Working on the inside of the church first before tackling the mansion, though I've been taking notes on the types of rooms one might expect in a medieval mansion. (Suggestions welcome.) I've just done the first floor so far.

Here's the outside.

The end portions of the right and left wings are actually covered porches, so the floorplan for Floor 1 will show the porches, and Floor 2 will show the roofs covering the porches.

Here's the inside. I used the parchment approach that Sue used with the Beaumaris Castle annual to cause the outside to fade out a bit. The four stairwells all go up and down.

Downstairs, the basement is mostly below ground, but a small portion is above ground, just enough for some high windows to let in daylight. The priests' offices are down there along other rooms. There might be some common rooms for church events (what's the medieval equivalent of Bingo?), but most of that sort of thing probably occurs at the Church Hall on the west side of the plaza. This level will include a room used to prepare bodies for funeral services. Another basement below that will contain catacomb crypts for VIP decedents buried beneath the church rather than in the graveyard beside it. The crypts will have a secret access to the sewers, which also connects to the sewers from the haunted mansion, allowing for secret travel between the church and the mansion (a plot point I'll share when all of the mapping is done.) The second floor will contain balconies. One will in the back between the belltowers, with more pews. The two sets of stairs on the north side of the church will lead to balconies on the east and west sides used primarily by the choir, although they can also accommodate more private seating for visiting nobles.

Here's a blow up of the altar area. The north side is raised a few steps up.

Okay, the second floor is mapped and furnished!

Outside

1. Muri Magni: Inside the second floor of the outer wall in a 10-foot-wide passageway with arrow slits at regular intervals.
2. Portae Turres: The gatehouse towers
3. Turres Anguli: The corner towers
4. Scalae: Exterior staircases open on one side that lead to the second-floor entrances of the corner towers

Villa

5. Portico Roof: The roof of the covered porch

6. Scalae Graecae: Staircase from the first floor

7. Scala Spiralis: Spiral stairs leading to the third floor

8. Cenaculum: The dining room on an upper floor of Roman houses

9. Heating Caliduct: Hot air from the hypocaust in the basement of the balneae flows through this shaft to heat the floors

10. Puteus & Puteal: An interior well with unheated water

11. Lavatrina: Lavatories

12. Cubiculum: Bedroom

Balneae

13. Colonnade Roof: The roof of the colonnade that connects the main villa to the bathhouse

14. Scalae Graecae: Staircase from the first floor and up to the third floor

15. Hypocaust Chimney: Exhaust vent for the vast amounts of smoke generated by the hypocaust in the basement

16. Armorium: Closets

17. Bibliotheca: The library, including a reading area overlooking the tepidarium pool

18. Palaestra: An exercise area and prominade

19. Gymnasium: Exercise equipment

Turret is done, and with it the entire above-ground portion of the tower. There are several basement areas (cold storage and wine cellar, sewers, dungeon!) that still need to be mapped. My hope is to finish it all off before the end of the month.

Eighth Floor

The 8th Floor of the tower is the first floor of the turret, plus the roof area (protected by crenellations) of the main tower. The turret has arrow slits that can be closed off inside with metal shutters. (In looking at the arrow slits, I see they are not quite like the ones on lower floors, so I may adjust them.) The spiral staircase extends up one more level.

Ninth Floor

This floor provides arrow slits elevated above the roof of the main tower. The spiral staircase ends here, but rungs mounted on the wall allow for ascending to the "bell tower" above.

Tenth Floor

It's more of a light house than a bell tower. Luminescent crystals radiate light that can easily be seen for miles around. On holidays and special occasions, the wizard can use simple illusions to change the color of the light to match the holiday's traditional décor.

You may have noticed that these images now use the title "Tyr Alomere" instead of "Wizard's Tower." I have decided where I'd like to home it in the Atlas, a wizard's tower that I had placed in the Gold Coast area of Doriant that I mapped for the Atlas (circled in yellow in the two images below).

I will need to design the small village the tower is in first. Do you think I need to do a more regional map, or will the village with the tower suffice?

Here it is on the Gold Coast:

It also makes an appearance on the edges of the regional map of Gongodûr -- it's in the Kingdom of Vacuria, but on the edges of Gongodûr:

Thrilled to be included in the January 2024 Maps of the Month post, but I just noticed that although I posted the corrected map in the Facebook group, the final map here still has some upside down trees! Posting the corrected one now since the blog post links here.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for the feedback, it was very helpful. I put the legend back to the original size and location, and it actually looks pretty good. There's room for some lines to wrap if I make it slightly larger, but it seems legible enough as is. Also, I made the roads stand out a little more by changing the transparency effect from 50% opaque to 75% opaque.

Also, are the numbers on the map okay? Should I make them bigger? (I just noticed that some seem to be different sizes, so I will at least have to standardize that.) Are there effects that would make them pop more, like a stronger white glow? Is there anything else unlabeled that should be labeled? I just provided a few sample businesses (inns, blacksmiths, etc.) figuring that a DM could make up something on the fly if players were looking for a specific type of business, but I can add others that folks think are necessary.

Neighborhood maps are a good idea if anyone wants to do a full campaign here (rather than an adventure limited to an inn or a temple, where the rest of the map just provides a general context). I have a whole laundry list of maps I want to do first, but once this is published in the Atlas (after the contest is done), I would welcome anyone to take a neighborhood and expand on it.

I am ready to submit the summer version of the village of Arbor Hollow for the Atlas contest. The spring, autumn, and winter versions (as described in this thread) will be submitted separately, not as part of the contest but hopefully by Monday so that if it's more convenient for Remy to process them all together, he has that option.

Here are the files:

This is where Arbor Hollow appears in the parent map, the Kingdom of Gongadûr, which was previously submitted in this thread. It is located in the yellow-boxed area in this map:

Pretty sure this is my last submission for the contest, but I have tons more stuff in varying stages of progress to submit for the Atlas later.

Added a few final touches (a friend was confused about the seaweed washed up on the beach, so I added a little more floating in the sea, and a few other minor tweaks here and there. Not really sure what that line cutting off the light in the nighttime version is from.

Here's the "final" (is anything ever really final?) version of the daytime and nighttime full maps. More details maps in my galleries.

The third version uses Marine Dungeons as the basis, with stumps (and snakes) coming in from Creepy Crypts and trees coming in from Forest Trail. This has the best waves and ripples, naturally. I tried to darken the water a bit by using patches of the Water Deep and Water Deepest drawing tools, and then applying some effects to that sheet (specifically, using the RGB Matrix to make the deeper waters sepia toned, and then the Adjust Hue/Saturation effect to change the lightness by -15%. I should probably add more algae floating on top.

Anyway, these more mostly just for fun. I don't currently have a specific plan for them, but I wanted to see if I could create a swamp with current assets/techniques. Still hoping for a Jungle/Swamp annual some day. 😉

Thank you, everyone, for your help.

After a bit of wrestling (and an evening of downloading massive files), I was able to install the Dundjinni symbols that Wyvern recommended. I added a griffon and a dragon with a rider. I also swapped out the giant hawks in the lower right side for a pair of eagles from the Mike Schley Overland that I missed. My flying creatures are a bit oversized compared to the castle, but I figure it's a bit of forced perspective, with the flying creatures coming in from above and closer to the viewer.

(I also trimmed back some of the farmland on the right side so that it's now mostly around the towns and cities.)

I belatedly discovered that Mike Schley's clouds also have a vericolor version, so I could add in some light gray ones to add a little texture, but I haven't done that. I will get the 2014 Annual with the Alyssa Faden clouds in a few weeks and try them on a whole new map from scratch.

Ricko, I am enjoying your tutorials. Thank you.

Over a year ago, I posted the exterior map of a lighthouse on a rocky hill on a small island overlooking sunken ruins. I was experimenting with using the CA209 Stairs and Steps annual (2024), but it was also an opportunity to use the CA175/180 Marine Dungeons annuals (2021) properly, as I had taken advantage of the marine features in previous uses of it.

I decided to revisit it to design the interiors.

In revisiting a map I did in my early months of mapping, I can see so many areas where I have learned so much since then. For example, I wasn't using snaps very effectively, and that meant that when I used a circular array to place crenellations (also a new technique for me), they were a little off. It's kind of gratifying to see these early mistakes to help me gauge my progress.

The lighthouse tower itself is pretty simple: just three stories, each a single room. But of course, I couldn't resist doing a little excavation to create some dungeon spaces as well.

Here's the overview map again, slightly tweaked (for example, I removed the bits of land on the right side of the map because I wanted the lighthouse island to be a little more removed from the mainland).

Tower

Floor 1 (Ground Floor)

This floor is meant to be at the same level as the courtyard, and therefore there are no exterior doors here, as the entrance is one flight up. I used the spiral staircase from Creepy Crypts rather than Marine Dungeons, because CC has one that spirals up and down. I could stack the Marine Dungeons one, but with my snap points being off, that was trickier -- plus it never looks quite as good as a symbol designed for the purpose.

This is the sleeping area for the lighthouse attendants. As each floor is a single room, they've used curtains to partition private spaces.

Floor 2 (Entryway)

The exterior stairs lead to the entrance here. This is the common area, including a kitchen area with a stove vented outside.

Floor 3 (Parapet)

The interior space on this floor is minimal: most of the level is a crenellated parapet. The spiral staircase continues up a bit (unshown) to the lighthouse fire that the workers must regularly refuel. (Woodburning? Oil? What would have been standard? Magical luminescent crystals would be nice, but wouldn't need much of a lighthouse staff for that.)

Basement 1

The spiral staircase also descends to a basement, where it ends. Much of this chamber is used to store provisions brought in from the mainland. A pair of double doors leads to a hallway that connects to three rooms. One is the wine cellar, amply stocked with wine, ale, rum, and probably barrels of water, as the island likely doesn't have its own source of fresh water. A second room has a latrine and bath, with saltwater for invigorating bathing (code for cold bathing) brought up from a well. A third room is used as barracks when the lighthouse needs to be garrisoned in times of strife, as the small island would be a strategic location for an invading naval force.

There's also a secret door off of the hallway that leads to a narrow series of stairs leading deeper inside the cliffs.

Basement 2

The secret stairs continue to wind down, where the end up at a long forgotten shrine to a forgotten sea god. Another secret door leads to a roughly hewn passageway with stairs that lead eventually to underwater tunnels that lead directly into the sea. Perhaps this was a secret emergency exit built when the lighthouse was created. Or perhaps some sort of amphibious humanoids built a shrine here long ago that the lighthouse constructors knew nothing about.