Very nice. I like the wild look of the hills around the edges. Town is neat but a bit prettier than most viking settlements are depicted commonly.
Very nice. I like the wild look of the hills around the edges. Town is neat but a bit prettier than most viking settlements are depicted commonly.
Maybe they're vikings with style.Originally Posted by Tancread
I totally agree with the pretty and uber-civilized thing, when I first started the map it was nothing but huts and since that doesn't really lend itself to anything very striking from a visual point I started decorating instead of designing. Once I started throwing in bells and whistles I couldn't stop and my Nordic fjord evolved into something more like a Mediterranean bay. I even spent 4 nights researching medieval occupations (I have a super huge list now) so that I could put in as many different things as possible and once each occupation had it's own building I had forgot to put in housing so I went back and ripped out a bunch of stuff...live and learn. Guess I need to get myself a copy of the DM guide so it can tell me exactly how many cobblers and weavers that a city of X size needs instead of just using my experience with city-building games and my intuition.
Redstar, the buildings are all just various layer styles: pattern overlays, color overlays, bevel/emboss, etc. I'll be posting these styles for all of the Photoshop users to use, probably later tonight once I get em all labeled correctly, as well as the brushes I've created for the buildings and stuff. That's what I was doing last night instead of mapping. These will be over in the mapping elements subforum.
Medieval Demographics Made Easy
Be sure to check out the Calculators and Spreadsheets bit at the very bottom of the page.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
That's a very useful site. Sets good baselines to use anyways. One problem with fantasy is of course it could completely screw everything up. Lets say there is common magic that doubles the crop yield per acre or some such. That sort of thing plus constant monsters in an area is bound to cause changes to the demographics in pretty unpredictable ways.
Quite true. Unfortunately, though, I have yet to run across credible census data from a magical realm!
It should also be noted that these guidelines represent England at a particular time (11th century, if I recall correctly). It should be adjusted if the society being modeled has better or worse technology (or equivalent magic).
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20030719a
This is also fairly useful, even if not entirely accurate. The web enhancement goes over most population sizes, etc, including magical classes by level.
At some point in fantasy games, you have to let the economics go. I once tried to think about the forces necessary to induce an industrial revolution in a fantasy world. They found several days latter in my room, mumbling in the corner something about create food/water.
EDIT: I'm really looking forward to the examples Ascension!
Last edited by Redstar; 08-01-2008 at 10:33 AM.
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