[WIP] Wizard's Tower - Interior
Royal Scribe
🖼 329 images Mapmaker
Because I always have at least three mapping projects going on at once, I decided to work on the interior of my Wizard's Tower while I work through experimenting with three different approaches for cliff shadows for the Hei Shan Si monastery.
I decided to start with the third floor, because that's where the main entrance is. Here, visitors can ring a bell at an outer gate to be admitted into an entry foyer, which has a wardrobe for storing cloaks and such, as well as access to a water closet (complete with a wash basin with water pumped up through an interior well). From there, guests can wait in a waiting room (complete with fireplace) until the wizard is ready to receive them in a more comfortable
Arrow slits allow the wizard or other defenders to guard the tower. The arrow slit that is immediately counterclockwise to the entrance is about waist-high to people on the stairs. The next two counterclockwise would be above anyone on the stairs; the others clockwise would be below the stairs as they continue to ascend. Plenty of magical torches keep the interior bright. In D&D terms, they have been enchanted with a Continual Flame spell that produces a smokeless, heatless flame forever, or until dismissed. (Sure, you have to spend 50 gp in spell components for each, but you'll never have to replace them.) In addition to the exterior stairs, an interior spiral staircase provides interior access to both levels two and four.
This uses Creepy Crypts as the base, with extensive use of Beaumaris Castle assets (plus vegetation from Japanese Temple and furnishings from DD3. And a few tidbits from Forest Trail.
Comments
Gonna have to steal this for my game....sorries!
😁
Cal
No apologies necessary! I would be honored, and I would love to hear how it goes. I plan to find a home in the Atlas eventually, but I will post the FCWs here in the meantime with my blessing to use. Here are the FCWs for the outside, and for the third floor. I will post the other floors when they're ready.
Been working on the other floors, but I still have several more floors to do. (And this is the Wizard's Tower that I am calling the "small" tower, in contrast to the other one I started that is more like a Council of Wizards' fortress. This "small" tower will still be at least eight stories above ground (though some of them are smaller and one is really just a bell tower), and at least three underground (though one is just the sewers)).
From the main entrance on the third floor, you can go up or down through the spiral staircase in northern wall. Let's go down to the second floor.
Second Floor
This is primarily the main dining area for the wizard and his or her guests. In addition for seating for 15, the dining hall has two fireplaces, with the smaller one used to heat up kettles of tea and other food. This room also has a sink connected to the water system, a separate pipe that runs through the room (for more water in the floors above), several cabinets for dinnerware sets and table linens, and a statue of a female wizard -- a former owner, perhaps the tower's creator. Outside the room, a long table in the hall is used by the kitchen staff and footmen to assemble the food before bringing it in for guests. Unlike the third floor, where the arrow slits were off of a corridor and the rooms had no external windows, on the second floor the arrow slits also allow for daylight to enter the rooms.
Beside that room in the southwest corner of the tower is a cozy, wedge-shaped room with a balcony overlooking the great stairs a floor below. From here, the wizard's family can lean over a railing to greet guests on the landing. This floor also has a restroom, and a small, gated "back door" with a sign directing visitors to continue up another flight to the main entrance.
First Floor
The first floor is at the same level as the main landing with the extra wide stairs, but for added security, there is no doorway there, nor windows or even arrow slits. This floor has a spacious kitchen with a stove and a marble countertop, along with a dining nook for the tower's staff. There are also two rooms equipped with crystals that magically emit cold energy. The one on the south side is called the Cold Room and the one north of it is called the Ice Room, as it is cold enough to freeze water. (Basically, they're magical versions of a walk-in refrigerator and freezer.) The final room on this floor, other than the WC, is a furnace room with a massive furnace for heating water and a great tub of hot water for doing laundry. The room is hot enough that even on rainy days, wet laundry will dry on clotheslines strung up in this room.
(True story: my family did not have electricity for eight years of my childhood and one of my daily chores was to build a fire in an outdoor fireplace like this one to heat water than ran through it in pipes. We also had not one but two outhouses -- fancy!)
Haven't started on the basement yet, so for now, let's go back upstairs.
Fourth Floor
Reversing direction, we can climb up to the fourth floor, the lowest level to have proper windows instead of arrow slits. This floor has the main lounge for entertaining overnight guests, where folks can socialize, play cards and other games, or enjoy a performance from a traveling bard or a minstrel from the nearby village. This room even has a wet bar! I should put in some chairs and couches, though.
This floor also has a chapel (looks like I forgot to put in pews). It also has a WC with a window to the outside, a room for bathing, and two oddly-shaped guest bedrooms.
Working on the fifth floor now, which will include use of one of the two balconies you can see poking out on the south side.
Here are the FCW files if anyone wants to customize them for their own gameplay, using the same licensing terms as the Atlas (where this will someday find a home).
Sadly I don't have some of the resources used. So it's a plethora of red X's.
They are pretty awesome. I love towers.
Really nice work.
Thank you!
I admit that I drew from a lot of different sources. The base is CA186 Creepy Crypts (2022), which I used in preparation for when I get to the basement/dungeon section. The main fills for the walls and floors of the tower itself come from CA149 Beaumaris Castle (2019), and the windows are from that, too. Most of the furniture comes from Dungeon Designer 3, but some are drawn from CA14 Symbol Catalogs (2008), and some of the fireplaces are from Shessar's free supplement. Some of the outside vegetation comes from CA141 Japanese Temple and CA143 Asian Town (both 2018).
Normally when designing something for the Atlas, I try to limit it to just a few styles to minimize the chance that others might be missing chunks of it. This time, I gave myself free rein to create my wizard's "dream home."
Self correction! I didn't get furniture from CA14, they came from CA49 (listed under Annuals as CA50). That was some of the fireplaces and bookcases.
That is super admirable that you keep track of all the stuff, so people can see how close they are to having all the products.
I can't even remember which map style I start my maps with, let alone if I grab stuff from any of the symbol sets.
I wrote a tool for that: http://cc.monsen.cc/tools/cc3monsentools.html
Thank you, Remy! I installed that awhile ago but forgot all of the commands. Here's a screencap of the products used:
All those unknowns means your image database file is out of date. I just updated the one on the site, if you download the zip file again and put the xml file from it into your CC3+ data directory, overwriting the one there, it should identify the rest of those files too....
I replaced the old xml file with the new one, and this is what the IR command now shows (no list of products used at the beginning):
Ah, yea, you need a newer build of the dll file too.
I've uploaded an updated zip with a new dll file too. Remember to close all instances of CC3+ before replacing it.
Amazing! That did the trick. And yeah...I sure did draw from a lot more sources than I usually do. (And in some cases, more than one style from annuals in the same year.)
Not sure where I got that missing Cobble Final.png fill, but I can track it down and replace it from another cobble from an annual already in use here.
Thank you!
If you need to know exactly what is from which add-on, you can use the IRD command (D stands for Detail).
And that cobble fill is some weird reference that turns up in some templates.
What....what....what.????
That is amazing. You are one smart cookie!
Added the missing pews and lounge furniture to the Fourth Floor:
And now, up another flight.
Fifth Floor
This floor is entirely for guests. Why would a wizard need plenty of guest rooms? Maybe he or she is the party's patron, and they come back periodically to receive instructions for their next adventure. Maybe adventurers periodically visit to have the wizard identify the magic items and artifacts they've found, or to help explain mysterious prophesies or other adventuring clues they've discovered. (Great opportunity for lore dumping!) Maybe the wizard's old adventuring party all decided to retire together in the tower.
There's a hallway closet between the internal stairs and external door. Another WC and bathing chamber. A small guest bedroom on the eastern side. And then two spacious guest suites on the southern side.
The southwest suite has a spacious living room with a double window, along with a separate bedroom with a "king sized" bed. But the other guest suite is for the real VIPs. Not only does it have a fireplace and working sink in the living room, it also has a private balcony with views of the river and the rear of the cherry tree garden.
These suites come are handy when adventurers visiting the wizard don't want to be separated. (Never a good idea to split the party!) The suites are large enough to accommodate the typical-sized party, assuming a few are willing to sleep on the couches or pallets on the floor. And for very large parties, the stone door separating the two suites can be unlocked to create a double-sized suite.
Onwards to the wizard's bedroom and workshop...
Here are the final two above-ground floors of the main tower, though the central turret still needs to be mapped, and then the basement (and dungeons...gotta have dungeons!).
Sixth Floor
This is the wizard's personal suite. The spacious bedroom has a fireplace, a wide double windows, and a private balcony overlooking the garden. It also has direct access to a WC and bathing chamber. There are two other smaller rooms on this level, too. In the past, some wizards have used these rooms as bedrooms for their children. The current occupant's children are grown and have moved out. Their spouse uses one as an office for managing the family's personal and business accounts. The second is currently used for storage.
The spiral staircase on the north wall ends at this level. Another spiral staircase more to the center ascends from here through the seventh floor and into the turret.
Seventh Floor
The seventh floor, the final floor before reaching the turret and the roof, is reached through the central spiral staircase that continues up. This floor is where the magic happens...literally! The southeast room is the wizard's library, complete with a fireplace (with a staff displayed on top of it, numerous bookcases and scroll cases, and an ornate chest engraved with runes. The southwest room is the wizard's workshop, with another fireplace for heating water and all sorts of mysterious apparatuses and objects.
It doesn't take an 18 Intelligence or Wisdom (Perception) to notice that about half of this floor appears to be solid stone. Visitors who find the secret doors may discover two more hidden rooms. The circular room on the northeast side is a Teleportation Circle, with hidden passageways connecting it to both the central staircase as well as direct access to the wizard's library. The circular room on the northwest side is a summoning circle.
More to come!
Turret is done, and with it the entire above-ground portion of the tower. There are several basement areas (cold storage and wine cellar, sewers, dungeon!) that still need to be mapped. My hope is to finish it all off before the end of the month.
Eighth Floor
The 8th Floor of the tower is the first floor of the turret, plus the roof area (protected by crenellations) of the main tower. The turret has arrow slits that can be closed off inside with metal shutters. (In looking at the arrow slits, I see they are not quite like the ones on lower floors, so I may adjust them.) The spiral staircase extends up one more level.
Ninth Floor
This floor provides arrow slits elevated above the roof of the main tower. The spiral staircase ends here, but rungs mounted on the wall allow for ascending to the "bell tower" above.
Tenth Floor
It's more of a light house than a bell tower. Luminescent crystals radiate light that can easily be seen for miles around. On holidays and special occasions, the wizard can use simple illusions to change the color of the light to match the holiday's traditional décor.
You may have noticed that these images now use the title "Tyr Alomere" instead of "Wizard's Tower." I have decided where I'd like to home it in the Atlas, a wizard's tower that I had placed in the Gold Coast area of Doriant that I mapped for the Atlas (circled in yellow in the two images below).
I will need to design the small village the tower is in first. Do you think I need to do a more regional map, or will the village with the tower suffice?
Here it is on the Gold Coast:
It also makes an appearance on the edges of the regional map of Gongodûr -- it's in the Kingdom of Vacuria, but on the edges of Gongodûr:
I will need to design the small village the tower is in first. Do you think I need to do a more regional map, or will the village with the tower suffice?
I'd say that's up to you.
My general "rule" for the atlas is that if you map a feature, it needs an appropriate symbol on the parent map to be linked from, no placing something in an empty spot on the map just because it could conceivably be there. If no such symbol exist, an appropriate intermediate overland map needs to be made. Same for a map of a single place inside a settlement, a floorplan map shouldn't be linked directly from a city symbol on an overland map.
However, in this case, there is already a tower symbol on the overland map, so I have no issues linking your tower directly to this one. But if you want to make intermediate maps, be it overland and/or settlement that is great. After all, there is no rule to say there can't be a settlement around a tower, a symbol is often used to show the most prominent feature of the place after all.
Thank you. I think I’ll make a little village there. I imagine a wizard would have built up a nice little local economy as adventurers visit to have magic items identified, curses removed, prophesies interpreted…
You gave us the fcws for levels 1-4. Any chance for the others?
Yes, absolutely! I kinda forgot about that once I found a place in the Atlas for them. But as that may take me some time to submit, and then Remy some time to process, here they are in the meantime:
One thing to note: I found my computer getting kinda sluggish with some of these until I hid all of the outside stuff while working on the rest. (That cleared up when I rebooted.) To deal with that, I created an "OUTSIDE" layer for each of these and put almost everything that wasn't inside the tower on that layer. If you're customizing and find it slow, hide the OUTSIDE layer while you're working and that may speed things up.
And if I didn't already share it, here's the "Above" FCW:
Here are the first two levels of the basement. Sewers still to come.
Basement 1
A wine cellar in the northeast corner is conveniently close to the stairs, so that the wizard or their staff can slip down for a few more bottles in the middle of a dinner party. Continuing clockwise, the other rooms are a freezer, a larder, a storeroom, and in the northwestern corner, a refuse pit is used to throw organic, wooden, and metal waste for disposal in the sewers.
Basement 2
The second level of the basement doesn't appear to have much. A corridor heading west leads to stairs that descend into the sewers. To the south, a cavernous chamber has been turned into the wizard's grotto. River water has been pumped in to make a man-made pond, heated to a pleasantly cool temperature by a few warm luminescent crystals. A second, larger pool is warmed by enough luminescent crystals to keep the water as warm as a hot bath. The room is lighted by clusters of luminescent fungi. On the western side, a spacious WC also doubles as a changing room.
But wait, there's more! This floor also has two secret passageways. One near the stairs leads to the Wizard's secret treasury chambers. The outer chamber is used for coins, gemstones, and other valuables. The second chamber, accessed through a short corridor protected by a Glyph of Warding holds the Wizard's magical treasurers. In addition to being about 30 feet underground and carved into the rocky hillside, the treasury is protected by marble walls that are five feet thick. Between these walls and the rocky cliff is another foot-wide wall of lead to protect the room against scrying eyes.
Another secret passageway north of the stairs leading to the sewers leads to a cavern, through which a secret Teleportation Portal can be accessed. The southwest corner has been sealed by a Wall of Steel, protected by another Glyph of Warding. If you get past that, the passageway quickly dead-ends into a pile of rubble.
The Wall of Steel and the rubble can be hidden using the RUBBLE layer:
FCWs
And here are the FCW files for these levels. (Remy, this is not the official thread for submitting to the Atlas. I will create a new thread with these maps properly labeled and described, plus a village map to come.)
Here is the third level of the basement, and the final level of the Wizard's Tower.
It's the part of the municipal sewers that connects beneath the wizard's estate. Pipes bring water from the river to the wells used in the tower and on the grounds, as well as the subterranean pond featured in Basement 2. Sewage comes in from the WC shaft from the tower as well as to other places on the grounds: the outhouse (next to the servants' house), and a manure shaft in the barn.
Another shaft on the northern side of this map is from the pit for debris and other waste. Gelatinous cubes will digest any soft tissue (like rinds and peels from fruits and vegetables, as well as leaves and other foliage). Garbage that it can't digest (like bones, hardwood, and stone) get "stuck" in the gelatinous cube but then gets expelled when the cube moves up a slope. There's a whole ecology to these sewers that I wrote up a year ago, and will write up in more detail in the description when this is submitted to the Atlas.
FYI, here are the ProFantasy products used on this level:
There were more that were inherited from previous levels, but were cleaned out of the Symbols Manager when I used the "purge" button: