
Wyvern
Wyvern
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Community Atlas - Ezrute - Skolt City
I'd be inclined to change the roads to make their routes clearer. The dashed markers in particular are very problematic in places, especially those in the farmland areas in the southeast.
Making the main routes (currently solid lines) a different colour - maybe red or black - and then using a different colour for the lesser routes/trails, but keeping those lines solid too (maybe a darker brown than the current solid road lines), might help.
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August Mapping Competition - Building Floorplans - Win Prizes
Hopefully before folks get too involved in their mapping for this, it's worth reflecting that Vertshusen is situated around 65° South latitude on Nibirum, which means it's about on the Antarctic Circle (for Nibirum, this is at 65°S). So in summer, the Sun never sets, and in winter it never rises. For those less familiar with such locations, it may be worth examining some of the architecture and building layouts used in settlements in such places today on Earth - Alaska, Northern Canada, Iceland, northern Scandinavia and northern Russia (there are no southern hemisphere equivalents on Earth) - some aspects of which might require a nudge or two from magical elements to replace the technological ones, given there really weren't many substantial, permanent settlements around the Arctic Circle during medieval-equivalent times on Earth.
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A random dungeon - Jon Roberts Style
Odd, as I was having the discussion about using random designed dungeons with another colleague online only yesterday!
I started with purely random designs back in the mid-late '70s, because I had no ideas to work from otherwise, having only just seen the original D&D booklets for the first time. As those who've followed my Atlas maps especially will be aware, I'm still a great fan of random design mechanics to stimulate ideas, or sometimes to better work out why some things aren't working well enough otherwise.
The Donjon system's a fun one, and there are plenty of other generators to try out if you've a mind to.
I've long found that the two elements - creator/occupier and layout plan - go hand-in-hand, and can be used to modify one another along the way. Thus a random idea might spark-off something still more interesting that follows a more logical pathway, until you reach a point of ambivalence, when more randomness can be brought in once more.
The sole comment I'd make about the map here so far is the secret doors are all far too obvious. Move the actual door to the nearest flat (room) wall junction, not at the end of a short passageway (add a second door for the one into/out of Room 9, as the approach could be from either side, so one flush door in the 9 wall, the other in the corridor wall to the west).
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Commission WIP!
Time needed to map a city? OK, working only as and when able, not to deadlines or for money, but the earliest file-date I have connected to my Embra City mapping for the Community Atlas is 7 July 2021, and the final versions of the last maps were submitted for the Atlas on 4 May 2022. And yes, not a standard city by any means, but of comparable detail to some certainly, and with full notes for every individual map and drawing also provided, so not far short of ten months in total (59 maps/drawings).
Creating cities - actually ANY settlements - are not "quick" or "minor" tasks.
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A few final questions before I start adding text to my map
When mapping large areas like this, it's important to decide exactly how much detail is worth showing, and what the map is going to be used for (both of which go hand-in-hand).
A settlement will always require farmlands of some kind nearby, so any settlement means there will be such areas around it, even where the map doesn't show them. Then you can use the actual farmland areas to show those places that are particularly important farming areas - key places that the whole country/nation may rely upon, for instance. There, you wouldn't need to show any but the larger or most significant settlements (e.g. like the hamlet the party will be starting from!); all the other hamlets and villages can be assumed as present scattered among the farmland region without you needing to show each one.
For the non-cliff coastlines, I'd be inclined to soften the edges somewhat, maybe with a small Edge Fade effect, or reintroduce the "coastline" blue line for them. Softening the land edges on the cliff coasts wouldn't go amiss either, perhaps.
The aerial floating island looks interesting. Depending on how your floating lands like this work, you might also consider adding some crystal symbols (e.g. from one of the Dungeon sets, suitably enlarged of course!), or by using varicolor mountain symbols. With the settlement on top, it may be worth placing that directly onto the rocky mountain symbols, or with only a much smaller area of grassland fill texture behind the settlement image, then using just the mountain symbols (probably on their own, new Sheet) to cast a suitable drop-shadow. If the grass needs to definitely run right to the very edge of the stony platform, maybe make that more ragged, to closely match the symbol lines underneath indicating where that edge is.