Tsue-jo Castle Town, Kaidan

OK, this is the roughest starting WIP for any project you've ever witnessed by me, because I seldom plan things to this degree. However, Tsue-jo is the destination castle town for my first adventure module, The Gift, for my Kaidan campaign setting. The town will be fairly complicated, but I want the design to make sense - historically and to help the story.

This is a rough pen sketch (and I mean rough!) showing several depicted views of the proposed castle town. The side view from the north (it says "west" but that's an error), at the top of this sketch tries to help show how the fortress sits high on a rocky hill, with the second bailley about 40 to 50 feet lower than the third/fortress bailley. The first bailley is separated from the inner bailleys by a wooden bridge built between two smaller fortresses. Then a bridge separates the first bailley from the main town area, with the samurai district being closest to the natural moat.

Essentially its a single rocky island near the mouth of a river with two fractures dividing the castle itself from the remaining first bailley and the town itself.

A rough road plan for the town shows a maze-like approach to the castle from the main town entrance with a 3 arched stone bridge from the north bank.

I'm sure this will be my toughest map to create for the adventure - but its got to be done.

I have some other work to do, so I'll get back to this in couple days.

GP

I like it so far, very cool. I can already see this in my mind and can't wait to see how you do it.

Looking forward to seeing this one 'come to life'.

Maze-like structures are very Japanese indeed (as I'm sure you know). It would, perhaps, be even more appropriate for the castle-on-the-hill to be surrounded by a maze-like city, so the castle's residents could see an army approaching.

It occurs to me that a river-moat may be more of a liability than a defensive structure. A moat is a problem for terrestrial attackers that don't have a boat, but a river-moat may well just make it easy for an enemy to pull a boat full of army up to the front door.

Nevermind, I'm an idiot: its on a bluff.

That said, its fabulous, and I love it. Can't wait to see what sort of gorgeous map you produce this time.

How do get all those straight hand drawn lines? Do I use a ruler? Heck no, I cheat. First I create a Xara object styled map of the area I plan to hand draw. So the reference only has the castle area, which is what I'll draw first. Then this is printed, placed on a light table and traced.

I'll try to draw each section as a letter size area, that will take multiple sheets to complete, and just overlap each slightly so I can line things back up. This way I can keep my drawn lines at a consistent size.

All the detailing will be completely freehand, but the basic shapes are easier to trace first, then detail fill the interior.

I will continue to update this guideline map until the entire city is created, but I'll hand draw in parts as I get this map completed phase by phase.

So nothing artsy yet, just making two rough maps for tracing, one of the planned town entirety and one of just the castle...

Now to begin tracing!

GP

Nice! Makes me want to finally build the light table I've been designing on and off for the last 12 years :)

(heck with these little 12" jobbies, the one I want to make is 3'x4' heh)

Looking forward to seeing the final result..

Looking awesome so far :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Coyotemax

Nice! Makes me want to finally build the light table I've been designing on and off for the last 12 years :)

(heck with these little 12" jobbies, the one I want to make is 3'x4' heh)

Looking forward to seeing the final result..

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My light table is almost that big - probably 22" x 34" in size, its an old one, but a commercial grade light table.

GP

*drool*
Yes, I'm jealous.
My first light table (that inspired me to want a huge one) was made from a large pane of storm window that was resting flat over the space between 2 desks (if you follow what i mean), with a 200W bulb under it, in a white box so it would direct the ambient light upwards as well. I could use 80lb paper as tracing paper (heh), and while I was working on 22"x32" and such paper, it was nice to not have to be able to move things around, I could just tape everything down until I was done :)

How about my full 4 foot by 8 foot painting table :) I use it for painting my church work after I have drawn it. 1/4 inch thick clear glass on top of a frame of two by fours that I hammered together myself, with all of the airbrush equipment underneath. I was a skater in high school...go big or go home :)