What's caught my eye is how similar these hedges look at the overall scale-look of Sue's sample map here, to the effect you can get using the hedge symbols in the CA169 Fantasy Town style pack. However, those aren't connecting symbols, so you have to do it all by hand, one bit of hedge at a time!

(And before you ask, yes, I already did this in my Hydras In Smoke Maze for the city of Embra in the Community Atlas 😁)

Must admit, I was getting slight déjà vu feelings watching Ralf's livestream yesterday, as parts of it reminded me of my Wyvern Citadel maps for the Community Atlas. Very different scale of course, but there are inevitable similarities for drawing anything set on a craggy hilltop in this kind of more realistic style.

I made much more use of symbols however, rather than drawn polygons, for the cliffsides, though I did experiment that way originally (see this post in my Forum notes on the Citadel map, while still in progress). Just couldn't get the bevelled polygons to look right though, so switched to a technique developed for battlemat cliffs by another of our resident mapping experts, Shessar, as described via the Forum post here. As ever with CC3 mapping, there are always different methods to try!

Looking forward to Part 2 of this video, to see how it all develops. Anyone would think Ralf was running a game set in Middle Earth...😉

Thanks very much Sue!

I wanted the cliffs here to look different to yours, which I'd already decided to use for the red sandstone types at Embra, as the Palace Heights ones are meant to be a harder, volcanic type of rock. Actually, a Faerie type of volcanic rock, which has different properties and abilities to "ordinary" volcanic rock, so I also wanted the forms here to act as a reminder that something a little different to normal was involved. I also used a similar style of cliff drawing in one of the Crossing Places Streets - the Rocky Vale under Seafield Road there, again because the Vale is a weird place that can't be reached, another reminder of something odd happening there.

Folks - Do please note that this week's live video is scheduled to begin 30 minutes later than normal, according to the timer note on YouTube. That's at 16:30 UTC, NOT 16:00 UTC!

Looking a lot better now!

Yes, I think the walls would work very nicely for ruins too.

If the stepped outer surface was full regulated, it would also work for buildings such as ancient Mesopotamian temples, which had deliberately constructed outside walls that had this kind of "vertical recesses" patterning all round them. I've had to draw these before, both by hand and on computer, and it can be pretty tedious for a larger building plan!

For the crystal city concept, it may depend exactly how you envisage it. For a large-area map such as the Dungeon Worlds Annual will let you create, you could perhaps repurpose some of the standard CC3+ overland map symbols, like glaciers or icebergs (though you may have to get creative about hiding what are intended as water lines for the latter!), and making use of the varicolor options to recolour other features - and also with CD3 house symbols, for instance, if you wanted to map the city itself, or parts of it, in more detail.

It's definitely worthwhile to take some time to look through all the symbol catalogues you have available, and make a note of any symbols that might work in such map creation, even if that's a long way from what the symbol was originally meant to be! As you can resize any symbol in CC3+, imagine too how it might look if a given symbol were larger or smaller, or a different colour (which you can set and see while you're browsing through each symbol catalogue that includes varicolor symbols).

When you hover over the "Open PDF Mapping Guide" words, do you get a "pointing-finger hand" symbol on your cursor instead of the usual arrow one? I ask, because you mentioned the hotspot does not seem to be active, and that you "assume" this is what you have to do, whereas the change to the pointing finger cursor icon ordinarily confirms it's where you need to click.

I think Adobe took over half a minute to open my mapping guide, but I find the Adobe Reader startup is often pretty slow from "cold" these days. (Too much unwanted and unrequested Windows clutter that keeps getting dumped on my system, I suspect...)

This is based on a download and installation done within the past twenty minutes, incidentally (so around 17:15 UTC on Dec 2).

Just as well Wyverns can fly 😎🐲

As you might tell from my frequent use of random options in my Community Atlas maps, I've been a long-time fan of such random design systems, for all they can need a bit of nudging sometimes to get things to work out OK. I've not used the 5E system as yet, though almost exactly 20 years ago (July-August 2001), I created a classic 12-level dungeon using the random system in the original (1979) AD&D DMs Guide, each level filling an A4 page of graph paper. All done by-hand then, however. I did make a start converting it to CC3 not long after I got the program, around 2014 or 2015, I think, but that was very slow going, as I hadn't the option then to scan the hand-drawn maps to trace in CC3.

Have to say that your map looks a lot more elegant and less cluttered than any of my old ones from that dungeon set, so the 5E system may be something I should experiment with in future, perhaps...

Can't really do more than reiterate what Sue's said already re you and your mother's ongoing situation, and to hope things settle for you very soon.

With CC3+, I think we all feel for you too. Even a short spell away, and I find I've forgotten something critical... If time and circumstances allow, it might be worth checking-in on one or two of the live PF mapping sessions on YouTube - or checking them later as VOD - as Ralf usually goes through all the basics of setting up a new map, as well as whatever the session's about, for instance, which might help get you back in the swing of things a bit quicker.