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).

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.

For the Church, the pillar shadows could use some adjustment, as right now, they're passing over and through the walls, which is confusing.

On the upper floor (which might benefit from labelling as such), the stained-glass window patterns thrown on the floor need adjusting, so they cover only where the wooden flooring is - where they shine into the air beyond, there should be nothing.

Additionally, not all the windows should be showing these at all on either floor, only where the light will be shining directly through them, and that should match with where the floor shadows lie as well.

It might be helpful to add dashed or transparent lines on the lower floor image to indicate where the upper balconies are on the lower map view.

Sorry I wasn't around last week to help with this, as the technique of using mountain symbols for cliffs like this is very similar to what I used for my "The Cliff" map, Errynor Map One, in the Community Atlas some time ago.

Glad you managed to get everything resolved to your satisfaction though, as it's quite a tricky problem to get the covering clifftop polygon to always look right especially.

Of course, next you'll be wanting to differentiate between pebble and sandy beaches in the shoreline coves 😉

Why thank you Sue! Just getting into practice for the livestream...