The only real use I've ever made of iso maps is as visual aids, although a lot of the earliest were really illustrations of buildings/locations, not true maps anyway, and done in a fully artistic style. The first actual iso maps I recall were from the original Castle Ravenloft maps from TSR, which also included some iso drawings. This concept followed through into the original "Ravenloft - Realm of Terror" boxed set, which had both maps and building diagrams done in an iso projection, as well as more traditional top-down maps. That would be in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I really wouldn't want to use these as tabletop battlemaps though, as the whole point of those is to show exactly where everyone is, and as iso isn't the easiest projection on which to visualise such things, I always found it better to avoid that.

This is all from many years ago though, and only as in-person visual aids, so things, and people's expectations, may have moved on. I know some of the VTT set-ups allow you to visualise layouts in a mobile fashion, almost like real-world settings, so anything from top-down to side-on, or even from below, and that can be useful for helping people visualise what's on walls or shelves and in cabinets, for instance, as well as judge angles of slopes better. That though only really works if you're either online, or have a large enough screen that people at a table can all see equally what you're trying to show.

I was actually thinking more about the topic title than what the style might contain, Sue, in case someone's trying a search in future for something for elsewhere in East Asia than Japan.

Yeah, I think it's a lack of the right Sheet Effects Jim. Try looking at the Winterbourne Langton sample FCW that comes with the Winter Village pack, and see how the narrow footpaths have been done there (on the ROADS Sheet). Those are a near analogue to what I was thinking of here.

For the final wolf tracks, however, you might need to be creative, and draw some suitable polygons to get the look right for footprints dragging through the snow at this scale, rather than using drawn lines. Try playing around with the Effects first though.

I can't offer a great deal more precisely, as the wolves are showing up as rectangular red Xs for me on the FCW. I thought I'd reloaded all this free stuff a while ago, but I got a number of red Xs on Quenten's Vertshusen city map for the recent mapping contest too, so I must have missed some stuff. I've never used these non-PF symbols though, so it's not really worthwhile my going through the involved rigmarole to try to load them all up again. Sorry!

Isometric building and room maps can look good for players, but they're often a nightmare for GMs trying to run an adventure, where you need to know exactly where everything in a room is at a glance, and how it connects to everything else in its vicinity. A top-down map gives you that control, plus for players, they can see instantly where everything is too, as battlemaps, for instance.

Iso can have its uses for a GM though, where flat wall features (such as carvings) might be important, say, though that may need several views so all walls can be identified and seen clearly.

Slightly concerned that "East Asian" seems to be being redefined as just meaning "Japan" here, given Japan's a tiny fraction of East Asia overall. Might be better to retitle this topic as referring to Japan only? Or expand the discussion to include features from China, Mongolia, the Koreas, Taiwan and perhaps places adjacent as well?

The tents look rather flat, very pale and a bit "ghostly" by contrast to many of the other symbols. Might be worth rethinking their use here?

Also, the bridge shadow seems to be at a different angle to all the others in the map (presumably because this has been drawn as a separate "shadow" polygon).