Kalkas Bentum, Capital of the Bentis Empire

**Daelin** · 02-28-2010, 08:13 PM

Well, alrighty then...

I've decided to declare this map done. I've been contemplating sticking in some more stuff, but I think all those little details will just clutter up the map too much.
For the houses, I've used this little-known tutorial, and made a few minor (major) tweaks, but when it comes to automatically generating different shapes, it really gets the job done. Everything else is (hopefully) in the same style as my previous map, Dreodae, which is also the setting of this city.

Lore:
A few centuries have passed since the Grand Ascension, and the Goddess-Empress Leigh Raynus Bentusi is still ruling the Bentis Empire with a benign iron fist. The Empire's capital has seen significant changes over the years. The semi-sentient Ognamostic Desert has been defeated by the combined strength of the Imperial Militia, the Taechno-magi clans and the Empress herself. Fertile plains have taken the place of the vanquished Desert and the Empire has expanded its territory to almost triple its previous size. Heavy use of earth-shaping taechnomagicks has transformed the city itself, turning ocean into habitable coastline. The Imperial Palace rests majestically on the central island, from where the beloved Empress continues her immortal reign. The Imperial College and its numerous faculties dominate the cityscape with their characteristic and impressive circular buildings, constructed on the basis of the guiding principles of the Empire: Science and Rationality. Technological advancement moves rapidly and every day, the workshops spew forth strange new apparatuses to the general benefit or perhaps detriment of the Empire's citizens.
All is not serene within the Empire, however. Various anti-progression organizations have sprung up across the Empire. Few are more than mere groups College dropouts, distributing seditious pamphlets and obscure rallies. In recent months, though, one group especially, has risen to notoriety through a series of bombings of factories and laboratories. Calling themselves Avalanche, they style themselves as eco-cultists, believing in a planetary soul, the "Lifestream", which, supposedly unbeknown to the general public, is being "sucked" from the earth by giant reactors created by the Empress Leigh.
As well as contending with these foolish yet extremely dangerous fanatics, the Goddess-Empress must also be mindful of encroaching foreign powers, including the seemingly unstoppable Skinkian Hive Mind, the exponential rate at which new technologies are being discovered, which could possibly lead to a disastrous singularity, and recent scientific findings that seem to indicate the existence of the mythological "Pantheon of Gods", of which she herself might be a member.

See, I actually made an effort with the fluff, this time.

Anyway, enjoy.

**Ascension** · 02-28-2010, 09:59 PM

I'd still like to know how you got all of those building bases in so nice and crisp. Good job my man.

**Daelin** · 03-01-2010, 05:48 AM

Well, like I said, I used that tutorial. First you draw all the streets, which creates plots, in all kinds of shapes. Then you stroke the outside of the streets with a square brush with various scatter and jitter settings. That makes randomly generated blobs that then should vaguely look like buildings. After that I put a bevel and emboss effect on them to give them some depth, and some other minor tweaks. It looks pretty good, for all the small buildings at least, but I think the larger ones, like the palace could have been done manually, that would have made them a bit more unique, but oh well.