Since dreaming costs nothing, what features would you like in the new Annual 2023? I would particularly like to suggest:

Cityes - Mayan/Aztec/Inca constructions

Modern/Steam punk/Pos apocalyptic

Overland - Modern/steam punk/post apocaliptic (preferably similar to the mike schley style so we can use the numerous images already made.

Oriental and African Structures for Mike Schley Overland.

A monthly issue dedicated to Frames and cartouches to beautify the maps.

Cheers

In response to the request, I decided to copy and paste here - as well as add more information, the recent conversation I had with Master Quenten, with the intention of sharing the idea, who knows, it might be useful to someone.

This tutorial is about a way to compose the landscape and help with the depth of the map. I only use images from Mike Schley Overland, but it can be used in any style.

The two images above are made up of 3 hills on the left in a zig zag pattern and three hills in a group on the right, in the shape of a horseshoe.

below I chose the exact same two hills as a group. the left "turned" to the left and the right I clicked mirror to invert the image and place it on the right. Note how this simple inversion of the image also inverts the perspective of the drawing. If my maps go "to the left", I try to invert the images so that they go in the same desired direction... it takes a little more work but I notice a big aesthetic difference.

Staying at home in very hot weather (38-47 Celsius) has some advantages, making more maps sweating a lot and with a fan on Max on the CPU :). I've been studying the region and I'm taking the liberty of picking Bleak Castle @JimP <3. After all... one more ruin is always useful.

Chronicles of a Historian – The Terror of Bleak Castle

May the gods have mercy on my soul for all that I have seen and for all that I dare to recount in these pages. My name no longer matters much, for what I experienced in Bleak Castle has left such a mark on me that I am no longer the man I once was. For years, I have traveled through forgotten kingdoms, delved into dusty parchments, and listened to the whispers of the last old men who still remembered the horrors of the past. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what I found in those cursed lands.

Ever since I heard the first reports about the three fortresses to the east, I have felt the call of history. They said that, at the foot of the Churning Mountains, stood the ruins of the castles Bleak, Arrow, and Good Behavior, sentinels of a dark past, abandoned to a fate forgotten by time. The few villagers who still lived on the edges of this forbidden land warned me with pale faces and downcast eyes. They whispered of night whispers, ownerless shadows, nameless misfortunes. They told me that those who dared to approach never returned. But I did not listen. A scholar does not bow to superstition. He laughs at the foolish fears of ignorant peasants.

And so I stayed three months in those lands and regret every moment.

The Three Fortresses and Their Secrets

Upon reaching the ruins, I was faced with a sight I will never forget. Bleak Castle, along with Arrow and Good Behavior, dominated the horizon like a trio of immortal shadows, relics of an era that time itself had tried to erase.

The walls were cracked, consumed by abandonment, but they still resisted, as if something kept them standing. The wind that came down from the mountains carried a chill that came not only from the altitude, but from something deeper, something that seemed to crawl under the skin and infiltrate the bones.

And then there were the stones. They were unlike any castle I had ever seen. They were not carved or stacked, but molded, cast, as if the fires of hell itself had created them. Some bore marks, symbols that time had worn away but could still be seen by the keen eye.

And there was silence.

Not an ordinary silence, but a suffocating emptiness, as if the earth itself held its breath in horror. No animal ventured there. No bird flew across the sky above the fortresses. It was as if the world had forgotten that this place existed.

Then I understood. Bleak Castle is not dead. It merely waits.

The Rites of the God of Blood and Darkness

My research led me to ancient accounts, forgotten fragments of a time that few dare to remember. I discovered that the castles were not military bastions, but temple-fortresses erected by an unholy cult. A cult of the God of Blood and Darkness.

These worshippers were not mere priests. They were warlords, sorcerers, and assassins, corrupted souls who served not men, but something far worse. With each great red moon, the gates of Bleak Castle would open and the followers of the cult would drag their victims to the Black Altar. Men, women, children… No one was safe.

Blood flowed like a river. Screams echoed through the walls, but nothing ever answered them. No benevolent god came to save them. No avenging warrior put an end to the carnage. The castle gates closed and the sacrifice continued, unwitnessed, uninterrupted.

The blood was not spilled in vain. It fed something. Something that waited in the depths. Something that, perhaps, still waits.

My Last Impressions

I will never forget that night.

Mist crept through the ruins, wrapping around the ancient stones like spectral fingers. My eyes were heavy with fatigue, but my ears picked up something I didn't want to believe was real.

Footsteps.

Footsteps shuffling, coming from the depths.

I closed my eyes, shivering, trying to convince myself that it was just the wind, just the cracking of stones in the cold of the night. But then I heard the whispers.

They weren't words. They were formless sounds, echoes of something that no longer belonged to this world.

I don't know how long I stood there, motionless, frozen in terror. But when the first ray of sunlight touched the broken walls of Bleak, I fled. And I didn't come back.

The lands around the three fortresses are dying. The rot spreads, slow and inexorable. Perhaps the cult has been extinguished, perhaps its priests have perished... but something still inhabits that place.

And I fear that, one day, it will awaken.

Lorenzo Vademecum – historian, philosopher and traveler

I'm sorry we don't have any oriental MS buildings in ruins. So I adapted with what I had, I put a moss green roof to desguise the duomos that top the trees.

Kolrik the Storyteller tells about the Ruins of Khaz-Midra:

"Friends, let me take you to a place where time bends and logic gives way to mystery: Khaz-Midra, the forgotten city in the heart of an eternal swamp. Hidden by mists that never dissipate, it bears witness to an age that predates even the histories of orcs and men.

The buildings of Khaz-Midra defy explanation. Imagine domes that once shone like gold in the sun, covered in mosaics of colored glass that reflected the stars at night. Even in ruins, these domes still glow with an eerie glow under the night sky. Their arches, carved with intricate geometric patterns and encrusted with precious stones, seem to pulse with an unknown energy. Once-imposing, spiraling towers inscribed in a language no one reads now lie fallen, embraced by vines and roots that have claimed them for their own. The half-submerged columns, adorned with sculptures of hybrid creatures—half human, half winged beasts—seem to stand like eternal sentinels over what remains of this city.

At the end of the great street, lined with fallen obelisks and statues of faceless kings and queens, stands a monumental pyramid. It is said to have been the mausoleum of a ruler known only as He Who Hears the Stars. He believed that the secrets of the cosmos were whispered at night, and his civilization would have thrived under this forbidden wisdom. The pyramid, they believe, is a portal between worlds, a bridge between the living and the dead—or perhaps something even more disturbing.

And the creatures that guard Khaz-Midra... oh, these are no mere monsters. They are corporeal specters, with eyes that glow like lanterns and partially translucent bodies, coated in blue flames or black mist. Called the Luminescent Echoes, they are believed to be the remnants of the inhabitants of Khaz-Midra, corrupted by an obsession with immortality. They whisper ancient words that make the hearts of the living falter, draining not only life energy but the very essence of the soul, as if devouring memory and identity.

And then there is the Hidden Library. It is said to lie within the pyramid and contain not only books, but maps of worlds we have never imagined, formulas that shape the desire of the most experienced alchemist, and accounts of extinct civilizations. But there is a price: those who attempt to open the tomes suffer indescribable torment, as if the very secrets of the city are consuming them from the inside out.

So I ask, brave listeners: who here would dare to face the deafening silence of Khaz-Midra? Who would dare to challenge the mists, the creatures, and the secrets it holds? Or would it be better, perhaps, to leave the dead and their secrets alone?"

Hy @EukalyptusNow !

The cliffs were not reversed. I just maximized their size. I also have a lot of problems with them, because they look very "hard" visually. I miss the Mike Schlei style of negative cliffs, like someone looking from the bottom up.

As for the extensions of the bridge, I used the tree trunk from the monthly lumberjack symbol > tree trunk without branches. I hid it in the back after the bridge was already made... so I needed to create a specific Sheet for it. Later, I tried to hide the joints with some vegetation.

Also note that on the bridge, I created a sheet just to put some sand on top and give it a more "used" look and notice that on the green sheet of the upper greens, I added an internal glow with a brownish color to differentiate it from the floor below (river) and try to achieve the effect of a ravine.

P.s.: Lower Cliff lines are imported from Sue Richards Darkland Style

Cheers