Haunted Village Bridge, Adept (Patreon)

I'm back again with a new spooky map, the Haunted Village Bridge (35x40)! This one is a continuation of the Haunted Village from a couple weeks ago, fleshing out this grim little town so you'll have lots of unpleasant streets to work with. 

And since I kinda felt that the basic Day version of this map somehow felt too cheerful for the dark, unfriendly village I had in my head, I made your alternate version Subdued to better fit the bill. Now this is the kind of village where you'll get shanked in the street by the greasiest, most dastardly thief you've ever seen. 

1. Just a lil town. I thought it might be fun to add a touch of uneven terrain to this one, so I placed a little rock wall above the creek and dropped a biggish building on above that so it could loom over the town a bit. Unfortunately I thought to add additional rock walls after sketching out the rest of the map and I didn't want to have to redesign everything to fit more, so it's an element that's used a bit more sparingly than I would have liked.

Beyond that, I wanted the village to feel a bit forest-y and not too urban, so I drew in plenty of grass and trees between and around the buildings. And the creek, of course, helps build that vibe further while adding a bit of interesting terrain and a choke point to the map at the same time. 

2. Roofs, rock walls, village props, lots of stuff in this map. I ended up drawing the rock walls fresh without grabbing any from other maps, as it seems like I always do these days. Someday I dream of making a map once again where I get to reuse lots of old rock walls without having to draw anything fresh; that sounds nice. Anyway, this one ended up being a little larger and more detailed than I had originally planned and so it took a few days longer than expected to finish. Not great for the ol' schedule.

I did manage to use a fair few rooftops from my most recent village maps, but they all needed a little extra effort since I wanted to rough them up a bit so as to make them feel grimier and more run-down. I threw in some little dirty details around some of the roof tiles and drew in lots of holes that look like they're in urgent need of repair- some of which I did repair by nailing boards on top (to varying degrees of effectiveness). 

3. You know what's funny? I started coloring this map with the thought that I wasn't going to try to imitate the palette in Haunted Village, I thought that the trees were too yellow, the grass too pale, the fog too foggy. Comparing the two now, the colors and lighting are almost identical, I can hardly believe it. If there's any difference that I can pick out, it's that this one is just a few percentages more vibrant. I can hardly believe it, I amaze myself sometimes.