[WIP] The Old San Francisco Mint (Dracula Dossier)
Royal Scribe
🖼️ 286 images Mapmaker
I was inspired by Christina's most recent All the Annuals post and decided to use that as motivation to try out the Dracula Dossier annual from 2015.
My initial thought was to design the old San Francisco Public Library Main Branch, which is now the Asian Art Museum. I had a thought about how adventurers might have to go there to find an ancient tome hidden while it was still a library to use to banish an ancient eldritch evil. I couldn't find good floor plans of it,* though, so I poked around to find floorplans of other old SF buildings and settled on The Old San Francisco Mint.
I was able to find lots of floor plans because the first two floors are now used as an event venue -- weddings, corporate events, and an incredible adults-only haunted mansion in October called Terror Vault. Some things may be different -- I have a feeling, for example, that the original mint didn't have quite so many ballrooms. And what was once the first vault is now the base of an elevator shaft.
The Mint was built in 1874, replacing one that had been built in 1854. It survived the Great Earthquake and Fires of 1906, which is good because at the time, it was home to a third of the U.S. Government's gold deposits. It was decommissioned in 1937 after a new mint was built across town (which we still call The "New" Mint even though it's over 85 years old).
The main entrance is on the second floor, but there is a wheelchair entrance, freight entrance, and emergency exit on the first (ground) floor, so I will start with that. I have gridded pix as well that could be used for an RPG, but for now, here are the ungridded ones.
Ground Floor
Emergency exit on the Mission Street side, wheelchair entrance on the opposite side (Mint Plaza), and a loading entrance in the rear (Mint Street). It's primarily accessed from the second floor, though, through a freight elevator in what was Vault 1, or through one of four sets of internal stairs.
Second Floor
The main entrance from Fifth Street leads up exterior steps to this level. This level also has a courtyard covered by a glass roof.
Third Floor
I eliminated the foliage outside except for the trees, which I thought might reach close to the third floor windows. The columns here do appear on the floorplans I found.
Fourth Floor
Note that the columns are now covered by the fourth floor, which serves as a roof for them. Looks like there's some office space on the Fifth Street side, and some utilitarian space on the opposite side, but mostly it's just roofing over the third floor.
* I subsequently have found good floorplans for the Old Library! When I went downtown to take photos of the Old Mint, I decided to swing by the new Main Library's History Center, and they did have the floorplans. They will be coming in a future project, maybe with a different floorplan annual.
and 2 others.
Comments
That is a clever way to get floor plans.
So my take away is that the front stairs are higher than street level. So they start at ground, and go up and enter the building on the second level. Hopefully I'm correct.
Should the grass be on second level. Maybe just the outline, carried on through the rest of the levels as a reference. That is just how I interpret from my job blueprints. Just how it keeps the reference through all levels of the prints.
I like it nice work. Did you add buttons to switch the views, or is it all separate maps?
Yea, thats right, the stairs start at the sidewalk and ascend to the second floor entrance. Here’s a photo I took last weekend:
So you think the outside terrain should be shown on all levels? Should I mask it a little with something like the Solid White transparencies? That’s what I did from the upper views of the courtyard.
No just the outline.
It lets people reference where everything is. In my opinion greenery should only be on ground level...but that is my take. I am sure other people will have other thoughts on it.
Looks like a little sibling version of the Alberta legislature.
I like that San Fran building. Reminds me of some I saw in Indianapolis.
Have to say when I first looked at the floorplans, I wondered why they'd built a mint with no real security - all those walls with massive holes through them! But then I looked a bit closer and realised they were actually windows 😁!
I forgot to answer this question:
Did you add buttons to switch the views, or is it all separate maps?
They are all separate maps. I have done some where there are navigation links to open other levels, and others where it's all in one FCW with layers hidden. In this case, they are separate files but I didn't add navigation links because I liked the sleeker look without them.
Went in to change the outside landscaping in the second floor file and noticed that I forgot some of the windows, especially on the main entrance side. @Don Anderson Jr., does this achieve what you recommending with the landscaping for the higher floors: keep the fence but eliminate the foliage? I kept the fence and added a Solid 20 fill (which I could change to Solid 10 if it looks too strong).
Nope I think that's perfect. Keeps the outside land reference.
Good catch on the windows.
Okay, I changed it on the Floors 3 and 4 maps, too. While they aren't suitable for the Atlas in their current forms (though I could always tweak them to be a museum or other building), I would still like to offer them up to any Game Masters who would like to use them in whatever campaigns they're in. (I will also post that message to the FB group to reach a different audience than the forums.) For anyone who would like to use them, here are the FCW files with my blessing.
That is so kind of you to share your hard work. Would be great for the old Ganbusters game, bank robbery scenario.
Unfortunately, it's just a couple of years too late for our wild west game, which is set in San Francisco. And the characters work for the Secret Service, who are mainly responsible at that point for investigating counterfeiting. We've been to the previous mint building more than once.
Is your game over? I plan to map the Old Library soon if that’s a venue you could use.
It's been on hiatus, but we're restarting this coming Saturday. Our GM is, shall we say, very committed to historical verisimilitude, and as good as I am at historical research (and there are many in depth sources available for the 1860s). I'm sure it would get used if we had it.
Ahhh, ok. Not sure when I will get to creating the library layout, but if you're interested, I can email you the photographs of the blueprints from a book the librarian allowed me to photograph. They are in the public domain now in part because of their age but mainly because they're government documents (in the U.S., all government documents are public domain, though classified docs can still be restricted).
Verisimilitude - have never heard that word in my life. Is it archaic English? I ask because I've been alive awhile and around lots of smart individuals and nerds.
Yes, it is. Probably not in use in USA though, unsurprisingly. And it is NOT archaic.
From its roots, verisimilitude means basically "similarity to the truth".
Hmmm. While we don't use it often, that one is actually in my vocabulary here in the good ol' US of A - not a surprise to me at all 😉. And definitely not archaic.
ver·i·si·mil·i·tude
/ˌverəsəˈmiləˌto͞od/
noun
the appearance of being true or real.
"the detail gives the novel some verisimilitude"
In a gaming context, it means a setting that's based on historical records to the greatest degree possible - without interfering with the story.
In our case, it means that the characters are fictional - our creations - but we meet a lot of people who were real, like Mark Twain, and who act consistently with what we know of them, often in places well documented in history.
Don't go to a lot of effort, but anything that's convenient I can forward to the GM.
No effort at all. I sent you a private message with an iCloud link to my photos of those floorplans. You or your DM should be able to download them without needing an iCloud account. (If others are also interested, I guess I could post that link here?) The link will expire in one month.
WTF, RS?
You are scaring me with your abilities. Just awesome!
😁
Cal
Awww, that’s very kind of you, @Calibre. Thank you.
I LOVE this. I am so happy to see that my series inspired you, which is exactly why Ralf asked me to do this, i am sure! It's always helpful to see the creations people use with the Annuals, inspiring others to expand their CC3 catalog and get some of the older Annuals that may have been overlooked.
Thank you for sharing, as you all know, i am famous for taking others .fcw files and customizing them for my own campaigns to save time. Excellent maps @Royal Scribe !