Cluttered Basement, Adept

I'm back this week with the Cluttered Basement (10x8), a small and simple map for when a building's basement unexpectedly develops into the focus of an encounter and you had nothing prepared.

Also, you're getting two variants of this one! First is the Sprouting Basement, which has a collapsed wall and some concerning glowing mushrooms growing in. Second stars an even more concerning gigantic pit, which probably is spitting out terrible monsters from the deep or toxic fumes. Either way, I think some capable adventurers are needed here.

 1. So, I wanted to make lots of options for this map as I planned on this being a simple map that you can swap in for lots of potential basements. The choices we've got here are the base version at the top left, sprouting, wizard, bedroom, spider webbed, and pit. I changed the bedroom and spider web variants after realizing how short on time I was, but the rest more or less stayed the same, a pretty solid collection that offer some fun prompts I think!

 2. As you can see, the bedroom and spider web versions turned into a rubble-filled 'derelict' variant and a 'flooded' variant. The flooded one was an option I was considering from the start but wasn't too sure how I'd make it without it feeling like the regular map with a blue filter on top. I think I figured out a decent solution as you'll see below. The derelict one I thought would be nice for horror campaigns, haunted basements or cellars beneath abandoned houses felt like a necessary option to have on hand.

But, as I was saying, I had to come up with those options because I spent way too long detailing the regular and wizard versions of the map (especially the wizard one). Sometimes I just get caught up on adding props and can't move on until I've added something interesting to every surface. Then, later, I look back and shake my head at the hours I wasted.

3. As it turns out, shading 6 completely different maps is hard. I was originally hoping I could get away with copying over some basic lighting onto each room and tweaking from there but that would only work for the 3 gray versions, but even then the pit and derelict versions were too well lit and everything needed lots of touch-ups. Then there are the other 3 which each needed special attention. Tricky stuff, too much to talk about really, but I really just wanted to make sure that each one was given the attention they needed and done to a satisfying degree. I hope I look back at these in a week and think that each looks finished. I have a feeling that I'll think the wizard version needs an extra pass, maybe the derelict one too.