Well, my original intention was to provide a progress update here during January. And then before the end of January. And here we are in February, so you can see how well that went...

However, progress HAS been made despite that, even if a lot of it's less easy to show here as yet. That's mainly because I've been preparing handwritten notes on the various itemised areas within this dungeon, which in turn has led to a few alterations in the look of the map. As I've reached area 100 of the 360 this way, things in that respect aren't going too badly. Typing-up my handwritten scrawlings is not moving at the same speed though, and that's still a LONG way behind.

As I mentioned briefly before, from the initial map, it was clear that the parts nearest the entrance cave (areas 1-49) formed a separate region within the overall dungeon, as all being linked to one another, with just a single access-route to the remainder. Looking at the Atlas notes regarding Malajuri, in conjunction with the relatively small sizes of the rooms, led me to the idea that this had originally been a Gnome subterranean complex. For obscure/now long-forgotten reasons, the Gnomes had had to leave it for long enough that its whereabouts had been lost, until the Gnomes under King Dendorlig XXX had managed to find it again, and start to reoccupy, renovate and explore it in more recent years.

As also noted, the description of what's where within the complex has been drawing heavily on the random details generated by the Wizardawn system, albeit amended or adapted in places, particularly in this first Gnome-reoccupied zone, where random monsters are not going to be lurking! Instead, things like that have been reimagined as alternative features, such as wall-paintings or sculptures, and rather more has been added to have the whole make sense, since there's now a village (in cavern 22) and a military compound covering access to the rest of the dungeon (where dangers DO still lurk), around and off the muster courtyard 39. Along the way, a powerful maybe-deity nature spirit of the mountain has been inserted, Dendorla, at the great Water Temple (17), since water is a) naturally vital for living things, and b) the Gnomes long had elements such as piped water supplies and flushing toilets. I've mentioned before how making sense of random descriptions and area layouts helps me better visualise what may have been happening/is still occurring in such places. There's even a serious danger I may yet have to devise a small area map for the Gnome and Halfling farmlands in the hidden Dendorlig Vale area just beyond the underground complex here (food, after all!). Yes, Halflings too, taking on-board the Tolkienian idea of Halflings being natural farmers and gardeners. Plus as there are almost no Halflings in the area of Alarius I've been mapping, I thought this would give a chance to explore something a little different this way.

Since other parts of the map are still subject to change, I've not tried to present the whole again currently, so this is a view of just the reoccupied "Village" area and a small part of the adjacent areas, from the top right corner of the original map:

As is rather obvious, the top edge of the map has grown, to better illustrate the full extent of cavern 1 (and yes, the number for that needs moving on this shot still!), and there have been other changes too. The "red-S" doors are no longer secret doors, but sliding ones, operated by magical card-keys only, to better restrict access to various places, such as the Royal Apartments (12-16), the Keep (3), and the route to the remainder of Dendorlig Hall (between 39 and 50).

While not illustrated again here, as I'm still compiling notes and map amendments for the latter stages, I've set areas 50-66, 93-110 and 143-146 on the original plan as those areas the reoccupying Gnomes have currently explored, at least cursorily. The other areas - so most of the map - have yet to be looked over by them, and this is where things can get especially interesting. Even if that "cursorily" proviso means even the explored regions might not be quite so "safe" as expected. That stout, well-secured, red-S door between areas 50 and 39 isn't merely for show!

All being well, further updates to follow (not saying they'll be any more frequent/regular though...).

The lower cliff edges could perhaps do with something to help them "sit down" in the terrain better; they have rather too crisp an edge currently, whereas in reality, there'd be some snow drifted or fallen around the base to make the edge a bit more irregular.

I agree the right side version looks better.

I'd suggest making the "contour lines" round the tops thinner and less distinct - closer to how the hatching is drawn, as they seem too dominant otherwise at present.

Not sure if it might be worth trying with a tool that generates longer hatching lines instead of having to draw two or three sets together for the steeper areas. I've a feeling the law of diminishing returns is liable to set-in with too much experimentation, however.

Glaciers might work with a more transparent version of the fill you have showing the seas right now (not sure how the style generates that appearance, so this might need extra work). The original book map looked to have a scattered series of small pale blue dots and tiny circles to show the glaciated tops.

The book-map lakes used a lot of lines drawn parallel to the lake banks right into the lake's centre, more or less, which was also how the seas were shown, although that looked uncomfortable to my eye, so you might want to try that, or maybe tone it down a bit.

You are not alone in this - had CC3 10 years now, and only discovered this was possible thanks to one of Monsen's video tutorials where he showed it, which I think was the year before last now (that dratted pandemic and its time-dilation effects again!)!

@Fersus - If you have the solo rules ("Strider Mode") for The One Ring, which are only available as a PDF still, as far as I know, those do add some more journey options which could be adapted for group play, or perhaps would help spark ideas. I've not played TOR yet, but it did strike me when just reading through all the rules (I have everything that Free League have published for it so far) that a lot of the random result tables generally were too short, so would be apt to become repetitive. I like Ralf's use of pre-prepared options along with the random rolls to make things more interesting overall, since as GM, you can't always come up with some worthwhile variant every time the same roll comes up otherwise.