Budum-Ishi, egyptian type city

[Farland]

Here is Budum-Ishi, in the World of Farland. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome. I will also add the city description so you can get an idea of the town.

budum-ishi.jpg

Areas of Interest

1 Palace of the Serpent Council
2 Tomb of the Elder
3 Great Temple of Vornok-ka
4 Hopshef Docks
5 Great Market
6 Guild of Merchants
7 Council Tombs
8 Circle of Eternal Thrall
9 Mansion of the North
10 City Barracks

General Information About the City

Who Rules: The Serpent Council, nine noble men of the city.

Who Really Rules: The Elder, an ancient undead Mummy, who dictates rulings to the Council.

Other Power Centers: Lord Ga-Gronk, an oluk orc diplomat from the Nameless City, who exerts much sway on the Serpent Council and even the Elder. The will of the Wintervale will not be denied even here.

The necromancers of the Circle of Eternal Thrall, who create the undead slaves so prized by the rich of the city.

Khesef, high priest of Vornok-ka, who heads the clergy of the city.

Population: About 6,000 in the city itself. The population is three quarters human, with the rest consisting of orcs, half-orcs, and undead.

Major Products: Budum-Ishi exports slaves and grain from the fertile fields that line the River Ishi.

Armed Forces: A small force of shock troops, orcs, humans, and undead, mans the palace of the Serpent Council and patrols the city itself. The city is rarely attacked by an external enemy, however, for fear of the walking dead who patrol its streets as slaves and who are fierce fighters when ordered to defend the city by the Circle of Eternal Thrall. The Wintervale also protects the city.

The City

Budum-ishi, a crumbling desert city built with giant blocks of reddish sandstone, is a decadent community that is slowly decaying. The city sits on the bank of the River Ishi. The fertile river-valley, though bordered by deserts, is agriculturally rich, and Budum-Ishi ships from its constantly busy ports much of the grain that feeds both the Far City and the enemy lands to the North. The town and its environs are peopled with men of light brown skin. This city is ancient indeed, and it once held sway over a civilization that encompassed the entire area in which it is set. Now this venerable place and its smaller sister city of Sefu-ishi are all that are left.

The people of the city practice ancestor worship and construct great tombs and monuments to the ghosts of the past. The Budum-Ishians sacrifice many slaves by walling them up alive within their ancestral crypts. They worship gods with the heads of animals, the Lord of whom is Vornok-ka, or Vornoth, pictured as a man with the head of a bat. The patron god of the town is Seket-ka, the snake-headed being in whose name the Serpent Council rules the city. As a people, they are concerned with dark and ancient secrets and magics of all sorts. In fact, necromancy thrives in the city, as the very rich see it as an honor to use the dead as their slaves and guards. Thus the streets are literally swarming at certain times of the day with hordes of undead in various states of decay, going about the business of their masters. Noble families also see it as an honor to raise a departed loved one to the state of holy undeath. These "ancestral spirits," given no orders, drift from room to room inside the mansions of their rich relatives as if searching for something. Necromancy and magic in general are closely regulated within the city, however, and only the clergy or the Mages of the Circle of Eternal Thrall may legally bring a creature back from the dead.

The city is dominated to the north and south by large ziggurats; in the Northern pyramid dwells the Elder, an ancient King of Budum-Ishi who through the dark arts still asserts his evil influence on the Serpent Council. Twice a year condemned criminals, slaves, or maidens are sacrificed on top of the Elder's pyramid; their blood drips through a special slot in the peak to strengthen the hideous thing below. The clerics of Vornok-ka and Seket-ka oversee this ritual and chose who is sacrificed.

Because of the city's fascination with magic and the dark arts, it has spawned many powerful mages over the centuries. Khadufel the Southerner, former mage of the mercenary group The Eye, originally comes from this city, and each year the agents of the Wintervale recruit many battle-mages to swell the ranks of the Dark Armies.

[Mouse]

Its a great back story, and a really good start on the map, but there seem to be a more than a few shading issues on the rooftops. At first I thought that there were only 2 light directions, but then when I started marking the ones that didn't fit with the majority by being shaded apparently on the opposite side, I realised there were more than just 2 directions involved.

Is this CC3, or another app you are using? The reason I ask is because I might be able to help if its CC3, but I've no idea how to put it right if you are using similar software, like Dundjinni or Fractal Mapper...

[Mouse]

Even if you aren't using CC3, or any of the similar softwares, I can at least illustrate what I mean about the roof shading for you.

This is a quick and dirty screen shot of a circular array of the same house done in CC3. It shows how the rooftops react to the direction of the global sun, shown by the red arrow.

House ring.JPG

Roofs facing the sun are brightest, facing directly away are the darkest, and those roofs where the ridge is aligned with the direction of the light are evenly shaded.

What I am seeing in your map is that the shadows aren't always obeying these rules, but there are so many variations that I can't really say which direction the light is supposed to be coming from. If you put this single issue right then you will make the whole map look a thousand times better

[Farland]

I'm using photoshop.

[Mouse]

Did you draw the houses individually, or use some kind of symbol set?

[Mark Oliva]

Did you draw the houses individually, or use some kind of symbol set?

The houses are from the Photoshop/GIMP version of the free Vintyri (TM) Cartographic Collection. In this version, the roof shadows are a fixed part of the symbols. The variable shadowing available in the CC3+ version of the collection is not available in the Photoshop conversions of the Dundjinni version.

[Mark Oliva]

Beautiful job overall and excellent design! Did you make the textures for the farm fields yourself or find them elsewhere? The only thing that I would change is the scale on your streets. At the current scale, the individual cobblestones would be more than a foot wide, which distracts from the realism of the remainder of the map.

[Farland]

Yes, Mark is exactly right. The houses are from a freely usable set. I took pains to make sure that the shadows were oriented in the same direction but I see now I missed a few when I was getting tired. I will fix that.

The fields are also from a free set. I just blended them etc. Mark, thanks very much for the advice on the stones. I had that thought actually. What I was trying to do was make a map that looked good both in high res and in smaller preview, which means sacrificing a little realism. My fear is when I make some of the textures too small they look too "patterny" from a distance. I will revisit it!

Thanks for all the comments, everyone.

[Mouse]

Maybe the pattern of the cobble stones on the roads would work better at a smaller scale if you reduced the contrast or worked on the tone curve so that the lines between them were only suggested rather than being too thick at that scale?

Just a suggestion

I usually use plain textures, as in some kind of sand texture, if I'm making a map where the roads are only a few pixels wide

[Mark Oliva]

thanks very much for the advice on the stones. I had that thought actually. What I was trying to do was make a map that looked good both in high res and in smaller preview, which means sacrificing a little realism. My fear is when I make some of the textures too small they look too "patterny" from a distance.

I have to agree with your concerns there. The lack of a mode for variable resolutions is one of the few areas where The GIMP and Photoshop (at least as far as I'm aware) are at a disadvantage compared to FM8 or CC3+. FM8 lets the mapper define as many texture resolution thresholds as he/she desires for various zoom or image sizing levels. CC3+ has only four resolution thresholds for textures and objects and it chooses them automatically, but even with only four, it's a couple of steps ahead in comparison to The GIMP or Photoshop.