If I have multiple levels or elevations on the same map, I do a lot of different things for lower levels, depending on how it's being used.

If I just want the lower floor to be darker, I will add an Adjust Hue/Saturation sheet effect and add a negative number (usually -20) to the Lightness. If I want the whole lower level (symbols and all) to be darker, I will add a Shadow sheet and put a polygon across the whole sheet with a Solid 20 or 30 fill.

If it's outside (like the upper floors of a tower or castle), I will order my sheets so that all of the outside stuff renders first, before the inside stuff, and then I will put a polygon with a parchment fill a Sheet in between with a 50% transparency effect. I got that idea from Sue's Beaumaris Castle annual. If the style you're using doesn't have a parchment fill, you can always make it a solid cream color (like #29) and adjust the transparency.

Ralf did a tutorial about a year ago showing how to use the Solid shading to convey depth. His example uses sharper edges to convey stepping down, but you can also use an edge fades to make it more gradual. As I mentioned, I also sometimes use Adjust Hue/Saturation to change the lightness, but that only works if you're using separate FLOOR sheets.

Yeah, I should have clarified in my response in your thread that my mountain ridges used Darklands City for the structures but this one is Forest Trails and Creepy Crypts, as Sue said.

Forest Trails has a "cliffs shadow" drawing tool that draws a black polygon onto a sheet with sheet effects designed to turn it into a shadow. The reason is because if you just used the normal Wall Shadow sheet effects, you'd end up with shadows on both sides of the cliff, including the part that's supposed to be the clifftop terrain. This way you can draw the shadow where you need it and skip it where you don't. For the caves, I just left a gap where I placed the cliff symbols and then drew the cliff shadows there, too.

I kinda think this would work well with Forest Trails and Darklands City together, unless you're going for a more illustrated look like Mike Schley's. Check out this thread where I put Forest Trail cliffs back-to-back to form mountain ridges and placed some Darklands City structures to provide a sense of scale. Further down the same thread, I did the same with the snow-covered cliffs from Winter Trail and snow-covered buildings from Winter Village. And you can check out another example in this thread where I did the same thing with the cliffs for the lair of a coven of forest hags.

This question if very timely for me because I have just started to dip my toe into trying to sell maps…so I, too, have more questions than answers.

I am trying to sell mine on DriveThruRPG. My storefront is called Royal Scribe Imagiinarium. I have five maps up right now and two more pending review. Your first month or so selling on DTRPG, you’re considered “unverified.” During that period, everything you submit for sale has to be reviewed by staff before it goes live, and some of the other tools are limited (including not being able to put up a logo, etc, yet). Once I’m verified, I will have more tools to work with to promote my stuff.

I can’t tell yet whether it’s a waste of time. I have had about 101 map downloads. Some are priced and a few, for promo purposes, are set at “Pay What You Will.” But of these:

1 paid full price - but I know from the positive review they left that it was a friend of mine

1 paid $5 for a pay what you will map - same friend

3 were free downloads from a comp link I sent to my rpg group

And 95 were the pay what you will maps where they chose to pay $0. Hopefully they will someday convert to being paid customers.

Maybe once I’m verified I will be able to promote it better

Happy to chat more here or in DMs.