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Thread: February Entry: The Tomb of Le Wushi

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    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Default February Entry: The Tomb of Le Wushi

    I guess you guys are getting to me with all of this iso mapping stuff. I'm going to give it a go and see what happens. This is a location in my Asian-themed fantasy setting that needs mapping in any case. In this world there is a relic called Huangdi Shi, or the Emperor's Stone. Here's the excerpt on it:

    Huangdi Shi has resurfaced – this time in the cosmopolitan Dazhou port city of Haibianr. Also known as the Emperor’s Stone, Huangdi Shi is a jade statue depicting a heroic figure, triumphant in battle. Its origin is unknown, although some suggest it first appeared in the treasure vaults of the First Emperor, who united the various Min nations more than 7,000 years ago through force of arms and personality. Respected scholars have variously noted the statue’s presence in the possession of many famous historical leaders: Learned Zhu claims it resided for a time in the saddlebags of Grazak Khan and his descendents, the orkish worg-lords that terrorized the post-Imperial city-states between 3,500-3,900; meanwhile, Honorable Ling believes it rode in the treasure palanquins of Emperor Wu during his crusades to unite the warring three kingdoms in 5,235-37.

    Whatever its genesis and history, Huangdi Shi functions as its common appellation “Kingmaker” implies. This minor artifact only works for certain bearers, those it deems “worthy” of its ministrations – usually a person with a talent for martial endeavors and the ambition to see them through. Once it has found a beneficiary, its “chosen one”, that person undergoes a meteoric rise in power, challenging all comers until she either resides at the top of the heap or falls to her foes in battle.

    Huangdi Shi lay forgotten for many centuries in the tomb of a would-be conqueror named Le Wushi. Le failed the Kingmaker’s test, falling to his foes in a great battle on the windswept plains of southern Helei. His followers recovered his slashed and arrow-riddled body and laid it to rest in a carefully prepared tomb along with his many worldly treasures, including Huangdi Shi – and there the artifact vanished from official notice for more than five hundred years.

    A group of professional treasure-seekers recently breached Le’s tomb, braving its formidable traps and arcane wards with the loss of only one expedition member. The artifact, along with the rest of the tomb’s loot, was piled into a treasure cart and brought to the lucrative antiquities markets of Haibianr. There it was sold, with many other, less-remarkable objets d’art, to Hanford House, a prestigious foreign auctioneer dealing in exotic artworks and patronized by the wealthy nobility of distant nations.

    Hanford frequently distributes lists of available lots via its network of sellers. The lot containing Huangdi Shi came to the attention of the Prince Mikkel of Iskandia, who purchased it sight-unseen for the tidy sum of 1,000 gold Crowns. The Prince arranged for his purchase to be delivered by ship to the port city of Florennia and thence overland by regular caravan to his palace in Brekka.

    Had Hanford’s appraisers realized the true value of the unassuming jade statue, however, the Prince would certainly have paid much more.

    Actually, one of those appraisers, a scholar of Min antiquities named Li Pantu, did recognize the worth of Huangdi Shi. While Li was ignorant to the true power of the statue, he was somewhat familiar with the artifact’s auspicious past and its association with the successes of its former bearers. He didn’t inform his employers at Hanford, marking it on the manifest as “Jade statue, small; 150 gold Crowns”. Instead, Li sent a message to the Lushou telling them that he had located an “item of interest”.

    Thus, for a few pieces of platinum, Huangdi Shi came to the notice of Grazak Liu, a half-orc crime lord behind the Lushou, or “Green Hand”, one of Haibianr’s most notorious underworld organizations – dipping its clawed fingers into criminal enterprises ranging from illicit drugs to the flesh trade. Liu isn’t interested in Huangdi Shi for its monetary value, however. He has aspirations that well exceed his current grasp and believes that the artifact will bring him the power he needs to reach his goals.

    While Hanford House’s extensive security presents an impossible barrier to smuggling the treasure out or taking it by force of arms, Liu is betting that the foreign ship that is set to take Huangdi Shi to its new home will prove an easier mark. Thanks to Li Pantu, Liu knows the name of that ship and where it will be docking and has already laid plans to get his claws on this valuable piece of Min history.
    This, then, is the resting place of Le Wushi, pretender to the imperial throne of Minguo...

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    Professional Artist Guild Donor Sapiento's Avatar
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    This kind of levels seems a good way to place as much as possible on one side. I like the idea of a Asian theme, too.
    I'm still thinking about doing an entry for this month challenge, but as dungeons are not the kind of maps I do usually, I have not really an idea so far. And I'm short on time this month, too. But...who knows

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Interesting start...looking forward to seeing where you take it.
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



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    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    This needs ages of work but here's a little rough-out of the aboveground area and a little refinement of the off-map stuff. None of the elements tie together very well yet but I'll keep experimenting as I map. I have a newfound respect for Djekspek.
    M

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    That looks pretty good so far.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

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    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Hey thanks, guys.

    Ravells, yep, they're hand-drawn but don't snag them yet...let me finish them first. I plan to finish the shading, add a little color variation, tighten the outlines and then shade and texture the ground underneath. I just used a small soft brush set to dark green to scribble around and then painted under them on another layer with a middle green set to 100% opacity and shaded the edges with a lower opacity dark and light greens.
    M

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    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Wait no longer! Well, okay that's dramatic...but these are slightly improved. The building and bridge still look hinkey and it could generally use a lot more texturing and vegetation. I'm still working on the below-ground levels on paper to get a good layout that'll work with isometric...harder than I had thought it would be at first.
    M
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    Professional Artist Djekspek's Avatar
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    This is looking very cool Mearrin! This is not just a one-page-dungeon but is becoming sort of a one-page-campaign and the 1st level 3d-ish look is looking pretty cool already! Really like the way you did the trees. As for 3d-ish drawing I've learned that it takes loads of time and practise to get decent stuff out and must say that you do a great job so far in my opinion. Also I found out that often i have to move stuff around from the original place i planned them just to make it better fit for a 3d-ish view so i'd say dont plan ahead too much with the 2d layout up front as you may have to move stuff anyway. Looking forward to seeing this progress! cheers

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