Crystal Grotto, Adept (Patreon)

Hello again, Adepts! This week's map is the Crystal Grotto (35x30), a flooded cavern with many crystal-studded platforms. As I've mentioned before, I think 'crystal cavern' and 'mushroom grove' are two of the major Underdark environments, and until I'm presented with a counter argument I think most of my maps in this series will be along those lines. 

Anyway, your alternate version of this map is Caustic, really I've been thinking of it as radioactive but that isn't very fantastical. This one features yucky yellow-green crystals and unhealthy green water. I'm assuming that touching the water will make little tentacles sprout from your body and touching the crystals will make your hair fall out. 

1. I feel like I've made a handful of maps like this in the past that didn't quite work- maps with several crumbling platforms for players to jump across. Somehow they don't end up feeling quite right, but I'm hoping this one holds up a little better for a few reasons: the cavern walls help contain the map and provide a little structure to how it can be approached, the crystals add a big and flashy prop that fills up the space well with interesting details, and the platforms are spaced to give 2-3 simple paths with room to make tricky jumps if necessary. I'm hopeful that some conjunction of these 3 will hold up well, but I won't have an opinion until I spend a few days not looking at it. 

2. Ok, a few things here. First, the rock walls around the platforms I drew as the little thin walls like I used for the last 2 Underdark maps. Usually I would use my old, typical ledges but those haven't been feeling right recently, especially for small ledges of ones which I imagine as particularly steep. They feel overly simplified and angular, so I wanted to keep trying this new style out. My takeaway? Just as time-consuming to draw, a little over-detailed perhaps, but easier to shade and effective at expressing an indeterminate amount of height. I'll keep trying it!

Next, I changed my workflow for this map- usually I draw from least to most detailed, starting with key features. So this time I sketched out the cavern walls and started on the platforms, which is normal, but instead of drawing all the platforms, adding crystals, grass, rocks, mushrooms, and details to each one, I drew one platform in completion to ensure that I liked the end result and then did the rest. It was a strange change of pace, but it did give me a chance to work out some things early in the process while I was still willing to consider solutions (I start to rush later in the process). 

3. Still working out the colors for these Underdark maps too. I'm pretty happy with the water here, but the purple platforms don't quite feel right to me yet. They stand out nicely, feel cave-y, and feel Underdark-y, but something about the color/shading doesn't sit right. It could be that the whole map feels brighter than I imagine a cave should, but it has to be bright enough for it to be legible and anyway, that's explained by the huge glowing crystals. Either way, I have some thinking to do here (as usual).