After a long rest in Diriall, I'll head to Pontall, where I'll take a small boat towards Norsouth Isle.

More images coming soon.

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🤣 more items for the tomb 🤣

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once again i normally adjust mountain size by eye.

at this point i finished the image on light room and export a png to work on colors in lightroom (as a photographer this program is very easy to me). But also you can enhance the colors in this tutorial from @Loopysue on https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/shore-and-ocean-effects-for-overland-maps-part-1-edge-striping/

i just feel myself more confortable using lightroom as a very long user.

The Tower of Arelith

Long before the colonization of this land, before the villages and the plowed fields, the tower of Arelith already stood alone. A man with slender and thin features—no one knew for sure his origin, and few dared to ask—lived there, studying the world around him with infinite patience. Always reserved, of few words, he seemed to carry with him the weight of a knowledge that few would understand. His eyes, deep and attentive, saw beyond what mere mortals could perceive.

Over time, some peasants settled at the foot of his tower. They came seeking protection, for even he who promised nothing was still a strong shadow against the chaos of the region. Arelith did not expel them, nor did he welcome them with enthusiasm. He accepted them as an inevitability, and, in exchange for his protection, they received him as lord. Thus was born the small domain around the tower, a place where order reigned only because his presence imposed it.

But then came the tremors. Cracks tore the earth, rivers dried up, and the once starry sky was dyed black by the ash that spread in the wind. In the chaos that followed, Arethusa, his wife and only true companion, was taken. Dead? Missing? No one knows for sure, as Arelith never told the story. What is known is that, from that day on, he was no longer the same.

Locked in his laboratory, immersed in his studies, he obsessively sought a solution to restore his ruined land. If the world had been destroyed by the force of nature, then force should be his answer. And so the Ash Golems were born, molded from the bowels of the volcano, with beating hearts made of rare Black Gold, a mineral that emerged from the flaming bowels of the earth. They were supposed to be salvation. The force that would purify the soil, that would raise the villages, that would expel the threats.

Your creation was born flawed. The golems awoke not as guardians, but as raging, untamable creatures. The fire of the volcano still burned within them, destruction etched into their very essence. Without conscience, without purpose beyond ruin, they rebelled. What was supposed to restore their land only deepened its tragedy. Wherever they went, they left a trail of ash and devastation.

Faced with her colossal mistake, Arelith retreated to her tower, never to be seen outside it again. Her refuge became his cell, and each of its four floors was an echo of his penance. On the first, where she once dealt with merchants and resolved conflicts among her vassals, silence now reigns. On the second, her laboratory, the weight of her failures piles up, each scroll more useless than the last. On the third, her ritual room, only burned candles and scratched symbols remain from her desperate attempts to control her own creation.

And at the top, on the fourth floor, she gazes out to sea. The cool wind blowing from the coast is perhaps the last thing keeping him connected to the world. But even here, amid the salty breezes and the endless horizon, he knows the truth: nothing can repair what has been done. Nothing will bring Arethusa back.

The peasants below whisper stories of his tower. They say that sometimes his window opens and a motionless shadow can be seen against the dim light. They say he still searches for answers. Or perhaps he simply looks south toward the ocean, hoping the winds will carry his guilt away.

But the winds do not carry sins and regrets.

Cheers