Here are two samples with the full range of Solid Bitmaps 10 through 90, plus a solid black polygon. The first is Sue's first suggestion and the second adds her second tip.

Edge Fade, Inner - Edge Width 2.5, Inner Opacity 80, Outer Opacity 25

Edge Fade, Inner - Edge Width 2.5, Inner Opacity 80, Outer Opacity 25 plus Glow Radius bumped to 0.5

I think bumping the Glow radius to 0.5 is nice. And these are working nicely, so I don't think I will try importing other water fills to see if any of them work. I'm leaning towards Solid 90 because for my poor eyes at least, I really have to zoom in on the pure solid one to see the stonework behind the water.

Thank you for your help, Sue! Looking forward to plotting out my main city's sanitation system over the next few weeks. Sewers make for such great adventure options -- emergency exits when you're being besieged, or for plotting out heists. I imagine a lot of crime lords dump a lot of evidence (and bodies) in the sewers...

There were already separate threads seeking advice on the Parchment Maps and Jerion Shading approaches. I wanted to share a little about my technique for the Mike Schley style, including things that I would do differently next time.

I wanted to have some contours consistent with the other maps, so I opened the Jerion export and copied one of the contour areas onto the Schley map, just where the Jerion contour colors started to turn brown (I think around 5,000 or 7,000 feet in elevation). Playing with a technique that Ralf showed in the Jeriod shading demo, I moved that contour to a contour sheet and changed the fill to the Solid 10 fill. I added Edge Fade, Inner and Transparency effects to that sheet. I then created a second contour sheet with the same effects, and did the same thing with a somewhat higher elevation (I think it was around 11,000 feet in elevation). That worked well. I liked how it gave shading and depth without being too intense like a bevel effect would have done.

Here's what I did next that I would do differently next time. First, I look an even higher level of elevation and did the same thing. But instead of putting it on a contours sheet with a Solid 10 fill, I put it on a Land Features Hills Background sheet and changed it to the Hills Background fill style. I also added a Transparency effect to that sheet. And then I did the same with an even higher elevation, putting it on a Land Features Mountain Background and changing the fill style to the Mountain Background fill. At this point, the file got massively big. I think it had a lot of nodes to contend with. Next time I try this approach, I might still do the two Solid 10 contour imports, but instead of also importing contour lines for the hills and mountains, I will draw them on using a JPG image of the original export as a rough guide for where to draw them.

Here are a few zoomed in maps in the Jerion shading style:

I am writing up the description for the Eknapata Desert area of Gold Coast region of the Community Atlas. It was designed using the Scorching Sun annual. Any feedback on the map before I submit it?

Hi @Quayuazue! I think you’re describing a different place than mine, but just in case, I wanted to show you the place I’ve already adopted. It’s the village in the red box here:

I’m looking forward to seeing your approach to these villages!

Related to this village: I am planning on submitting an intermediate map of the Kingdom of Enía portion of the Gold Coast. And now I'm thinking that I might also do another map of just the Firessí Woods. I think it might be easier to do the Firessí Woods map now than after this temple village is added to the Atlas.

If I do create a Firessí Woods map, are there any sorts of adventure hooks or mapping possibilities you'd recommend including? I have the Tempuwari Ruins, which were meant to provide a place for an adventure reminiscent of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other than adding a few more tiny elven hamlets, and maybe a few cave openings in hills, are there other mapping/adventure hooks you'd like to see?

This is really lovely. My only ever-so-slight feedback is that my old eyes are finding it a little difficult to read the legend, so I would consider increasing the opacity of the background fill/color slightly.

Per Quenten's suggestion, I have been playing with the Line Styles for the roads. I didn't try creating a custom one, but I did try some of the other presets, and they didn't really work. I also tried checking the Paper Scale checkbox, and that had weird effects when I zoomed in.

Here's an attempt that sets the roads to be solid and leaves the guided routes as dotted lines. I like that it makes it a bit clearer which ones are actual roads. I will also put it in my WIP gallery to make it easier to zoom in. Thoughts?

I have been looking forward to seeing what you do since you first claimed Elkton.

Also: DD4 things! Squeeee!

Well, I was going to make a twist of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity") phrased more like Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"):

A secret grand design is indistinguishable from stupidity.

The truth is...just a clumsy attempt to recreate from a much bigger parent map that was itself derived from a much, much bigger parent map.

This is the parent map I took it from (Gongodûr is in the lower right):

And this is the section parent map that this whole 1,000 x 1,000 mile section comes from:

When I downloaded the FCW for the parent map, it said there were green mountains there, which I took to mean vegetation-covered hills and small mountains.

So no real grand design, just an over-exuberance in trying to add more detail from the parent map and slip in some mapping/adventure hooks.