You should always map the way you want to, and you don't need to justify that to anyone except yourself!

Might be worth thinking of some variants for many of the "commoner" symbols too - if it really was hand-drawn, none would be the same, after all, so the option for a few variants would be useful.

The whole concept does look amazing!

I'm not sure about the shadows on the symbols, however. It's rather breaking the illusion for me, as they wouldn't be there on the real thing. Or rather they might be, but in a different way - where the drawn lines are all slightly indented into the paper surface.

Can the paper colour for the sticky notes be changed easily? I know there are some sticky note pads in colours other than yellow now, so that might be interesting to explore as well - maybe the boss chamber would be more helpful on a pink/red sheet, for instance, as a GM's reminder (again if this were the real thing).

Geology! You can find an explanation for any landform that way if you hunt long and hard enough (speaking as a once-upon geologist)!

It can be difficult sometimes to tell what a much larger area map is really showing when you start to drill down to try and provide more detail. I often look at things like symbol titles and fill/drawing tool names where there aren't more detailed map notes (and I discovered at least one earlier Atlas map where the map notes were hidden off to one side of the map - by quite some distance, and on a hidden layer; I assume this was before things were standardised to have the text-file map notes attached separately, and as a PDF in many cases).

In the end, it's best to design what seems interesting to you that doesn't contradict whatever was shown on the larger regional map, which pretty much seems to be what you have done!

You can always conceal the missing bends and corners with trees next time, of course, but this does look more natural now.

One option for having a more "realistically" vegetated treehouse settlement would be to layer the canopy cover, and use map toggles to hide various of the layers as you descend through - including to show the forest floor as you have done this time, ultimately. This needn't be too complex, as a simple upper level of tree cover might be the only additional layer you'd need. That could hide everything, as it would be with a solid forest cover. Then toggle that top layer off to reveal the main houses and walkways (much as you have here), still with the missing walkway bends "hidden" by the next level down of the canopy trees.

In terms of those bends, I haven't tried, but at this kind of overall map scale, you might get away with artificially shortening some of the walkway segments by using separate X and Y scaling for the symbols, and using each short symbol as one little part of an arc. You would have to overlap the part of the inner areas on the curves too, so again an experiment to try would be advisable first. It may not work, of course, and probably wouldn't once zoomed-in even a little, but it could be worth trying.

Up to you, but I'd say not, since the place needs a reliable water source, and the area map is truly vast, so small streams and even modest rivers, likely wouldn't feature.

And were-elks will the were-elks get a drink 😉?

[What have I started...]

Not looking so steep to my eye yet, Sue. Maybe some contour-like slumping lines in the snow might help, and also some longer shadows for the trees on the steeper sections (only). It is tricky though, as maybe the houses will help the illusion - with garden/yard platforms, say.

It does sound like some kind of computer glitch, as I'm not sure what would simply wipe the sheet effects but leave other things on the map untouched.

The textures going "soft/blurry" sounds as if it could be them showing as lower resolution than they should. That can be corrected by forcing the fills to have a fixed bitmap quality of "Very high", via the dialogue box opened by left-clicking the Display Speed Indicator icon, :CC2RESMODE:. Ordinarily, while that shouldn't be necessary, it does rarely need to be applied under normal circumstances.

Beyond that, I think you'd need to share the FCW file here so our technical experts like Loopysue and Monsen can have a look at it and maybe troubleshoot the problems properly.

If you're stumped for ideas of what to place and where on a map, I'd suggest trying out some dice rolls on a few random overland design or encounter tables, if you have any. Even if you don't like what they come up with, that might spark ideas you do prefer - or variants on those themes.

As I have the book sitting by me as I type this, have six random throws from the Shadowdark RPG overland generator tables:

• A natural landmark controlled by a malevolent sorcerer.
• A village occupied by a self-titled king.
• Barrow mounds guarded by their current residents.
• An abandoned, ruined, fortified keep.
• A town connected to a large tomb.
• A cave formation that's home to a religious cult.

Make of those what you will!

There are hosts of free-access tables online, often on blogs, although many are for rolling encounters, rather than places. Even so, you can still glean ideas from those. I came up with these three, of perhaps variable utility here, on a quick search just now:

100 Overland Descriptors by Gnome Stew

1d100 Random Events for Overland Traveling from Lore Wise Games

The Collaborative Gamer's System for Creating Fantasy Adventures

The last one has a whole series of tables, many of which won't be of much use here, but some of the later ones are readily adaptable for ideas such as you're asking for.

Good luck!