Champion Tier - Ancient Oak - [30x40]

Hey everyone, and happy New Release Monday! Taking a brief pivot from the Gothic Village map, I thought I would create a new and updated forest map; while there are a number of forest maps out there, I always feel as a DM, we can never have enough of these. There are so many hidden secrets a DM can add to the forest, especially in campaigns like Curse of Strahd, where any number of horrors and secrets could await your players. 

In this instance, one of the pillars of the CoS community, DragnaCarta, has created a fun encounter in his updated Curse of Strahd Reloaded guide regarding a hidden cache in the Svalich Woods by Van Richten, which the players can locate. 

If you're looking to include this in your own games, you can find the write-up here. 

I created this map to flow from the bottom toward the looming ancient oak tree. I've created some height with the surrounding mossy rocks to form a sort of valley on either side of the central pathway. This creates plenty of space for ambush encounters to occur or even rocky terrain to traverse as your party attempts to close in on ranged targets. 

With just a splash of color, I've added some vibrant red flowers blooming on the bare oak tree. A nature walk inspired this I did recently where I saw a barren tree, free of all its leaves with spindly, reaching bare branches. The only sign of life on this tree were these vibrant red flowers that had begun to blossom, creating a lovely stark contrast with the grey bark. 

I wanted this map to feel overgrown and deep within the forest. Though it's in a small clearing, I wanted to portray a sense of looming trees creaking and leaning toward the party as they approach this large, twisted oak tree. 

Of course, I've created 8 different color variants to help capture the perfect mood for your games, and I've added all of the standard weather effects with fog, rain, and sunray options. 

For my Champion Tier patrons, you get the following with this release: 

• 8 Color Variants
• Fog, Rain, Sun Ray options
• 4k & 8k image resolution 
• Jpg & Webp file format
• Grid & NoGrid options
• VTT Sizing Guide

With the last map of Feb released, I have quite a busy March planned, which I'm happy to share with you all. 

Of course, next up, I'll be finishing the Gothic Village, which, to date, is one of my most detailed village maps. This will include the detailed upper levels for the 2nd floor, and a few of the buildings will have attics and towers to flush out. I'll also include the Death House variants with all the upper levels of the home baked into the map, so you have lots of options for use in your games. 

On the Saltmarsh front, while I'm super excited about Sharkfin Bridge, I'm going to skip over that location for now since I have many other larger interior projects on my docket this month (and interior buildings are the most time-consuming). So, instead, I'll head over to Kester's Leather Goods shop and circle back to Sharkfin Bridge later.

On the Dark Fantasy side of things, I'll be working on re-works of the key locations from VoB (Church / undercroft, Mad Mary's, the inn, etc), and I'm also hoping to finish the restored Burgomaster manor from Berez (Which mainly supports the Interactive Tome of Strahd supplement but could also provide a nice manor map for general use). 

I can't wait to share this work with you all in the upcoming month! 

As always, THANK YOU for your continued support and belief in my work! <3

Cheers,

DM Andy