You're welcome, Jim (although it was decided for me by the dice!).

It has been a bit of a surprise during this little project so far to find that some places on Nibirum have been quite heavily mapped, others hardly at all. That does mean there's still plenty of scope for many other people to join in and add more maps in the less well-known places, of course 😁.

Ah right, hadn't realised that Remy. Thanks for the explanation!

Actually, my description of how I organised where the maps were to go wasn't 100% accurate, as in one case, I DID actually use two dice-maps in the same place, Tlok-Pik in Nga-Whenuatoto, where the ruined above-ground temple dice design seemed to have been deliberately drawn to fit the subterranean map I'd already rolled-up. That was too good an opportunity to miss, I felt. Which is ever the way with randomness in such things - it should never get in the way of what you find interesting!

Sorry to hear this Jim. Good luck with the test, and a speedy resolution for the problem.

Yes, the charges are vector symbols, with many nodes. There are also multiple entities in every symbol - lines and polygons - and the symbols are set up to go onto multiple sheets too. That does all make things run slower than normal, as the symbol is redrawn after every movement of the mouse. Irritating, but just how it is, unfortunately.

Sorry, Frosty, I don't.

However, a quick check online shows there are at least two CC3+ maps of the Isle out there, both from 2022. One is by Jason Hibdon, on the Atlas of Mystara website, the other is on the Talaraska blog. In neither case is there an FCW file provided, but it couldn't hurt to contact the people involved and ask nicely!

I'm not sure if either may be on this Forum, or perhaps the Cartographer's Guild, as well.

Here we go again (hopefully with better luck this week though!)...

Not quite sure about the scale of the map you're emulating, but as you mentioned "tents", I think you're probably right to go with a Dungeon-scale map.

As for the drawing style, that really depends whether you want something a little abstract, but clear - like the drawing you've shown - or something more nearly photo-realistic, or something between the two. Plus what you think looks best among those options, of course!

Another element of this may be exactly how the map will be used, as that could determine how clear you need the various elements to appear - if the slopes are important for movement, for instance, you may need to use variant shading/colouring to make clear for players where there are difficult terrain areas, say (loose sand, hard rock, etc., and perhaps not just on the slopes from the dot-shading in the valley near some of the presumed tents).

For the elevation, you may be better using something like the shaded relief techniques, as discussed recently in this Forum topic. But if you're going with more rocky terrain (or areas of rocky outcrops), symbols probably will work better to convey rough, variable cliff-lines. I'd assumed from the density of contour lines on your base map that the hills were going to be key features, as they're suggestive of something steep and high.

Like most deserts, the Gobi has a variety of terrains, so just pick something that appeals and run with that!

For more realistic drawing styles, and assuming you have plenty of the Cartographer's Annuals available, take a look at the thumbnail images on Sue's topic which shows all the CA issues in one place - here. That should help you start narrowing down to a style you think fits best with what you have in mind. Even if you only have the base DD3 installed, you can find materials to work with there to create what you need, though you may need to be a bit more creative in how you use the various tools and symbols, and may need to draw more, where there aren't enough symbols of the type you need.

I'm not sure I've quite followed what you've drawn here, but if all the terrain hexes are on the same sheet, you could use a Color Key effect on that sheet to cut through to whatever sheet you've placed underneath (say one showing the sea bitmap texture). That would avoid the use of multipolys (because it's hard to do anything further with a multipoly once you've converted it to one, if you need to make changes to it, for instance). You could then keep that thicker coastline on its own separate sheet, although you might be able to achieve something similar using a Glow or Outer Glow effect on the sheet with all the hex terrains on too.

However, so long as you're happy with what you've achieved now, I'd stick with that, as it looks pretty good already! It may be worth thinking of changing the river lines colour to match the coastline, so it looks less like the rivers "dead end" there, but that's a pretty minor concern.