Having discussed the design ideas, methods and overall appearances/layouts for the various Embra "Places" maps in the opening Enclosed Places topic, I'll not reiterate those points here, unless relevant. So moving on, the second set of Places of Interest the Embra "Official Guide" map gives access to, are the Crossing Places:

I thought a simpler criss-cross kind of frame corner decoration might be interesting here, partly inspired by that used for the Official Guide map. While the lines along the map edges are easily drawn in CC3+, there was a more elaborate corner-piece in another of the Dover Clip-Art "Celtic Borders on Layout Grids" hardcopy book designs that I thought would add a little more elegance to this map than my own clumsy efforts were able to achieve. As was established for the first of these "Places" link-maps, the link-spaces themselves are just labelled extracts from the actual maps, with added notes for the benefit of GMs, and further reminders in the accompanying text and PDF files. The seven streets condensed into one map here makes for fewer links than some of the "Places" diagrams, though it did mean making that link point larger, to fit all the names in. As luck had it, I somehow managed to get the dragon in just the right place here to avoid running into problems with it wanting to feature itself in others of the link-squares when I added the Dragon Bridge map extract, as of course it's a complete symbol, considerably enlarged, not something that can be easily dismantled to stop it from doing that otherwise!

Thanks very much folks!

Closing-in on the final stages of this project now though, so here's a view of Palace 9:

This was done using the SS2 Bitmap A style. I was rather taken with some of the fill options for this, as you might tell! The background here is the snow fill, but the palace itself was drawn using the Water Green 1 fill, as this just seemed such a rich, icy-looking option to give some real colour to this Palace, as a change from some of the previous ones. Not a great many choices from the symbols, unfortunately, as very few come with a varicolor option to better match the icy theme - just the central throne in the end, though at this resolution, you can barely see it, of course.

I'm going to miss drawing these snowflake patterns, I think, but there's the danger that the more I do, the less interesting they may become, since - as my comments regarding the construction of Palace 8 might indicate - I have developed a pattern for drawing these now, which while useful, isn't necessarily such a good thing, as it discourages exploration and innovation. I have enjoyed seeing the styles that were new to me though. There's so much in the full complement of the CC3+ packages I've never properly explored, so I have been trying to take time during this mapping exercise to go through all the fill styles available in each mapping type I've selected, as well as all the symbol catalogues for each. Probably never going to remember where any of these things are when I next need them, but...

Haven't managed to get the rest of the "Palace Quirks" notes typed-up yet; they'll likely follow after the Palace 10 map. And hopefully a little while after that, I might finally get the set submitted for the Atlas!

Switching from the northern tropics of Nibirum's Alarius last time to almost the Antarctic Circle there this (about 60°S), in my ongoing sort-of Dungeon24 project, took me to Kraken Island. Although I have the base sketch ready for the feature map I'm intending in each fresh area, developing ideas to expand that into an actual, if imaginary, place draws on input from that map, possibly some details the accompanying Inkwell Ideas book may have for those of their dice sets that have such, and whatever information the Atlas maps have available already (both maps and text notes). Kraken Island though has very little written about it, and even the maps so far are somewhat vague regarding it.

As the second map suggests though, I quickly settled on an intriguing-looking spot, Haunted Cloud Mesa. Krakens' Plain and the somewhat straggly, "undersea" look to the Mesa's symbol set me off down a "watery" route in this case, especially because the small dungeon map I was working with had a stream through it, and the Inkwell book for the dice designs in question (from their "Delver" set, the book being "Dungeonmorph Book of Modular Encounters: Delver, Trailblazer & Voyager Edition") had already suggested some amphibious humanoids could be in residence there.

Ideas clustered in profusion from that, influenced in part by some 15 mm-scale underwater-ish fantasy miniatures from many years previously (almost 25 now...), especially the squidfolk and landsharks, part of a range by the wonderfully-titled Evil Gong Miniatures based in Australia. Not all are imaged there, but the Lost Minis Wiki has more information on the range than most places now, as sadly, I'm not sure Evil Gong are still a going concern. The minis were available in the UK for years from East Riding Miniatures, who started trading in 1999 (Evil Gong started-up around 2000). Unhappily, ERM ceased trading on their owner's retirement in 2021, and Evil Gong seem to have been only on FaceBook since 2019, although the page has been dormant since 2020 apparently (according to the Lost Minis Wiki, as I'm not on FB). They were - maybe still are - based in NSW.

So Haunted Cloud Mesa was going to have spindly (ish), "underwatery" mesa spires, with clouds and mists rising from their tops and valleys, and amphibious/underwater creatures living happily in the air and on the land surface around it. These rapidly came to include (of course!) the squidfolk, called "Plains Krakenfolk" here, and their landshark steeds on Krakens' Plain, along with the gigantic Land Krakens (helping to explain the lack of information on the island, and the few settlements mapped there all apparently being ruined, perhaps), and amphibious Mountain Krakenfolk in the mesa plateau itself. Adding in some transparent deep-sea creatures - Ghost Sharks, Ghost Jellyfish shoals, Ghost Squid and Ghost Giant Octopodes, all flying in air as if swimming in the sea - with some genuine undead ghosts, and suddenly the place was starting to get crowded! After which I decided it needed something a bit more scary still, so added in some Lovecraftian Giant Flying Polyps, which of course are also more or less transparently invisible, as well as hugely inimical to other living things.

When it came to mapping the Mesa, that orange square is about 30 miles per side, and I knew I needed a top-down mapping style so as not to lose too much information on what was supposed to be where. Sketching out some early thoughts, based almost entirely on that single symbol at first, and adding in a series of random features and creatures (using the various sources I've mentioned in previous of these mapping topics), pointed me towards styles that would have hatched contour line markers of some kind. Ultimately, I went with a style I've used before, the Fantasy Realms pack from Annual 26. I did consider the very recently-updated version, but needed the original's hatching options for giving the appearance of flat-topped and stepped hills better. Which brings us to:

As the right-hand side key panel mentions, the number-labelled sites are detailed in the accompanying PDF and TXT map notes, alongside notes on what the creatures are (the Krakenfolk Goblins are simply the local Goblin-folk; the locals know what they mean by the names, and there aren't many tourists passing through here!).

And if anyone objects to the missing apostrophe in the "Krakens Plain" label here, I have to tell you, it looked far worse when there was an apostrophe out in the middle of nowhere all on its own! "Text along a curve" is great, but unforgiving sometimes...

Yeah, as someone who's been preparing illustrations, diagrams, graphs, etc., for print publication for decades, draw it in black and white from the start, and keep things simple. Some of the delicate lines and shading on the cliffs, for example, may not look great on a BnW print, especially if the size is to be reduced to something like a typical paperback novel page, and the mottled fill will likely end up looking just grubby. Line clarity is often key too; the use of ruled-line hatching and dot-shading in printed drawings and maps didn't end up that way by-chance, after all.

Shaded relief might be the way to go to be more convincing on the higher or more rugged terrain. There's this Cartographer's Annual from 2008 that would help in that regard, if you have it, or if not, try this free PDF tutorial by HadrianVI from 2017, elsewhere on this Forum.

Hex 1702, Fairbridge Village:

Last of the ten Whispering Wastes villages and hamlets, Fairbridge appeared on the original Haddmark regional map only as a bridge, though it was an obvious feature to add a settlement to, if only to ensure the bridge's upkeep - hence the Toll House, an addition beyond the random options the Shadowdark tables provided, as indeed was the Mill, this time with a smaller stream cut from the main river channel to be a more controllable water source. River crossing points can be tricky places, as the ground needs to be quite low-lying to provide access, which in turn can be muddy and difficult, although here, I opted to have some marshes, largely because one of the random provisions was some sort of inimical creatures, and Will-O'-Wisps came up in that process. Naturally, nobody really likes using the Mill, because it's in the marshy land too, for all it is essential.

Those marshes also decided me against adding fields nearby this time. So many travellers have to use the bridge, essential supplies of food likely aren't going to be a great problem here, albeit the place is fairly run-down too, with many folk simply passing through. It is something of a gateway to the Whispering Wastes and the settlements beyond it to the west and south, from the more heavily-populated areas east and north from here by the great Siljan Lake.

Having completed this group of maps, it has again reinforced that it can be helpful to map places in a similar region in the same style for consistency, like this small settlement ten. It also makes things easier as the maps continue - and thus quicker - thanks to familiarity with the mapping style. The first map is always slower, while getting used to things, knowing what works and what doesn't. After that, things speed-up, and it becomes easier to try mapping new elements. The marshes here were my final challenge, as there isn't a marsh symbol or fill in this style, so I reused the rescaled "Trees" fill instead, simply because it looks sufficiently different to everything else. To make sure everyone's clear though, I also added some labels and small water features.

Onward now, as mentioned a while ago, to somewhere in Feralwood Forest, Alarius, for a suitable spot to site my next small dungeon map. It's going to be wild 😉!

I second Sue's comments; this was an extremely difficult vote, as there are just so many fascinating maps produced in such different styles.

Hopefully, everyone contributing enjoyed their mapping, and perhaps learnt something fresh along the way.

It's certainly been a delight reviewing them all again now!

Get voting folks!

The opening map in the group, for the Painted Light Monument, was based on a design from the old Judges Guild "Temples I" book. As noted previously, these maps are smaller in scale than those in any of the other JG books being used as bases for the Embra Places maps, so this too needed a smaller CC3+ layout:

Which of course also reveals the dragon and lion motifs used to further decorate these map frames.

While a deceptively simple map with just a few shapes on it, apart from the omnipresent vegetation (Wooded Places, after all), as the central round tower is almost 90 feet tall (27 metres), there's clearly more to this than meets the eye, which the toggleable (FCW file) interior views should help demonstrate. First the lower level of the Tower Base (the map labels have to be turned-off for clarity when showing the interior):

Then a schematic mid-Pale Tower view:

Followed by one more for the highest interior view, just inside the roof:

I decided to add a few basic notes to each of the interior views as well, to help clarify exactly what was being shown. And yes, the number of steps IS accurate for the height of the tower, as the accompanying PDF and text files for the Atlas will reveal!

Speaking of steps, I had quite a few problems with the Effects on those little steps leading up the gentle angle of the outer part of the solid Sloping Base, as regardless of what I tried, there was - and indeed still is - a degree of interference between the stacked Sheets comprising them. This final version was the better compromise I decided was liveable with, where unless you're paying especial attention, the markings could be simply a bit of wear across one of the pale step stones.

Thinking about the late-stream discussion regarding using the "normal" Mike Schley city symbols to create a top-down map, and then the isometric ones to show a pictorial impression of the place on the same map, with Ralf's comment about using vignettes to highlight important individual places within the settlement similarly, brought to mind the Middle Earth poster map prepared by Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's only approved artist during his lifetime). Digging around online, I've come up with this reasonably high-res version of the original on the Museoteca website, which shows why it came to mind. I used to have a copy of the poster, sadly lost somewhere along the decades since, though it remains strong in my memory!

For those here who may be unfamiliar, the original 1983 map from Assault is very typical of the board wargame maps of the 1970s-1980s in general. The features you dislike Mike were exactly what made the games playable back then, as well as reasonable simulations for the level of combat formations they were designed to show. The key features were that everything had to be clearly in an identifiable hex, or on its border, if it had any effect on the game whatsoever. So we were all very used back then to working with maps like this, and personally, I always preferred this idea to adding a hex grid to a real map, which never seemed workable to me as a board wargame mechanic (still doesn't - sorry!).

Even so, always like to see how your maps grow, Mike!