Yes, something like this but maybe a little simpler.

I think this would fit this style quite well. A coarse fractal polygon with either some rooftop simulation bitmap or just solid variable color and something to cut through it to hint at some streets?

Or just something similar to the farmland with a different color for the fields (=densely packed houses) and their borders (= bigger streets)?

What do you all think about a drawing tool that simulates an actual city? I'm not sure if this is possible, I'm not really knowledgeable with the drawing tools, but some sort of texture that implies rooftops (wooden shingles for example) and some macro that draws a rudimentary road network through it - et voila: city from a birds eye!

again: don't know if this is a good idea or if it's even possible. I'm just spit balling here...

Ok, made some small last minute changes before the session tomorrow:

1) I removed the glow on the outer lines of the ritual circle and replaced it with a transparent circle of the same size. I like me some spooky glow like anybody here, I guess, but in this case I thought it might look more eerie if the glow unnaturally stops at the circle in some way.

So I made two layers. the first has a purple circle on it and a classical edge fade effect that starts with 0 on the outside and gets up to 40% in the centre where the glow of the inner lines takes over.

The second layer has a copy of the purple circle, but here the edge fade effect is reversed. it has a very short range and has the 40% on the outside and 0% on the inside.

the combination looks a little bit as if the glow from the inside bounces back on the edge of the circle and overlaps with the energy coming from the inside, creating interference patterns, as there is a small band that has no glow at all:

I kind of like the result :)

(on a side note: my inner Monk compelled me to adjust the size of the circle such that the spokes line up/touch the grid. For no practical reason at all ^^)

2) Even though this is supposed a brackish swamp water, I decided to use brighter water and make it about 80% transparent to give the players a better chance at spotting the now less hidden... well... some call it "easter egg", others call it "second phase of the encounter"

P.S.: there are four of those on the map, but the others are better hidden under the leaves...

3) I decided to get rid of most of the roots, as I did not want to deal with visibility changes where they reach into the water. Sloppily covered the tree trunks with leaves. should be good enough for printing purposes...

And here the full map in its final form:

I think this is the first encounter map I made with assets from different styles. The way I handled the switch between the styles felt a little clunky. Well, the switch itself was not that bad, but finding styles that had skeletons/bones in it in the first place was a bit of a challenge.

How do you guys handle this?

Hi Everybody!

After a long hiatus, where I was only able to visit you on the live mapping sessions, I finally found some time again to make a map myself

behold: the ritual place in an "elephant* graveyard"

*not actual elephants

Pretty happy already with the result, not so happy that it took my rusty brain way more than an hour to get it done :P

might want to play around a bit more with visibility of the roots when they get into the water and maybe add some more fluffy stuff. But now I'll call it a night :)