see if I can make 1 more before we're done here.

3. Thank goodness I had tried out so many different palettes for last week's map, I came into this one fully prepared for a quick coloring. I think the only thing I actually altered was the tree color, which I think I just tweaked to be a bit more constant and cheery- a vibe I wanted to make sure I integrated into this map with the oasis. Beyond that, the water/grass were the only new elements here, so all other colors could be picked directly from the Desert Streets, thank goodness!