Haunted Hollow, Adept

This is the Haunted Hollow (40x45), a nice and big forest map with all the usual 'haunted' trimmings- dead trees, plenty of fog, and the classic spooky colors and lighting that we've all come to love. At least, that's how the map is now. This is the final paternity map I prepared and set aside so I could take a few months off, though it isn't the final one because I planned it that way, it's the last because I couldn't let myself post it before now due to it needing a little.. extra attention. Let's talk about it!

 1. Neat! Look at all those rock walls, footpaths, ledges, and extra bits! Pretty exciting, very detailed, but I promise you- this layout of rock walls would have been insanely visually confusing. These days I'm very careful about making sure rock walls read well and so please believe me when I say this would have been madness despite being theoretically cool. The little cave entrance especially would have been neat, but I recall having a hard time working it into that wall without it messing with the perspective of the ledge.

I think a map like this will definitely come around sooner or later (or at least one with similar notes) but not until I rework my rock walls a bit to feel more natural and less dizzying.

 2. This version is much better, though honestly the terrain is probably still a bit confusing. Maybe this doesn't need to be said, but I have been told many many times over the years that the topology of my terrain often doesn't read well despite how perfectly clear it might seem to me. Anyway, this version has 2 shallow trenches leading into a sorta recessed area with a circle of stones, perfect for weird forest rituals or whatever people do in the woods.

 3. As I mentioned, I took another pass at this map to fix the colors (top pic). I don't know what happened to them, but I bet I rushed things and didn't take time to make sure it matched up well with my other Haunted maps. The result was a vaguely bluish green tint that made the day version feel like an underwhelming and brightly lit night variant, and take my word that the other variants I made were worse.

To fix this, I opened up the Haunted Forest Trail and color-picked everything, then touched up the lighting and took another pass at the fog. Then I took a look at the variants and started over with them. The Blighted variant looked a lot like the base Day version but with a yellow filter on top- not great, seems lazy.