Here are the first two levels of the basement. Sewers still to come.

Basement 1

A wine cellar in the northeast corner is conveniently close to the stairs, so that the wizard or their staff can slip down for a few more bottles in the middle of a dinner party. Continuing clockwise, the other rooms are a freezer, a larder, a storeroom, and in the northwestern corner, a refuse pit is used to throw organic, wooden, and metal waste for disposal in the sewers.

Basement 2

The second level of the basement doesn't appear to have much. A corridor heading west leads to stairs that descend into the sewers. To the south, a cavernous chamber has been turned into the wizard's grotto. River water has been pumped in to make a man-made pond, heated to a pleasantly cool temperature by a few warm luminescent crystals. A second, larger pool is warmed by enough luminescent crystals to keep the water as warm as a hot bath. The room is lighted by clusters of luminescent fungi. On the western side, a spacious WC also doubles as a changing room.

But wait, there's more! This floor also has two secret passageways. One near the stairs leads to the Wizard's secret treasury chambers. The outer chamber is used for coins, gemstones, and other valuables. The second chamber, accessed through a short corridor protected by a Glyph of Warding holds the Wizard's magical treasurers. In addition to being about 30 feet underground and carved into the rocky hillside, the treasury is protected by marble walls that are five feet thick. Between these walls and the rocky cliff is another foot-wide wall of lead to protect the room against scrying eyes.

Another secret passageway north of the stairs leading to the sewers leads to a cavern, through which a secret Teleportation Portal can be accessed. The southwest corner has been sealed by a Wall of Steel, protected by another Glyph of Warding. If you get past that, the passageway quickly dead-ends into a pile of rubble.

The Wall of Steel and the rubble can be hidden using the RUBBLE layer:

FCWs

And here are the FCW files for these levels. (Remy, this is not the official thread for submitting to the Atlas. I will create a new thread with these maps properly labeled and described, plus a village map to come.)

Okay, the first thing I did was back another backup of the FCW in case I didn't like the fractalization and couldn't undo it. ;-)

The fractal command isn't something I've used that much, and when I tried it on this map earlier, I wasn't sure of which settings to play with. While I think the smoother map works for a map of this scale, I rather like the Depth 2, Strength 40, smooth result on the rivers. Fractalized a few of the roads but not all -- there were some where it just made the road look overly-caffeinated.

With the place names: I added names for the settlements and rivers that were missing them (let me know if I missed anything important). I've played with the Glow settings a bit. I'll post the FCW, too, if anything has adjustments to recommend.

Here it is without the borders:

And again with the redrawn borders:

Tweaked the text for the ones I saw that were too close to the border. I will have the borders set to be on, but the political borders and names of the other countries are all on the same layer, so they can toggle on and off at the same time.

I am ready to submit the Kingdom of Gongadûr area map for the Atlas. At least one village that I will be submitting to the contest will be within this region. (I have active plans for two others in this area but we'll see if time permits.)

The parent map is the Gold Coast map at the top of this thread.

Primary Style: Mike Schley Overland

Toggles: "Borders/Political" layer to turn on/off the political borders

Inspired by Ralf's tutorial a few weeks ago, where he combined the latest Hive symbols to create a sprawling Hive Metropolis, I wanted to also create a big city combining unwalled settlements into one big city. I decided, though, that I wanted to focus on the elven symbols, but as I was mucking about, I then decided to add an antagonist: the Dark Empire.

This was all just for fun, without a specific goal in mind. I find that mapping is a good way to clear my head. Maybe it's because it's simultaneously exercising the left and right sides of my brain, as I am creating a work of art but also having to do some analytical stuff with ordering sheets and working out effects.

Version 1: 4x5 Ratio

This first version uses a 1000x800 map, though symbols get resized so it's really just a 4x5 ratio.

It ended up being a little too zoomed out a little too much, but it did allow me to include some human, dwarven, orc, and magical plant communities. I ended up putting an ocean behind the land (but above the sky, which is the Background) and then using the Color Key Cutout effect to create lakes and rivers. I wanted the lake and river colors to more closely resemble the colors of the water in the waterfall symbols.

I will also put this, and some zooms of it, in my galleries so you can get a closer look.

Version 2: 5x7 Ratio

This one used a 500x700 map in order to get a 5x7 ratio, a good size for printing notecards. Here I tried to make the symbols bigger to have a more close-up look. With the elves, I also used some of Mike Schley's SS6 isometric city symbols.

Maybe I will add in some clouds to add a bit more to the skyline.

Here's how it's progressed so far today. (Still not wed to the name.) Still need to do more in the middle area that I am mentally calling the Midwest, even if it's just adding some hills with tiny rivers coming out of them. Trying to figure out where to place my existing maps and the future ones I'm planning.

I redid the two northern forests to add rivers, a road, and a few smaller settlements...and a henge of stones. That northernmost forest will be an elven community that is outside of the kingdom. (This style doesn't have a political borders tool, does it? I may have to create one, or just rely on labeling.) There's a tepui at the northern edge of the second forest. I haven't decided what will go on top of it. Maybe a castle? Maybe a temple with an oracle, like the Oracle of Delphi?

Here's a closer look at the desert. You can see where I plan to place my ziggurat. The obelisk to the south is apparently all that remains of an ancient temple that was long-ago swallowed up by the sands.

Added some cliffs near the coast. The whirlpool on the western side is about where my Octopus' Garden will go. The upper island, as I said before, will be a playground for the rich and famous, like a Monte Carlo.

And I made a little swampy river delta with a settlement akin to New Orleans that I envision being rife with smugglers and ne'er-do-wells.

In the southern mountains, which is outside of the kingdom's borders, there's a dwarven fortress. You can't see it, but you can see the pair of towers (towards the southeast corner of the map) that guard the mountain pass leading up to the fortress.

Let me know if you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas for more adventure hooks to add.

Added the missing pews and lounge furniture to the Fourth Floor:

And now, up another flight.

Fifth Floor

This floor is entirely for guests. Why would a wizard need plenty of guest rooms? Maybe he or she is the party's patron, and they come back periodically to receive instructions for their next adventure. Maybe adventurers periodically visit to have the wizard identify the magic items and artifacts they've found, or to help explain mysterious prophesies or other adventuring clues they've discovered. (Great opportunity for lore dumping!) Maybe the wizard's old adventuring party all decided to retire together in the tower.

There's a hallway closet between the internal stairs and external door. Another WC and bathing chamber. A small guest bedroom on the eastern side. And then two spacious guest suites on the southern side.

The southwest suite has a spacious living room with a double window, along with a separate bedroom with a "king sized" bed. But the other guest suite is for the real VIPs. Not only does it have a fireplace and working sink in the living room, it also has a private balcony with views of the river and the rear of the cherry tree garden.

These suites come are handy when adventurers visiting the wizard don't want to be separated. (Never a good idea to split the party!) The suites are large enough to accommodate the typical-sized party, assuming a few are willing to sleep on the couches or pallets on the floor. And for very large parties, the stone door separating the two suites can be unlocked to create a double-sized suite.

Onwards to the wizard's bedroom and workshop...

Coincidentally, I happened to watch one of the remakes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 2007 Nicole Kidman film Invasion) the night before Mike Schley's latest monthly symbols were released. Just for fun, I decided to do a quick-and-dirty map with the new Hive Civilization symbols. I hadn't gotten a chance to play with the Mesoamerican symbols (busy making villages when those symbols came out!), it gave me an excuse to try them out, too.

If there's a Hive expansion next month (they tend to come in pairs), maybe I will revise this same map to show the Kheek'zit invaders' expansion onto the mainland.

Tweaked the Marine Dungeons version a bit: darkened the deeper water a little more, added a few dead trees, added more algae, and a few more bones.

Still haven't finished the basement (got sidetracked with Cosmographer), but revisiting this to add some of the newest monthly symbols. I experimented with adding tombstones #4 and #5 from Mike Schley's latest monthly as decorations on the top of the tower, like where gargoyles and grotesques would go, but I couldn't get them to look right. And creating a little graveyard outside of the tower looked weird on such a small hill. But I couldn't resist doing something with the new symbols, so I added tombstone #4 as a statue amidst the trees on the western side, and the wheelbarrow next to the vegetable garden.

I think I've managed to get something from each of the 2025 monthly dungeon-scale symbols into one or more of these Wizard of Schley maps.