Profantasy Community Atlas Project - City of Sanctuary

[Mouse]

In this thread I will be showing progress shot extracts of the work I am doing as a contribution to the Profantasy Community Atlas Project.

While the world of Nibirum has already been very beautifully mapped by a group of dedicated CC3 mappers, as a CC3 mapper myself I have been invited to create a map of the City of Sanctuary, which lies on Lorelei's very beautiful continent of Malajuri.

Inspired by the legend of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which were allegedly built by a Mesopotamian king for his beloved queen, Sanctuary has its own hanging gardens - a palace built on a mesa at the heart of the city, fed by a canal that traverses the lower valley to the mesa by aqueduct.

This first extract is of the unfinished 'Garden of Heaven' where the spirits of children who have been slain by evil may roam and find peace - Sanctuary from the ills of the world.

The grand gazebo is where grieving visitors to the palace may sit and be tended by the palace servants. The elaborate roof space houses a dove cote full of hand tame pure white doves. The water is yet to be worked on, but will flow through the garden and fall from the cliff in a (hopefully) spectacular waterfall. The map doesn't do it justice, but this is one of the most beautiful and peaceful parts of the city, and famed in its own right within the Hanging Gardens of Sanctuary.

For those on a personal pilgrimage seeking peace, there will be a pontoon traversing the lake at the base of the falls to a grand staircase built up the cliff at the side of the falls to the top - directly into the garden. There is a Buddhist-style chime column at the top of the ascent that may be rung for assistance, and to let the palace staff know they have guests to serve with freshly prepared food and drink - all organically grown within the Hanging Garden itself.

Garden of Heaven 01.JPG

The atlas is an open resource of CC3 maps being built by the Profantasy community, starting at world level (already completed) and going right down to dungeon level, so if you are a CC3 mapper and you fancy joining in the fun by doing your own regional, city or dungeon map, just click the link at the top of this comment and come and have a look and see what we have already done - maybe find a spot you would like to claim to make your own CC3 map

[Voolf]

Wow this seems to be really big project, like guild world. Good start Mouse, i expect something spectacular like Merelan City.

[Mouse]

Thanks Voolf

It is a bit like Guild World, but the main difference lies in the fact that the original FCW files are available for download for personal use by CC3 mappers - an open resource of FCW files - continents, regions, cities, villages, and dungeon maps. All the maps, or maps derived from them, may be used by CC3 mappers or RPG groups within the closed circle of that group, but not redistributed. The exact terms and conditions of use are stated quite clearly on the Community Atlas Project webpage (which you can get to by clicking the links contained in the thread I linked to in my first comment above).

...

As for this ending up like Merelan City? Hmmm. That was a map and a half, that was! I think expectations may be running a bit high because of it, but with Sanctuary the emphasis is on trying to achieve a respectable city map while using far less than the 135 sheets (layers) and 300+ sheet effects that I had to use to create Merelan City.

Having said that, however, I am already up to 30 sheets and counting, and I've only half done the Garden of Heaven! LOL!

I just hope its not going to end up being too big and messy for people to want to be bothered with using it once I've finished it.

EDIT: The best bit is that I've developed a whole new tree set rendered from Blender and stuck together in Photopaint, especially for this map. I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out - better than the Vue trees I was using before now. I've also succeeded in working out how to represent the very difficult onion dome, and I'm half way through work on a 'Bhuddist temple' style palace. All of this will spill over into my current Guild City project and hopefully enrich that as well

[ChickPea]

It's a lovely start and looks like a great place for a wander!

[Mouse]

Thanks ChickPea

I'll meet you up top for a fruit juice then - or if you prefer alcohol is available

You don't have to do the waterfall walk if you'd rather not spend the morning climbing the steps. There are lots of other ways up to the top of the hanging gardens, including a incline carriage powered by the waterfall mill.

[ChickPea]

We'll have coffee and buns because I'll need fortifying after climbing the steps (because of course I'm going to climb the steps. I have to, after eating too many curly wurlys!)

Great to see other communities developing similar group projects too.

[Mouse]

There does seem to be a shortage of Curly Wurlys on the shelves just lately

Coffee it is, then. Sanctuary imports the raw beans from the mountainous regions to the south and processes them to various stages, so you can have either fresh ground coffee, or our version of medieval instant coffee... which.... er... may sometimes be a bit gritty! LOL!

We don't have refined sugar, so I hope honey or maple syrup will do? Its a bit like drinking liquid toffee - liquid Curly Wurlys!

[ChickPea]

I, err, think I'll pass on the instant, thanks. Fresh ground coffee sounds divine and I don't take sugar anyway, so no worries there.

I'm glad to see you've got the worldbuilding all worked out.

[Mouse]

Sounds delightful. I'm working on the palace at the moment, so just give the chimes a whirl when you get to the top and I'll be straight over

The world building was a Profantasy community project coordinated by Remy Monsen, who also created the Community Atlas Project webpage for us and continues to dedicate a lot of time to collecting and integrating new maps to the Atlas on a day to day basis. Its a thing of beauty - even without all the lovely maps that people have contributed.

[jizerai]

It looks very nice, I must say! I haven't had the pleasure of using CC3 myself, though. Perhaps I should find the time to do so.
Although, I've barely scratched the surface of Photoshop, so maybe I should take it one step at a time. xD

Will you be posting any more updates here, btw? Considering the redistribution-rules you mentioned, I mean.