Work in Progress: Plain Manor with Mancave

I mentioned in a previous post that there are a few iconic locales every map maker needs to take a swing at and this is one of them.

Most of the custom maps I see attempt to only map the cave. This, I feel, is disrespectful to the thousands of faithful butlers out there that defend their employer with great zeal. I also am a fan of showing transition in a map so I wanted to show outside the manor, the manor, and into the cave.

Traditionally the cave is lower than the house, this is an interesting dilemma as that would force the manor and outside the manor into being elevated terrain. Technically the first 12 columns (all of the grass and manor interior) should be surrounded by a red line. Then the 6 manor columns and the 12 cave columns should have a yellow line.


I could end the dilemma by removing the two sets of stairs into the cave on the top and bottom of the map, but I feel the stairs are visually necessary. We all have that image of a certain butler carrying down a tray of vittles to his master.

Anyway this map is easily 10 man hours away from completion. The bathroom needs to be fleshed out and I need to paint in wall shadows, clean up some viscous transitions and add terrain lines. So I wanted to let everyone see the work -in-progress and give me a shout out as to whether I should bag the steps and lose the elevated terrain dilemma or keep them and roll with the big 12 columns of elevated terrain.

Post your thoughts here or on HCRealms at http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=290394

Thanks for reading.