Thanks for your work, Remy. I really love the way the site looks now. I've been meaning to come back and be more present in the forums, and this is definitely a good time to do it!

This is a great idea. I'm wondering if it might be helpful to post the link the the fcw of the city, if one exists?

I would like to claim 11, with 16 as a backup if someone steals it.

That's funny... I thought this section of coast looked like Israel... there really are a lot of places in the world with a straight coast. I'm feeling better about it.

I found choosing my best three really tough, as a lot of people have said. I am in awe of everyone's artistic abilities. Some of the things here I wouldn't even think you could do in the software. Thanks everybody. I look forward to studying these fcws and seeing if I can learn anything.

Great map and background information. Looking at the map, I couldn't help but feel I should do a map in that style. It's interesting you drew the parallel to McCaffrey; I immediately thought of the Mystaran Thyatian Empire and its Retebius Air Squadron made up of wyverns, gryphons and other flying mounts.

I've been hesitant to say anything about this thread because I feel like I came to it a bit late, and it was maybe past time to mention my impressions. I'm quite a fan of what these days is called grimdark and which I associate more with early (and bleak) swords and sorcery type fiction. I wanted to mention two things, however, and I think you'll see why I've waited.

The first is that as a matter of personal taste I'm not a huge fan of the purplish bits (I think I'm meaning the mountain and moor backgrounds). I can see that lots of people like it, so I'm pretty sure this is my lack of knowledge about color rearing its porcine head again.

The second is a bit more philosophical. I can remember seeing an episode of Battlestar Galactica years ago that focused on the supposedly cursed planet Kobol. It's a lush planet, with tons of vegetation and very little markings of the passage of intelligent species. I remember that making it all the more creepy for me... the supposed cursed state being at complete odds with the beauty of the setting. Another great example is the film Thin Red Line, about Vietnam, which has all of this beautiful scenery and yet people are doing horrific things there and there's a monologue running throughout that comments on it. All of which is to say that for me its the contrast that makes things really dark. A personal aesthetic maybe.

Well, its late, I probably didn't explain that well. The work is beautiful, as always, Sue, and boy now I really do want elven houses that drift on top of the trees. Sorry to be late to the party, and so unhelpful.

@Loopysue Just to clarify, I was thinking of the images earlier on. These most recent ones (ie. the image in the comment before this one) I really like. I don't think I've ever seen the kind of heath you're describing. Sounds beautiful though.

Wow, that is quite beautiful. Thanks for digging up the picture for me. There's certainly nothing like that around here (Great Lakes region, Canada).

These look nice. I could have really used them in my game about a month ago lol.

Looking at the overland map and I noticed that if you look at it closely there is a very dim image of stuff that should be covered over. I used the wasteland fill in place of the regular land fill and where the hill and mountain backgrounds overlap it you can see the darker areas from the wasteland dimly. The hill and mountain fills have edge fade inner on them. Does anyone know how I can make the unwanted stuff disappear?