Reply With QuoteMade a model, sliced some sections out and made some floors roughly in the shape of the sections. Its come out a little more regular than I thought it might have.
Hey Neon, Thats a fabulous quote. I have never heard that but its so fitting. The painting image does not look like the Astral plane tho so maybe some dark wizard(s) battled a Gith (or many) and stole it transporting via teleport to this place. Perhaps in battle, the wizards just dimensionally flung it anywhere out of the sphere of battle and it was teleported or gated randomly into the ground of another plane and now the erosion is revealing it once again.
So that would mean that the original interior would have been 'carved' out by Githyanki perhaps with a more fortified theme than I was anticipating from that created by a wizard... Its says this in plural so I figure that this would not be the first or last skeletal remains to have been converted so I reckon they would have a good idea how to do it and would optimize the space better than square block shaped interiors. Maybe this explains why the skull is so hard too. Either skulls of deities is hard stuff or that the Gith have made them harder - though I like the first option better.
Edit -- The painting is from the Elric series of books by Michael Moorcock and he has a character in one of the books called Werther which is based on some old text of which there are details here. As you can gather, I haven't read either tho a long ago friend used to rave about the Elric series.
Looking at the Wiki there are bits of Gith etc but also an entry called God-Isles so this idea of the Githyanki using skeletons from fallen deities must be fairly well known (by everyone except me it seems !).
Last edited by Redrobes; 02-11-2008 at 02:34 PM.
Made a model, sliced some sections out and made some floors roughly in the shape of the sections. Its come out a little more regular than I thought it might have.
Steven Brust explored that very topic in one of his Vlad Taltos novels. It was well-known that the only way into a wizard's tower was to teleport. Except that the peasant servants had to be able to get in, too, so there really were normal doors.Originally Posted by Redrobes
I think I'd go "halfsies." Much of the lair would be accessible by normal doors, so guards, underlings, and servants could bring in supplies. (What's a diabolical wizard without underlings, after all?) The Inner Sanctum(tm) would only be accessible by teleport, or perhaps intangibility or smoke-form. You'd still need air to get in, after all, unless you want to burn a portion of your sorcerous power to conjure it. I can think of better uses of my mana. The same goes for food and water.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
On a counter argument, any wizard worth his salt could have dimensional portals to allow visitors and such in.
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
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MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Hey guys, just wanting some feedback on the WIPs below. I have had a bit of an inspirational block and also short on really nice mapping elements to use too. I have took a few from RPG Map Share site but I think the problem is that if this were my high level wizard abode I would have lots of really weird custom stuff in it and I havent the time to make it all in nice 3D so finding images to use has been a problem. I wanted some persian rugs and though I can get them from a google image search I want free to use images and that was an issue so I made some fractal rugs. All the items are mine except the chairs, bed and table. It could do with more book cases, tables, racks, benches etc.
Anyway, comments most welcome because I feel I am getting lost with this one...
Well my machine is chugging MeDem textures out again so I have another hour to throw at this. After having an opinion whip round, I think that the top floor is going to be the treasure room, meeting room, map room and thieves abode - if you stick him with all the treasure he cant steal any can he ?. Next level down is another meeting room with the big table, mess hall and the abode of the clerics and fighters so some armour, swords and the odd mace might have to go in there. Next down is the wizards chambers so ill see if I can get anything spell like in there. Also, general opinion is that the rug is too bright. Lastly on the ground floor is a shared wash room.
My only suggestion is to have some elements which repeat throughout all the floors to tie them together - unless you want the feel of each floor being a world unto itself! That fractal rug is pretty funky! Looks like a portal into another world!
Thats a good idea and its given me another. What I ought to do is finalize the maps and then render them as levels inside that 3D skull model where that is virtually transparent so that the 4 levels line up and are in scale then the spiral stairs can link the bottom layers together and the bone stairs link the top level on. It would be pretty trivial now that I have already done all the bits to make it.
I chose the floor patterns because I liked them but in hindsight I ought to have used the same texture for at least the top three levels and made the decor a little different. The checker does clash a bit. I figured that a wizard would be able to whoop up any kind of pattern he wanted but its not so easy on the eye.
The rug is a monster eh ? I want a real one like that ! It needs toning down a bit I think. Next time I do a portal tho, I'll know exactly what to do !
Got side tracked tonight again... sigh ! Got a few swords & axes but no armour - anyone got any 3D armour models ?
I have another question too ? Do you think that there should be people in the map or not ? Generally for VTT's GMs dont like stuff thats too 'ephemeral' to be on the map but some balk at even chairs and movable objects like that. I reckon that it would suit this particular map.
Now you're talking! Use a transparency map on the skull so it's transparent closest to the viewer but opaque at the back..nice bone texture on the visible bits!
As far as putting in people or furniture is concerned, it's your map...put people in if you want to. You can always take them out again if you want to use it for a VTT game. The competition is really a means to get people drawing maps against a deadline so that they have an incentive to finish the project. The prizes are really incidental.
Ok ill try that bone texture thing. My skull model was really rough but if its nearly transparent then it ought not to matter too much. It would be a good excuse to use it more effectively than just for getting some floor slices.
Ill put people in on the top down one but not for the 3D view mainly because I have some neat top down icons (which aren't mine I should add) and they wont render in 3D anyway.
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