The East Wing runs to a mere two vertical Levels by contrast, based on images of a couple of layouts on the DF Discord, combined here with the usual additions and amendments, for all the final plans are much simpler than for either of the preceding pair of Wings, and clearly show their rectilinear original forms rather more. This was though quite deliberate, as part of the concept of the various Wings was to show differences between them, suggesting they could likely be put to different uses, and that this area was probably still largely under construction. Plus it wasn't only the layouts that had been getting figuratively tied in knots with some of the other maps!

Simplicity only counts for so much though, so the entryway from the Palace this time isn't on Level 1, but on the lower Level 2 (which is also a somewhat larger map than the others):

Yes, it's coming up to that time isn't it? So here's my final version of Cloven House, firstly with the secret cave hidden, and then revealed:

This will be winging its way to Remy for the Atlas shortly, with its text and PDF notes, but in case anyone might be interested, the PDF description is here as well, should anyone wish to be "enlightened" further on the nature of this haunted house:

Worth noting though that a few comments are a trifle "adults only", concerning a couple of the potential apparitions and other ghoulish elements.

Place 2 is the "famous" Red Picket Golf Course (given Embra is, extremely loosely, derived ultimately from the real city of Edinburgh in Scotland, it proved impossible not to include something relating to golf in these maps of the Faerie city):

This time, there is the option to hide the labels for the course separately from any other map labels, to make the various hazards and obstacles easier to see, although the labelling is essential to work out what is meant to be where in terms of trying to complete the course:

A small key has been provided with this map as well, to better clarify what the recurrent features of the course are meant to be. The PDF and text files for this map describe in detail the Faerie elements of the course, which plays as something like a cross between "real" golf and miniature or crazy golf, with fantasy aspects to-boot. Of course, those descriptions also explain why the course seems both a lot smaller and shorter than real-world golf courses (key word "seems"...), and that it may take players, non-Faerie players especially, days to complete a round of the nine holes. Benefits may accrue for those who do persist and finish the course, however. And they may find their time has not been nearly so wasted as they may have felt while still playing (Faerie time-dilation can work both ways, after all).

There are just a couple of buildings on the map, and these have been provided with internal-layout drawings via a couple more toggles in the Atlas FCW file for the ground floor, and the upper storey of the Clubhouse (only):

Completing the circuit is Embra - Summerset in the northwest, with its small village of single-storey properties, the River Clack with a bridge (albeit the bridge seems detached from the village rather), both the main Clack Valley tributaries, plus a curiously unlabelled third tributary stream, which seems more significant than the named Silverburn (a deliberate choice!). However, dominating the map's centre are two substantial lakes and a marsh:

Next-up will be the first of Embra city's contents, the Enclosed Places.

It's certainly a very beautiful map, and I know well how difficult it is to find a suitable real-world base map from which to draw this region, so I think you've done a splendid job with it!

As Sue said, the seas look a little "double-exposed" currently though.

How historically-accurate were you intending to be with it?

I ask, as ancient Mesopotamia is a particular place of interest for me, especially around the 3rd-2nd millennia BCE, along with the Black Sea and places adjacent around the 2nd-early 1st millennia BCE, and east to what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and western India. They're places I've mapped and studied in some detail previously, and there are points I could make which might be of use, though only if you were wanting it to be more historical.

The river lines are very complex, particularly if you're going for that historical route, and a specific time-frame. The Tigris has pretty much held its course over the millennia, largely thanks to a stonier bed, but the Euphrates has drifted hither and yon across the silts of southern Mesopotamia especially, encouraged by deliberately-dug irrigation canals in places, beginning around the later 4th millennium BCE, for instance.

I know when I started out trying to map parts of this region, something that surprised me was how poorly different published atlas maps compared with one another as regards the modern watercourses, especially for anything other than the major river channels, even in the specialist (i.e. archaeological-historical) literature.

Thanks Jim!

And thanks for the explanation, Remy. I appreciate fonts can be problematic in CC3+ at times, although in this case, the two ocean labels seemed to have changed far less than the placement of the four numerals and their associated snowflake markers, which had moved closer to the labels - on the version above here, much closer - than where they were set on the CC3+ drawing. Interestingly, on the higher res printout I did, the texts hadn't altered at all, so far as I could tell, but the earlier placement of the four markers and labels was wrong; not by so much as the lower res version above, but very noticeably all the same. Which does make me think still that it's been primarily a proximity issue along the same horizontal lines (maybe because both the snowflake and ocean text labels were placed using the same horizontal snap-grid placement). Odd the snowflakes should have dragged the numerals with them all the same, as they're not grouped, just individually placed, and the numerals aren't all on the same horizontal lines. Just one of life's little mysteries, perhaps ?

I had another look at the Locations map again today anyway, and decided to try moving just the numerals and markers further out from the labels, and that seems to have worked OK:

The separation is now only about twice what it was previously, yet as you can see, the difference in where they appear is very much greater, and almost exactly where the markers currently are in the FCW file, as well as on the higher res jpg and printout I tried.

Final checking of the accompanying texts is still to complete, but I'm hopeful of having the set ready to submit by maybe tomorrow or Saturday.

With the main surface part completed, it was time to ascend in the properties with rising stairs. A new sheet was added appropriately in the stack to allow the addition of a "haze" blanket, to mist-down the lower level buildings and features. This was achieved very simply by adding a map-sized rectangle of the "Solid White 40" bitmap onto said new sheet.

After that, copies of the full wall lines (from the initial line-tracing, shown back in the second and third posts above, from the 2nd and 5th of November), the floors, and staircases were placed on three more new "Upper Storey" sheets, to give this result:

This illustrates too that higher features, such as the main trees and battlements of the Town Wall, were also set above the "mist" panel. The stairs look very flat at this stage, as they're essentially simply markers for where the stairwells will go.

The next step involved cutting holes to show parts of the existing stairs rising to their landings on this upper level. Of course, the holes had to be cut through not just the new upper-level floors, but that mist panel as well. "Color Key" effects on both sheets provided the mechanism, although to prevent any mishandling, colour 6 (magenta) was used only on the upper floors sheet; colour 4 (yellow) was used on the mist panel sheet:

Further refinements would be needed to make these stairwells look a bit more real (including adding shadow lines and an upper banister rail), which became practical only after the new upper interior walls were in place.

One complication was that because I wanted the final Atlas map to have a toggle to hide or show this new upper level, everything had to be added only onto a new "Upper Storey" layer. That created a few issues later.

Next though was a much simpler step - adding all the new upper storey fireplaces:

They're in the same places as those on the lower level, although some were moved a little subsequently to better fit their new locations.

Then the walls, windows and doors started to be added. This initially took a degree of organising, because to have things like doors and windows cut the wall lines, the walls MUST be on the "WALLS" layer. The wall-cutting tools and symbols don't function otherwise. Only they also have to be on the Upper Storeys layer to work in the final map! So this led to a lot of hiding and showing various sheets and layers at different stages of the process, which all needed to be done in order.

And (of course!) there was a further difficulty, because with identical wall colours and effects for both the upper and lower storeys, wherever the two levels of walling stacked, there were clashes of transparency acne oddities along some of the upper storey walls. So that meant adding yet another sheet, onto which the final cut new wall lines could be copied, with no effects, and their colouring changed, to stop that. Much of this was worked-out using the two west-side buildings, and a heavy use of the "Undo" function:

The process eventually stabilised per building as:

1. Draw new internal walls
2. Add door and window symbols inside (not on) the new wall lines
3. Hide everything but the upper storey walls, window and door symbols
4. Change the wall lines to be on the WALLS layer and unhide it
5. Hide the lower walls (because they're also on the now-visible WALLS layer, so can be cut again too)
6. Add new windows and doors to cut the new upper wall lines; then delete the previous door and window symbol markers
7. Change the wall lines back to the Upper Storeys layer
8. Copy the wall lines to the Walls Upper Mask sheet
9. Change the colour of the wall lines on said Walls Upper Mask sheet
10. Unhide all sheets and layers to check everything works, then turn off the Upper Storeys layer to ensure nothing's been missed that should be on it

One more, variable, interjection of an additional number-point anywhere in this list was:

• Scream in frustration (other options are available...) when something's been done wrongly, stop and redo said problem, possibly more than once.

Eventually, however, this was the result:

As envisaged, most of the upper storeys were to be dormitory-style communal rooms for cult followers, hence the large open spaces, albeit there is also the practical consideration if these were genuine buildings, to help reduce the weight the lower storey needs to support. The first buildings to be furnished show what this meant:

Meeting House is a bit different, with a library and a couple of somewhat higher-ranked cult leaders in separate rooms. As before, the structures not directly connected with the cult on the western map edge, are to be left unfurnished. The remaining three properties were not to be so left alone though, and this is the higher-res final version of this map:

While not mentioned sooner, this view is now hopefully clear enough that the hinted-at connection between the two parts of Banys Hall, is obvious. I'd been intending this ever since deciding to place the two stairwells on the lower floor as they were.

Next time, the delve underground begins!

Having concluded my recent diversion to The Dying Earth of Jack Vance, it's now time to resume mapping for the Community Atlas. The next maps were intended for somewhere in the substantial Ruma Helrevy region of Peredur, as noted previously in the final post here:

This also brought a switch to a new Inkwell Ideas Dungeonmorph Dice set, as the next four dungeony maps were to be from designs in the Lairs pack. These are quite a contrast to the recent Trailblazer set's layouts, because most of the Lairs ones are caverns, or otherwise irregular spaces. As luck had it though, one of the dice designs randomly selected here was something transitional, with a square entrance room leading into a large series of caves. These dice also have an accompanying Inkwell Ideas book of suggestions for every design, "Dungeonmorph: Delves and Descriptions - Crypts, Lairs & Sewers Edition".

As usual, I checked through the book notes, with random rolls, to spark off some initial concepts, in conjunction with examining the existing Atlas maps for the region, and any notes with those, to find a suitable spot to locate this map. Almost nothing has been mapped in the Ruma Helrevy area, except the main settlement of Torstan, and most of the map's notes revolved around that more southerly broad valley as well. Meanwhile, what I'd determined/adapted from the Inkwell book were some Ogre-sized Badgerfolk who'd broken into the cellar (the square entrance room), which was a former summoning chamber in the base of a ruined wizard's tower. This led, by a now shattered secret door, to the cavern complex. In the caves were a Naga in a pool cavern, a whole group of Spidermages, one of whom was a strange, oracular creature, all of which mages had originally inhabited a far deeper world, led to by a great chasm, come nearer the surface to collect ambient magic in their special web-nets, and a second entrance, via a narrow, open-sky cleft, where a group of Wyverns (yay! 😁) were nesting.

The whole magic-from-the-air concept led me to think of a stone windmill-like wizard's tower, with four fixed, stone-framed sails, now partly ruined, designed to draw magic from the sky in a remote mountain valley (because of the Wyvern-cleft). And suddenly one map became three, because aside from the dungeon one, this needed an area map, and some sort of design for the surface tower too.

There are plenty of mountains in Ruma Helrevy, and I quickly narrowed the options down to a zone in that map's northwest, away from the more civilised parts. Ordinarily, I'd have gone with a 20-mile square area for this, which has become fairly, if not exclusively, typical during this project. That looked ridiculously tiny here though, so I doubled-up, and went with a 40-mile square instead, right on the extant map's northwestern edge:

Following what's become my normal practice, I set-up a, here, 2-mile square grid across that area, and randomly-rolled for locations of interest among those. I also randomly rolled up some name-options for the leading creatures from Mythmere Games' "Nomicon", and a whole series of mostly single-word idea-prompts for more names from the random tables in the "Knave: Second Edition" RPG rules (Jacob Hurst & Swordfish Islands LLC). However, for the location details, I decided to try out another, much newer, Inkwell Ideas product, the "Hexploration Kit". This comes with a large group of pre-drawn, coaster-sized, hexagonal terrain maps printed on card, and five separate card decks with an evocative illustration on one side (by The Forge Studios), and random tables of text ideas on the reverse. Several cards per deck have ideas and random tables on both sides, to further expand the options. I used cards here from three of these decks, "Stranger Places", "Into the Wilderness" and "Settled Lands", with suitable random rolls and further adaptations.

With all this decided, finally, I could start mapping! I opted to stay with Ralf's Hand-Drawn Fantasy style again for the area map (and the dungeon one too), and set-to.

While using the gridded map to place locations, I'd been struck by the flowing lines of the Jon Roberts' style mountains, and thought those lines could be readily adapted to show rivers. This first image illustrates how I drew those, still with the imported, semi-transparent, gridded base bitmap showing:

I also added a few small lakes, partly because I'd developed a mental image of how I wanted the ruined tower to look (aimed for the lake-head around square 0411, facing southeast down the valley), and it seemed likely such glaciated mountains (this is around 53°S latitude) would have small lakes of this kind. As you can see too, I've not simply gone with the valleys from the Jon Roberts symbols, but have used some of the crest lines too, essentially because that looked more interesting!

This shot gives a better idea of the final riverine layout:

With that completed, I started sketching-in the physical terrain:

This still needs a lot of tweaking - hiding the ends of the river lines, filling-in the blank valley bottoms, and so forth. Here's a shot partway through that "cleaning-up" process, and a bit further along more generally:

I tend to do this in segments of the map, to try to avoid too many problems with the ordering of which symbol overlies which ("Sort Symbols in Map" can create as many problems as it solves with styles of this sort that involve fade-out lower symbol edges, unfortunately). Thus all this took a couple of mapping sessions, and another couple more to complete the whole terrain layout:

By this point, I've also added the background mountain-shading polygons as well. The absence of smaller terrain features in the lower-lying areas is because there are going to be woodlands here, which would make many such smaller symbols redundant, as largely hidden away.

Still quite a lot more to do, but that's definitely long enough for today's round-up, I think!

Resurrecting this topic, as another, but much larger, map in a similar style has recently come to my attention, as a version of it was recently republished by the H P Lovecraft Historical Society as a period prop to accompany their latest Dark Adventure Radio Theatre audio show, "The Blood Red Sphinx". It's a 1932 pictorial map of the Greater Los Angeles area:

The reason I can post it here, is because this version comes from Wikimedia, and that's where you can find a much larger, higher-res version (albeit the Index list is STILL too small on the largest version to read clearly!). Its colour palette reminds me of the beautiful E Prybylski Watercolour style, from the 2023 Cartographer's Annual. All we'd need is a vast array of suitable building and other object symbols to match 😉😁!

Naturally, I wanted to continue the overall hand-drawn theme here, now using Ralf's more recent Hand-Drawn Dungeon style:

I did think of adding a surface map too, but decided against that, and just showed a simple Entrance cave, which is open at ground level, leading down and inside. Rather than use another fill style here, I reused that for the inner section of the Tomb, with a scatter of small rocks, as the entryway is supposed to be half-buried and not that easy to access (noted in the PDF description).

The two main blocs underground were determined from lightly adapted versions of the notes in the Inkwell Ideas book that accompanies the "Trailblazer" geomorphic dice set, the "Dungeonmorph: Book of Modular Encounters - Delver, Trailblazer & Voyager Edition", with the names again provided via the "Nomicon". The Spectral Minotaur Maze layout was enlarged a little compared to the actual dice design, including a few extra doors, because although the dice-only version was good, it didn't feel quite "mazy" enough here, which changes also brought in the sliding walls concept, to further muddy the waters.

In the Atlas FCW file, with luck, there will be toggles to allow the five Sliding Walls to be switched individually from one position to their alternates. Here of course, I have to show five different illustrations, for all the changes in each are very slight, best-seen if you save copies of all six images and switch from one to the next as a slideshow.

The shot above is the default view. This shows the moved W1 wall:

This W2:

W3:

W4:

And W5:

There is, as noted on the map, an actual Spectral Minotaur, Javeng, to defend the Maze, plus six more that he's created over time from treasure-seeking adventurers. Like all the undead here, he's powerful and reforms even if destroyed, plus the strong magics that operate and maintain the complex mean none of the undead can be turned away by priestly characters, while unattended doors close on their own, and markers in the Maze vanish or are moved. The Minotaurs can't leave the Maze area at least, hence why the floors are so clearly differentiated.

The Tomb area is constructed around the square Spiral Descent Passage. I'd have been happier with stairs that didn't have that black "corner", as they can work less well on maps such as this, which show multiple levels on the same drawing. However, I preferred to use just the symbols currently available in the style, and they don't look as bad here as those which simply cut through and remove part of the lower stairs, making it seem they've crumbled away!

The Treasure Chamber should have a boat and a wagon in it, although as neither are present as symbols (yet!) in this style either, I made-do with what there is. There are also five skeletons there as well, but that looked a little too cluttered and "samey" with the current options, so the room contents overall are just a sketch-reminder version instead. The PDF notes say more, of course.

Deeper down, the Rock Trap triggers via the lowest step on the third staircase, hence the trap marker there. The whole wall section fronting the hidden room pivots to block the Descent Passage up, then the damaging rocks roll right down to the door to Tomb G. A short while later, magically, they all roll back up to the secret room to reset!

The General's Tomb (he's the only one here not undead; a legendarily masterful leader in life, famed for many great deeds) is floored and roofed with green marble, with a black marble platform for his large, brass sarcophagus, with illustration-engraved brass wall panels all around. No green marble available here, so I improvised with an RGB Matrix Process effect. And spent ages tweaking it to look reasonably OK! The platform is the varicolor closed pit symbol, stretched to become rectangular.

Lady Zhembo, yet another spectre, betrayed her lover, the General, to his death, was caught, executed and cursed to remain here, perpetually mourning him. High Priest Chetseng, the strongest spectre in the complex, who in life set the curse, is here to make sure she never leaves.

Next time, it's a return visit to Peredur, to find a suitable location in Ruma Helrevy there...