Coming along very, very nicely, Daniel!
i haven't taken a look at the progress of this map for a while. great work! plain, simple, yet dynamic. if this is going to be the main city in your 4th ed game, i want to visit. can i play a gladiator in the arena?! good job. i'm not usually a fan of maps in CC2 or 3, but you've managed to break the mold and do a style that doesn't have that CC sameness to it, if you catch what i'm saying.
keep up the good work. i'll keep checking back.
Coming along very, very nicely, Daniel!
Don
My gallery is here
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"Keep your mind in hell, but despair not." --Saint Silouan [1866-1938]
Nice detail! Can you estimate how much effort you have put into this so far?
-Rob A>
My tutorials: Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional Map ~ All My Tutorials
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My Maps: Finished Maps ~ Challenge Entries ~ My Portfolio: www.cartocopia.com
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Looks clean and beautiful,
What are the semi-regular blue dots? Fountains?
-sigurd
Yes, the semi-regular blue dots are fountains/wells. Its something I notice almost all city maps are lacking but all cities need: a source of fresh, clean water.
Look at movies like 300, or even more older movies like Ben-Hur or the 10 Commandments. Communities had a centralized source of fresh water, drawn from wells in small towns to cisterns in large communities.
Examples can be seen here:
http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/nimes/#photo3
http://www.castelnau-pegayrols.fr/adduc/aduca.htm
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Ahhhhh....ANother update, added some tombstones to the cemetery (upper left)
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
It's looking really good. I love the building distribution, especially in the outlying areas. I also love the scroll.
Reminds me that I need to get back to work on my own port city.
Keep up the great work.
This is looking great Neon! Hope you didn't get carpel tunnel after drawing all those buildings! What is interesting is that in your city the building density is virtually constant. I guess that implies some sort of formal planning rather than piecemeal evolution. The road width to building size ratio is also quite large, again suggesting a 'planned' city.
One interesting side project to do would be to draw the city in a side sillhouette view. One of the difficulties in drawing city maps the way we tend to draw them is that vertical components tend to get ignored and these are very important to the look and feel of the city.
Lovely work.
Thanx. Ravs
The back story, for the Big 4e Points of Light aspect is the City was an imperial Port City of the now shattered empire. As the Central Government collapsed and areas became more isolated the citizens are now encroaching on the city viewing it as a place of safety and refuge from the chaos of the lands about. Hence the sort of dual nature of Refined City within the walls and sprawled chaos without.
***EDIT*** Rather than Bumping my Post count I will add the BACK STORY NOTES of my new campaign here:
The Shattered Empire of Karhielohrn (KERR-ee-ah-lorn)
The Empire spanned nearly the entirety of the continent of Keihlsteef (CAEL-steph).
The Empire’s demise began approximately 500 years earlier as a result of the following calamities:
· Through arcane magic, the sorcerer kings, mages, and high priests of the empire bound elementals and other extraplanar beings to form the infrastructure of the empire. Examples are Air Elemental driven sky-ships, Water Elemental operated irrigation and other water systems, Fire Elementals for heating and smelting, Earth Elementals to mine and shape the nation.
· Towards the height of the Empire, this huge reliance on magic force, and enslaving magics caused a Planar rift to form above the capital city of Branshoon (bran-SHOON).
· The Planar Rift allowed many demons and devils ingress into the Prime Material plane, no longer held back by the ancient wards.
· With the Collapse of the Central Government, the armies were called back to the center of the Empire in an attempt to repel the fiends.
· With the frontiers of the empire now unguarded, the humanoid hordes and other fell creatures previously held at bay were able to overwhelm the weaker portions of the Empire. As a result, most smaller towns and villages were overrun and cast into ruins. Larger cities were able to repel the hordes that soon fell to warring amongst themselves. These larger cities are now cut off from each other (see above because collapse of governmental infrastructure), and have formed independent city states controlling surrounding territories at most up to a day and half’s ride away.
· With the collapse of the central government, and decimation caused by the Infernal Wars, the Elementals were mostly freed, and nature has run wild over the wild lands, overgrowing ruins. Out in the wilds can be found many spectacular remnants of the ancient Empire (War Wagons, Auto-wagons, ‘Railways’ etc.)
Before the fall of the Empire, the ruling class of Karhielorhn became obsessed with secret snake worship. Soon snakes were viewed as holy creatures. This lead to an internal destabilization of the government and an early danger of fragmentation of the empire. As the royalty and nobility embraced their snake cults, some became more and more snakelike, as a result the upper nobility became split as those with snake like aspects became superior to those who were not (Basically the Yuan-Ti).
City of Deestan (dee-STAN)
A far removed port city of the Empire, Deestan is situated on the shores of the Azure Sea
Last edited by NeonKnight; 03-26-2008 at 08:54 AM.
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave