The Holy City of Nebbûran

[Kaiser MacCleg]

Having tried my hand at regional mapping, I thought I'd try mapping a city this time around. The not-quite-half-finished map below depicts the Holy City of Nebbûran, the spiritual centre of the Kingdom of Nebûr. The city is characterised by wide, arterial roads connecting locations of importance connected by twisting, labyrinthine alleyways which make the city notoriously hard to police. The palatial Ûnam Šakh, a vast complex containing temples, reliquaries and archives, dominates the hill upon which the city is built, and is topped by a golden dome which can be seen for miles around.

I've tried to adopt a hand-drawn style while creating this map - I haven't been satisfied with the method of using brushes to place buildings in the past, and drawing it by hand, despite the obvious drawbacks - the time it takes to place buildings, for instance - allows me more control over how the city will ultimately look.

Nebburan.jpg

I'm not sure about the font I've been using. It certainly looks the part, but I'm not sure if it'll be legible enough - especially if I use smaller font sizes in the future. What do you guys think?

I'm determined that this map will make it to the "finished maps" forum.

[LonewandererD]

Sir, you must be insane to attempt something like this, and thats why i like it. I will watch this develop with great interest, have some rep for the great start.

-D-

[Redrobes]

Its looking mighty fine so far. I agree with both your points about the font. It is a bit hard to determine if thats an L or K for the start of the river name. Its a nice mapping style generally.

[tilt]

looking really good - love that style, very neat

[Kaiser MacCleg]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone (and for the rep ). Redrobes, thanks for the input. I've been experimenting with other fonts and I've found a couple which could work. Its a K by the way.

[Katto]

That's a really big project you've started, respect! I won't care about the font at the moment. Keep in mind that this is the market hall, this the river XXX etc. If you start labelling now this will damage the city layout.

[Kaiser MacCleg]

I have a hand-drawn version of the map as well, so for the most part I'm tracing the layout in the GIMP, and I'm not that worried about experimenting with labelling at this early stage. I've had the city's basic layout filed away in a dusty corner of my brain for a while now; this is just an exercise in finally putting it down on paper and tidying up the edges.

[Steel General]

A really nice start, looking forward to seeing where you take it.

[Kaiser MacCleg]

Progress has been slower than I'd hoped, because I haven't had a lot of time to work on the map. Nonetheless, its starting to come together.

Nebburan.jpg

I have a little over half of the walled city done now, though there's more to be done outside the walls, too, and I don't even know where to start when it comes to the farmland.

[vman3force]

May i just say that this is an amazing map your working on here, and im envious. Is it ok if i steal this for my Dark Sun campaign when it's finished? It looks like it could fit right in to the desert world of Athas.