
Wyvern
Wyvern
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Community Atlas: Errynor - Aak and the Aak Hills
Thanks folks!
@Quenten: The height measures are up from a nominal solid surface zero, just like a land-based map. The PDF/text description should clarify that in the Atlas.
The map was designed the way I'd expect a sea-dweller to think - i.e. just like a land dweller. We don't measure distance down from the "top" of the atmosphere, after all. Gravity still operates at the bottom of the sea, and that's the only place for fixed settlements and markers to exist, for instance, so I don't see any reason why such imaginary folks would think differently.
The angled contour labels are done exactly the same way they are on modern land maps, as it helps clarify which way is "up" for some folks. So yes, they are meant to be - and will remain - that way. It may not help your argument that I don't have a particular issue with reading them whichever way they are (lifetime of map reading and drawing, I suspect!) ๐
Although the Aak Hills map uses the Marine Maps style, that's as far as it goes; I had no intention of mirroring the conventions it represents, because that's based on purely land-dwellers' thinking, and this is intended as a sea-dwellers' map after all!
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Live Mapping: Marine Dungeons
Can't recall if I already made some suggestions elsewhere, as I know I've been advocating any - and now clearly more! - undersea symbols and mapping options for some time. Aside from the ongoing batch of Community Atlas undersea maps I've been posting about here, that is. Ironically (of course...) I'm currently mapping an area of "my" bit of Alarius about as landlocked as possible!
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WIP Tropical Area on My World
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WIP: Fane of the Swamp People...
Is the structure intended to be open to the air, or is it meant to have a roof? The internal shadows work nicely for the first option, but not the second (internal wall shadows are too strong). Also, the interior doors appear to have no shadows.
As this isn't a dungeon, some of the structural features don't work too well. The two enclosed spaces without access-ways need rethinking, as do some of the wall-narrowings where there are doors. They're both abnormal constructions because they're wasting building stone unnecessarily. Now you might say that the layout has to be this way for religious reasons, which would be fine, though in reality, things like the enclosed areas would end up with at least some rubble in them, and a lot of plants growing there, unless someone goes in very regularly to clean them out. By climbing over the roof or along the walltops, down and back, lugging everything they've cleared away with them. So not a popular job then...
The group of trees seems oddly lonely, unless there's some specific reason why there are so few in just one spot. In a swamp setting, that really wouldn't be likely, again, unless someone's deliberately, and very regularly, clearing the other greenery away.
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WIP: Fane of the Swamp People...
Great-looking map now! Do we also get the Undercroft map at some stage?
Probably too late, but that's a big kitchen for just four people - three acolytes and one high priest, counting the beds. As there isn't a refectory-equivalent, maybe there should be some chairs and a dining table in the kitchen as well? And maybe also a door to the outside, as the route in means bringing all the food through the chapel.
Not sure about the off-axis Great Frog statue in the chapel alcove, given such things tend to be the focus of worship, not quite so tucked-away.
Maybe switch the secret treasury entrance to the passage nearer the high priest's chamber, rather than in the too-accessible chapel?
And what do the folks here do for lighting (no windows)?
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WIP: Fane of the Swamp People...
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Yet Another Wargame Map set in ...
You make some good points Mike. I must admit, I never thought hex map boardgames worked all that well for tactical-level wargames, where I always felt using models and miniatures on a physical tabletop was much more useful and instructive as an attempt at simulating something of the realities. All the board wargames I still own, and occasionally play (not sure how I found the time when I was younger; never seem to have enough now!), were of a far more strategic level (so where a single turn is always at least a day, for those less familiar, and the ground scale is matchingly large).
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Community Atlas: Errynor - Shark Bridge
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Community Atlas: Errynor - Shark Bridge
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Install Order?