Augus 2016 Mapping Challenge: Collegium Rite of Passage (Complete)
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
Daltan took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out slowly. He stared up at the great arch, excitement, anxiety, and no little fear coursing through his veins. The Labyrinth stood before him, silent as the grave. He looked down at the worn path leading from the collegium doors to this spot, the entrance to the maze. Every mage, wizard, priest, and druid that has ever graduated from this place has had to face this rite of passage.
His task, to retrieve the 7 talismans hidden somewhere in this labyrinth. Retrieve them and exit with the 7 talismans intact. Rumors surround this maze, all types of creatures are believed to inhabit it. A test of strength, will, and yes knowledge in the arcane. Equipped with an 'adventurers' pack, he had 7 days to complete this rite of passage and graduate from the collegium. Nothing to do but begin....
Daltan stepped through the arch, and disappeared into the maze.
Okay, so I'm getting REALLY ambitious in my mapping... and once again I'm doing something I've never done before, so here it goes. I'm taking part in the same challenge as Lorelei, and when I rolled up the random race/random place, I got Minotaur/ school or university.
What that means, is that I have to make a map of a school or university that was either built by minotaurs, or where minotaurs live. But legends say that minotaurs live in labyrinths, not schools or universities. But what my combination immediately brought to mind, was a labyrinth within a school or university, with a minotaur residing in the labyrinth. What kind of school or university would have such a thing? Why a magic one, of course! And why would they have such a thing? As a final test for their students... a rite of passage that graduates them from the rank of student to the rank of journeyman mage, druid, priest, what ever they are studying in this collegium.
You see, in Larysia, all of the varius paths of magic have banded together, so to speak, because magic has gone so wonky in this world. No matter what branch or path to magic you use, you must register and study/mentor with the Order of the Wand and Scroll.
Obviously, this is just the beginning stage... creating the labyrinth. More to follow!
His task, to retrieve the 7 talismans hidden somewhere in this labyrinth. Retrieve them and exit with the 7 talismans intact. Rumors surround this maze, all types of creatures are believed to inhabit it. A test of strength, will, and yes knowledge in the arcane. Equipped with an 'adventurers' pack, he had 7 days to complete this rite of passage and graduate from the collegium. Nothing to do but begin....
Daltan stepped through the arch, and disappeared into the maze.
Okay, so I'm getting REALLY ambitious in my mapping... and once again I'm doing something I've never done before, so here it goes. I'm taking part in the same challenge as Lorelei, and when I rolled up the random race/random place, I got Minotaur/ school or university.
What that means, is that I have to make a map of a school or university that was either built by minotaurs, or where minotaurs live. But legends say that minotaurs live in labyrinths, not schools or universities. But what my combination immediately brought to mind, was a labyrinth within a school or university, with a minotaur residing in the labyrinth. What kind of school or university would have such a thing? Why a magic one, of course! And why would they have such a thing? As a final test for their students... a rite of passage that graduates them from the rank of student to the rank of journeyman mage, druid, priest, what ever they are studying in this collegium.
You see, in Larysia, all of the varius paths of magic have banded together, so to speak, because magic has gone so wonky in this world. No matter what branch or path to magic you use, you must register and study/mentor with the Order of the Wand and Scroll.
Obviously, this is just the beginning stage... creating the labyrinth. More to follow!
Comments
I wish you good luck in this project, I think it is quite difficult to draw an interesting labyrinth!
Well, I'm making most of these maps for my kingdom of Larysia, so they have to fall within that campaign setting.
But I'm still working on it, so here is what I have so far.
What's going around it?
Oh - and while I remember, I know I've asked you before, but where IS that grass texture from? I just can't seem to find it
You have a very good memory. Its in Dundjinni/Vegetative Terrain
Another way to rough-in that sort of thing is to use a picture of a maze and apply some effects to it. In the attached example, I :
Used a PDF of a maze from http://www.mazegenerator.net/ as the base.
Applied a minimum filter in Photoshop to thicken up the lines and saved it as a PNG.
Inserted the file as an image
Added the following effects to the sheet:
- Texture OverBlend to add texture to avoid solid black lines (my texture was a little muddy)
- Bevel, Lighted to get edges on the things
- Outer Glow to get a little dark halo around things to approximate ambient occlusion shadows
- Transparency at 99% because it didn't seem to work without it (there's a bug in there somewhere).
Added a symbol in the middle of the maze for interest.
Exported the image
Resized it down in Photoshop and saved as JPG, both of which made things muddier still.
Note that adding a displace and texturize would help make things look less perfect.
This example is pretty much worst case for this kind of technique because the maze has angles in all directions. A traditional rectangular maze would be much more amenable to this sort of thing.
One of the big disadvantages of this technique is that the artwork has to remain in place for the labyrinth to appear.
I've already started thinking about the creatures that roam this labyrinth and guard the talismans. There are seven total talismans, one to represent each character stat, and then one to 'boost' all six. Other than the minotaur, I want each talisman to be guarded by something that sort of embodies each stat, and not everything is going to be a creature(some may be traps), not everything is going to be evil.
But I've run into a small snag. The creature I wanted guarding the talisman of intelligence(or wisdom) is a Sphinx. I don't have a Sphinx symbol. Is there anyone that has a symbol?
I don't which set it is in but I found 6 in this one. three of which are vari-color.
Profantasy\CC3\Symbols\Cities\CD3\Vector Classic\CD3D Mediterranean.fsc
Cheers,
~Dogtag
There is a sphinx in this token pack on roll20
I don't get them often, but when I do it's a nightmare!
Mind you, Vintyri has a habit of proving me wrong when I say stuff like that
When's the closing date for the entry?
Its not that much trouble, Storm.