Sneak Peek - Lunch Break Heroes Adventure "The Shadow Over Middledew"
Added 2023-04-20 17:03:33 +0000 UTC
Hey everyone, and happy Sneak Peek Thursday!
I've been working tremendously hard on the next Lunch Break Hereos adventure maps, which are set to be released this upcoming Monday. I'm excited to announce that you will have a total of three full new battlemaps to go with this, and all will be outdoors / forest encounter maps.
Even if you don't plan on using them for the adventure, I'll be creating "Gloom" versions of each one perfect for your Dark Fantasy games or encounters in the Svalic Woods.
I'll have more details on the adventure on Monday, but so far can talk about the maps I'm working on for this release:
- Map 1: We will be repurposing my rebuilt Village of Berez map with a few minor tweaks to it for the main town
- Map 2 (New): There is an encounter where your players will need to scale a 300-foot cliff. This map will have a massive cliff face along with a rocky ravine and some forest
- Map 3 (New): A forest road map for some encounters listed in the adventure. I know forest roads are not the most exciting of maps, but as a DM, I find myself always wanting new variations, and it's always great to have a new road map for encounters!
- Map 4 (New): There is a destroyed bandit camp nestled within the forest, and something terrifying taking up residence in the nearby cave. This map will feature the lower half of the forest and camp, along with the upper half as a large cave with an underground lake.
As I've been doing with my more recent LBH Adventure maps, I'll be creating versions without adventure specifics in them as well for you to use as a repurposed map for your own encounters. I plan to create day, gloom (with and without fog), night, and time-permitted rain.
Additionally, I want to comment on forest maps in general. I know you can't throw a rock without hitting a dozen forest maps, so it has always been my personal goal to make them feel as natural and immersive as I can. My main focus is to add an overgrown and wild feel to these forested locations, along with plenty of elevation and uneven terrain and a focus on depth, height, and shadows. I'm very happy with the changes I've made to my forest approach, and I hope you will be as well.
I will catch up with you all Monday for this massive release!
Update: Thanks to a wonderful suggestion by one of our community members, I've also included a second sneak peek shot of the forest without the tree canopies. On this variant, I will add tree trunks and keep the tree shadows, but without the tree canopy giving you more flexibility in running encounters with trees.
Cheers,
DM Andy
Comments
Hey there Ian! That's a great suggestion and something I had not thought of. I know in the past I've had request around creating the tree tops as a .png layer but due to licensing issues with Inkarnate, I'm not able to provide .png's. However, as of late, I've been creating my trees in groups as I will often use dozens (in some cases hundreds) of assets to create a single tree. The good news here is this makes it easy for me to remove them from a map. I created a few tree trunks and left the tree shadows in place and uploaded the same sneak peek image of the cliff map on this post but without trees (it's low res but will be higher res on release). I'm hopeful this will be a good solution for you and if so, I can make these type of variants a standard when I do an outdoors map. Cheers!
Andy D'Amato
2023-04-20 18:59:00 +0000 UTCAndy, While I've always loved your maps and unique style, I've often found using your overgrown forest terrain maps difficult to use due to the presence of abundant treetops making it difficult to tell where the ground is. Have you considered using variations where the treetops are semi-transparent and only the trunks are solid, so the players and DM have a better tactical understanding of what's providing physical cover and what is merely obstructing vision at ground-level?
Ian Evans
2023-04-20 17:27:02 +0000 UTC
