Sorry, isn't Powys entirely landlocked? Oh no, wait, this is a fantasy version of Powys... 😉😁

[If anyone's confused by this, Powys is a landlocked county in Wales, along part of the border with England, and has no shoreline!]

Map two in my group of small settlements is for Bruga's Hold in Hex 403:

I've updated the notes in my WIP topic about this set as well, and there's a larger version of the map in my Gallery too. Meanwhile, the FCW file and PDF notes are here:

Map The Second is...

Hex 403, Bruga's Hold:

A logging hamlet on the upper Swirl River, among the woods of the southwestern Siljan Hills, this is a rather isolated, frontier-style settlement, with trails leading-off to logging camps, or former ones (the trails southeast of the river crossing were where much of the timber for the settlement originated, for instance). Markets here aren't common, but the open space is handy for storing piles of fresh timber prior to sending it off down-river, or overland by trail southwards. The self-styled Queen's tough, if not as young as she was, and her extended family keeps most things more-or-less in-check here, though her nieces at The Corner Daughters have a tendency to accuse those they dislike of theft, something that works best with outsiders. The grandiose apothecary's shop-name was a random choice (it does look outwardly like a small temple), which seemed too apt to waste - see the notes above on the Crystal Cathedral - while "Merry Wares" became something of a running joke, as it cropped up randomly twice more in different settlements in this set for quite different places. I retained that too, as GMs can decide if it's at all significant.

On the original map, I started out with the woods rather denser than they are now. That looked much too dominant, and would have been unrealistic so near the settlement, so, much like the original loggers here, I had to thin them out somewhat. The mapping style makes use of both tree and bush symbols, and a bitmap tree fill drawing tool, which in combination for the densest areas here help give the woods a particularly 3D feel, although the symbols have to be applied judiciously to better hide the edges of the bitmap-fill segments. Of course, I had to delete and redraw all the first areas of the fill, as they were far too large, and it took a little experimenting to get the sizes right after that, in combination with the individual scatter of trees and bushes. Luckily, I had a fair idea of how best to achieve all this, as - although it was using a somewhat different style, and in colour - I have done quite a bit of woodland mapping for the Atlas before, for those who remember the extensive mapping series for the Faerie City of Embra - like the Wooded Places maps.

Amazing amount of work in this, and looking excellent!

Rather reminded of the reconstructed layout of the ancient Near Eastern city of Mari by it now. Except that has been done as rather more circularly-symmetrical, and has a broad canal stream running through it, rather than the main river channel. Two-thirds were washed away by the shifting over time of the Euphrates' channel anyway, so there's a fair bit of guesswork involved with that, of course.

In terms of the number labels, the larger size ones seem clear enough to me now without enlarging the glow, although you could increase it if you need them to really stand out more. Sometimes just moving them slightly to have a different background colour surrounding them might be enough to "cure" any perceived difficulties, I suspect.

Not sure about the "13" label in the city for the patch of green there; not certain that's really needed.

You might add a few more trees and bushes along both river banks. These could be regularly cleared and/or farmed in the city, but outside, they'll grow wherever they please, and there's enough water.

Maybe add labels for the two circular canal basins, or even a couple of the main canals, along with a fancy name for the bridge, say? And perhaps a name for the river too?

So, the first of my theoretical ten villages is ready, from Hex 005 of the hex-map somewhere above (or here, in case that's a bit easier to find!), Ljungby. A few more details are in that linked post, although the PDF is here as well for those interested. Deliberately, I've kept the notes short, hoping that might improve my chances to complete all ten village maps!