Hey Jeff!
I talked to you already in-game and here is my feedback all organised and structured. This type of feedback I always prefer to give in the planning phase and/or in the beginning stages of a project but for some reason I missed you applying for this project only having the knowledge this was being done because of the style discussions on the forums.
First I'll start with
Terrain. Now this area is already very weirdly done in general before you applied, but I feel like not only you have too many "more than 1 block wide rivers" and little valleys and nooks in such a small and confined valley, your water basin has a very odd and weird shape. It somewhat feels like you've gone for a mix of a plateau valley, with a winding soft hilled river valley and a Swiss type valley where u have huge steep mountains and soft hills near the rivers that run through these valleys. I'm not an expert in geography so anyone that knows pls correct me, but these types of "Swiss" valleys are created due to glacial activity, the so-called U shaped valleys only exist because of big glaciers that created these areas. I'm not against creating a glacial valley in the stormlands, the red mountains are one of the major mountain ranges in Westeros and like Spain or Portugal have glacial valleys, I'm sure this region could have too. But if that's the case the terrain also doesn't achieve that realism for a glacial valley because of the mixing. These "steps":
Are a bit off specially considering the terrain around them. Plateaus in valleys occur because of difference in rock softness and the erosion of water and waterways, but these don't resemble any plateaus.
IRL examples:
(There's a lot more examples of large and small plateaus, but again none that I've found resemble the geography you have rn)
And if the goal is to make the glacial valley then I doubt these would make sense terrain wise. Now if the goal isn't to make a glacial valley neither it is to make a plateau valley, like the images I showed, then the amount of terrain variation needs to be reduced. You currently have the mountains/steep hills around your project almost all of them have different sizes and height, making these more regular and coherent would be better, and the terrain inside the valley should be also more regular and less steep near the mountains and less flat near the rivers. Tall mountains even if they seem like they rise so sudden generally are not THAT steep, they rise at an incline in a very regular way:
(the steep areas are usually due to glacial activity or they are near the summits where platonic activity has impacted the most)
But the general incline would be very the same right up to the river margins, but, depending on the size, shape and speed of the river, the base of the valley could flatten or not.
Like this image shows the larger the river the flatter the base, the smaller the river the steeper the base.
I think a recent project that does this enclosed valley geography, that yours could benefit from, really well is the red mountains village immersion by Antony and Zso. I'd go for a geography more similar to that, but if you are really adamant on having bigger flatter spaces I'd advise to change the whole geography as well as how tall the mountains are and their shape.
Lastly for terrain, a minor detail but I do have this question, why the decision on making the opening of the valley to the north and not south? It's just that looking at the asoiaf map, the slayne river valley is very drawn at being enclosed on itself and there's possibility for a small passage towards the south:
(The dotted lines are possible ways for the river to go)
Stonehelm and the surrounding area will be redone at one point so. But if the consensus is for it to go north it's fine, was just a thought I had.
Now for
Style I think your current style for houses is not that off from the style I feel the general stormlands house would look like besides the marches and regions right bordering dorne. But I feel it can be improved upon, one house that I really like from your guide is this one:
And I think it's more in line with Aino's tests which are my favourite so far. One thing I'd say is be careful with how small you make the houses, the stone ones on the right are too small and with odd proportions, I think you can still work them a bit more.
I don't have a particular opinion on the castle I think it's a nice castle, although I'm not sure about it's position with the relation to the terrain that I've already expressed is very lacking.
In terms of
Plotting. I second what Jake said, the town not only has an immense lack of space for the density you have and for it to have all the amenities and space to be able to work, it also doesn't have any industry to support the extraction of the mines, it messes with the scaling of the terrain and also is just in a place where naturally no one would build a town such as that. Maybe a tight small town like you see in Banefort's mining town, but even then, it's near a big road that branches off to other settlements and markets, something this valley settlement doesn't do. Now one thing you could have is a big mining village that exports it's materials to a merchant that goes and sells in other places, but rn the current town you have looks and works more like a trading town in a major route than a large mining village that exports it's main resource that gives most of the income. The town as you have it doesn't provide much reason for a lot of travellers to come here even though you have an inn inside the town (structures that were usually in main routes and settlements with a lot of travellers coming through). The only reason I see people come here would be for a merchant to come buy the materials extracted and/or transformed to sell in other major markets.
Besides that most of my plotting issues are closely related to the overall terrain (especially the little steps in the terrain). A minor detail but a road like this:
Wouldn't occur, they would use a winding road to avoid the steepness of the terrain, and vineyards would also be changed by creating man made small steps:
I know this is very overwhelming, I would've said all of this in the planning phase had I known it was happening. Again these are mostly my opinions, if you or anyone think otherwise of anything I said here please do share. And if any of the geography is wrong than feel free to correct me!
Thank you for reading,
Seri
