Map 1 of 26!: The Lost Jungle!

Map 1 of 26!: The Savage Land... err... umm... The Lost Jungle! Phew, I was just nearly grazed by a Cease and Desist!

A fellow realmser challenged me to do a Savage Land map. I always liked the idea of a hidden dinosaur jungle nestled in a secret Antarctic valley so I jumped at the challenge.
For me this map needed a few things to symbolize what I envision when I think of this location. I needed the elevated ice plains, I needed jungle, and I needed dinosaurs... lots of dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs added some gaming challenges. What kind of terrain are dinosaurs: hindering, blocking? I hate blocking terrain that shouldn't be blocking like the tank on the airbase map. In the end I liked the idea of clumps of jungle with dinosaurs hidden inside and just roping a green line around the whole mess. I still wanted an unobstructed dinosaur on the map and so I went with a quick hindering carcass.

Remember, I'm no artist and there are a lot of artistic concepts that are long outside my abilities. The transition from elevated ice shelf to lowland jungle for me was difficult to achieve. The mechanics of the game only provide two types of terrain that allows a grounded figure to traverse between elevations: steps and ladders. I tried to pull off a convincing natural rock staircase up the cliff and didn't like the way it looked. Ultimately, I opted for the rope ladder. I assumed one of the mutates left it there!

Also... I need to do a quick shout out to the gangs at the Dundjinni forums and RPGMapshare who basically provided me everything I needed to get my feet off the ground.