I totally forgot to extend the forest and the cliff shadow where I expanded the map a little to make more room for the legend, so here is the final version uploaded to the competition thread.

There's a hi res image in my gallery here.

Here is Elkton, Alarius North Central.

The WIP thread is here.

Larger version in my gallery.

Good luck everyone! :D

Oh I see! Yes, I didn't like the dashed lines. Sorry Wyvern! All my elks have four good legs and are big enough to just wade through the snow.

Still open to suggestions.

I've changed a few names and written a possible history...

One possible history...

The first to come this way were the elves, who escaped the growing noise and fuss of the humans to come and live in harmony with the wilderness. As these things happen, eventually tales of gold and incredible wealth to be found in the hills around caught the attention of the dwarves, and they were not the sort to let an opportunity go by.

Akiya Pine is said to grow on the spot where the elven queen made her last stand. Some even say that the pine is Akiya – that she transformed herself on the point of death, and that her people likewise comprise the trees of the south facing slope either side of Elkton.

It was only after they were gone that the dwarves realised the elves had never been wealthy. However, they followed their dwarf instincts and found a pipe (a deep igneous intrusion) of diamonds deep underground through Maws Cavern.

And what diamonds they were! Big as elks, some say. This is how the settlement they and their human partners built came to be known as Elk Stone, or Elkston.

The dwarves worked out the diamond mine and moved on. In their wake they left a perfectly good but rather empty settlement, much of which fell to ruin. However, Elkston was now on the map, and eventually attracted a slow trickle of outcasts running for cover – criminals mainly, but among them the various were-folk who had been treated little better than they by the everyday folk of Alarius.

Today the population is low but steady. Strangely, they are mostly were-folk - mainly were-wolves and were-elk, but there are others among them who are a little more unusual, such as the huge were-boar, Jungen, and the tiny were-hawk, Shinsa.

Outcasts continue to arrive in Elkston; thieves, murderers - anyone with a price on their head, but for some reason they don't seem to do very well. Most inexplicably vanish within the first year, along with their associated bounty hunters. Maybe they cross the bridge and flee the ghosts of Akiya’s battle along the trails of the lost.

Do we have axial tilt and high/low solstice suns?

It affects the naming of the temple at the top of the terraces.

I think I'm more or less finished here, apart from the story. Shout if the labels are too tiny or not easy to see, or if you think I've done something wrong.

I was hoping to have finished this map tonight, but I still have a bit to do.