Level 6

We are now in the lowest of the three sections of the temple. Most of the tombs contain two chambers: a treasure room and a burial chamber. A few will have multiple treasure chambers, and occasionally there may be more than one burial chamber in the suite.

Great pharaohs used to be buried with their wealth, but centuries ago, a new pharaoh decided to keep his father’s wealth, and instead buried his father with colored glass replicas of his jewelry. The pharaohs are generally entombed in a sarcophagus on a raised platform. Other sarcophagi in the room will usually be upright along the walls, but may be occasionally laid flat on the floor, a sign of great honor to the decedent. These are for the final resting places for people important to the pharaoh: spouses, valued concubines, children who did not themselves become a pharaoh, and occasionally even favorite servants like nannies who are treated as family. Those who predecease the pharaoh are reinterned at the time of pharaoh’s internment. For those who live after the pharaoh’s death, the tombs are opened to admit their remains, sometimes decades after the pharaoh’s internment.

Also of note: in this section, the stairs up and stairs down are generally far from each other, perhaps as a way to confuse and confound intruders intending to loot the tombs.

Level 5

This level has more tombs, but there are a few things of note.

On the west side, there is a burial chamber where the entrance to the treasure chamber and burial chamber have been destroyed, and the treasures and sarcophagus have been looted. The passageway to this section has been sealed but otherwise left untouched. It is the only looted section in this active temple.

Another burial suite is empty, waiting for a future pharaoh.

In the southeast corner, there’s a chamber with a great number of sarcophagi, some still empty. This room is the final resting place for high priests who have been honored to lay at rest near the great pharaohs.

One mad pharaoh had his burial chamber and three treasure rooms hidden behind a trapped secret door. The passageway also contains a covered pit that drops unwary intruders 20 feet to Level 3.

Level 4

More burial chambers. (Note the shaft for the pit from Level 5 that descends to Level 3.)

Level 3

More tombs. (I noticed that some of the raised platforms don’t have a sarcophagus on them. Not sure if I forgot to place them, or if I placed them on the wrong sheet. I guess one of them might be for the reigning Pharaoh, and already contains the remains of predeceased loved ones, but that would only make sense for one of these tombs. Maybe the mummies just walked away?)

The pit trap from Level 5 ends here. Those who survive the 20-foot drop may discover a secret door that leads to another hidden chamber, where another secret door allows escape to the rest of the temple. The skeletal remains suggest that one poor soul either didn’t survive the fall or never found the secret door to allow their escape.

Level 2

More burial suites, along with some storage rooms for unused pots and urns.

Level 1

More tombs, along with stairs that descend to subterranean levels of the temple. (What, more levels?)

Hi Remy @Monsen!

I have discovered an Atlas submission for the city of Kukaar that I either failed to tag you in or quite possibly failed to submit at all. My Apologies! This is ready to be added at your leisure.

This is for Doriant - Gold Coast - Eknapata Desert - Kukaar. You'll find Kukaar in pretty much the center of the Eknapata Desert map. It does not have an unusual toggles.

Thank you!

I agree for the same reason: seeing more of the tower. I changed the varicolor to be a slightly darker yellow.

Here are a few more options. Top left is from DD3 Creatures (tried to make it look like it was crawling up the tower), top right is from CA15 Heraldic Symbols, and the bottom two are from Shessar's heraldic symbols (dragon on left, wyvern on right). I'm leaning towards Shessar's wyvern in the lower right.

Realized I didn't have any stains or scum, so added a bit. Really love how this template includes so many different effects options for adjusting the coloring.

Here is the basement of the temple:

Toggle: SECRET layer to show/hide the secret passage escape route.

Description

Although trainees and junior monks live in barracks on the monastery’s grounds, the more senior monks have quarters in the temple’s basement, where trainees may join them for the final meal of the day. The basement also includes a kitchen and a crematorium, which share a chimney that rises outside the temple on its northwest side. Senior monks are interred in sarcophagi in the temple’s crypts when they pass away, but trainees and junior monks are cremated, with their cremains interred in urns in a columbarium.

A circular room that connects to the crypts is used for funeral services and other rituals. There is a teleportation portal here that the senior monks can use to access the Zhao Guang Si’s Trials of the Elements. Trainees who survive those trials will be teleported where upon completion of all four trials.

Ralf does demonstrate it at the end of this "Fractal Terrains to Parchment World" tutorial (around the 38 minute mark), using a full world Parchment Map that he had created the week before.

I played around with Edge Fade settings on the TERRAIN ROCK sheet and settled on an Edge Width of 4 units, an Inner Opacity of 100%, and an Outer Opacity of 25%. (In comparison, the grass, earth, and other textures have a width of 15 units, an Inner Opacity of 100%, and an Out Opacity of 0%.)

Here's how it looks full size, plus a few coastal zooms.

I decided against trying to "erode" the levels of the ziggurat. It was a lot to change, and I decided that I will keep the technique in mind next time I do one. Instead, I focused on adding layers of the sand texture to each level of the temple (except for the top portion that the priests are more diligent about sweeping). I tried to vary the patterning by starting drawing from different corners, but I'm not sure that helped much. I might alternate which of the sand textures are used, as I did set each to different scalings. I like the color and scaling of #4 the best but I really should change it a little so you don't see angled paths of no sand like on the north face.

I also added the edge of a mountain using the same techniques as the dunes, but with the bevel isn't smoothed as much, and I used a dark brown earth fill. Maybe I should move the mountain to the NW or NE corner?

Round 3! These fog symbols are scaled at x4.

Ooops, just noticed that I overlooked a change in Spring that I had intended: changing the farm fields to just furrows, since it's spring and the crops were just planted and wouldn't have come in yet.