Trainees who survive the Trial of Fire and Ice are teleported to the Trial of the Elements. This is actually five separate, disconnected caverns that can only be accessed through teleportation portals.

Trainees appear on a teleportation portal on a dais in the center of an octagonal room. There are four daises on four of the walls, each with a teleportation portal. Before each is a circle inscribed with runes and a sigil marking their element: a cloud with a lightning bolt on the east for the Trial of Air; a symbol of flame on the south for the Trial of Fire; a drop of water on the west for the Trial of Water; and a gem on the north for the Trial of Earth.

There are four statues on the remaining corners: a cat, a winged person, a snake, and a demon's skull. When the room is entered, the skull statue will speak and tell trainees that they may embark on a psychic contest of wills with each statue to receive a benefit that will help their trials. For each, the Game Master will roll a d20+5. The trainee rolls a d20 and adds their Wisdom bonus. If the trainee's is higher, they win the contest and receive a magical benefit that lasts 24 hours. If they fail, there is no harm but they do not receive the bonus and cannot try again.

Success against the cat statue grants the magical ability of Spider Climb for 24 hours, while the winged statue grants Feather Fall, the snake grants immunity to poisons and venom, and the skull grants immunity to electrical/lightning damage. These benefits only last 24 hours.

Trainees can tackle the trials in any order they choose, but cannot teleport out until they have survived all four.

Trial of Air

Trainees must cross a cloudy room by leaping from pillar to pillar. If they slip, it's a 30 foot drop, and they will take damage unless they have Feather Fall. Some of the pillars delivery electrical damage unless they have immunity. And they may also be attacked by flying creatures (signified by hawks here, but Game Masters may choose to use harpies, elementals, or other flying creatures).

If they make it to the dais on the far wall, they can take a shard of crystal and be teleported back to the central room.

I'm not thrilled with how to tops of the outcrops look. Any recommendation on sheet effects settings is welcome.

Trial of Fire

Here, trainees leap from pillar to pillar, trying to avoid falling into the lava. (If they acquired a red crystal from the Trial of Fire and Ice, that will come in handy here.) There are also Fire Elementals (I used bonfire symbols from Darklands City -- love Mike Schley's newest symbol but the style didn't really work here.)

Trial of Water

The water is swimmable if trainees fall in, but it's icy cold and they will take damage unless they have a blue shard from the Trial of Fire and Ice. There are also sharks in the water as well as tentacle creatures.

Trial of Earth

This room is filled with venomous snakes and giant spiders, and diseased giant rats, so immunity to poison would be helpful here. The mushrooms are also poisonous if anyone is foolish enough to eat them.

Trainees who collect a shard from each of the rooms can activate the teleportation portal in the main room, which will transport them to the Ritual Room in the temple's basement.

Any recommendations on sheet effects, especially for the tops of the outcrops, are welcome.

Added some more. Only put in Lumadair's capital city and a few notable landmarks, not the other cities that were in previous versions of this map. Do you think the font size for my labels for cities/landmarks is too small?

I'm glad Sue chose to use a default font that can do accent marks because when I do the global map, there are a lot of accent marks. Mostly in names derived from Elvish, because Elves are fancy that way, like the French.

This map is 6,109 miles wide. I used the technique that Ralf showed of creating a 1000 x 800 map so that symbols would default to the scale of 1, and then resized it. I assume I should do the same when I start my global map, which is 25,000 miles wide.

Some adjustments based on Ricko's recommendations...

Still haven't finished the basement (got sidetracked with Cosmographer), but revisiting this to add some of the newest monthly symbols. I experimented with adding tombstones #4 and #5 from Mike Schley's latest monthly as decorations on the top of the tower, like where gargoyles and grotesques would go, but I couldn't get them to look right. And creating a little graveyard outside of the tower looked weird on such a small hill. But I couldn't resist doing something with the new symbols, so I added tombstone #4 as a statue amidst the trees on the western side, and the wheelbarrow next to the vegetable garden.

I think I've managed to get something from each of the 2025 monthly dungeon-scale symbols into one or more of these Wizard of Schley maps.

Okay, I think it was just one mountain that was mirrored and needed to be switched so the shadows were consistent. I tried to look at all of the hills and trees, too -- please let me know if you spot any with aberrant shadows.

Here are the first two levels of the basement. Sewers still to come.

Basement 1

A wine cellar in the northeast corner is conveniently close to the stairs, so that the wizard or their staff can slip down for a few more bottles in the middle of a dinner party. Continuing clockwise, the other rooms are a freezer, a larder, a storeroom, and in the northwestern corner, a refuse pit is used to throw organic, wooden, and metal waste for disposal in the sewers.

Basement 2

The second level of the basement doesn't appear to have much. A corridor heading west leads to stairs that descend into the sewers. To the south, a cavernous chamber has been turned into the wizard's grotto. River water has been pumped in to make a man-made pond, heated to a pleasantly cool temperature by a few warm luminescent crystals. A second, larger pool is warmed by enough luminescent crystals to keep the water as warm as a hot bath. The room is lighted by clusters of luminescent fungi. On the western side, a spacious WC also doubles as a changing room.

But wait, there's more! This floor also has two secret passageways. One near the stairs leads to the Wizard's secret treasury chambers. The outer chamber is used for coins, gemstones, and other valuables. The second chamber, accessed through a short corridor protected by a Glyph of Warding holds the Wizard's magical treasurers. In addition to being about 30 feet underground and carved into the rocky hillside, the treasury is protected by marble walls that are five feet thick. Between these walls and the rocky cliff is another foot-wide wall of lead to protect the room against scrying eyes.

Another secret passageway north of the stairs leading to the sewers leads to a cavern, through which a secret Teleportation Portal can be accessed. The southwest corner has been sealed by a Wall of Steel, protected by another Glyph of Warding. If you get past that, the passageway quickly dead-ends into a pile of rubble.

The Wall of Steel and the rubble can be hidden using the RUBBLE layer:

FCWs

And here are the FCW files for these levels. (Remy, this is not the official thread for submitting to the Atlas. I will create a new thread with these maps properly labeled and described, plus a village map to come.)

Inspired by Ralf's tutorial a few weeks ago, where he combined the latest Hive symbols to create a sprawling Hive Metropolis, I wanted to also create a big city combining unwalled settlements into one big city. I decided, though, that I wanted to focus on the elven symbols, but as I was mucking about, I then decided to add an antagonist: the Dark Empire.

This was all just for fun, without a specific goal in mind. I find that mapping is a good way to clear my head. Maybe it's because it's simultaneously exercising the left and right sides of my brain, as I am creating a work of art but also having to do some analytical stuff with ordering sheets and working out effects.

Version 1: 4x5 Ratio

This first version uses a 1000x800 map, though symbols get resized so it's really just a 4x5 ratio.

It ended up being a little too zoomed out a little too much, but it did allow me to include some human, dwarven, orc, and magical plant communities. I ended up putting an ocean behind the land (but above the sky, which is the Background) and then using the Color Key Cutout effect to create lakes and rivers. I wanted the lake and river colors to more closely resemble the colors of the water in the waterfall symbols.

I will also put this, and some zooms of it, in my galleries so you can get a closer look.

Version 2: 5x7 Ratio

This one used a 500x700 map in order to get a 5x7 ratio, a good size for printing notecards. Here I tried to make the symbols bigger to have a more close-up look. With the elves, I also used some of Mike Schley's SS6 isometric city symbols.

Maybe I will add in some clouds to add a bit more to the skyline.

Added the missing pews and lounge furniture to the Fourth Floor:

And now, up another flight.

Fifth Floor

This floor is entirely for guests. Why would a wizard need plenty of guest rooms? Maybe he or she is the party's patron, and they come back periodically to receive instructions for their next adventure. Maybe adventurers periodically visit to have the wizard identify the magic items and artifacts they've found, or to help explain mysterious prophesies or other adventuring clues they've discovered. (Great opportunity for lore dumping!) Maybe the wizard's old adventuring party all decided to retire together in the tower.

There's a hallway closet between the internal stairs and external door. Another WC and bathing chamber. A small guest bedroom on the eastern side. And then two spacious guest suites on the southern side.

The southwest suite has a spacious living room with a double window, along with a separate bedroom with a "king sized" bed. But the other guest suite is for the real VIPs. Not only does it have a fireplace and working sink in the living room, it also has a private balcony with views of the river and the rear of the cherry tree garden.

These suites come are handy when adventurers visiting the wizard don't want to be separated. (Never a good idea to split the party!) The suites are large enough to accommodate the typical-sized party, assuming a few are willing to sleep on the couches or pallets on the floor. And for very large parties, the stone door separating the two suites can be unlocked to create a double-sized suite.

Onwards to the wizard's bedroom and workshop...

Coincidentally, I happened to watch one of the remakes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 2007 Nicole Kidman film Invasion) the night before Mike Schley's latest monthly symbols were released. Just for fun, I decided to do a quick-and-dirty map with the new Hive Civilization symbols. I hadn't gotten a chance to play with the Mesoamerican symbols (busy making villages when those symbols came out!), it gave me an excuse to try them out, too.

If there's a Hive expansion next month (they tend to come in pairs), maybe I will revise this same map to show the Kheek'zit invaders' expansion onto the mainland.

Tweaked the Marine Dungeons version a bit: darkened the deeper water a little more, added a few dead trees, added more algae, and a few more bones.