Demoor Town

[KaiAeon]

This was going to be my entry for the August 2021 Mapping Challenge but I won't finish it in time. This is also my first town map and I am struggling with conceptualising some stuff. Maybe I am overthinking things?

Here is a sketch of the region:
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And here is the street plan of the town with districts identified, number of markets listed and town walls separating the different areas. Note that I switched from square pylons to circular ones midway through. There is a canal that runs through the town redirected from the river to water some of the farmland outside the town, not sketched in. The CBD (central business district) is the administrative centre of the town. The town hall, guild houses and more affluent market can be found here.

The town started as a religious centre - a pilgrimage site where the goddesses of life and nature, and gods of knowledgeand storms are worshipped. Later mineral deposits were discovered in the hills and the nearby forest provided lumber.

Here is a sketch of the town layout.
20210822_211211-01.jpeg

For context this region is situated in the Northeastern region of the Drata continent of the world, Ovum Novum.
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Any advice you can give will be helpful and appreciated.

[Papierkriegerin]

Hey so I think the general town net looks convincing. Question: Do you want to give more details? Like Houses? In that case I would make the paths more than just lines, I mean a road has a certain width usually.

[KaiAeon]

Yes, I will be adding houses after transferring the sketch to A4 or A3 paper.

Is my configuration of the district okay? Should I look into using a different configuration? What about the number of markets?

It is a town with a population of 3118 that sprang up as a result of the temple. Later mineral veins were discovered in the surrounding hills which led to a growth in the economy and the demographic of the town changing.

[Papierkriegerin]

Well if it's only around 3 000 people who live there, I'd say 5 markets are a bit extensive unless there are a lot (and I mean a *lot*) of outsiders who visit the city for reasons of doing trade. In that case I'd say you should make sure of at least one thing: The big river passing the town? That is *ideal* for traders to use with ships to transfer goods. However, they would need a harbor of sorts, and chances are there would be quite a few inns nearby, since all those traders would need to sleep somewhere (I am guessing this is a medieval kind of town probably?). If you want to make it even more of a trading town, let there be a bridge across the river and a trading route. That way the traders can get off the ship and go on on land, - or the other way come from land and get on ship.

Generally towns with a lot of trade tend to have the wealth to build beautiful temples, so this works together quite well in tandem, I think. Since you said there are mineral veins this works together well with it being a trading town, although I'd say it's more logical for the veins to be found first - in general people need something to live from *before* they need a temple to pray to their gods. Food comes before religion in the needs usually, and minerals are a way to finance food.

[KaiAeon]

Thank you for the advice. Much food for thought.