You're right, the symbols are better. I scaled the settlements down to 0.25 scale because at full size, they felt cartoonishly overlarge, even though they're meant to be a symbolic representation and not to scale. For example, I put a full scale city off to the side (in the ocean) for comparison. It takes up 75 miles!

Here's the full map, though admittedly the settlement symbols are harder to see scaled down here. Do you think scaling them to half size instead of quarter size would be better?

I won't show zooms of every area until it's ready for final inspection, but I did want to show off the desert.

The symbols here have inspired me to expand on the maps I was planning to do. The oasis city will be where my ziggurat will go, and the town midway down the river will be for the Ancient Cities map I did (which I will expand to cover the whole town and not just the northern edge). I decided to add another city at the western edge of the desert so that I have an excuse to design something with the Desert Oasis style from the 2023 annual.

Here's how it's progressed so far today. (Still not wed to the name.) Still need to do more in the middle area that I am mentally calling the Midwest, even if it's just adding some hills with tiny rivers coming out of them. Trying to figure out where to place my existing maps and the future ones I'm planning.

I redid the two northern forests to add rivers, a road, and a few smaller settlements...and a henge of stones. That northernmost forest will be an elven community that is outside of the kingdom. (This style doesn't have a political borders tool, does it? I may have to create one, or just rely on labeling.) There's a tepui at the northern edge of the second forest. I haven't decided what will go on top of it. Maybe a castle? Maybe a temple with an oracle, like the Oracle of Delphi?

Here's a closer look at the desert. You can see where I plan to place my ziggurat. The obelisk to the south is apparently all that remains of an ancient temple that was long-ago swallowed up by the sands.

Added some cliffs near the coast. The whirlpool on the western side is about where my Octopus' Garden will go. The upper island, as I said before, will be a playground for the rich and famous, like a Monte Carlo.

And I made a little swampy river delta with a settlement akin to New Orleans that I envision being rife with smugglers and ne'er-do-wells.

In the southern mountains, which is outside of the kingdom's borders, there's a dwarven fortress. You can't see it, but you can see the pair of towers (towards the southeast corner of the map) that guard the mountain pass leading up to the fortress.

Let me know if you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas for more adventure hooks to add.

Basement 1

This level contains catacombs with 64 crypts for wealthy individuals who were not entombed with their pharaohs. There are 16 vacant spots.

This level also contains two chambers with the temple’s treasures, which connect to a circular chamber inscribed with eight hieroglyphics. The original purpose of this chamber has been forgotten. (The truth is, this was towards the end of my designing and I realized I hadn't used the hieroglyphs yet, so here are some.)

A secret passage leads to a chamber with a teleportation portal. Another circular chamber has both of its doors destroyed. The chamber beyond has a 15x15 pit. The heat, stench, and red glow suggest that it drops into a bed of lava.

A locked door provides access to a set of stairs that descend 30 feet to Basement 2.

Basement 2

The 30-foot descent brings us to an octagonal chamber that appears to be used for secret religious rites, perhaps by priests who are part of a forbidden sect? This connects to a large meeting room. A secret door provides access to two more chambers.

A secret door on the northeast wall of the octagonal chamber provides access to a wide passageway that descends 30 more feet down a series of staircases to a narrow chamber. There on the west wall, more stairs descend another 10 feet into caverns carved into the bedrock.

Here the pit from Basement 1 does indeed drop into a bed of magma, encircled by a platform of cooled lava rock. A raised bridge provides access to a platform with glowing runes inscribed in a circle.

I’m really pleased with how the lava turned out here. I used two different fills that I think came from Monsen’s Mines. The darker one is on a sheet above the lighter one, and then I used the color key effect to allow brighter parts of the magma show through in spots.

Level 6

We are now in the lowest of the three sections of the temple. Most of the tombs contain two chambers: a treasure room and a burial chamber. A few will have multiple treasure chambers, and occasionally there may be more than one burial chamber in the suite.

Great pharaohs used to be buried with their wealth, but centuries ago, a new pharaoh decided to keep his father’s wealth, and instead buried his father with colored glass replicas of his jewelry. The pharaohs are generally entombed in a sarcophagus on a raised platform. Other sarcophagi in the room will usually be upright along the walls, but may be occasionally laid flat on the floor, a sign of great honor to the decedent. These are for the final resting places for people important to the pharaoh: spouses, valued concubines, children who did not themselves become a pharaoh, and occasionally even favorite servants like nannies who are treated as family. Those who predecease the pharaoh are reinterned at the time of pharaoh’s internment. For those who live after the pharaoh’s death, the tombs are opened to admit their remains, sometimes decades after the pharaoh’s internment.

Also of note: in this section, the stairs up and stairs down are generally far from each other, perhaps as a way to confuse and confound intruders intending to loot the tombs.

Level 5

This level has more tombs, but there are a few things of note.

On the west side, there is a burial chamber where the entrance to the treasure chamber and burial chamber have been destroyed, and the treasures and sarcophagus have been looted. The passageway to this section has been sealed but otherwise left untouched. It is the only looted section in this active temple.

Another burial suite is empty, waiting for a future pharaoh.

In the southeast corner, there’s a chamber with a great number of sarcophagi, some still empty. This room is the final resting place for high priests who have been honored to lay at rest near the great pharaohs.

One mad pharaoh had his burial chamber and three treasure rooms hidden behind a trapped secret door. The passageway also contains a covered pit that drops unwary intruders 20 feet to Level 3.

Level 4

More burial chambers. (Note the shaft for the pit from Level 5 that descends to Level 3.)

Level 3

More tombs. (I noticed that some of the raised platforms don’t have a sarcophagus on them. Not sure if I forgot to place them, or if I placed them on the wrong sheet. I guess one of them might be for the reigning Pharaoh, and already contains the remains of predeceased loved ones, but that would only make sense for one of these tombs. Maybe the mummies just walked away?)

The pit trap from Level 5 ends here. Those who survive the 20-foot drop may discover a secret door that leads to another hidden chamber, where another secret door allows escape to the rest of the temple. The skeletal remains suggest that one poor soul either didn’t survive the fall or never found the secret door to allow their escape.

Level 2

More burial suites, along with some storage rooms for unused pots and urns.

Level 1

More tombs, along with stairs that descend to subterranean levels of the temple. (What, more levels?)

Level 12

The Temple of Fah is also a repository for a great number of religious and government documents. Many of them are mundane and boring: records of flood patterns and agricultural yields, of famine and other disasters. Vital records for the population: records of live births, marriages, and deaths. Historical accounts of the pharaohs and their accomplishments, and of great wars and battles. Bestiaries, zoological treatises, and other studies of the natural world. Transcriptions of religious documents. Every official government and religious document is stored in the temple, along with a great many other written works.

On Level 12, the senior scribes have private offices to do their work and manage the work of junior scribes in the levels below.

Level 11

On this level, there are six libraries, each equipped with rows of bookcases and numerous desks for junior scribes to maintain records and transcriptions.

Level 10

Level 10 has three shrines to different gods of the pantheon. These shrines may be visited by the pharaohs, top nobles, and senior government officials, but not the general public.

Level 9

Level 9 has two shrines to different gods, and a small room for priests to get ready. Most of the level, however, is occupied by the top third of a massive circular room dedicated to semi-private religious ceremonies such as coronations and royal weddings. At the cardinal points of that chamber, this level has 10-foot wide balconies (with railings) to look down upon the religious practices below.

Level 8

This level has five shrines to the gods. Although the great religious hall described above cuts through this level, there is no access to it from Level 8.

Level 7

This is the main level that non-priests are allowed to enter. It has four entrances from the first landing of the ziggurat (where, outside, there are also four more entrances that descend to Level 6). The central chamber is the 28-foot-high chapel where coronations, royal weddings, state funerals, and other religious ceremonies for the powerful elite are held. Three connected chambers are shrines to the three-part triplet god, with a fourth unconnected shrine dedicated to their mother, the feline-faced cat goddess. Two other chambers are used for the priests to dress or prepare for religious services, or for elite guests like the pharaoh to wait in privacy.

From here we can descend to the tombs in the lowest third of the temple.