For @DoubleDouble and anyone else interested, this page on ancient port structures has some notes on the archaeological/historical use of constructed breakwaters and other artificial port structures, beginning around 2600 BCE (Egypt, Gulf of Suez). I'd recommend taking time to check through the other links and references if this subject catches your attention, though your life can end up taken over by such matters without due care...

Mystara rather passed me by @Tonnichiwa, as I'd moved on to my own version of D&D, and other RPG systems, even by the time it first featured, as the Known World (in Module X1 "The Isle of Dread" according to online sources, in 1981). I have gone back in more recent times and looked over some of what was published for the Known World/Mystara setting, though after getting back strongly involved with D&D only when 5e appeared, I've concentrated more on finding past details for the Forgotten Realms setting, because of its intimate connection with 5e from the outset.

I suspect my (ongoing) connection to miniatures (and scenery, and everything else that goes with it) is because I started out as a model-maker, and only got involved in wargaming proper a few years after that, at the end of the '60s and early 1970s. Many tabletop rule systems are, and always were slow, but most of what I've done has been for my own interest and solo, so that was never a great issue for me. And a lot of the larger-area battles are fought using the miniatures as little more than markers, so I quite understand your "scale" problems.

I never understood why so many wargames have to be "balanced", when reality very rarely is (unless somebody's really screwed-up their reconnaissance and planning), which I think is why I never took to needing a group to game with. That was just too much like chess to me, whereas I wanted to try to better understand real, or potentially real, situations.

"A" looks more natural to me too, Sue.

The cross-hatched decoration (don't know what the proper term for it is, sorry!) seems undamaged despite the roof holes beneath it. As this seems to be of fairly flimsy outer surface material (compared with the depth of roof thatching), it seems unlikely it would have survived intact when the entire thatch below it has rotted away - even if it had just broken and raggedly partly fallen-in, say. I'd guess in some cases it might partly survive sort-of intact, but not always.

It does also look a little odd that none of the holes are where the greenery is; the extra weight and implication that that's where water's collecting, so mulching the thatch down into a growing medium plants can root into, might suggest that kind of area would be ripe for collapse as well.

Checking this Annual issue following Julian's query, there are further oddities about it.

Creating a new map file for a test drawing, I found there are no effects on either of the mountains sheets in a new file (the sheets set-up is to have the TERRAIN HILLS one immediately below TERRAIN HILLS 2, and TERRAIN MOUNTAINS below TERRAIN MOUNTAINS 2). When I copy those effects over directly from the Scotland map, and draw using the mountain drawing tool, I get pitting on the TERRAIN MOUNTAINS 2 sheet, just as Julian says. However, if I try drawing a new area on on the TERRAIN MOUNTAINS 2 sheet of the sample Scotland map using the default tool, that ALSO shows pits, unless I keep the area small and simple!

Both the TERRAIN HILLS sheets do come with their Glow effects emplaced in a new file, but there's no pitting with them. I wonder though if that may be because the default hills drawing tool uses only the Solid 10 bitmap fill, rather than anything textured. The default mountain tools both use the Land Brown CA91 fill.

Many thanks everyone for your kind comments, "Likes", and so forth. Haven't been on here for a couple of days, so apologies if I've seemed to be ignoring anyone.

I've been working on this group of maps for about six months now, so I've tinkered around with quite a few options, some of which worked better than others, and some of which have ended-up as something of a compromise. I went with the paler mists in the end (and there are some minor variations in the colouring and density in places) as I wanted Embra to be "lighter" in tone generally, although there are a few less welcoming spots too (we'll get to those...).

Well, once the maps are in the Atlas, it should work a little like this, once you find Embra at least. It might have been nice to be able to swap from map to map without needing the linear Atlas structure, but the set was designed specifically for use that way.

They're my own interpretations of images from randomly-drawn tarot cards. These are the notes regarding them that I gave in the opening "Embra" Forum topic:

The texts were also designed to fit the available space next to the map, and how much text you can type into a single text-box in CC3+, so some of the descriptions were amended because of those constraints too!

Yes Jim, the breaks in the lettering are due a type of acne where the same colours in the letters recur in the symbols or fill texture the letters are overlying. This seems to happen when there's any glow on the lettering. You may be able to solve it, should you change your mind, by changing the colour of the lettering (either to the "other" black - colour 17 if you originally used 0, for instance - or one of the darkest greys or browns), or by adding a new Sheet just below the TEXT Sheet, and copying the text onto it, but with no effects active on the new Sheet. In this case though, you may find the paler lettering will be OK on the darker woodland fill, without the need to use dark text letters there.

The third set of Embra "Places" are the Watery Places of Interest, accessed from the appropriate pie-segment of the "Official Guide" map:

One of the aspects that caught my attention from when I originally bought it in the Dover Clip-Art "Celtic Borders on Layout Grids" hardcopy book, was a page of individual knotwork creatures. Here, I simply couldn't resist the two merfolk to add to the borders for the Watery Places, with a neat little criss-cross design just in the frame's corners. As previously, the link-spaces on this schematic drawing are simply labelled extracts from the actual linked maps, with GM notes. The pattern for the layout here was basically the same as for the first of these Places of Interest maps, the Enclosed Places.

Hilly map 5 is Sunset Mound, a rather more characterful hill than some in this set, looking a little like a fish with a small tail, the dominant upland in the area, with a swarm of much smaller, elongated hills clustering nearby:

While the shape for The Fence hedge-lines with its dense corner copses was largely determined by the base-map being a castle, most of the interior for that was ignored, replaced instead with a small focal-point derived from the map's accompanying featured text, that bloodstained Altar of the Dying Swan. Why such a huge, empty space surrounds it, is for GMs to expand upon.

Last of the individual Hilly Places is the segment of the Twilight Market for this set, Fair Market:

The overall nature of this location was decided well in advance - a hilltop funfair and market, with a living-wagon camp nearby for the funfair folk and some of the traders. And another chance to play "spot the castle" as determined by the original base map! Here though, that allows the easy segregation of the funfair from the main part of the market, though there is a degree of mixing as well.

Most of the features are temporary structures, stalls, tents, etc. Even those "walls" are beautifully-crafted wooden lookalikes, with huge tents at the "turret corners", though stout enough to support an array of stalls built into the lower part of the walls, and more along the upper level's walkway. There is a handful of buildings too, in the Inns of Trade area south of the hill and market proper:

Those varicolor, chimneyless, long, wooden buildings, and the small, square ones, from the CA169 Fantasy Town Annual, are amazingly versatile, I've discovered. Change their sizes a little, and an entire array of market stalls appears as if by magic, especially once some of Sue's City Domes from CA144A are added to the mix for circular tents, stall roofs or awnings, including here for a theatre/performance venue (Great Dome) and a Helter-Skelter tower (with a couple of drawn additions), not to mention that square Grand Pavilion. And the wooden long-houses also work nicely as the living-caravans (with the addition of a drawn, little round chimney top for each), as well as more of the square buildings for the stores/privies alongside the vans in the Camp. Plus there are a few more oddities in the written information to go with this drawing, as normal.