I was looking for a peaceful, zen mapping project and was inspired by the expansion of Viking symbols released today. It also gave me an excuse to using some of the glacier and icy Overland symbols that I've never used.

I didn't want to lift from Norse mythology and decided to go with Icelandic names, which I stole freely from lists on Wikipedia.

I will also post this in my galleries if anyone wants to zoom in closer.

I've been using DD3 symbols for interior furnishings lately because they are a better fit as a supplement to dungeon styles like Creepy Crypts. But I just had to play with Mike Schley's latest symbols (especially the astrolabe!), including some like the cliff symbols as well as the Stairs and Steps from last year's annual. I'm calling it this tower the Wizard of Schley...

(However, I just realized that although I have interior stairs going down, I haven't designed the basement yet. I will do that tomorrow.)

From Above

On the roof of his tower, the wizard paint the landscape by day and study the stars at night. He's also planted a little herb garden up here. The stairs to reach the roof are in the western tower; the southeastern tower is a chimney.

First Floor

This floor is principally used to receive guests, especially adventurers seeking to buy potions and scrolls, or to have curses removed, magical items identified, prophesies interpreted, or their destination scried upon to scope it out. He has set it up to impress and intimate guests, with an ornate throne for himself. Most of the magical devices that he might need for the typical visitors are available here.

Second Floor

The second floor is the wizard's main living space, with a kitchen and spacious dining area. The roof of the gatehouse can be accessed from here, and the wizard has set up a table and chairs here for outdoor dining on nice afternoons and evenings.

Third Floor

This is the wizard's bedchamber, bath, and private office. The main interior stairs end here, but a spiral staircase in the western tower continues up.

Fourth Floor

This is the wizard's workshop and summoning chamber. The tower stairs continue from here to the roof.

I made a few tweaks per Jim's suggestion. I added some misty cloud coverage above the castle, and also added some cloud wisps above the mountains and on the right side. I also added a few more smaller birds meant to look like they were flying lower.

I also discovered that Mike Schley's Overland style already has cloud symbols, but I wasn't sure how they'd work semi-transparent. I added them as a base to the castle but most of the clouds are still from Forest Trails.

Also made a few other tweaks, like adding hills to separate the grasslands from the default terrain, and a few more trees below the castle peeking through the clouds.

I looked through my symbols to see if there were any other flying creatures, but couldn't find anything. Mike Schley's lovely dragons were sleeping, not flying. I even checked WikiMedia Commons to see if there was a flying pegasus or dragon in public domain that would be suitable, but didn't find anything. If anyone has any other recommendations for other flying symbols, please let me know.

I have a habit of showing my work-in-progress and then forgetting to post the final. So here it is with two different roof styles. (For comparison, you can see the version done in the Marine Dungeons style in my gallery.)

Oh, and here's the FCW if anyone is interested in using it.

Here it is again with exterior features labeled quite pretentiously in Latin. Some of the terms came from sites describing architectural features of Ancient Rome. Others were crudely translated with Google Translate, so I welcome feedback from anyone who knows any bit of Latin. The description write-up will translate these terms and explain them, but basically:

1. Muri Magni (Great Walls)
2. Portae Turres (Gate Towers)
3. Turres Anguli (Corner Towers)
4. Stabula (Stables)
5. Custodes Domus (Guards’ House)
6. Sevorum Domus (Servants’ House)
7. Portico (Outside Covered Porch)
8. Villa Citri
9. Colonnade (Covered Column Walkway)
10. Balneae (Bathhouse)
11. Pomaria (Orchards)
12. Vinetum (Vineyards)

Yes, absolutely! I kinda forgot about that once I found a place in the Atlas for them. But as that may take me some time to submit, and then Remy some time to process, here they are in the meantime:

One thing to note: I found my computer getting kinda sluggish with some of these until I hid all of the outside stuff while working on the rest. (That cleared up when I rebooted.) To deal with that, I created an "OUTSIDE" layer for each of these and put almost everything that wasn't inside the tower on that layer. If you're customizing and find it slow, hide the OUTSIDE layer while you're working and that may speed things up.

Here are the final two above-ground floors of the main tower, though the central turret still needs to be mapped, and then the basement (and dungeons...gotta have dungeons!).

Sixth Floor

This is the wizard's personal suite. The spacious bedroom has a fireplace, a wide double windows, and a private balcony overlooking the garden. It also has direct access to a WC and bathing chamber. There are two other smaller rooms on this level, too. In the past, some wizards have used these rooms as bedrooms for their children. The current occupant's children are grown and have moved out. Their spouse uses one as an office for managing the family's personal and business accounts. The second is currently used for storage.

The spiral staircase on the north wall ends at this level. Another spiral staircase more to the center ascends from here through the seventh floor and into the turret.

Seventh Floor

The seventh floor, the final floor before reaching the turret and the roof, is reached through the central spiral staircase that continues up. This floor is where the magic happens...literally! The southeast room is the wizard's library, complete with a fireplace (with a staff displayed on top of it, numerous bookcases and scroll cases, and an ornate chest engraved with runes. The southwest room is the wizard's workshop, with another fireplace for heating water and all sorts of mysterious apparatuses and objects.

It doesn't take an 18 Intelligence or Wisdom (Perception) to notice that about half of this floor appears to be solid stone. Visitors who find the secret doors may discover two more hidden rooms. The circular room on the northeast side is a Teleportation Circle, with hidden passageways connecting it to both the central staircase as well as direct access to the wizard's library. The circular room on the northwest side is a summoning circle.

More to come!

It's "spooky season," so I had to map something in honor of the season. I have a few other ideas, including a swamp witch's home (we'll see if I can pull off designing a swamp). But first, a haunted mansion on a hill overlooking a church and its appurtenant graveyard.

This is done mostly in Creepy Crypts, with buildings from Darklands City and CD3, and a few things brought in from Forest Trail (mostly the trees and the tower ruins for wells). The stained glass window reflections are from the Mike Schley monthlies. (Why, you may ask, are the reflections outside? The last thing I will do will be to play with the lighting to show that this is at night -- the lights are inside the church, shining out, rather than the other way around.)

Working on the environs first and then with tackle inside. Still have to finish populating the graveyard and

Made some tweaks. Got feedback that if the pyramid may be an adventure hook that someone may want to map, maybe it shouldn't get cropped off the screen. Moved a few things around on the outcrop so that it could fit on screen. Also added the scale bar. Figured out that to edit the text from "miles" to "feet," I had to explode it first, then ungroup it to edit the text. But now I have this nagging memory that we aren't supposed to include scale bars in the Atlas?

Any other feedback or thoughts?

Coming along. Still need to finish figuring out the various shops and merchants that surround the town square (I have a general store and an apothecary so far), and then do proper labeling.