The Bright Tower - Mirror Sanctum

[eRaz0r]

Yesterday, my party confronted one of the campaigns "movers" - a mysterious figure, whose handiwork they'd been coming across since the very start : a sage known as Galendin of the Bright Tower.

They had recently learned that visitors to the tower were required to surrender any reflective objects, and as they ascended to the top, they came across several halls of magical mirrors, which showed not their own faces, but the handsome face of a half-Eladrin. How self-absorbed!

After dispatching various defenders, they meet up with Galendin himself, who casually invites them to dinner, and offers to answer whatever questions they might have. How urbane!

As they ascend the spiral stairs, they walk into a grand circular hall, and all along the perimeter, mirrors... mirrors everywhere!

(Because the mirrors were destructible, I didn't place them on the base maps, but used tokens when running the game. There were 24 on the lower level and 18 on the upper level. )

They're not exactly very complicated or anything, but I thought I'd share them in case someone else needs a circular tower top. Feel free to use them in your own games.

I also put the tower together in Sketchup first, to make sure I got the layout fairly accurate. I've added that as an attachment, for those of you interested in 3D versions of your Battle Maps. BrightTower.skp

BrightTower1.png BrightTower2.png

I'm still learning a lot about GIMP and getting maps to look good, so even though these are "finished" (that is, I used them already), any critiques or ways to improve will be appreciated.

I had some trouble getting the stairs to look good (I actually exported a top down view from Sketchup to get the right ratio, which is why they're a little jagged and weird looking). I think I managed to get a decent technique in the end, using a GIMP rotate script I found (to make the shadows on the steps), and then using a blurred copy of the stair with a layer mask to fade to transparent as a higher layer (to indicate transition to different floor).
But if there's a better way to do that, I'm all ears. It was a bit hit and miss.

(Oh and forgive my lack of a landing on the first floor -- I only realized I forgot it when I was placing the character tokens -- whoops -- it was not intentional).

[Grumpf]

Perfect! Thank you. I need a simple tower for Saturday and this is a perfect template! Looking forward to more of these!

[Kennyt]

ERaz0r - Hey - great work - I'm a GIMP user as well, though still in learner mode myself. I'd consider perhaps making the upper stairs slowly fade into transparency - i am sure it can be managed easily enough, maybe even freehand with the eraser tool at different opacity?

My method of making stairs is prob a bit dumb in making that many, but works well for irregulare stairs is to just use a selector tool, draw a line, invert selection, use the spray tool, follow the edge of your line, and it kinda look like stairs; used it in this map (prob could have spent more than 30 minutes on it to make it look more convincing but happy with the amount of time i threw in it).

http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...ance-forum.jpg

A great technique i've learned was to add full black top layer - then turn the opacity of that layer down to like 30% so it kinda just looks "dim" then use the eraser tool to cut out portions of the dimness, drop in a light source, and viola - convincing light sources!

here is the thread with some of my work : http://www.cartographersguild.com/vi...rron-maps.html

Here is a GREAT tutorial on making tiles - the last 3rd of it is rendering it in BLENDER, which is really not needed for a battlemap, so you can skip that.

Texturing Tutorial Floor Tile GIMP Blender - YouTube

[eRaz0r]

Thanks for the tips.
I'll definitely try them out.