Here is the second of three monasteries I am mapping with Ricko. The description, written by Ricko, follows below.

The Sacred Path of Hei Shan Si

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The Sacred Path of Hei Shan Si

In the heart of the Black Mountains and surrounded by the Ancient Forest, amidst peaks that touch the sky, stands the Hei Shan Si Monastery (Temple of the Black Mountain), a sanctuary of spiritual peace in contrast to the chaos of the surrounding region. Founded by an anonymous sage, the temple is said to have been built with the help of divine forces, its black walls harmonizing with the eternal shadows of the mountains.

The Challenging Path

The road to Hei Shan Si is a test in itself. It begins in the fertile valleys, and ends at the final stop in the village of Yuan Lin Zhen, passing through the living heart of the forest, steep cliffs and narrow trails that wind dangerously through the mountains. Incessant rain, dense fog and biting winds are constant companions of travelers. Worn rope bridges span unfathomable chasms, and legends tell of guardian spirits who punish those who disrespect them.

Beauty in the Wild

The temple sits on a plateau surrounded by stunning, untamed nature. Crystal-clear waterfalls feed rivers below, and flower gardens spring up naturally among the rocks. Rare birds soar overhead, their bright colors contrasting with the granite gray of the mountains. At dawn, the monastery seems to float amidst golden clouds, a sight that inspires reverence and humility.

Life at the Monastery

The monks and nuns who inhabit Hei Shan Si are few but dedicated. They live austere lives, cultivating the land and eating simple meals. They spend their days studying ancient spiritual texts, meditating on the edge of cliffs, and practicing rituals that are believed to purify the spirit and bring them closer to enlightenment.

Spiritual Ascension

Hei Shan Si is known for its unique teachings that combine philosophy, meditation, and the pursuit of balance with nature. The monks believe that the body and mind must be challenged in order to achieve enlightenment. In addition to their spiritual practices, they undertake rigorous physical exercises, such as climbing cliffs or meditating beneath icy waterfalls.

This place is not only a spiritual refuge, but a symbol of resilience and harmony in a land of turmoil. For the few who can overcome the hardships of the path and the shadows of their own hearts, the temple offers the promise of unparalleled peace and a glimpse of what it means to truly transcend the material world.

I love the Tolkien font -- I use it a lot with my maps designed with Mike Schley's styles. Seems to fit really well in that style. You're right, though: doesn't work as well for small text.

But actually, I was thinking of the runes like Sue used in the brass inlays in Marine Dungeons:

I discovered that FontSpace.com has a "Commercial" filter that allows you to limit the search/browse results to just the fonts that allow for commercial re-use:

There are some pretty elvish script fonts there, too. I am a little wary, though. Some seem to be based on Tolkien's elvish script, and while the person who designed it for FontSpace may have granted permission to use what they designed, I'm not entirely convinced that Tolkien's estate would agree.

No apologies necessary! I would be honored, and I would love to hear how it goes. I plan to find a home in the Atlas eventually, but I will post the FCWs here in the meantime with my blessing to use. Here are the FCWs for the outside, and for the third floor. I will post the other floors when they're ready.

Okay, here it is again with the cliffs back in their original sheet order. I moved it because I wanted buildings to be potentially covered by a higher cliff's shadow -- but we saw above how some of those buildings end up being partially covered by the cliffs if they are too close. I thought about replacing the cliffs that have rubble with the plain ones, so that the houses can be closer without touching the cliff symbols. But in the end, I'm not so sure it's that noticeable that the buildings aren't in shadow.

Here it is with the SOLID 10 terrain.

And here it is with a SOLID 20, so that it's darker and more mysterious higher in the mountain. Not so sure, though -- might be a little too dark.

Also, there's a bit of an Easter Egg hidden in there.

I've been experimenting with three different approaches for adding cliff shadows.

1. Wall Shadow on the sheets with Cliff Symbols: This is the most straightforward approach. However, the shadows render on both sides of the cliff, below it but also above. This can be mitigated by drawing in a terrain mask over the shadow above the cliff on a sheet that is lower in the list than the cliff symbols. In some cases, though, that terrain mask ended up covering up other things. I would have had to do a lot of reordering sheets, which I would have done if this was the nicest-looking approach, but there were other options.
2. Draw in Shadows: This approach is similar to how the shadows on the cliff/riverbanks in Forest Trails are done. There were two ways I could do it: have the shadow layer behind the cliffs, or in front. If they were behind, it covers up any messiness in drawing the shadow, but it also means that the rubble at the base of the cliffs built into the cliff symbols end up "popping" out of the shadow. I could draw it on top of the cliffs but that would require careful work so it's not too messy.
3. Wall Shadow on a Clifftop Terrain. This is the approach used with City Cliffs. That would still require either using a terrain mask, or having the terrain go all the way off the top part of the map, which would require putting those terrain sheets early in the rendering, with the cliffs themselves towards the end. But then I got the idea of trying a SOLID 10 fill instead of grass. Loved it! The Wall Shadow works on the terrain the same way whether it's a grassy fill or the SOLID 10. And the Wall Shadow still worked the same when I made the SOLID 10 only 5% opaque. But I ended up liking it without the transparency, because it made the valley seem more mysterious the higher you go in the mountains.

So here's a screengrab of the types of sheets I set up for each level of the cliffs going higher into the mountains:

There are Clouds sheets but I haven't started to experiment with Alyssa Faden's clouds yet.

Here's a screen grab of what it looks like in CC3, with all of the SOLID 10 layers running off the screen:

And here's how that looks as a JPG export:

The shadows off the cliffs are 35 map units. I could make them longer if you think that's better.