"In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen." - Mehmet Murat Ildan

The sands blew. The late spring had been harsh but it was little compared to the summer's grip. The water was long gone from the inner island, there were no watering holes to quench a traveler's thirst. But there was a strange beauty here. The ancient tree trunks loomed like dead giants, a reminder of the forest that used to be.

I created this island today for the summer community event. Initially I had just planned a summer-themed island, but as the build progressed I wanted to add some desert landscape and add a sandy feel to the map. I created the base terrain in world machine and did the dunes in WorldPainter, mostly using Lente's brushes. The tree trunks were added as an experiment but I liked them enough to keep them in, adding a bit of grass around them to vary the lower landscape with some greenery. Both the tree trunk and the grass assets were created by the incredibly talented Jossie.

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Alongside in-game tweaking, I used the following tools to create this map:

• WorldPainter (for creating the map)
  
• WorldMachine (for creating the map)
  
• Chunky (for rendering the map)