I'm pretty new to Campaign Cartographer -- or, rather, I've owned the software for ages but I'm new to actually making maps.

I keep saying I bought the software five years ago, but upon reflection, I think it was around 2016. Eight years ago! I played around a bit with Fractal Terrains, but everything was so intimidating! I had this idea that I could just fiddle around and learn it through trial and error, much like I've learned various desktop publishing and illustration programs and over the years. Didn't work! I didn't grasp the approach of choosing what you want to do and then picking the objects you want to do it to. It was counterintuitive and opposite of the image editing software I've used before, where you select the object and then select what you want to do with it.

I thought I could sit down and read the PDFs and learn that way. Nope! Every time I tried to map something, it looked nothing like the pretty pictures I'd see here. (Pro Tip: Even when you understand that sheet effects exist, you still have to turn sheet effects on to see the pretty effects!)

Finally in mid-2023, I decided to watch one of the tutorials. I started with one of the then-more recent Lives, and that was way too advanced, but it gave me a hint at CC3+'s tremendous power and potential. Then I found Joe Sweeney's tutorials, and everything clicked. His "Parrot Island" tutorial gave me a basic foundation, and then I plowed through the rest of his, and then ProFantasy's more "Intro to CC3"-type tutorials and the brief videos about specific functions and techniques before making my way back to the Live videos.

I was fiddling around with map-making in the second half of 2023, but mostly it was to practice specific techniques rather than design a proper map. I created an account on these forums in December of 2023 and posted my first attempt at a proper map (my Castle on a Cloud) in January of 2024 -- mere months ago!

I still watch the Lives every time there's a new one (and I always, always learn something new). I was watching the old ones in the downtime, but I think I've watched almost every single Live already (a few more than once, especially when there's something I want to attempt that I remember Ralf or Remy demonstrating). I've also watched Jim Sweeney's, Dogtag's, Remy's, and Joachim de Ravenbel's tutorials as well. (I find it quite peaceful and Zen to watch a blank canvas get turned into a work of art in under an hour!)

OMG, I discovered that if you set three steps across with the center one (moved to front) in varicolor, you can create a carpet runner down the center of your staircase. My grand ballrooms will have the grandest of grand staircases!

I promise not to spam this thread with more discoveries, and will wait until Ralf has a chance to do the Live, but I just couldn't hold back with this one.

So happy for this! Looking forward to this livestream (and at the moment, I don't think I have conflicting meetings). My question the other day about using Symbols Along to create stairs was unusually timely.

A few months ago, I posted a ruined temple that I designed in the Forest Trails annual. The folks who live in a nearby village often come during the day to picnic on the river banks to the south, southeast, and east of the ruins, but never on the ruins itself. There are rumors that the site is haunted (and plenty have claimed to have seen ghosts there at night). Plus, the place is overrun with snakes, some dangerously venomous.

I have finally designed the levels below the temple's ruins. This is mostly designed with Creepy Crypts, with heavy assist from DD3 and a few elements from Dungeons of Schley. I will post more images of this in my galleries.

The basement areas of this ruined temple have been taken over by an unsavory religious cult known for developing poisons as part of their worship of a serpentine god, and using them in their kidnappings and assassinations for hire. (The "ghosts" the townsfolk swear they've seen is actually smoke coming up through the ruined steps.)

The cultists mostly live in the first level of the temple's subterranean levels. They don't actually use the mossy steps (they enter and exit through lower levels). The original priests' chapel has been replaced by an alter to their serpentine god, and several sections of this level are dedicated to raising the venomous creatures.

The stairs in the northwest corner room also descend to the second level of the basement, but that's where they end. Here there are prison cells used to hold the cultists' kidnapped victims. One room is dedicated to raising the rats used to feed the pet snakes. A room that was once used to prepare the deceased for entombment has now been converted into a laboratory for the production of poison. There are also catacombs with crypts of the original temple's religious leaders. It's unclear whether the new cult also buries anyone in the crypts [maybe I will put a pile of bones in one of the sarcophagi that have been picked clean by the gelatinous cube in level three], but they do use one of the tombs for its secret use: the secret stairs in the southeastern-most tomb that descend to the third level. (Oh, the sewer pipes from Sinister Sewers are used to bring in fresh water from the river.)

The third and final level is mostly the real entrance/exit used by the cultists (though one "waste management" area brings in a gelatinous cube to keep things hygienic). Here, the stairs from the crypts above lead to a room with a tunnel to the north where the true entrance is located far away from prying eyes. But a secret door also leads to a winding stair: 506 stairs that descend another 380 feet to a secret room where a teleportation portal is located.

Realized I should close the circle here. I designed the town above these sewers, which you can see in this thread as well as this gallery of larger images.