I like hexcrawls, but for my upcoming
Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, I wanted a sandbox without the hexcrawl. There is a saying,
The map is not the territory and that brought to mind the map that comes with module
S2 White Plume Mountain.
I really like this map. It's interesting and evocative, and this style imparts a lot of information to the players. I plan to use this style instead of a hex grid. We'll see how it goes. My efforts probably won't be as good as Erol Otus, but hopefully they'll be good enough.