One of the places I'm mapping for my brother's fantasy campaign is the city of Paridon on the Island of the Spire. I'm having mental twitches on how to present the actual city plan so I'm tossing this here for suggestions.

Click image for larger version.  Name: Spire rough.png  Views: 173  Size: 262.3 KB  ID: 62026

Above is a quick sketch of the island and spire in profile (top) with a very rough of the city grounds: both the harbor and the rise. The spire itself is presently the north point of the island but there's some discussion of making it the south end (yes, shadowing the city for large chunks of the day). As you can tell from the lower drawing the spire is about 2 2/3 miles high. It's a "there be magic" element; rather obvious, I think, but the big deal for city-building is that nothing can be built on the spire itself. The low flat remainder of the island is mostly farmland with some wooded area.

There are a couple of issues I need to resolve and will listen to (but can't guarantee taking) advice.

- If I decide on a top-down, how do I draw/represent the spire? (Not an artist, seeking what may be basic presentation advice.)
- I'm torn between oblique left (sort of what's showing above), oblique right (the backside of the harbor), and front (looking frontally down on the slope). What's bothering me in particular about all three is whether I should stay far enough out to show the whole spire, or should I cut off most of it and 'just' display it as a cliff face? Thoughts?

I'll save the back-story of the city for a later post as I start actually adding, well, the city.