I've been working on a 1000 x 1000 mile part of western Doriant that I adopted. (This is separate from the elvish town in Verinress Arl, Artemisia, that I adopted for the 1000th map contest.) I know that new maps for the Atlas aren't being accepted until October, but that's perfect because it will give me a chance to do more detailed maps of specific settlements and points of interest at the same time.

I previously posted about this map in a previous thread, but I've decided to rename it, so I'm starting a new thread.

If it's okay, I would like to rename this the "Gold Coast," a regional term for an area so named because of the sandy beaches and tawny dried coastal grasses in the summer. It's an area that encompasses a region that includes a predominantly human kingdom of Vacuria, the inland human kingdom of Travi, a small elven kingdom to the north called Enía (a constitutional monarchy with a hereditary monarch and an elected Assembly), and a small dwarven kingdom in the southern mountains called the Kingdom of Gongodûr.

I still want to create a Borders drawing tool to draw the borders of each kingdom, but for now, this is what I have:

I have discovered that naming things is one of my bigger challenges. For several years, I've been maintaining a list on my phone of fantasy RPG character names, some of which could just as easily be used as place names. I also tried an old trick I used for naming gods in different pantheons in my campaign world: pick a language available on Google Translate and then look up words to find something tweakable for the god. (For a Thor-like god, for example, I might look up words for thunder, lightning, storms, etc. to find a word that could be modified a little to be a name.) And I also found a Wikipedia list of small towns in England and tweaked them (like changing the suffix from -ford to -port). And there are also a whole lot of patterns: a river that flows from a mountain may take its name from the mountain, and the village beside the river might as well.

Questions:

1. What did I miss that should be named?
2. Do you have any changes to recommend for fonts, font colors, or sheet effects on text labels?
3. Any other thoughts?

Here are some zoomed-in views to make it easier to see. In the future, would be better to post the larger map in my galleries so that folks can zoom in?

I am writing up the description for the Eknapata Desert area of Gold Coast region of the Community Atlas. It was designed using the Scorching Sun annual. Any feedback on the map before I submit it?

Hi @Quayuazue! I think you’re describing a different place than mine, but just in case, I wanted to show you the place I’ve already adopted. It’s the village in the red box here:

I’m looking forward to seeing your approach to these villages!

Related to this village: I am planning on submitting an intermediate map of the Kingdom of Enía portion of the Gold Coast. And now I'm thinking that I might also do another map of just the Firessí Woods. I think it might be easier to do the Firessí Woods map now than after this temple village is added to the Atlas.

If I do create a Firessí Woods map, are there any sorts of adventure hooks or mapping possibilities you'd recommend including? I have the Tempuwari Ruins, which were meant to provide a place for an adventure reminiscent of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other than adding a few more tiny elven hamlets, and maybe a few cave openings in hills, are there other mapping/adventure hooks you'd like to see?

This is really lovely. My only ever-so-slight feedback is that my old eyes are finding it a little difficult to read the legend, so I would consider increasing the opacity of the background fill/color slightly.

Don’t worry about Cobble Final. It shows as missing on mine, too. Remy said something about how that shows up and is a weird legacy fill, or something like that.

The Beaumaris Castle fills are from CA 2019 (volume 13). Did you get that one?

Moat is a water fill from Vol 13 but you could substitute any water fill you want.

Per Quenten's suggestion, I have been playing with the Line Styles for the roads. I didn't try creating a custom one, but I did try some of the other presets, and they didn't really work. I also tried checking the Paper Scale checkbox, and that had weird effects when I zoomed in.

Here's an attempt that sets the roads to be solid and leaves the guided routes as dotted lines. I like that it makes it a bit clearer which ones are actual roads. I will also put it in my WIP gallery to make it easier to zoom in. Thoughts?

Thank you!

I admit that I drew from a lot of different sources. The base is CA186 Creepy Crypts (2022), which I used in preparation for when I get to the basement/dungeon section. The main fills for the walls and floors of the tower itself come from CA149 Beaumaris Castle (2019), and the windows are from that, too. Most of the furniture comes from Dungeon Designer 3, but some are drawn from CA14 Symbol Catalogs (2008), and some of the fireplaces are from Shessar's free supplement. Some of the outside vegetation comes from CA141 Japanese Temple and CA143 Asian Town (both 2018).

Normally when designing something for the Atlas, I try to limit it to just a few styles to minimize the chance that others might be missing chunks of it. This time, I gave myself free rein to create my wizard's "dream home."

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

Also: DD4 things! Squeeee!