City Planning Fantasy Bronze Age

I have not done any mapping in years so I'm finding myself rusty both at using CC3+ and just planing a massive mapping project. I'm wanting to make a adventure on the scale of Worlds Largest Dungeon or TSR's Undermountain campaign. I saw this image in a Stargate SG1 episode and was immediately inspired.

ELIjms.jpg

So I'm going to make three "Tower cities" that are surrounded by ruined cities and villages. Now making them to the scale of that picture is a bit much for me so I'm only going to make each one ten to fifteen stories tall (maybe more if I find it easy). To ensure they are stable they are built upon a Laccolith and the heart of each city is a Volcanic Neck (think Devils Tower but on a smaller scale). Surrounding the entire complex of the three tower cities and the ruins and farmland are a series of water canals and locks that are still filled with brackish water and nasty creatures.

So what I don't want this project to be is just a series of random rooms to fit the encounters. I want to kind of plan a city that has an ancient feel to it, albeit fantasy in origin. I'm thinking ancient Jericho, Nippur, Nimrud, and Petra to name a few. However I'm having some initial roadblocks when it comes to designing it. what width do I make the towers? I'm thinking the entire area once had a population of around 60,000. 12,000 per tower and then 24,000 for the surrounding villages and farm land. Although everytime I sketch something it doesn't have the right feel. It seems too organised compared to what you would think of for the randomness of the ancient cities.

What mapping styles do you suggest?

I made some templates in MS Word to draw out some of the planning before attacking it in CC3+

inMN9L.jpg

1D4HGc.jpg

Comments

  • I don't know if it's how you'd want to go, but I read your post (excellent idea, btw!), and the inspiration I got off of it was thus:

    Determine a number of districts (3, 5, 7, uneven numbers are more interesting, imho), and write them down, naming each one. Ex: residential, religious, agricultural, commercial, governmental, military, tradecraft.

    Now, for each of those districts, make a list of the "rooms" or area types that one might find in that district. Some may overlap and that's okay. Then convert those lists into rollable tables, dividing up the probability as you see fit.

    Might also help to think of a size range each type of room/area might take up.

    Once all that overhead is done, the fun part comes! Pick a level of your tower, decide what district(s) might be on that tower, and start rolling to fill in rooms/areas.

    Bonus: Don't forget privvies and fountains. These are vital to any city, and many people leave them off of maps.

    -----

    Even if this doesn't work for the idea you have in your city, I look forward to seeing where you go with this, so please share as you go? This idea is fascinating!
  • Congratulations for the map Highland_Piper!
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited April 2020
    Posted By: Highland_PiperWhat mapping styles do you suggest?
    Well, you'll mapping multiple levels and need some variety, so would recommend one of the larger dungeon styles (DD3, SS4, SS2) as opposed to annual styles, which tends to be a bit more limited.
    Although, if you want to keep it in line with your current hand drawing, perhaps this months annual, Inked Dungeons could be nice.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    With inked dungeon you can also add to the symbols by drawing your own ;)
  • Posted By: Monsen
    Posted By: Highland_PiperWhat mapping styles do you suggest?
    Well, you'll mapping multiple levels and need some variety, so would recommend one of the larger dungeon styles (DD3, SS4, SS2) as opposed to annual styles, which tends to be a bit more limited.
    Although, if you want to keep it in line with your current hand drawing, perhaps this months annual,Inked Dungeonscould be nice.
    I've Purchased this years annual, still need to download them. Like I said been years since I've done any mapping. That is a good idea, I was also thinking the OSR Dungeon from 2015.

    For the overland map I was thinking Pär Lindström's The Cartographer's Annual June ’18 City Ruins combined with Something else.
  • So if I use the Ink Dungeon what size should I make each map and how best to set it up? If the Towered city is say a mile across it will probably be too much to map in one go
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Mapping a square mile dungeon should be doable in one map, although it will be difficult to make out when zoomed out, especially if you want it to contain lots of details. If you go for it in one map, remember that dungeon maps are in feet, so set it up for 5280 map units.

    If you want to divide it up, given the square nature of images and software in general, I would probably divide it into the 4 quarters of the circle, NW, NE, SW and SE sections.

    Now, this map is pretty big, and if you are going for a low-detail approach here, you may actually want to scale the fills a bit. I did tell tearalum how to do just that in the bottom 6 posts of this thread
  • I definatly suggest breaking it up into parts. Check my Community Atlas dungeon city posts in these forums.
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