Do you why I can't see my own maps at that url?Originally Posted by CelestialBarbarian
I quickly looked at a couple of nice city maps, but I'm juggling so many balls that I didn't have time to do more. I'll try to look around more as time permits. Thanks!
I'd like to renew my request for someone to design either the port city or the wooden fort that I've described. It's 2 years later and I've just never had a chance to sit down and do either of these, and as a result have had to direct the campaign (which is still running) in other directions.
Do you why I can't see my own maps at that url?
I'd like to renew my request for someone to design either the port city or the wooden fort that I've described. It's 2 years later and I've just never had a chance to sit down and do either of these, and as a result have had to direct the campaign (which is still running) in other directions.
I'll do them for you. I need to keep my Skyrim addiction under some sort of control and the idea of a port city sounds like fun. I'm curious though, Is there any reason as to why Neon Knight's port city (posted earlier) doesn't work for you? From your description in the first post it looks perfect
Wow. Thanks, Ravells! I don't understand the reference to Skyrim (mapping program?) but thanks!
NeonKight's drawings are great! They depict a fortification at the mouth of a river, whereas I'd like a narrow opening to a deep harbor, more or less circular, with the the docks mostly at the opposite half of the circle from the opening, with the port city spreading away from the harbor (east) and up. I just saw yesterday morning that there are actually two maps in the thumbnails section that are sort of close, but don't have sufficiently narrow openings to the harbor, nor the twin towers on either side. I also envision a great wall around the city, or maybe it's ringed naturally like the caldera of volcano so that you can't simply enter the city from the land side. There would need to be some access gate even if it's like a caldera perhaps at some sort of anomalous low point in the circle, facing east, away from the harbor, allowing access to a serious of switchbacks leading down the outside of the "caldera." Does that help at all? It's tough for me when I have such poor spacial skills. :-P
The extra description is very helpful. Here is a rough sketch. I'm just trying to get an idea of what is where and whether you're happy with the size of the port (by reference to the size of an average 16C sloop and a tennis court)- Is this OK?. Feel free to print out the sketch, scribble all over it with your ideas, scan it and put it back up here.
Hi Ravells!
Thanks for the lightning-fast reply and sketch. It's awesome! Wednesdays are my worst days, where I have to finish all the weekly grading at my online university, hold office hours, and teach two seminars, so I'm sorry that I didn't reply sooner myself.
I was wrestling whether to dry to draw something really rough myself, but at least for the moment maybe this http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...9&d=1222698977 would give you a decent idea of something sort of like what I might sketch, except inverted right to left, with the "arms" closer to each other providing a smaller opening like in your sketch, and with the rising topography surrounding the whole city except where the "arms" don't come together (and not an island, although it's fine if the "arms" stick out into the sea). I sort of envision the "arms" as largely bare of habitation, as they're so steep as to form natural walls to the harbor. Think of it as a crater formed by a shard of the mithril moon as it crashed after the main body of the mithril moon crashed shortly before it forming the sea on which this is the eastern edge. So it's a little crater on the edge of a bigger crater, the bigger crater being completely filled with water.
Okay, I did a little sketch but it's just of the harbor because my poor spacial skills make me make it too big to fit the whole city on the little piece of paper I used. :-P
Last edited by CelestialBarbarian; 02-09-2012 at 03:43 AM.
I think I've got it. I'll work on something a little more detailed. Is there anything more you can tell me about the city? What are the principal buildings? What is the rough population? How high are the buildings? What are they made of? Stone? Wood? Can the city be broken down into neighbourhoods? If yes can you describe them please? I tend to find that when people think of cities they settle on one or two main features and the rest of it occupies a fuzzy imaginative space. Once you have to draw the things you have to give the fuzzyness some sort of articulation.
In terms of mood how would you describe the city? Peaceful? Bustling? Militaristic? Please use as many adjectives as you can that come to mind for the city and neighbourhoods. Another good idea is to go onto the web and find reference photos or drawings of what you imagine it to migh look like or what elements of it might look like.
Well the port was built in recent years as a naval base against Gonifus, the Pirate Kingdom, on the Mithril Sea. It anchors a chain of forts on the savannah running east from the Mithril Sea to Maradenne's second-largest city, Maranus, located on the River Accylig, as well as south along the west coast of Maradenne. You can see the map at http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=20871, but it's over the years since I drew the map my conception changed from having it be just another fort on the savannah to having it be a fortified port on the shore. Also the erased fort just east of it isn't gone but rather, like the port itself, has been captured by the pirates of Gonifus. (That's the fort I'd like someone to design for me too. The adventure idea involves the party liberating one or hopefully both from the pirates so that Maradenne can focus more military resources eastward to come to the aid of the oppressed Volencians east of the River Wemic in the evil State of Castor.)
So it's mostly a naval base, with barracks for sailors and soldier and homes for the officers. I'm thinking that it's mostly made of stone. Since the crater is far bigger than the naval forces originally stationed there needed, it has plenty of room for businesses that followed to help service the military forces there, and indeed some of the inner slope of the crater might be used for extensive, albeit terraced farming. You're sure right about the fuzzy, imaginative spaces!
As for population, I've always thought of Maradenne as having only two real cities, Maradenne, the capital, and Maranus, the inland port on the River Accylig. Now that I'm really thinking about this other port (notice that I've never named it), I'm thinking that before the pirates took it, it probably had a population of 5,000, mostly sailors and soldiers, which would make it, according to the 3.5 DMG, at the top end of a large town.
I think the two great stone towers guarding the entrance to the harbor might be 3 or even 4 stories high (maybe 3 stories plus a usable roof with catapults). Other buildings would mostly have 1 or 2 stories, 3 tops. A warehouse might be effectively two stories high, without actually having a second story; an inn might have two or even three stories to accommodate guest rooms upstairs.
Since it was built by half-elves who are neutral good, and Annonid (Great Humans, humans with Great Elven ancestry) who are lawful good, it would have a fairly ordered layout. That's all that comes to mind at the moment.
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