City of Nyxotos for the Community Atlas
Tonnichiwa
🖼️ 16 images Surveyor
Hi everyone,
This is a bit of The City of Nyxotos that I've been working on for the Community Atlas. So far there isn't really much too it but I figured I would show what I've got so far. Enjoy.
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Comments
Hi Tonnichiwa!
This is looking really promising so far.
Great to see you mapping again :)
Hi Sue!
Thanks, its taking me much longer than I thought it would because I am so far out of practice that I forgot what some of the buttons do in CC3+ !
Anyway, it is going to be a much bigger city than what you see here. I've found it very difficult to make walls out of the symbols from the "classic" fantasy style. They just don't really work as well as the others did on my last projects. So I'm making a wall out of buildings instead. I kind of like it but at the same time, I'm not sure if I like it enough...something about it is just....I dunno.....weird.
I ended up taking a break that was only meant to be a couple of months (but which ended up becoming more like a year) when I was experimenting making maps in GIMP. They take so much longer to do, so I came back to CC3.
I also forgot a lot of how to do things in CC3, but it comes back relatively quickly ;)
Yay, Tony's back. Look forward to seeing the process - your previous cities were awe-inspiring.
Oh, I forgot - where is Nyxotos in the Atlas? Who is the lucky mapper who gets a Tony Crawford map on their creation?
You.
Remember, you can search for text in maps using either the atlas online search, or by the search in CC3+ itself using the atlas index.
Oh. I tried it on the top search button, not the text in map. Silly me...I am only an Aussie, you know.
@Tonnichiwa Noted:
I've found it very difficult to make walls out of the symbols from the "classic" fantasy style. They just don't really work as well as the others did on my last projects. So I'm making a wall out of buildings instead. I kind of like it but at the same time, I'm not sure if I like it enough...something about it is just....I dunno.....weird.
Does the whole city need to be walled? Maybe if you reduced the walled area to a zone within the city instead, it might look more natural?
Personally, I really like the wall! I look at it and imagine all kinds of uses for the space inside it - barracks, barrios, research facilities, etc.
@Quenten Thanks. You're the lucky one. Its in the Kalliochos area. By the names of all the towns around the area it seems to be greek or roman inspired so that is why I am using this style of building. They seem to be the closest I can come to getting greek or roman buildings currently from Mike Schley.
@Wyvern I think it needs to be completely walled considering how many different city states seem to be surrounding the area the city is in. With that many neighbors I would think walls would be needed, especially considering the whole area has a roman or greek vibe going on. Warring city states seemed to be a thing back then.
@Maidhc O Casain Thanks, that's kind of my thought process too. I know when they dug up a few cities in greece they found that the people had been living in the walls as if they were sectioned off into apartments, and merchants had set up shops there as well. So I think it kind of fits a little better now that I have added more to it. So here is a bit more added to it.
And a close up of the city gates. Eventually very few of the entrances on the wall themselves will be visible, so it will look more natural, not like a bunch of random buildings just pushed together like it does now. Also note how the gates were made. I took a pre made city symbol and placed towers in front of it, set it on a different sheet that automatically sends that symbol to the back. Then I placed other unwalled city symbols over the top of the visible wall sections of the first symbol. I kept them on the regular symbol sheet but used the "Send to Back" button to place them behind the facing towers. So they ended up overlapping the symbol I placed on the symbol sheet that automatically sends things to the back, but stayed behind the front facing towers.If you look at the city symbol on the left, it is the exact same city symbol I used for this, only mirrored so the gate goes in a slightly different direction.
Great work, Tony. There is a 1 page PDF, on the Atlas pages, about the nation of Kalliochos if that is of any help - it is sort of like a Hellenic-Venetian republic with 5 ruling families, like in Florence.
Thank you Quenten. That pdf will come in handy when I start to label everything. I sort of figured it might be a warring city state type of situation just from the way the other cities were so closely grouped on the Kalliochos map. Glad to learn I had the right idea.
So I decided to add a Sea Wall to the city. I used the waves in the Mike Schley overland style to cover up the roads that are attached to the buildings used in making the wall.
So here is a bit more work. I think I'm starting to like the wall a little better.
So clever.
The wall reminds me of those medieval bridges with houses built on them.
And there is a house in Dordogne, France that was built on top of a sturdy wall in the 14th century, though I can't remember the reason. I think it was something to do with taxes at the time.
I remember that. Yeah it was because of taxes. And to be honest I have always hated that house just because of what it is sitting on. It just looks so unsafe and so rediculous.
So, I'm to the point where I have to finish building out the Sea Wall.
@Tonnichiwa Commented:
I think it needs to be completely walled considering how many different city states seem to be surrounding the area the city is in. With that many neighbors I would think walls would be needed, especially considering the whole area has a roman or greek vibe going on. Warring city states seemed to be a thing back then.
That wasn't the impression I got reading the Atlas description regarding the Kalliochos Republic before commenting, where the main problems seemed to be from the surrounding wilderlands, not the various cities/towns in the Republic. Plus the ancient Greeks, for instance, used walls very variably, sometimes only for specific small parts within the settlement (like the acropolis), much as I suggested; ditto the Romans (who sometimes copied the Greeks, or were influenced by them).
However, I haven't studied this continent/region of Nibirum in any detail, so could easily have missed some key notes elsewhere (Quenten's comments seem to suggest not, though). Perhaps more importantly, Quenten seems happy with your interpretation, so I guess it's all fine!
I love the city so far! I especially liked how purposeful each placement of building is. One thing that looks a bit odd to me is the straightness of that bottom left line, almost as if the city planner was tired of doing all this and just cut off the boundary of the city sharply. ;)
Just for my own knowledge, historically, I'm curious if building walls out in the water was a thing? I had the assumption that sea-walls would be built directly on the coast, and then since harbors tended to be at sheltered locations, places would float massively heavy chains with barrels between the most outer points of the coastline. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_(navigational_barrier) ) - but I would love examples where walls were built.
Whether historically accurate or not, I think it's pretty cool. I would make up reasons for the walls to be there if I had to in order to include them.
@Wyvern Ok, I guess I got the impression that it was more like the Italian city states during the middle ages because he mentioned that they were a hellenic-venetian republic. That venetian republic part is what I concentrated on most because there aren't really any hellenic symbols that I can find that would fit the Mike Schley style very well but there were venetian style buildings. And from what I remember about the venetian republics, they had walled cities. Anyway, thanks for the comments, they are very appreciated as you help me think about this better and help me get the map to become more clear in my head.
@DoubleDouble I'm not sure if the walls going out into the ocean are a historical thing but it is certainly something that you see in a lot of fantasy art. For instance, google the "City of Waterdeep" and you will see that the artists portrayed that city as having the city walls extend out into the ocean. So that is what I am using as a reference for this. As far as the straight wall on the left hand side is concerned, remember that the map is not complete yet. That straight wall is actually a wall used to separate part of the city from the other. The foreign district will be on the other side of that wall and the main city wall will curve a little more and the whole city will look more circular when it is complete. I've also tried to change the sea wall on the eastern side of the map so it is a little more circular than what you see in this picture. Hopefully I can get this to work as the buildings i'm using to make the wall can be tricky to work with and have them still look like they naturally connect to one another.
So I've finished the sea wall and added some ships and docks.
Looks great. Love your style, Tony. Also....there IS a region I created with an Italian city-state flair in mind.....Check out Mercia on Doriant. You may find somewhere there for your city :)
For @DoubleDouble and anyone else interested, this page on ancient port structures has some notes on the archaeological/historical use of constructed breakwaters and other artificial port structures, beginning around 2600 BCE (Egypt, Gulf of Suez). I'd recommend taking time to check through the other links and references if this subject catches your attention, though your life can end up taken over by such matters without due care...
Thanks Lorelei. I requested this particular city for this area a while back and I am finally getting near the finishing stages. But now that you let me know about your area I may have to make another one for over there.
@Wyvern Wow! That's a really cool link! have you ever checked out any of the maps from the Gazetteer series of the World of Mystara for one of the first editions of Dungeons & Dragons? Every map that has a port city has some very ingenious drawings of the weapons they use to protect their harbor. Some of them look really silly but then you have to look at it in a non-historical aspect. Still, the drawings are impressive considering they were made back in the 1980's and early 90's.
Mystara rather passed me by @Tonnichiwa, as I'd moved on to my own version of D&D, and other RPG systems, even by the time it first featured, as the Known World (in Module X1 "The Isle of Dread" according to online sources, in 1981). I have gone back in more recent times and looked over some of what was published for the Known World/Mystara setting, though after getting back strongly involved with D&D only when 5e appeared, I've concentrated more on finding past details for the Forgotten Realms setting, because of its intimate connection with 5e from the outset.
Hania and Iraklio in Crete are perfect examples of Venetian port cities and both have seawall harbours, with extensions out into the sea. And the Hellenic city states and nations in Artemisia are not stuck in the classical Greek mode - there have been progressions, though climate (subtropical in southern Artemisia) does influence the architecture, as in most of the Mediterranean, even now. Culturally and technologically, that are more like Renaissance cities, with magic and no gunpowder. But Iraisia, particularly Stromphe, have developed fling machines - a mixture of balloon and magic technology. Mystara has good examples. So I don't think Tony should limit his style to one particular period and place in Earth history.
Thanks everyone, for all of your ideas. Since I haven't made a map in quite a while I think I had better keep this one simple. So I think I will call this one done. Here is the final product that I will be sending to Remy for the Atlas.
Tony, I notice the lack of roads into and out of the city, plus lack of more trees. Otherwise, a great map.
Oops!
lol, like I said, out of practice. Honestly I didn't think there were any trees around the city as the larger picture from the area around Nyxotos has it surrounded by farmland. And around where I live they pull up all of the trees when they have large plots of farmland that looks like the type found in the farmland bitmap area. So I went with that. And yes, I forgot about a road leading into/out of the town. Doh! I knew I was forgetting something! I also tried putting a bitmap of cobblestones down around the town but it made the town look WAY too busy so I settled on the hills background bitmap. You can still sort of make out roads through the town if you look. They just aren't well defined.