Sept/Oct '20 Lite Challenge: The Lost Orrery

[XCali]

looks great with the trees.

I quite like it with the trees. Without them, I sort of lose the sense of space to the rest of the image, but they give a feel for what else is around the orrery, and are certainly the type of thing players in a game would want to make use of, and have a sense for. In short, good job adding 'em!

I'll second the plants. I'm pretty much a believer in map scatters.

Okay, so three yays so far. I'll keep the plants, but I do want to add trees. So for the sake of making space but adding the trees, its going to be trunks only. I'll add their Cast shadows later.
Here is an ancient tree example, one of the three biggest trees that will be on the map.

Preview:

[Kier]

Looking real good! Love the colors and clean lines.

[XCali]

Okay. So, I've added all the bigger trees now. And as I added them, I felt something is missing. So, I added shadows for them all. I'm happy with it. Though, I'll post versions for you to see the difference. Also, with the direction I went for the map, having the grid on feels more appropriate. I'd be interested to hear if you all agree or not.

This is definitely turning out to be a type of map I don't feel I've done before. It's great fun!


Below 'With tree shadows' and 'Without'
### Latest WIP ###
~~~~~

[Bogie]

Looking great, definitely with tree shadows. without the shadows then it just looks like stumps.

[XCali]

Tx, I was thinking that too.

Hey, I have a question, anything specific you would like to see for this map to make it more effective to run in a campaign? Maybe stuff like a compass, or numbers or what can you all think of that might be help a DM out running this map?

[Bogie]

A compass is helpful if there is a game reason that top is not north.
Label the scale box so it is obvious what each grid square represents.

[rdanhenry]

For game use, a compass is generally a handicap unless the map is for a specific popular adventure module. All it does is place an unnecessary constraint on use.

[XCali]

A compass is helpful if there is a game reason that top is not north.
Label the scale box so it is obvious what each grid square represents.

Added! On the compass though, I agree with rdanhenry for at least this map.

For game use, a compass is generally a handicap unless the map is for a specific popular adventure module. All it does is place an unnecessary constraint on use.

Good point!

[XCali]

Okay, I was busy trying to figure out how to do the interior, and the planning alone feels like I will overshoot the deadline for this challenge. Maybe in a version going forward I'll add interior objects to the rest of the main building.
I added general shadows to the main building, and there is one or two tweaks I feel I still want to do. Still, it is getting closer to a final version for this map.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! It really helped in pinpointing the direction of the map. Any last things you would like to see tweaked?

### Latest WIP ###

[Bogie]

The shadows are good, gives it more depth.

I like adding interior items to my maps, but some people prefer battlemaps to be blank so they can add what they want.