[WIP] The Royal Chapel
Royal Scribe
🖼️ 388 images Mapmaker
As always, I have half a dozen maps "in progress" at any one time. So while I'm still working on my dwarven homes of Arbor Hollow for the Atlas, here is the first pass at the exterior of a royal chapel.
It's meant to be a free-standing structure on a royal estate, rather than a chapel that is inside or attached to a castle. Think something like St. Mary Magdalene Church at Sandringham House, the vacation home of the British royal family.
There will be a graveyard on one side, a garden on the other side (maybe a pond?), and royal crypts below. The crenellations are meant to be more decorative, to keep the architecture cohesive with whatever castle it shares the grounds with -- but they might come in handy if there's a zombie outbreak.
This primary uses assets from Sue's beautiful CA149 Beaumaris Castle (2019).
Comments
The grass is horrible.
Oh my bad that's the grid lines. (just playing)
If you took the time to draw out, sheet lines, or shingle lines, then copy that over each section. That would bring the roof to next level.
I meant to say that the background grass is just temporary! There will be a full, proper landscaping done before this map is complete, making heavy use of Forest Trail's grass and dirt patches. (But yes, those are grid lines.)
This particular church isn't meant to have shingles. The angled central part is supposed to be plates of metal. The rest of the roof that's more terra cotta-colored, are flat parapets like on a castle. As this is a royal chapel built on the grounds of a castle or a royal estate, the architecture is meant to match that of the castle's.
I do have plans in the near future to do a village church with slanted, tiled roofs.
@Don Anderson Jr. noted: The grass is horrible.
No, no, it's just the lawn mower's very narrow, and it takes days to cut all that grass... 😉
Hahaha exactly!
are you going to do the interior? what about the under-croft?
Yes, both! Interior, including upper floors (balcony seating, bell towers), and undercroft/crypts.
It's coming along, in between other projects like the Dwarven homes of Arbor Hollow.
Added roofs to the front square towers, one of which will be the belltower. Added flower beds in front of them, flanking the stairs. Expanded the width of the map and added a graveyard on the right side -- with plenty of room for more. Added a paved plaza in front of and to the left of the chapel, for gatherings and receptions. That side will also get a fountain.
Have to finish the outside grounds before I can work on the interiors, as the outside areas will carry through to all of the other interior above-ground maps.
Here are a few variations a fountain, with opaque and clear water, and with and without the fountain streaming water. The clear water uses the effects used on the water in Forest Trail, which has a displacement effect. The fountain spray comes from shrunk-down Forest Trails waterfalls. All use a ripple effect from Marine Dungeons. As always, I am indebted to Sue for her artistry -- the symbols, the fills, and the masterful use of sheet effects.
Opaque, No Spray
Transparent, No Spray
There are engraved symbols that help show the water distortion effect. There are also some copper coins tossed in the fountain.
Opaque, Spray
Transparent, Spray
I'm not sure if this is meant as a fantasy setting or something more akin to the real-world, but the cruciform shape of the building suggests a Christian-style overall, as suggested also by your preamble notes, Royal. That could suggest there should be definite orientations involved; for example, with the graves all, or mostly, facing eastwards, although this can see variations. The building's orientation might also be with the apse/altar end to the east, but this is much less of a hard-and-fast rule overall. Currently, there doesn't seem to be anything like this, so thought it might be worth flagging in case you were aiming for something a bit more real-world in nature. For fantasy, of course, you needn't face such restrictions!
The fountain sprays seem fine. Are you happy with them, which is really all that matters?!
Ahhh, I didn't know about the graves facing eastward. This is meant for fantasy RPG, a series of temples influenced by but not strictly adhering to real world inspirations. Another temple in the series is Greco-Roman inspired, but mixes both Greek and Roman elements in ways that probably wouldn't normally be done, and also adds other elements like crypts that aren't strictly historical.
And yeah, I was skeptical about the waterfalls for fountain spray...but they work better than I thought they would.
I like the 4th fountain best.
Overall, grass looks worse now, but the graveyard is stupendous.
(continuing the joking about the grass for silliness sake!)
Yeah, I repurposed some of Sue's waterfalls from Forest Trails. I think it captures what I was looking for with this type of fountain. Wouldn't work with a cherub spitting a small stream of water, but I don't have a cherub statue anyway. ;-)
Okay, here's the first pass at the completed top-down look. I am using Forest Trail's grass patches instead of a terrain fill so that the grass can look more naturally varied, but I'm worries about it being too blotchy.
Eager to move on to the interiors once this exterior is finalized.
It looks fine as it is, but if you don't want it quite so patchy lay down some medium grass terrain anyway. The blotches should stay on top unless you've reordered the sheets.
Working on the interiors -- here's the first floor so far, plus zooming in on the apse. (Just noticed that one of my columns isn't lined up properly.)
The pews will continue up to the front. I'm thinking the transept (the side wings) will be closed off with interior walls, rather than fully open. That will let me create a sacristy and other areas on this floor.
Inside the apse, the pews on the sides could be for clergy on one side and the choir on the other, with the royal family seated either in the front row or the balcony. Or the choir could be moved to the balcony with the royal family seated in the choir section.
BTW, the cobblestone path in the graveyard looks like it dead ends at the wall of the chapel. It actually leads to a door going down to the basement. As this floor is elevated, the basement is only partially underground, with enough of the upper portions of the basement walls above ground, allowing for high, barred windows to let light in down there.
I think the grass looks great.
If they are on thier own sheet, play with the ed.
(I wrote this two days ago, didn't post it ugg.)
Ooops, it was supposed to say, play with the opacity and edge fades.
Then a comment on an inner edge fade in green for the paths.
Actually, I didn't use fills for most of the grass except for a few areas to even out blotchiness. Mostly just the terrain patch symbols from Forest Trail.
First floor is done!
The entry area (the "narthex") uses one of my favorite brass inlays from Marine Dungeons. Left transept is the sacristy area. Small chamber for the head priest with a desk, wardrobe, small table. Another room with separate access to the nave is for the clergy to assemble and get into formation. Next to that is a room where they can socialize, and another dressing room for them. The right transept is has double wide stairs going down, because that provides access to the mortuary. Folks will be carrying coffins up those stairs! No stairs going up -- folks have to get to the balcony either from the spiral stairs near the entrance, or on the left side and then cross all the way around. And then there's a smaller side chapel. It uses the same winged statue used at the fountain.
Choir Loft?
Yes, that’s next!
Organ?
My first instinct was to say that it would be anachronistic to include an organ in a fantasy medieval church, but I would have been wrong. I googled it and discovered that the ancient Greeks invented it, the ancient Romans refined it, and early medieval Christian churches used it.
So...does anyone know where I can find an organ symbol?
You'd only really need a keyboard. The pipes would just be metal rings with dark centres from above - ranks of gradually increasing diameter.
I think there's an organ somewhere in the free Dundjinni, etc., symbols, but I don't have them installed now, so can't check.
You'd probably need an organ loft (i.e. area set aside for them, and enclosed in some manner - often between walls, and sometimes with wooden outer panelling) with the pipes, connectors and so forth in a top-down drawing as well, though you can mock those up with circles and squares with smaller darker matching shapes inside to show they're hollow, as Sue suggests - albeit of both metal and wood. It gets pretty complicated in among those sometimes (been in a couple of late medieval/early modern organ lofts, and it can be a real squeeze!), so don't worry too much about neatness!
Hence why I thought it might be an interesting addition!
I checked but didn't see one, though I have an incomplete install. Some Dundjinni symbols look a little too photorealistic and don't always mesh well. That said, I will probably have to use Dundjinni's bell for the belltower. The only CC3 bell I know of is the beautiful one from Marine Dungeons, but it's on its side. Maybe I can make it work by showing the bell as it's being rung.
I'm sure I've seen an organ symbol somewhere, but a long while back, and without access to the free symbol collections now, I can't offer more, unfortunately. You could probably construct a top-down bell with a series of circles, and a serious bevel effect on the one at the top, though it might be a lot of effort to get it to work, as an alternative.
However, having just downloaded and finished installing it, I must congratulate you on providing another splendid issue of the Cartographer's Annual this month Royal! (A series of connected maps for Edrinbury and the River Cat Inn for anyone yet to collect theirs!)
I too thought I saw such a symbol, and I have all the free stuff downloaded. But here is a harpsichord symbol from the Dundjinni>Equipment> Tools Profession catalogue. If you put something over the top part of the symbol, it will do for a multi-manual organ (speaking as a former organist and choirmaster)
Here are three pipe organ symbols that I have in my user collection, which you are free to use.
Thank you!!