There are things to be said for both options (plus of course, you can't assume everyone will wish to map somewhere where the snow falls in late autumn/early winter, thickens and only starts to thaw around the start of spring - i.e. the randomness of what happens in British winters!), and both are obviously buildings. However, the one with less snow cover has a bit more character to it, which would definitely support the idea you mentioned in your most recent post Sue.

Not merely tin (or other sorts of metal) roofs, but any smoother kinds of roofing material, such as tiles or slates. The idea is to substantially roughen the surface in some fashion - using rocks or logs sometimes (still to be seen in the Alps today in places, for instance). Reason I suggested them is, and depending on the snow thickness, they can break-up the appearance of the smooth surface of the snow seen on the roof symbols currently.

Thatched roofs tend to be pitched steeply enough to shed snow (and water), thus snow shouldn't accumulate as much on them (in parts of Japan subject to heavy snowfalls, the thatched roofs have a particularly steep pitch, for example). This isn't so much because thatch can't cope with the snow or water, but because thatch is usually lighter than other roofing materials, so may not be sufficiently supported by the underlying roof structure to carry the additional weight of substantial snowfalls.

These are interesting experiments. It's something I've tinkered with a little before, and it is tricky to get the look right.

There are two further possibilities here, I think. One would be to try just using the Mike Schley clouds, and see how those work out. A possible trick might be to use some inverted dark hills for the underside of the clouds (these might need resizing, and testing out different varicolor options); not sure about this latter. The other would be to add some more clouds elsewhere over the map in the style of those you already have. Their isolated nature right now is drawing too much attention to the contrast with the ground, I suspect. More clouds might help disguise that.

You might also try using the Alyssa Faden clouds (if you have the Annual with them in, at least) as an alternative, as the shadows on those would help with the "multi-layered" cloud concept, and some would work as just darker clouds. They're more similar to the cloud forms you have now than the Mike Schley ones, certainly. The Mike Schley ones do have gaps in them though, which might make them seem more natural over a Mike Schley landscape. Those options are a bit limited though.

In terms of aerial creatures, I've a vague recollection of a winged dragon on a north pointer in one of the mapping styles (which would need work to extract just the dragon, and which in any case I can't now find, so may simply be misremembering...), but if you have Dungeon Designer 3, there's a top-down cockatrice which could just about pass for flying, I think. However, there's a greater range of options in the free Dundjinni symbols - dragons, birds, bats, other flying animals, etc. If you don't have those, you can find the link to them here, though they do need some care to install correctly.

Good luck for further progress!

Congratulations Sue (and very nearly Shessar as well!)!

Seems highly apt, given Sue's entry was the genesis for the forthcoming Winter Village CA style for the March issue.

And well done to everyone else who entered, regardless of the voting results!

One of the Twitch livestreams I follow more regularly runs out of New York City, and they seem to have endless problems with their Internet connectivity. I gather from what's been said that this is a particular NYC thing, where each few city blocks ends up trapped with only one available ISP, so even complaining doesn't help, as you can't threaten to switch to a different provider.

And don't get me started on those dratted "Captcha" things. Great, images so tiny I can't even guess what they might be showing, and you want me to identify a what in each of them (US terms do not always travel well, folks...)?

The broken-open eggs could use a more ragged broken edge. They look much too neat presently. And again, sorry Sue!

Have you thought about leaving the hatching off entirely? You really only need it if there's nothing else to show what's solid and what's not, I suspect.

Best thing to do with Spam of course is slice and fry it; if only it was so simple to handle the computer version and those who post it 😁🍳

See this blog article by resident CC3+ expert Remy Monsen. Hopefully, that should help, but if you get stuck, feel free to ask here again!

While the size may seem wrong, by a strict comparison with some medieval European structures, this isn't for medieval Europe, it's for fantasy D&D, and is close to the scale size for this specific tavern as shown on Mike Schley's map of Saltmarsh in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh scenario book (Wizards of the Coast, 2019), assuming five-foot grid squares here. The appearance isn't quite the same as on that map, but this is an adaptation after all, and although there are a number of designs for the Wicker Goat Tavern online, I don't think there's an official D&D version, so some leeway is to be expected.

In the original adventure (The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, TSR's Module U1, from 1981), you were expected to create your own version of the town from scratch - there are a few guidelines for key points, such as Point 4: "Decide where the characters could stay when resting in the town between adventures (the best inn? the only inn?); draw up a tariff (list of expenditures) for their accommodation and food." But that's as close as we got to a description for the inn/tavern, which didn't even get a name back then!

That's not to say such points should just be ignored necessarily, and the heating and access points are useful considerations. However, if the final tavern is meant to fit to the size of the official Saltmarsh map, this is close enough to work for that.