Royal Scribe
Royal Scribe
About
- Username
- Royal Scribe
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- Birthday
- February 5, 1968
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- San Francisco, California
- Real Name
- Kevin
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- Mapmaker
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Egg Hunt!
Years ago, when I was first developing the pantheon for the halflings of my world, I accidentally recreated the Easter Bunny.
I had in mind that idea that the head of the pantheon was a grandmotherly figure. I pictured her baking pies and sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch dispensing common-sense wisdom. I had a mental image of her as an anthropomorphized rabbit, like Peter Cottontail's grandmother or a Richard Scarry illustration. But when I had the thought that maybe the living creatures of the world came from eggs that she laid, I realized that I had recreated the Easter Bunny. I decided to lean into that.
Here's my description for Mother Ailish:
The de facto head of the Halfling pantheon is a four-foot tall anthropomorphized rabbit named Mother Ailish. She is depicted as a grandmotherly figure dressed in an apron, bifocal spectacles, and a bonnet or straw hat. When she isn’t shown knitting on her front stoop while dispensing common-sense wisdom, she’s generally shown baking in the kitchen. In her ovens she bakes any manner of delightful confections, particularly savory and sweet pies, and for this reason halflings celebrate natal days (and pretty much every occasion) with pies in her honor. It is said that she baked, piece by piece, all the non-living things of the world in her ovens and then fashioned them together. Every living this in the world is said to be descended from an original that she gave birth to – not in a live birth but laid in bright, multi-colored eggs that her many children and grandchildren (all also depicted as anthropomorphized rabbits) then hid about the world until they were ready to hatch and populate the world with life. For this reason, the halflings have a spring celebration in which they paint eggs made of paper, baked clay, wood, leather, or the like, inside which is hidden toys and candy, which are then exchanged with friends and family and sometimes hidden for strangers to find. The holiday always falls on the first Estaradÿn that falls on or after the first full Caerudraal moon after (but not on) the Spring Equinox.
(Caerudraal is the smallest of my world's three moons. It takes 77 days to orbit the world, and weeks are 10 days, so the holiday is celebrated anywhere from the day after the vernal equinox to 87 days after.)
Anyway, when I created some rainbow images for St. Patrick's Day, I thought maybe I should do an
EasterMother Ailish Egg Hunt for Easter.I used the Mike Schley Dungeon City style to create a halfling's home and garden. At first I tried to create varicolor decorations for eggs, but they're so small here that you couldn't see the decorations anyway. I tried to just create solid-colored eggs using the three-point circle drawing tool, but wasn't thrilled with the shape -- and the beveling effects didn't show up once the eggs were shrunk. I ended up just using Mike Schley's varicolor dragon eggs.
Anyway, here's my little halfling home and egg hunt:
Garden without Eggs
The home faces a rural lane, with the garden accessed through the home's back door. The garden has a gate that provides access to a side street. Everything comes from Mike Schley's city or dungeon assets except the hedges, which are Sue's connecting hedges -- and then I used her end/corner pieces instead of Mike's for the stand-alone hedges. And I think the flowers are miniaturized shrubs from DD3.
Garden with Hidden Eggs
Under the Trees and Gazebo Canopy
Mappy Easter -- er, Mappy Mother Ailish Day!
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Abandoned Silo - Spider attack
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Abandoned Silo - Spider attack
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Mars Ultor
Yes, Marine Dungeons was the foundation of this temple, though I ended up importing other fills from all over the place. I picked that style because I loved the Marine Dungeons’ columns. The walls surrounding the fountain and the barbecue pits are also from Marine Dungeons, as is the blue tiles in the fountain and many of the fills. I also imported fills from Creepy Crypts and Forest Trail, among others.
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FT3+ to CC3+ export with style?
For me, the "Change Like Draw Tool" option under the "Change Properties" button was a game-changer. I describe it a little in this thread.
Basically, I copied the coastline from a Jerion-style export into the new file and then used "Change Like Draw Tool" to change it to the Land tool. I then copied a few of the intermediate contour lines and changed them as well -- you can either change them to your new style's contour tool, or a Solid 10 gray or Solid 10 white if you want it darker or lighter than the existing terrain, or change to the hills fill.
Just be careful about doing too many of the contours, because it will make the files massively large. (Perhaps there's a trick to reducing that that I don't know about, like maybe exploding the contours? I dunno, lots more for me to learn.)