April / May 2015 Lite Challenge: Star Fort

[ChickPea]

Thought I might as well start my thread and put up what I've done already.

This is a very early stage and it's *extremely* rough at the moment. It's really more of a general layout plan than anything else. I probably will change lots as I go along, except the overall shape (hopefully!) I plan to have a moat around the city, connecting to a river, but that'll come later. I also haven't drawn in the gates, but there'll be one at the western point and one at the north-east.

Most of the squarish blobs are really just to indicate where a building will go. The shape is in no way finalised. Some of the more complicated shapes will probably stay, but never say never. And, of course, there are whole sections that I haven't got to yet. Most of these will be residential. I've designated the eastern area to be the trade/commercial part of the city. I included a legend to give you all an idea of where I'm going with this.

I want to do lots of ridiculously fancypants buildings. Might not have time to pull it off, but I'll give it my best shot. Buildings like a citadel or a library lend themselves to OTT architecture, but I'm not sure what's best for some of the other buildings. It's hard to convey an inn or a clock maker or a tea shop from the roof! They might end up not that different from the houses, except perhaps with different coloured roofs. I need to think about it some more.

Anyway, that's where I'm at for now.

### LATEST WIP ###
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[Meshon]

Not sure if it will help, but the map from TSR's old Lankhmar set has some pretty whimsical buildings scattered throughout it. I've always loved that map for its narrow little alleyways. The big empty squares were intended to be filled with geomorphs, to allow DMs to customize the city but also to reflect the fact that buildings were getting knocked down and rebuilt so neighbourhoods tended to change. If you do a search for Lankhmar geomorphs you'll find a few of them.

Also if you haven't read Fritz Leiber's sword and sorcery stories featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser I highly recommend them. Even though some of the stories are 75 years old now, they remain highly entertaining.

This map is going to be a lot of fun. I'm really happy that you have coffee houses. Aside from a place for socializing and news gathering, have you thought about what people will drink there (if this is a fantasy world)? I know that, in London in the early 1700s, chocolate was also a popular drink.

I like that you're not making all the buildings into discrete units. I'm sure that in a densely populated and planned area that space would be at a premium. I'm not sure if it will fit the style, but adding lots of texture to roofs might be one way to reinforce the elaborate buildings. By this I mean adding dormers and little garrets and things that you can still represent from a top down view. Can't wait to see some of your buildings!

cheers,
Meshon

[Belgath]

Looks like a good start. For me the city maps are hard to do always want to hand draw each building. I wish new enough that I could give good advice. Good luck.

[ChickPea]

That Lankhmar map is fantastic. I love some of the street names and their positioning relative to each other!! I haven't read any of the Gray Mouser books, but it's a series I see recommended every so often, so obviously a lot of people still really like it. I'll have a look and see if my library has it.

I was initially going to have a very geometric city with some of the quadrants quite similar in layout. But then I decided where's the fun in that? Even a planned city would have areas catering to different levels of affluence. I can hopefully spend less time on the roofs of the slum parts, but try for something a bit more ornate on the larger houses, where (thankfully) there are fewer of them.

With the coffee houses, I was thinking of Parisian coffee culture from a couple of hundred years back, where artists and poets and the like used to gather and cause trouble. Though I made sure to include a couple of taverns near the university too, because students are students throughout the multiverse. I might change the name from coffee to something similar sounding, but not quite the same. I see that quite often in fantasy books, but everyone knows it's basically coffee. I haven't thought too much about it yet.

I'm going to add more texture as I go along, so textured roof would probably work. And who knows, maybe I'll want some cobblestones. Gosh I wonder where I could find a tutorial to help with that ....

[ChickPea]

Thanks, Belgath. I find vector graphics software really comes into its own with this sort of thing. It's super easy to draw, rotate and resize buildings. And, most importantly, duplicate!!

[Meshon]

With the coffee houses, I was thinking of Parisian coffee culture from a couple of hundred years back, where artists and poets and the like used to gather and cause trouble. Though I made sure to include a couple of taverns near the university too, because students are students throughout the multiverse. I might change the name from coffee to something similar sounding, but not quite the same. I see that quite often in fantasy books, but everyone knows it's basically coffee. I haven't thought too much about it yet.

Fafhrd and the Mouser sometimes drink hot gaveh the morning after they've been up at the Silver Eel imbibing all night.

I'm going to add more texture as I go along, so textured roof would probably work. And who knows, maybe I'll want some cobblestones. Gosh I wonder where I could find a tutorial to help with that ....

When I was saying "texture" I more meant "stuff", so less the house on left and more the house on the right. But maybe there's room for both? Adding more stuff takes time.
roofs.jpg
Uh, also I'm not suggesting you should convert your beautiful buildings to icky messes like I made, I just wanted to literally illustrate what I meant. And I don't mean to tell you what to do. You do awesome stuff! I'll stop now.

cheers,
Meshon

[Bogie]

Nice start ChickPea.

[ChickPea]

Meshon, LOL, thank you for the illustrations. Yup, I see what you mean, and I hope to include something like that, though it is time consuming. I have this horrible feeling that I'm completely underestimating how long this is going to take me but I'll panic about that later.

I was thinking about my issue with how to represent commercial buildings. I think I'm going to go with the idea of Guild houses for various different occupations. That way I can create fancier buildings that can be listed in the legend, and I can fill out the rest of the commercial district with plainer roofs, so hopefully get a good balance. I've been googling various architectural styles during my lunch hour and staring obsessively at the roofs. My co-workers are starting to question my sanity!

I'll have to think of a good coffee substitute name. I remember 'Khav' from Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. That was coffee in all but name.

[Abu Lafia]

It's hard to convey an inn or a clock maker or a tea shop from the roof! They might end up not that different from the houses, except perhaps with different coloured roofs. I need to think about it some more.

Hey Chick subtlety Pea , if you're heading toward some OTT-ness, why not just make the tea shop a giant tea-pot and the clock maker living in a clockwork etc.?
Well, i promised myself not to throw in so many ideas anymore, which i could hardly realize myself, but here we go
Btw. the overall layout looks very promising so far. I'm looking forward to see how this develops.

[ChickPea]

Hahaha! I love that name!

I actually kinda love the idea of a giant tea cup & saucer. It's not quite the feel I was going for, but maybe I can pull it off. However ... once you start putting teacups on roofs, before you know it, you end up with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Headington_Shark

Where does it end?!