I'm ready to submit this intermediate map for the Kingdom of Enía, along the northern edge of the coast for the parent map above. This map will be the parent (or possibly grandparent) for a few villages I will be submitting to the contest.

Primary Style: Mike Schley Overland

Toggles: BORDERS/POLITICAL to show/hide political borders

Here is the FCW along with a PDF of the description:

Should I do a plain text file that strips out the accent marks? Here's the text of the description (with accent marks):

The elven kingdom of Enía is the northernmost coastal kingdom in the Gold Coast region of Dórian. The human Kingdoms of Vacuria and Travi lie to the south and east, respectively. Enía is significantly smaller in both population and geographic size than its neighboring kingdoms. The kingdom’s borders are marked by the Enía River along its southern border, and the Firessí River and edge of the Firessí Woods along its eastern border.

Enía is governed by a hereditary monarch who is advised by two political bodies: the Council of Adept Mages, and the People’s Assembly. The Council of Adepts consists of those archmages and adept mages able to cast the most powerful spells. The People’s Assembly includes a hundred citizens elected throughout the realm.

Major points of interest include:

Arynnor: The capital of Enía, called the “city of glass.” Here, elves pioneered glassblowing techniques both for ornamentation and practical purposes. This includes a technique to make glass nearly as strong as steel, which has allowed the elves to safely cover their towers with brightly colored glass domes.

Sather Academy: To the north of Arynnor, Sather Academy is an institution of higher learning with academic classes of all sorts, from history to astronomy, poetry to accounting, but it is most famous for two things: its Bardic Colleges, and its Arcane Academy for the formalized study of wizardry and arcane lore.

Lynelon: The coastal city on the northern bank of the Enía River, Lynelon is a bit smaller than the Vacurian city of the same name on the southern bank.

Firessí Woods: Much of the realm is covered by a mighty forest, the Firessí Woods. The woods are home to numerous tiny elven hamlets along with a few notable features. Towards the southern edges of the Firessí Forest lies an ancient henge of standing stones, the Firessí Temple, erected to honor the elven gods. It is the holiest place in all of Enía, and the seat of power for the Archdruid of Firessí, the most powerful religious figure in the kingdom. A small village, Yréas Kôltyn, provides a home for the elves who tend to the temple and provides accommodations for the temple’s many pilgrims. To the northwest of the temple lies the Tampuwari Ruins, the haunted ruins of a people so ancient, they disappeared long before the elves moved to the area. The ruins are best to be avoided. Farther to the north, Lathalas Glen is a town built up around a monastery of the same name.

Taenya Island: The small island is home to a few small villages and hamlets of wood elves Just to the north of the island among rocky reefs, Eilân Danaäd is a harbor village of sea elves with homes both above and below the waves.

Okay, I think I've done my final tweaks for my practice sewers.

I realized that my sewer pipes weren't actually doing anything, so I used end-pipes off of T junctures to allow the graywater they're carrying to be deposited into the sewer canals. Added a few more bridges over the canals because there were a few areas that were inaccessible to maintenance workers. Tightened up the border texture. Moved the water (Effluent 05) in the storm drain canals to a new water sheet to give it a slightly higher transparency. (Not sure if I did that effectively or not.) And I added a bit more drama to the tentacle action in the lower right.

Been plotting out how the waste management system in my major cities will work. From the age of 6 to 14, I grew up without electricity or indoor plumbing, so the ecology of outhouses isn't foreign to me. (What do you do when you fill one up? Dig another hole, and with enough time, the first one will be ready to be re-used again.) We sorted recycling long before curbside recycling existed (not that we had a curb -- we were a mile outside of our tiny town of 3,000 people). Compostables were sorted four ways: veggie peelings and ends for the rabbits in their elevated hutches, coffee grounds went to the worms that broke down the rabbit droppings below the hutches, egg shells were ground up and fed back to the chickens to give them calcium to strengthen their shells, and the rest went to the compost heap. Glass was sorted into separate bins for clear, green, and brown glass. Metals were sorted into separate bins for tin and aluminum. The rest was junk. Plastic wasn't as prevalent then and wasn't recyclable, and had to be taken to the dumps for landfill. So yeah, I've been thinking about the waste management issues for a medieval city. But also: humans and intelligent humanoids are nothing if not resourceful and inventive. In a fantasy world, what sort of burrowing or earth-eating creatures could be put to use to make tunnels easier than medieval humans could? What sort of debris-eating creatures like gelatinous cubes could be used to manage waste? No need in my world to dump untreated sludge back into rivers or oceans!

Here's an area map of the Eknapata Desert region on the northeast corner of the Gold Coast map. I decided to do it in the Scorching Sun annual. The mapping guide for the annual recommended Mike Schley Overland as a complementary style for additional symbols, so I used that for the pyramid at the city of Nekhmatunis, the ziggurat at the city of Khemtufu, and the half-buried statue and obelisk at the Sakherma Ruins. I also threw in a few of his camel-with-guide symbols to represent nomadic tribes, and a sandworm just for fun. There are a few more villages, too, and another monastery that I figured were too small to be on the parent map for the entire Gold Coast region. I also added a volcano, but figured that would be on the parent map. Since the parent map hasn't been submitted to the Atlas yet, I went back and added it to the parent map, too.

I'm enjoying the opportunity to try out different map styles with this project. I plan to design one city with Mike Schley's Mideastern symbols from SS5, and another with the Desert Oasis annual.

Yes, I did use the draw tools for the trees - worked great! For the river, I used "Change like draw tool" to change it to the 75-foot river. I also used the "Change like draw tool" for the sea (the straight closed polygon water tool), the three main roads, the round towers, the square gatehouse towers, the docks, the parks, and the buildings. I used the draw tools (but not the "Change like draw tools") for the city walls, the bridges, the trees, the darker grass beneath the trees directly to the south-east of the castle, the fields, the hedges, the dirt roads, the town square, and the forest on the north side of the map. For the heraldic symbol, I did as you advised, moving the components to the appropriate sheets and changing to a solid color. (Interestingly, the deer didn't fill in completely, just the outline.)

There were some minor issues that had to do with how Watabou exported the data. The river was in multiple sections, broken by the bridges, and the stretch between the final bridge and the sea wasn't there at all, so I did that part using the draw tools. The major road coming in from the west continued up the river a bit, so I had to trim off that part. Same with the road coming in from the south: it continued down the river from where I put the wooden bridge. So you just have to pay attention to what's being changed to make sure the right things are being changed properly, knowing that you might have to trim a bit here and there, or use the drawing tools to add a bit.

But overall, worked great! I am going to do a larger town now, and will time it to see how long it takes.

In a previous thread, Ralf encouraged us to post ideas for future annuals and artists we’d like to see. I know there’s been threads of these sorts of ideas before, but I thought I would take the opportunity to start a new thread, and I hope folks will add their own thoughts.

There’s this one artist whose style I really love. She’s super busy right now, but if she ever has a spare moment, I always love new additions from … Sue Daniel! ;-)

This month’s annual highlighting Mike Schley’s Overland symbols really emphasizes how much of his stuff we have to work with – not just overland, but city and dungeon, too. Since he’s been a longtime D&D designer, his style is great at capturing the same vibe when designing your own maps for D&D campaigns. In deciding what style I want to use for a new map, I often gravitate to his because of how much variety there is to work with. (If he’s looking for city and dungeon level ideas, I would love more Greco-Roman buildings and furnishings.)

So in that spirit, I would love to see more annuals with stuff that is compatible with other styles, particularly Darklands City and Spectrum Overland. I know that might be tricky to do an expansion of an annual released years ago. When an annual has an expansion, it’s generally in the same year (Marine Dungeons, Darklands City, Forest Trail, Monkey Frog Overland, etc.) so that a customer doesn’t have to buy two annuals to use both sets together. But what about expansions designed to stand on their own but also work complimentarily with previous sets? I’d love to see more settlement and adventure-hook symbols that are compatible with Spectrum Overland, and more structures/buildings for Darklands City (and the snowy versions for Winter Village). Right now I’m on an elves & dwarves kick, so elven/dwarven Darklands City structures would be awesome.

Other ideas:

Jungle/Swamp Adventures: something compatible with Creepy Crypts & Forest Trails, but with more jungle elements – palm trees, tropical trees, swamp trees (like trees in water with the ripple effects from Marine Dungeons), bright flowers and other foliage, monster/beast footprints, vines, traps, treasurers you might find adventuring in ruined temples.

Castle Construction: something like CA149 Beaumaris Castle, but with design tools and more castle-specific symbols. Symbols like gargoyles, varicolor flags & banners, crenellations (like the way Marine Dungeons lets you drop crenellations onto walls), machicolations/murder holes, plate armor, thrones, weapons, murder holes, siege/warfare equipment…

Inlays: I’ve mentioned this before, but I would also love more varicolor vector symbols that could be used for so many things like heraldic charges, floor inlays, stitching on fabric (rugs, banners, etc.) – animals, weapons, flowers, runes (in dwarven and elven styles), Celtic or elven design patterns, astrology and astronomy symbols, etc.

And here are some of the Mike Schley style:

Thank you! I definitely plan to submit this one to the Atlas. Nothing would please me more than to get a message from a stranger saying they used it in their campaign, and all of the antics that ensued.

Here's what I've done with adding murkiness to the heart of the Sea Hag's lair, and softening the cliff edges with weeds and rocks and weedy rocks. Oh, and a pile of bones and other debris.

The map is just the highlights of the trip. Here's the full itinerary. Why two weeks at Crater Lake? My extended family has a cabin a few miles outside of the park, so we were visiting family then before finally heading home.

June 9, 1972 — San Francisco, CA

June 9, 1972 — Big Sur

June 10, 1972 — San Simeon

June 10, 1972 — Los Padres National Forest

June 11, 1972 — Los Angeles

June 11, 1972 — Angeles National Forest

June 12, 1972 — Disneyland

June 13, 1972 — San Juan Capistrano

June 13, 1972 — Chula Vista

June 14, 1972 — Winterhaven, CA

June 16, 1972 — Tucson

June 16, 1972 — Chiricahua National Forest

June 20, 1972 — Deming, NM

June 21, 1972 — El Paso

June 22, 1972 — Carlsbed Caverns

June 22, 1972 — Cloudcroft, NM

June 24, 1972 — White Sands National Park

June 24, 1972 — Cibola National Forest

June 25, 1972 — Petrified National Forest

June 25, 1972 — Coconino National Forest

June 27, 1972 — Grand Canyon

June 28, 1972 — Glen Canyon Dam

June 29, 1972 — Manti-Lasal National Forest

June 30, 1972 — Price, Utah

July 3, 1972 — Thru Utah to Colorado

July 3, 1972 — Grand Mesa National Forest, CO

July 4, 1972 — White River National Forest

July 6, 1972 — Shadow Mountain Lake. Through WY to Nebraska

July 7, 1972 — Cadron, Nebraska

July 8, 1972 — Mt. Rushmore

June 9, 1972 — Thru Gilette, WY

June 9, 1972 — Big Horn National Forest

June 9, 1972 — Shoshoni National Forest

July 13, 1972 — Teton National Park

July 16, 1972 — Yellowstone

July 17, 1972 — White Sulpher Springs, MT

July 19, 1972 — Glacier National Park, Canada

July 20, 1972 — Waterton, Canada

July 21, 1972 — Banff National Park

July 23, 1972 — Mt. Baker National - Snoqualmie National Forest. Olympic National Forest

August 2, 1972 — Mt. Ranier

August 2, 1972 — Maple Leaf-Gifford Pinchat Natl Forest

August 3, 1972 — Portland

August 4, 1972 — Salem

August 5, 1972 — Crater Lake

August 17, 2024 — Redwood National Park

August 19, 2024 — San Francisco, CA

May I adopt this little unnamed elven village marked in the red box on Virinress'Arl? (Quenten, since you did the parent map, please let me know if this is encroaching on your future plans.)

OMG, I discovered that if you set three steps across with the center one (moved to front) in varicolor, you can create a carpet runner down the center of your staircase. My grand ballrooms will have the grandest of grand staircases!

I promise not to spam this thread with more discoveries, and will wait until Ralf has a chance to do the Live, but I just couldn't hold back with this one.