Thank you, @Wyvern!

I do have Character Artist, but I haven't used it much and didn't realize those were there. This vastly expands my heraldic symbol options! Here it is using the traditional dragon with a tower icon background. I also tried one with a wyvern off to the side. Which is your favorite?

I actually did have a cave hole there, but it was kind of small and I used a fill that ended up being kind of a washed-out gray at this zoom. I deleted it and drew in an oversized black "cave mouth" polygon.

I have previously done the Republic of Lumadair, a portion of my campaign world, in many different styles. (There's an album in my galleries showing the different approaches.) I find it helpful to compare styles with a consistent coastline and terrain.

Anyway, here's a first pass at trying it with the new Ancient Realms Revisited annual.

I ended up using tower symbols instead of cities to show the major unnamed cities. I've only done a few of the icon symbols for major points of interest, though I can do more. Instead of putting the icons exactly where the locations would be, I put them off to the side with a dotted line to the actual location (similar to how I approached my Modern Journeys map).

This sort of forest approach rather than individual symbols isn't my favorite approach, but it's growing on me. For the coastal cities, maybe I should trace the coastline rather than being more freeform? Ralf brought in some Mike Schley symbols (Asian settlements) in his video tutorial, so maybe I will try that with Mike's tree symbols. I'm worried, though, that those tree symbols would make this look too much like a knockoff of Mike's overland style and not its own thing.

I did one custom symbol of a dragon, but I'm not thrilled.

I used a parchment background but maybe a solid color would be better? (The icon background is on a separate sheet, so I could see if a texturize effect helps.) Or I could put a tower icon as the main icon with a dragon over it. If anyone knows of better dragon symbols to use, let me know. (I thought about the heraldry icons from CA15, but I'm not so sure.)

I didn't realize those effects worked on symbols. I will have to experiment! Love Ricko's idea of using them on Alyssa Faden's clouds.

I have noticed a side effect from mapping with CC3 for a year (your mileage may vary). I have always been interested in cool architecture, but now when I am out and about, I am much more aware of little architectural details. Specifically, I find myself wondering, "What would that look like from a birds-eye view...and what techniques would I use to render that in CC3." 😉

In my opinion, it’s well worth the investment. Fractal Terrains is great, but limited without also having CC3. The community here has been so helpful to me. Lots of experienced mappers ready to give advice. But also: the staff is fantastic. I’ve never used a software product where so many people on staff were so ready, willing, and able to offer support on techniques, not just software bugs. As I understand it, most or all of the folks on staff were end users before moving the company.