Did the same thing when I was getting started and it took me forever to figure out that right-clicking again would collapse it. Glad you're posting these questions -- everyone here is very friendly and happy to help.

Congratulations on your first map! It’s looks great. Ans I agree with you: it is oddly therapeutic and calming. I like that it’s simultaneously exercising my creativity and my analytical/problem solving sides.

I forgot about my early mapping influences from fantasy/sci fi literature, prior to discovering D&D. The Lord of the Rings was huge, naturally (I even had Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth). And then the maps from Pern, and The Land from Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant novels.

But I forgot that the earliest for me was the maps from The Wizard of Oz books. I was obsessed with those books from around the ages of 7 to 10. I would draw the map from memory over and over again. I started to do a version in CC3 but got distracted by other projects. (The map is now in public domain so no copyright infringement!)

Around the same time, while our teacher was reading stories to us, I would doodle side-view maps of underground mansions inspired by an illustration from the children's book Babar and Father Christmas, which you can see on the bottom of this page:

https://imaginaryelevators.blog/2021/12/21/babar-je-taime/

I probably will! I've started doing that when mapping with Mike Schley's overland and city styles.

Jack heard “mouse” nd had to take charge.

How large is your map? I just fiddled around with Spectrum Overland on a small 50x50 map, and the Edge Fade, Inner effects on the FARMLAND sheet was too much for a tiny map. I had to reduce the edge width for it to work.

What a fun adventure for them. "Castle Measles" made me laugh. Sounds like a very dangerous place!

@KertDawg I haven’t really given it thought. I’ve never played with people where I wasn’t already friends with at least most of them in real life. Maybe! I will see how much time this Pathfinder game takes first.

I have played D&D off and on since around 1980, but the last longer campaign I was in ended around 2009 or so. Some time around 2016, I decided to start building my campaign world in preparation for getting a new group together. I spent some time researching mapping software before settling on Campaign Cartographer. In the years between buying the software and finally learning how to use it, I was writing up a lot of the lore for my campaign world, first in MS Word before finding a few Wiki plugin for my WordPress website. Lots done in the Religion section, along with some in History and Geoscience.

Still haven't actually DM'd in this world yet. Another group of friends who I had never played with invited me to join a campaign they were launching. We had a few sessions before COVID hit, and then tried one remote session on Discord that was a complete disaster, and everything fell apart. So I got back into my own worldbuilding (which can be a fun activity in its own right), and then started getting into map-making. I admit that Campaign Cartographer has taken over my hobby time and I've neglected the world-building.

Meanwhile, the old group that I played with in the early 2000s is getting back together. One friend who was part of that group, and whom I've played with off and on since 1989, moved back from New York and decided to DM a Pathfinder campaign for us. So my world is still off on its own as I dive into his world...but my Wiki still exists. And so I present to you: the World of Adnati.

Others here are savvier than I am, but what about reinstalling the main software?