Ice Tower Floorplans

[icosahedron]

Hmm, I didn't think about serving the queen in her quarters, I figured she'd come down to the great hall. Shows I'm not royalty, eh?

Im just thinking, I could fill in the yard in the lower levels and have a courtyard above some of the lower levels, penthouse style. I'll have to ponder that. It'd mean a complete redesign though. Not sure I want to go that far.

Yes, there's an escape to the caves. I'm not too sure how many live in the tower. Any suggestions?

[Alfar]

I'm appaled at the thought of having to descend even one level to get my breakfast, and I'm not exactly royalty. I extrapolated from that

Another thing to consider with the walls: will people standing on the battlements on top of a 10 level tower (300ft. above the ground, you say) be able to accurately hit an attacker with any weapon in their possession? Otherwise, I'd say it's a waste to deploy troops there in the event of a ground attack. Of course, if there's a danger of aerial attacks, sure, go ahead.

Or maybe make the courtyard wall lower, the front towers lower as well, and add side-mounted towers (towers that don't go all the way to the ground) to the main building on the higher levels?

[icosahedron]

I'm appaled at the thought of having to descend even one level to get my breakfast, and I'm not exactly royalty. I extrapolated from that

LOL. Some of us have to do that every day.

But who cares how tired the servants get, so long as the food doesn't get cold? Make em run, I say, and woe betide them if they drop anything.

Another thing to consider with the walls: will people standing on the battlements on top of a 10 level tower (300ft. above the ground, you say) be able to accurately hit an attacker with any weapon in their possession? Otherwise, I'd say it's a waste to deploy troops there in the event of a ground attack. Of course, if there's a danger of aerial attacks, sure, go ahead.

I think so. I'm no expert with bows etc, but I would imagine that someone who is could hit a man at that range - and if you have massed ranks attacking, you're pretty much guaranteed to hit something. Besides, you could always mount some light support artillery up there - and there's always rocks...

Or maybe make the courtyard wall lower, the front towers lower as well, and add side-mounted towers (towers that don't go all the way to the ground) to the main building on the higher levels?

I'd rather keep the overall shape of the building, even if it means raising the courtyard to the sixth level, or something.
I'm just not sure I have the perseverance to do that much redrawing. Maybe over the winter...

Perhaps the main gate could open directly into the enclosed workshop area, with the barracks behind and separated by the transverse stair. The two lower levels could remain the same, and the throne room and great hall could share a level. The main stair could T, with one arm wrapping round the hall and leading up to the kitchen, which could share a floor with the staff dorm.
Maybe the coutryard could be replaced with tiered terraces for the queen and guests. I'm starting to like the sound of it, but I'm not sure I want to draw it.

Just thinking aloud here. Thanks for the kickstart to my ruminations, Alfar, that's what feedback's for.

[Alfar]

Yeah, I'm a bastard like that.

I'm having trouble converting feet to meters, which is more what I'm used to. 300ft is, umm... 90 meters. I do suppose an archer should be able to shoot that far, considering most of it would be downwards. I just have this sense that if I'm on the 10th floor of a building, people will look rather small and difficult to hit with any certainty. Not that I can remember being on the 10th floor of a building. Ever.

True about the shooting into a crowd and other points, of course.

So the castle is 100ft square. That's... 30 meters? My house is 137 square meters, probably something like 13x10 meters. I don't think 30 meters is very wide for a castle. I may be wrong though. 9 houses the size of mine would fit in one level of the castle, and the courtyard is half of it, so for levels 2-10, that's space pretty much wasted. So 3 levels x 9 houses + 10 levels x 4.5 house, that's 27 + 45 = 72 houses.

Google says the largest castle in the world is in Prague, 570 meters in length and 130 in width. It doesn't have 10 levels though.

Maybe if you adjusted the scale, you'd be able to fit in more rooms on each level without having to redraw anything but the innards?

[icosahedron]

It's what I needed.

I'm comfortable with both measurement systems.

I based the plan on Harlech castle, which has a similar size & shape footprint, and based the profile on a side view of Tattershall Castle, which isn't that tall, but would be if it were scaled up to the footprint of Harlech. I've visited both of them - and Prague, too.

The castle would be a similar height to Aarhus Cathedral or the pylons of the Faro-Falster bridge, if that helps - or the Statue of Liberty for our cousins across the water. (thanks, Google)

The more I think about it, the more I think I'll have to redraw the thing and fill in that wasteful courtyard.

[Jake Raven]

Good solid castle, you have most of the rooms you would need,

I'm having some issue with scale on these floorplan: I see horses and wagons that don't look like they will fit thru the doors and ramps(?) to their stables below the castle.

One really big question I have is:

Was this castle built by humans or some "ice/cold" based race? I don't see any fireplaces or ovens. Did I miss them? How about forges to make/repair weapons, tools and shoe horses. If it's magical or mundane you still need a place for fires, unless you are an "Ice Queen" ala the Cronicals of Narnia.

I did read that this is located in an arctic crater, correct?

Water is going to be an issue there... All of the water in an arctic climate would be frozen. You would do well to have a "boiler" system that could keep your castle warm and melt ice into usable water for the inhabitants. This can create a very interesting encounter location with the icey floors and steam pipes along the ceiling would create a natural "fog" in the area. Very cool for creating drama in an encounter.

One thing to think about:

The castle is 10 levels above ground and at 15 to 20 feet per level it would be 150 to 200 feet tall. At that height the courtyard would be a lightless well. At best the ground floor would have dim illumination, if you're going for effect, it would be very creepy to enter from the well light outside, to the dark courtyard light by torches and braizers even at midday.

[Alfar]

The castle is 10 levels above ground and at 15 to 20 feet per level it would be 150 to 200 feet tall. At that height the courtyard would be a lightless well.

Actually, he said it's 300ft tall. Not that your point becomes any less valid.

[icosahedron]

Good points, Jake, thanks.

I had noted that the door to the workshop was too narrow to pass the cart through, but I made myself the excuse that it could be tipped on its side and manhandled through for the occasional repair. However, I hadn't noticed that the ramps were too narrow. I'll have to fix that one. The stables will have to be a little narrower to make more space - leaving just the dungeon and battlements levels to escape a redraw. Drat and double drat!

The Queen is Narnia-esque, though I have included a couple of fireplaces in the north wall on the kitchen level and the guest room level. There are braziers in the workshop and torture chamber (perhaps too small to see on this small rendering) but perhaps they should be proper forges (IIRC there's one in Torstan's dungeon set, I'll have to import it).

The steam boiler is a nice idea, thanks, but I probably won't have it inside the castle, I'll put it in the caves and give all those orcs something to do when they're not fighting (like the Morloks).
I'm not sure what they'd use for fuel, though. They might get enough wood to make water, but not for heating, I'd guess. Even a dwarf couldn't find coal in a volcano!

I don't think it would be dark enough to need torches in the courtyard. You need an amazingly small amount of light to see by. The parts that might need torches are the large chambers, with only a few arrow slits for lighting - especially if I fill in the courtyard, since currently I have larger windows looking out over the yard.

To experiment, take a sheet of A4 card (paper is too translucent) and fold it in half lengthways, then fold one half in half again. This will give you a J section wall roughly 300mm high with a footprint about 100mm x 50mm. Fold another piece of card the same and put them together to make a scale model of the courtyard. It's a little dimmer at the bottom than it is outside, but you certainly don't need a torch to see your 6mm figures.

Remove the second fold to produce a model of the whole castle in 6mm scale. You can probably guess I've been there, done that and worn out the T shirt.

[Remko1981]

All solid points about the castles layout. But where did you get the idea that people allways use logic when designing such a thing. I can fully see a monarch telling an architect where to stuff his regular commonplace design, and now build me the highest castle imagineble! Troops on the ground floor, they'd be way to far to protect me! And what do you mean horses cant be kept underground, no horse will tell me what to do!! Escape routes?! pah i'll never run away! And think about my birthday!!! of course i need such a big kitchen! Where do you expect me to publicly execute people if you take away my courtyard? Its so hard to find good architects these days, i have think of everything myself.

Granted though the defensivenes and survival chance drops significantly when you take this stance in designing a castle ;P . And it will see some refurbishing during an impending siege.

I like the design, it breaks away from tradition and gives a real fantasy feeling. Though i have to agree about the flat looks. By adding some shadow icons and maybe a little perspective on the walls you could ad a lot of depth.

[icosahedron]

Hi Remko,

Yes, there's always royal fiat.

If shadows are possible in Viewingdale, it's an option I can look at. I prefer the 'soft' shadows in your first example, the second one looks a bit stark for my tastes. Did you make your own shadow icons? Presumably they're some form of transparent grey fade. I imagine you have to make shadow icons specific to every drawing, to get the sizes right?
I like your brickwork walls, too - looks better than my plain grey.

I can see a complete redraw approaching.