I have previously done the Republic of Lumadair, a portion of my campaign world, in many different styles. (There's an album in my galleries showing the different approaches.) I find it helpful to compare styles with a consistent coastline and terrain.

Anyway, here's a first pass at trying it with the new Ancient Realms Revisited annual.

I ended up using tower symbols instead of cities to show the major unnamed cities. I've only done a few of the icon symbols for major points of interest, though I can do more. Instead of putting the icons exactly where the locations would be, I put them off to the side with a dotted line to the actual location (similar to how I approached my Modern Journeys map).

This sort of forest approach rather than individual symbols isn't my favorite approach, but it's growing on me. For the coastal cities, maybe I should trace the coastline rather than being more freeform? Ralf brought in some Mike Schley symbols (Asian settlements) in his video tutorial, so maybe I will try that with Mike's tree symbols. I'm worried, though, that those tree symbols would make this look too much like a knockoff of Mike's overland style and not its own thing.

I did one custom symbol of a dragon, but I'm not thrilled.

I used a parchment background but maybe a solid color would be better? (The icon background is on a separate sheet, so I could see if a texturize effect helps.) Or I could put a tower icon as the main icon with a dragon over it. If anyone knows of better dragon symbols to use, let me know. (I thought about the heraldry icons from CA15, but I'm not so sure.)

And here's the lighthouse at night. Fires are kept burning all night, reflecting off of mirrors (or polished sheets of metal) to cast light away from the mainland, though a window allows for some light to spill into the courtyard.

By night, a glow from the sunken ruins reveals a magical portal beneath the waves....

Here it is with the missing asset deleted.

Haven't had much time to get back to it, but here's a slight tweak. Added some trees, made the sky bluer, but the big change was to the lake. I wasn't fond of how it looked like the waterfall stuck into the lake, so now the river pools into a lake but then continues as a river until rushing rapids leads to a waterfall off the cliff.

I have been out of town this week with family distractions, but I also had the week off of work, so I had a little time to dabble in mapping. I have been working on a township around the wizard's tower I mapped (you can find the exterior and interior maps of the tower in separate threads).

This is intended for the Atlas, in the Gold Coast region on the edges of the Kingdom of Vacturia, nestled in the foothills beneath Mt. Alomere. It is circled in yellow here:

The wizard's tower has been handed down through many generations to one of the wizard's apprentices (often but not always one of the wizard's own children). The town's economy has grown up around the presence of a mighty wizard in residence -- specifically catering to the adventurers and travelers who pass through. Many seek out the wizard for advice on an upcoming quest, or to decipher a prophesy. Some seek to have curses removed, magic items identified, or to stock up on potions and scrolls. The town, too, caters to the adventurers by providing services used by many adventurers. The blacksmith in particular has a busy trade not only in mending armor but also reselling used armor and arms bought from adventurers.

Since the town is in the foothills, I wanted to do some elevation changes. The wizard's tower was built on a Creepy Crypts base, so I continued with that, but also added cliffs and outcrops from Forest Trails and Darklands City.

I have been wanting to do a Roman-style villa for a while, so I decided to create a place for it here. I have added the RGB Matrix effect to the sheets the villa is on to make the Darklands City roof tiles redder.

I still have more to do, particularly thatched houses and farms closer to the walls. I wrote in labels but will replace them with larger numbers, with a legend off to the side.

Anyway, here's the township so far.

Properly labeled now.

Have to write up the full description, then do the same with all of the Wizard's Tower files, to get it ready to submit for the Atlas. I also want to design the sewers and the Villa Citri, but those can come later.

In honor of the day, I whipped together a quick shrine to everyone's favorite goddess of love, Aphrodite -- accessible through an underwater teleportation portal guarded by a pair of beguiled sharks.

I am ready to submit my dwarven mining village, Vidural Village & Mines.

Primary Style: SS5 (Mike Schley City Style)

Toggles: "Roof" layer to hide/unhide the mountaintop to show or cover the mines below

This is located in this yellow boxed area of the Kingdom of Gongadûr that was previously submitted in this thread.

I am ready to submit Yréas Kóltyn Village for the contest.

Primary Style: Forest Trail

Toggles: "Tree Canopy & Treehouses" to hide/unhide the trees to create a battlemap

It is located in the yellow boxed area here (the parent map was previously submitted in this thread):

Took a stab at creating a town in the lovely new Ancient Cities style by @C.C. Charron. It isn't a whole town, just the North Bank area that is the more prosperous part of the town. Only a smidge of the poorer South Bank area is shown.