January/February 2014 Lite Challenge: Town of Leak

[Jalyha]

YAY I have a hat shop.

(Lol at "new hat", seriously)

[rgcalsaverini]

Gosh I love your level of history detail!

[Jalyha]

Update? I want to try on my hats!

[jbgibson]

First, I offer the index map for the town. The Stonemade Insurance Company, much like our world's Sanborn Insurance Company, would provide such an overall view as this, then a separate sheet at larger scale for each of the numbered/ tinted areas. If I have enough time, I could attach one of the closup views, or if time runs out, this is plenty complete enough to show the requisite triangle (the park), square (the engine house), and circle (the locomotive turntable).

Smaller settlements near a major one would often be handled with insets and supplementary sheets, rather than the company producing a separate edition for what was after all likely an economically connected community. Here, the actual work site up near the most frequent aqueduct repair areas is such. The name comes from the danger of getting there, not from any larger than usual chance of homicide -- the earthquakes that crack the aqueduct also unsettle cliffs up this valley, and falling rocks are a frequent hazard. Trucks that carry men and materiel uphill are armored across their roofs. It would be downright stupid to travel there without such protection - the local saying is that "no one just walks into Murder"...

I mentioned a game. Among model railroaders - at least ones of thirty to forty years ago - there was a track arrangement known as "The Timesaver". I'm unsure why, because its purpose was to be a time *spender* ... it was a puzzle arrangement where one would try to arrive at a given placement of railroad cars with the minimum number of switching moves. The stingy array of tracks here can be used thusly. If I had a Stonemade Insurance map on my wall (as several businesses and banks in town do) then with a set of tacks (or a sheet of steel beneath the paper) I could move around a set of magnets to simulate the train movements. In fact (manufactured fact :-) ) one Jason Tucker, Esq, a junior partner in the law firm of Quincy, Burlington, and Mayhew, has such a map and magnet set, and on his lunch hours he is likely to be seeking to beat his good friend Wallace Johannasen in the Third Provincial Bank (whose office has a similar map and magnet setup) with a phoned set of moves. Telephones? Why yes - the town has such a system - purely local and somewhat finicky, but quite sufficient for a game of Load the Leak Limited.

So unless I can scrounge a few hours more before the contest closes:

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Note that if I was truly going to duplicate the look and feel of a Sanborn map, I'd have had to spend six times as much time on just the title as I did for this whole map. Google Sanborn Maps and see what I mean - absolutely gorgeous ornate hand-lettered complexity, as befits a product the company would sell for the equivalent of thousands of today's US Dollars.

The Hat Shops and Ratcatchers and Banks and homes and grocers and such will be individually indicated on the various detail sheets -- sorry I haven't had time to tack that on just yet :-).

[jbgibson]

Found a way to get Jalyha her hat shop without working up an entire detail sheet -- the annotations and symbology on those detail sheets need a key, which can go in an inset on this index map. Like so:

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[Jalyha]

Love it! (Maybe this should have been for the "map the guild" challenge too! )

It looks great. Plus, y'know... I got HATS!

[jbgibson]

Staring at it I saw the lack of a compass rose. Other than that, I'm satisfied. Low standards, but satisfied :-).

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Details that could've made it if I had done *all* of the detail sheets include the Ice House (bitter winter, reservoir surface freezing, sub-sub-sub basement, and the mayor gets ice in his sasparilla year-round). The Ice *Skate* House (once the ice basement is filled, the surface becomes a skating rink). Steam powered shadoofs (dipper-crane water lifts for garden plots between Park Avenue and the creek). The coal towers (more squares). Game pieces (rail cars and loco outlines). Dozens of garages and mechanic shops (keeping trucks and the lone bus running in extreme conditions). Tenements with outside stairs and no plumbing. Prosperous homes with indoor plumbing. The various fountains in the park. A hundred and three punny businesses. Four serious businesses. The Provincial Opera House and Meeting Hall. Mrs. McKenna's Dining Room. Evidence of the fires of '21 and '37. Six Sinustrian Laundries. Schools of surveying, cartography, mining, hydraulic engineering, and drama (isolated communities have MORE rather than less culture, above some critical size and sophistication). Grammar school and upper school. The Osbet Memorial Library. Churches. Teahouses. The Bulk Potato Storage Facility (Leeks and potatoes go together, wot?). The bowling alley / indoor firing range (downstairs/ upstairs). And a partridge in a pear tree (bronze, actually - the clock-statue at the corner of Station and Main).

<shrug> ... Another map, another time.