Make sure to talk to @Ralf , I am sure he would love to have this as an article on the official blog, he's always looking for good material. I think this will fit neatly.

No, inlays.

Dragons are also very nice for fantasy locations. Would fit perfectly in my campaign.

Celestial patterns are always good. Some moon/sun/stars stuff.

Great it worked out for you. Smooth polys require more computer resources to render, so avoiding them on complex entities is preferable, but of course, depending on the map, one may want the slightly nicer look.