Let’s climb up to the second landing, where we are standing on the roof of level 12 facing the side of level 13. There are eight entrances, one on either side of the four exterior stairs. The entrances in the northwest and southeast quadrants go straight ahead into level 13, while the entrances on the southwest and northeast quadrants immediately descend down 10-foot side stairs to level 12.

Level 13

No one actually lives in the temple. There are no kitchens or similar facilities. Even so, occasionally people are allowed to spend the night there. High ranking priests may sleep there after a late-night religious rites, or the night before an early morning religious service. Pharaohs sleep there the night before their coronations, and sometimes on other occasions. Level 13 has four bedrooms set up. Towards the center, there are interior stairs ascending to Level 14 and descending to Level 12.

Let’s go up, and then we will make our way back down.

Level 14

This level has three more bedrooms, plus a fourth room with a strange design carved into the floor tiles. (Is it a summoning circle? A teleportation portal?) Stairs in the center ascend to 15 and descend to 13.

Level 15

This level has three treasure chambers, all connected through a central room where guards are stationed. Stairs ascend to Level 16 and descend to Level 14.

Level 16

This level has a large 30x30 foot chapel in the center of the level. Three side rooms are dressing chambers for the priests. They are sparsely furnished, but have chests containing the priests’ vestments.

The chapel is 20 feet high, cutting into Level 17. A crude representation of the sun (looking more like a bullseye target) is painted on the floor in gold leaf. There are no stairs going up, because there is nothing above this level except for the upper half of this chapel. Here’s what it looks like from Level 17:

There is nothing on Level 18. It’s just solid stonework.

Let’s make our way back down to Level 13 and use the interior stairs to descend to Level 12.

A few months ago, I posted the Temple of Fah, a ziggurat I created to play with the CA209 Stairs and Steps annual. At long last, I have finally designed the interior.

I know this map is ridiculous. Egyptian pyramids only had a handful of rooms for the tombs of a pharaoh and their treasure. Sumerian ziggurats also only had a handful of interior chambers. But I decided to go whole hog and create a sprawling interior complex reminiscent of the classic dungeon crawls I first experienced with D&D in the early 80s. (My first introduction to the game was December of 1979.)

Here’s a side view of the exterior to give you a sense of the entrances:

There are two landings before reaching the very top of the ziggurat. The first is on level 7, standing on the roof of level 6, and the second is on level 13, on the roof of level 12. The entrances on each landing are to the left and right of the exterior stairs continuing up. The 10 feet wide doors are designed to be concealed for aesthetic purposes, blending in with the side of the ziggurat when shut, but they aren’t exactly hidden or secret.

The landings divide the ziggurat into three sections. The top-most section is primarily used by priests and religious leaders. The middle section has chapels and shrines that the royal family, wealthy nobles, and elite government workers are invited to for private religious celebrations, including weddings and coronations. The general public is never invited inside. Instead, religious leaders stand on the first landing of the temple to lead the masses gathered before the temple in their religious ceremonies. The lowest section contains the tombs of great pharaohs and powerful religious leaders.

I decided to design the interior rooms and passageways using the color key knockout effect that @amerigoV describes in this thread. The walls are granite from the CA149 Beaumaris Castle annual. Most of the other fills and symbols come from the CA150 Ancient Tombs annual.

Here’s an example of a level with the effects turned off:

Each level of the ziggurat is 10 feet above the level below. The rooms and passageways inside are mostly 8 feet high, leaving two feet of stone for the ceiling (or the floor for the level above).

Let’s go inside!

Yup, it's still there!

Oh, the image above also illustrate the super cool automated crenellations in the city walls and in the round and square towers.

The bridges and the piers also have cool support posts:

This is what happens when you miss something that's not a building and then convert everything left to be a building:

In this case, it was a line used to show where the city walls should go. I drew the walls but forgot to delete that part of the line. When it converted the line to a building, it connected the two ends of the line to make a polygon. I used the "Change like draw tool" to change it to a dirt road, which resulted in this:

And then I deleted it, since it was putting in a road where no road ought to be. The same thing happened with part of the north part of the wall.