An example of some tapering I did real quick as an example in five minutes or so (should be able to tell which river lines are tapered and which are not)

you might notice the blocky shape doesn't always cleanly connect. If it's really bad I would move a node little bit, but it could also be an issue where you are trying to make the river a little too wide for the curves it's making (like nearing the mouth of the largest river on the right-side here- looks a little jagged)

If I were zoomed fully out, this wouldn't be noticeable, but it's also because I put something like 20 miles wide on that river.

Spent 45 minutes messing around with the marine dungeon and got this so far. Under the rocks on the left-side is the entrance to the dungeon. Lots to tweaks to make yet but let me know what you'd want to see.

Far across the Desolation lies a chasm. It is said the chasm is home to eternal life. Of course, it is also said that there is a rift at the bottom of the chasm that leads to the Feywild. And then, some others claim a powerful artifact fuels the life from deep within a network of caves. Nobody really knows, because nobody has ever gone into the Desolation and returned with their sanity.

Let me know what you think!

Was playing around with the Realms of Legend style to create a region and when I shared it with people was asked, "what game is that from?"

Out on the plains is a grouping of hills surrounding a small weathered gravestone. The name on the grave is too weathered to confirm whether Maynor is buried here, and locals have many different stories about how the hills got their name, known as the Hills of Maynor. Next to this gravestone are an enchanted sword and shield. It is thought the random wanderer might carry them for a while and then either return them, or the weapons somehow find their way back on their own. The fact that nobody has explained why they have returned the weaponry causes the locals to believe that they are cursed to cause death to the ones who take them, after which they magically return to their rightful place. Nobody has been brave enough to disprove this theory.

Did a city using the January 2021 annual from this year

See full size:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/546833535487442944/843338581883093012/DreamersRefuge.JPG

I was testing lining up a top-down map with an isometric map and created an encounter. I never got to using/testing it myself but thought I'd share. Let me know what you think!

Objective:

Retrieve the item inside the treasure chest.

Complications:

three teams are trying to accomplish this task.

GM only: one team is your players. The second team should be very aggressive combat-wise, potentially with some sort of grudge against the players. The third team prefers to go after the objective with searching and thieving.

the treasure chest requires three keys to open. 

GM only, lockpicking: by nature of the locking mechanism, it would require three people to all pick the locks at the same time to open the chest... all three players need to pass the lockpicking DC you set.

Four keys are scattered into the various pits that don't have the chest. Once in a pit, a player or NPC needs to pass an Investigation check to locate a key.

GM only: You can assign numbers and secretly roll a d6 to determine which pit doesn't have a key, reroll on a 6.

Pit distances are left up to the GM as part of setting the difficulty of the encounter. Falling damage in 5e is 1d6 for every 10 feet fallen, up to a maximum of 20d6 (200 feet).

the treasure chest itself is enchanted to be extremely heavy.

GM only: you may decide it is not so heavy that it is impossible to move. The chest can potentially be broken into; consider a fairly high HP value due to it's extremely sturdy construction and materials. An evil GM might instead roll to see if whatever object inside is broken after the player is given warning that they might break it. Also consider what level spell this enchantment should be at for the situation of whether a player casts 'dispel magic'. 

Just some observations, Star wars seems to have several general sorts of environment, but one thing that is true for all of them is that they tend to all have a "fantastic" aspect to them - The structures or natural environment tend to have some grand set-piece of one sort or another.

"junker" - don't know if there is an official term for this, but think Tattooine or whatever planet Rey started on. Environment is harsh and few people want to live under the conditions they have to deal with. Technology falls here and people scavenge to make use of what they can. Life is a struggle for the simple things. Buildings and technology seem patched together from bits and pieces but can still be impressive. People themselves and worthwhile connection are the most valuable things to be found here.

"rebel" - technology is effective but humble-looking because it's trying to stay hidden. Environment can be out-of-the-way or surprising areas. Buildings and technology don't look impressive but they can work together to pull off impressive results.

"ideal futuristic" - like the futuristic city in the clouds almost appearing like heaven compared to everywhere else. The wonder and majesty of the environment could be hiding an evil deeper within, or it might be destroyed at some point for standing up against the evils of the universe.

"fully artificial" - lots of metallic or plastic looking materials. no signs of nature. The "bad guys" often embody this aesthetic, along with their space stations, battleships, or even inside the cockpit of a single TIE fighter with all the sleek glowing buttons. Things are over-engineered and over-optimized to the point of almost seeming to sacrifice humanity itself for the sake of this "perfection".

"fully natural" - like where Yoda trained Luke. It seems wild, dangerous, and is far removed from what the characters are used to. However, it is a place of life and of great growth. Struggles here are rewarded with the fruits of hard labor which are so plentiful around.

What you then end up seeing in star wars are these places where some of these extremes start to mix. A heavily populated and futuristic city at the core might also have some aspects of extreme artificial-ness on the surface, mixing the "ideal futuristic" and "fully artificial" extremes, such as what is often portrayed in the prequel movies with the Republic.

You might also see places out in the backwoods planets mixing the "fully natural" and "rebel" extremes for a place for characters to run to and hide, but also overcome natural challenges that aid in their growth.

These themes are common for Star Wars and if you can find textures that fit into those categories it might become easier. What really tends to separate a "star wars" map from a typical sci-fi map is the specific vehicles or creatures of the universe, which you may have a hard time finding if it isn't freely available from fans (licensing issue).

The sheet effects live mapping sessions helped me a lot getting away from post-processing with Gimp just by understanding the various available tools in there and reminding me that there is a place to put effects on the whole map.

One thing that is still a bit easier to "play around with" in GIMP are the hue/saturation and the equivalent of the RGB matrix values, because in GIMP it is a bit more visual with sliders that give immediate feedback in a preview window as you adjust them.

CC has the capability to make those changes but it tends to be a bit more purposeful and putting in values rather than just pushing sliders around and seeing what happens.

(1927) In Japan, Hidemi Seno and Juzo Hori published a paper describing their new method for growing oysters by attaching them to ropes and hanging them vertically from a floating raft. The innovative method replaced a 300-year-old tradition of driving bamboo sticks or tree branches into the ground in shallow water to provide a surface on which free-swimming oyster larvae could settle. Vertical suspension allowed oysters to take in more food and grow faster, as they could feed even when the tide was out. Oysters grown above the seafloor were also safer from predators and produced higher-quality meat. People were quick to adopt this new method, and the production of cultured edible oysters in Japan tripled in about 10 years. By 1958, it was reported that over 90 percent of the oysters produced in Japan were grown using the hanging method.

To be honest, I didn't really know anything about aquaculture until I saw this. Considering what it is, it seems to be believable for me for this technology level. If the town has wizards they might have one or two modern aspects achieved through magic, like self-levitating ropes. I suspect that for anyone I play with, I would have to explain what those are even if they were 100% visually accurate. I would probably work the explanation into my summary of the area when introducing people to the location.

A vertical stick might be achieved with a branch or a tree trunk asset scaled thinner than usual, but I don't remember if/which sets might have that asset off-hand.