Let’s climb up to the second landing, where we are standing on the roof of level 12 facing the side of level 13. There are eight entrances, one on either side of the four exterior stairs. The entrances in the northwest and southeast quadrants go straight ahead into level 13, while the entrances on the southwest and northeast quadrants immediately descend down 10-foot side stairs to level 12.

Level 13

No one actually lives in the temple. There are no kitchens or similar facilities. Even so, occasionally people are allowed to spend the night there. High ranking priests may sleep there after a late-night religious rites, or the night before an early morning religious service. Pharaohs sleep there the night before their coronations, and sometimes on other occasions. Level 13 has four bedrooms set up. Towards the center, there are interior stairs ascending to Level 14 and descending to Level 12.

Let’s go up, and then we will make our way back down.

Level 14

This level has three more bedrooms, plus a fourth room with a strange design carved into the floor tiles. (Is it a summoning circle? A teleportation portal?) Stairs in the center ascend to 15 and descend to 13.

Level 15

This level has three treasure chambers, all connected through a central room where guards are stationed. Stairs ascend to Level 16 and descend to Level 14.

Level 16

This level has a large 30x30 foot chapel in the center of the level. Three side rooms are dressing chambers for the priests. They are sparsely furnished, but have chests containing the priests’ vestments.

The chapel is 20 feet high, cutting into Level 17. A crude representation of the sun (looking more like a bullseye target) is painted on the floor in gold leaf. There are no stairs going up, because there is nothing above this level except for the upper half of this chapel. Here’s what it looks like from Level 17:

There is nothing on Level 18. It’s just solid stonework.

Let’s make our way back down to Level 13 and use the interior stairs to descend to Level 12.

Making progress on the symbols from Forest Trail. Cliff and river bank symbols have been swapped out for their snowy counterparts. Same with the ruins symbols, and the wooden bridge. Changed the trail on the western side of the wooden bridge to use the Forest Trail effects. Added breaks in the ice for the Spruce River, and as it continues down the Whispering Pines River.

For the ruins, there wasn't a snow-covered version that I saw. I thought about covering it entirely with a hill of snow, but discovered that I could make frosty patches using the "Terrain Default Cliffs Drifts" drawing tool, which I will also use (on separate sheets) to add a little snow to the rocky outcrops. This is how it looks on the ruins close-up:

Not sure I like the frost on the upper part of Whispering Pines River. Not sure if I should expand it, so it covers more of the iced-over part, or reduce/eliminate it.

Still need to swap out the trees and add snow to the outcrops.

It's really great. I particularly like how you did the fence posts and railing. I can't think of anything I'd change or add.

One of the projects I'm working on is an attempt to create a fortress loosely modeled after The Armory in San Francisco (here are some pix I took nearly a decade ago, so no copyright violation posting them):

After a bit of research, I've learned that the dome-shaped part of the roof is actually called a barrel roof. In my version, the roof would be split in the center and retractable, allowing for flying creatures housed inside to be able to fly in and out when the roof is retracted.

I've been trying to create the barrel roof using a variety of techniques and effects, but I'm not super thrilled with all of my results. First, I tried taking domes from City Domes and enlarging with different XY values to make them oval. I like how it looks, but for a different project. Not the barrel roof I'm looking for.

I tried adding walls at the ends to chop off the ends, but it's still not a barrel roof.

Then I tried something totally different: going for two rectangular polygons with the Shaded Polygon (Angled by Edge) effects, as if going for a peaked roof, and then adding a series of Glow effects to suggest curvature. There are three Inner Glow effects on this, with a Blur of 4, 8, and 16 map units:

This is getting closer, but I would love any suggestions with effects or an entirely different approach to achieve a proper barrel roof. Here's the FCW for the latest attempt, if that helps.

And here's the third and fourth levels of the church. The main part of the church is covered by a dome, but it's all open air from the balconies up. The only portions with stairs going higher than the second floor balconies are the two towers on the southern side.

Level three of the towers has a light source shining through the windows, like mini-lighthouses. I like the look of the brazier on the right, but it didn't quite make sense unless it was on the top floor (where I put bells). Even if it were something like the DND Continual Flame spell, where the magical fire emits light but not heat or smoke, it still doesn't make sense if it engulfs the inner wall of a stairwell that is continuing up. So I did an alternate version on the left side using luminescent crystals.

And then there are great bells on the fourth floor of the towers, which come from Dundjinni Archives.

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.

Okay, here's a larger town. I kept getting interruptions, but I'd say it took me about two hours. This time I imported the trees, but I must have been doing something wrong when I changed like draw tool, because I was just getting the outlines. I ended up manually adding the trees using the draw tool.

With this map and my previous ones, I changed the buildings in small batches, by blocks or neighborhoods. I did that in part because I kept missing roads, and then adding them as I was going neighborhood by neighborhood. When I tackle a big city, I will try it where I do everything else first, eliminate extraneous non-building import lines, and then select everything left to convert into buildings.

This is what Watabou gave me:

And this is what I turned it into:

I am really liking this Parchment style for large-scale maps. I don't think it would suit my campaign world overall, but I can see my adventurers finding an ancient map in this style in some crumbling ruins, or being given one in this style when they consult with a sage or wizard for advice.

I have been looking forward to seeing what you do since you first claimed Elkton.

Also: DD4 things! Squeeee!

I met Anne McCaffrey some years ago and she urged those in attendance to compile and keep a list of names which we could draw upon whenever we needed one. That practice has stuck with me all these years later, and I have lists of thousands of names I can use.

That's what I do, too. Unusual last names are good fodder for fantasy realm names of people or geographic places, though I sometimes tweak the spelling. I keep a notepad list on my phone that jot down names as I encounter them. Every so often, I paste the list into Excel where I can make notations when I use a name.