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Thread: June Entry: Fenridge Castle

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    Post June Entry: Fenridge Castle

    For now, this is a discussion of the Fenridge area. I'm hoping to build a succession of 'kits' for regional architecture. Stone architecture in the Thrubmorten Fen Highlands is on deck.

    A request for Redrobes - whatever height info he has on the area?

    The limestone ridges appear to be too segmented for a 'high'way. I envison the ridge base provides a host of natural fortresses from mostly dumb but ferocious beasts, and numerous water sources if you know where to look. Very large airborne predators are rare and migratory. The tops are used only in dire need.

    I defer to Redrobes in all of this, so my goal is to develop enough understanding to develop reasoned map - regardless of the contest time frame ultimately.

    How high is the ridgeline?
    Is it contiguous (despite my poor visual analysis)?
    Fenridge Valley appears quite hospitable - perhaps the so much that the locals (with the help of druidic knowlege purchased with ethical landuse restraint) can draw limited water at will - this the town and castle are something of an highland 'oasis'?

    Tell us the story of the early days of the Sky Guard uncle Redrobes! Did they really trick the mean ol' BravenBack to his doom?

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    Administrator Redrobes's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    For now, this is a discussion of the Fenridge area. I'm hoping to build a succession of 'kits' for regional architecture. Stone architecture in the Thrubmorten Fen Highlands is on deck.
    Glad you chose a Fenland for your map

    Kits would be awesome, if you make them extra high res then I'll make use of them in my app and you can zoom into the parts of a castle further. I was trying to do similar with my thatched cottages thread in the tut section. I think I should expand that and have more cottages and do them all with several flavors of tiled roofs also. I have a few castle bits but its not enough to make extensive castles. I have a lot of castle reference photos tho from my visits.

    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    A request for Redrobes - whatever height info he has on the area?
    No prob ill get you some in due course. I have the region in pretty high res 3D and can zoom in and recalc more detailed areas. Let me know exactly which bits you want. Take heed of the scale. I expect that castle would be a few pixels at most of the main map.

    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    The limestone ridges appear to be too segmented for a 'high'way. I envison the ridge base provides a host of natural fortresses from mostly dumb but ferocious beasts, and numerous water sources if you know where to look. Very large airborne predators are rare and migratory. The tops are used only in dire need.
    Yes I expect that the road is not on the actual ridge but just below. The dots connecting Fenridge to Nortonspire show it to one side of the ridgeline. In actual fact the scale is so high here that once blown up a lot you will see how it would weave about a bit. I would think that your right about exposing yourself on the ridge to winged creatures and also the elements. It might get real windy up there.

    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    How high is the ridgeline? Is it contiguous (despite my poor visual analysis)?
    It's mostly continuous I would think. You get cliffs in Karst areas but they tend to erode very quickly. You know in LOTR film where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas run across the hills before they meet the ROhan Riders. Thats the sort of landscape. Probably some ridges and small cliffs with scree. Mostly short rough grass - windswept etc. Scottish highlands kind of feel to it.

    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    Fenridge Valley appears quite hospitable - perhaps the so much that the locals (with the help of druidic knowlege purchased with ethical landuse restraint) can draw limited water at will - this the town and castle are something of an highland 'oasis'?
    This is probably less true I think. The reason all of the towns are castles and forts and sit on the upper regions is that most of the fen land is marshy, not very easily traveled and full of monsters - notably Lizard Men who can traverse it much better. The merchants travel across the roads getting harried by the Lizard Men and so take large mercenary escorts. The water in the fens is probably not all that fit to drink. There would be springs all over the area about half way down the hills at the forest line which feed the marsh and lakes from where water can be taken. All of the forts and castles need to provide water catchers or have wells or take fortified wagons to the springs to fill up. Wells are probably not viable when villages are on the tops of ridges or peaks tho.

    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    Tell us the story of the early days of the Sky Guard uncle Redrobes! Did they really trick the mean ol' BravenBack to his doom?
    Me - oh I'm more of a cartographer then a historian I'll leave that to the bards...

    Pic attached has a 10 mile grid on it.
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    First, I appreciate your help, and secondly, this is quite fun.

    You've given me alot to consider, but I'm having trouble imagining a significant town in such an inhospitable location - the lack of water would be crippling. Would large cisterns really be enough? An example would really help. The people of Fenridge clamor for sustainable water! The swamps must produce some extremely valuable goods, enabling the inhabitants to trade for good technology - irrigation, stoneworking.

    I hope I'm not being exasperating - world building is hard and I'm amazed at how much you all have already done.

    It seems to me then the most valuable thing about Fenridge must be the strategic location and a big splotch of relatively arable land? How about large cisterns near the ridgelines cunningly placed, and an irrigation system to move it to the flat ground a bit off?

    So the Castle would then protect the farmlands and town, with the rocky peaks (5 or 10 miles off) housing wyvern/watch towers but not the castle proper.

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    By all means please name some castles that you think of when you think of Fenridge.

    Note: I really love the erosion work you've done - the map is very believable.
    Last edited by meleeguy; 06-07-2008 at 03:30 PM. Reason: added note

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    Post Nudge Fenridge?

    I just noticed on the blow-up you sent that the 'knurled' texture extends almost all the way to Fenridge - this implies a strong water source fairly high up relative to other sources, ideal for human needs.

    Since there is another such 'knurled valley' 10 miles west, I wonder if the exact placement of Fenridge Castle might need to be reconsidered.

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    My GTS program which generates the erosion and modifies the 3D terrain doesn't know about rock types like limestone and karst geology. And also you can have some pools of water in karst areas - they are just more uncommon than in other types. Also this is fantasy and maybe a priest can create a lot of pure water.

    You can have a spring anywhere where the water table runs out of the rock and into the open. This is usually because of a fissure in the rock which gets eroded into caves but thats just age dependent. So lets not get too hung up on the exacting nature of where the water comes from. Assume that there is a pool around and that its being fed from an underground spring. Maybe the keep is on the highest point and that a smaller fortified area is below that has better access to water.

    In LOTR film again where they had the Golden Hall of Rohan you can get many images like this:
    http://picasaweb.google.com/ward.mat...93401907268978
    which show exactly what I am thinking.

    I have also got this pic on file but I have no idea where it came from but shows a pond at high altitude. Doubtful that its limestone but we dont have to be that neat huh ?
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    Quote Originally Posted by meleeguy View Post
    By all means please name some castles that you think of when you think of Fenridge.
    I dont know where you hail but I posted a few links to big welsh castles a while back.

    Index:
    http://www.castlewales.com/listings.html

    like Rhudlan:
    http://www.castlewales.com/rhudln.html

    Harlech:
    http://www.castlewales.com/harlech.html

    Conwy:
    http://www.castlewales.com/conwy.html

    I reckon with magical assist these should be able to be built in a reasonable time frame. The upkeep might be considerable so they might have decayed a bit - it would depend on the finance of some wealthy political types who might have a need to keep the merchant road open to obtain the tax from passage of goods which is high in the Thrub region.

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    I'll get you some height map stuff that has been eroded at a much smaller scale and we shall see if it throws up any useful rivers. I use my GTS prog to do that. I have about 3 people asking for some erosions to do plus I was building Kasim a world using it when my PC died a week or so ago. Its up and running again but before it was water cooled and now I just stuck a stock fan on it. Well I am running at 65degC idle. If I run GTS it goes up sky high (I got them over 100degC and pulled the plug on the run) as it cooks all of the cores to max so I have to refit the water. I got all the bits to do it again now but ill have to go offline again for a while while its in pieces. All the data is backed up tho so worst comes to it I can run it slow on something else. I am going to make a start now so ta ta for a day or so.

    -- EDIT: BTW, You might like the 3D viewer as its free and the Thrub download for it is still available. Look at post #6 onwards from the Fentor Cross thread here. You can see the relative height of Fenridge using it. Need a reasonable graphics card to make it look whizzy tho.

    http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1854
    Last edited by Redrobes; 06-07-2008 at 06:17 PM.

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    Thanks again! I've got plenty to run with now. Good luck with your water cooled beast.

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    The beast has awoke and its hungry...

    So I have been feeding it tonight and I have the first level of the Fenridge Area. I can see now why I put the castle where it is. It seems to sit on a high peak. I have made the terrain a bit more watery than you might normally find in pure karst regions but were just fudging the issue now to get some water as you seem a bit concerned about it.

    So hope you like it so far. I will do another of even more detail over the castle mountain bit so you can map it from there. This map is about 120 miles across so completely useless to use as a base for a battle scale map.

    I spent a while getting the script right as I have a few more to use it on. They should have the same look and feel as this one.
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