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Wyvern

Wyvern

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Wyvern
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  • Community Atlas: Embra - Watery Places

    The remainder of the maps in this Watery Places set are all of the more usual, larger, size, beginning with that for Silverburn:

    Those with a good memory may recollect that the Silverburn is one of the two main tributary streams that join the River Clack at Embra. The Silverburn comes in from the north, while the other tributary, the Wadingburn, comes in from the south. Naturally, this map isn't intended to cover the whole course of the Silverburn, but to highlight an area of the city which is known by that name, and through which the Silverburn does run. Indeed to emphasize the name more, I thought it would be interesting to interpret the featured text as meaning there could be some small amounts of metallic silver in the bed of the Burn here, more of which can be discovered by perceptive or lucky characters in the scattered Silver Marshes and parts of the adjoining Silver Common. That concept was allowed to spill out into others of the named map features here, and although the little hamlet isn't labelled as such, it is generally known as Silverburn too, although the substantial inn of Mabon's Rest is adopted as another name for the place by some. The "Mabon" name derives from Celtic folklore, if slightly reinterpreted in the map's accompanying text and PDF notes, so here Mabon is said to be a youthful god, or a young man who became a deity through his great deeds.

    As there are actual buildings on this map for the first time in these Watery Places settings, naturally I wanted to add interiors for them. All are single-storeyed, so only one extra toggle is needed for the FCW Atlas version to display them:

    LoopysueJimP[Deleted User]pablo gonzalez
  • Community Atlas: Embra - Watery Places

    Stepping things up a little, for all the map is still a reduced-size one, Watery Place two is Bright-Eye Well:

    Coming up with a magical well is a bit "shooting fish in a barrel" for RPG scenario-writers, but using details from the original base-map (which was actually for a subterranean barrow tomb) meant I could add some extra interest here, along with making it an open-air feature, a partly natural, partly quarried, hollow in the edge of a hillside. Not quite sure what it is about red and pink rocks that have held a long fascination for me, but I made an early decision that one of the main rock types that was going to keep recurring at Embra was red sandstone. And as luck had it, the second of @Loopysue's excellent sets of City Cliffs symbols comes with a set of red sandstone symbols and fills! So that was an easy choice.

    There's a knack to using connecting symbols effectively. Sometimes that means turning-off their ability to connect, and placing them individually. Sometimes you can just let them "have their head" as it were, and make whatever pattern they will. Usually, that latter works fine for straight, gently undulating, or long curving lines. When it comes to more intricate structures, it can be better to opt for individual symbol placement. Here though, despite the strongly curving lines in a short space, I decided to try using the connecting-symbol option, and see what happened, because this area was meant to look as if it had been straight-edge carve-quarried in places. It took a couple of tries to get something close to what I wanted, and then a lot more tinkering to get the shadow effects to work OK (don't look too closely behind a couple of strategically-placed trees, that's all!).

    Those familiar with northern English dialect may appreciate a couple of the more curious map labels, although the Fachin's Hole name derives from real-world folklore, as something I'd decided from soon after the shape of the base map for this drawing had been chosen. A Fachin is a Scots' Gaelic fearsome Faerie creature, with one leg, one hand that protrudes from its chest, a single eye and rough, spiky hair. Sometimes considered of giant size, its preferred lairs are lonely gorges and lakes. That overall shape seemed to fit with the cliff-line being a loose, crude profile image of such a creature, with the Well as its eye.

    Loopysue[Deleted User]
  • Community Atlas: Embra - Watery Places

    The first two Watery Places were drawn as smaller maps than usual, based on the reduced-size template designed for the Lawn Market map. This was because, as with Lawn Market, both base maps were generated from randomly-selected maps in the old Judges Guild "Temples Book I". As noted previously, this book used a much smaller scaling than the other old JG works I was drawing on for inspiration in creating the Embra maps. The first of the Watery Places then is the Bittersweet Basin Swimming Pool:

    This is a remarkably simple area by comparison with many of the previous Embra Places maps, though of course variety is important in constructing an array of maps of this kind, to prevent things becoming too predictable. The featured text notes were used to add to the details shown here, without taking away any of their oddness. It's perhaps worth noting that as a mapper, it's equally important to have a few maps that are easier to produce like this, again helping avoid things becoming too stale and "samey". Especially as not all the Watery Places maps were going to be so "quick and easy"...

    LoopysueJimP[Deleted User]pablo gonzalez
  • Community Atlas: Embra - Crossing Places

    Lastly, the fourth map covers the seven Crossing Places Streets in one:

    Which of course is tricky to see much detail on at this size, so some closer views might help:

    Two of these are obviously bridge-style crossings, albeit in rather unusual ways. Spiderweb Way suspends part of its street, its paths and buildings high above an Inlet of the sea, for all Embra is in the most landlocked part of all my Errynor maps. This is, however, Faerie, so think more surrealist thoughts, and it all starts to make perfect sense. If it doesn't, you just need to think more surreally... Seafield Road too suspends part of itself high above a deep, rocky ravine, although one that nobody ever seems to have managed to get down into. Like the sea Inlet, is it real? Or illusory? Naturally, choosing which Place of this pair was to have the sea inlet was quite deliberate; can't make things too obvious in Faerie always, after all! 

    One more street, Ferry Road, has a ferry across the River Clack at its end, but the other four are all narrow ways linking broader routes that are completely ignored and unnamed here. For clearly, only the Crossing Places matter in this case! Naturally, each of these smaller streets has features all their own too - the odd, wailing music along The Remin is only one curiosity (yes, that's NOT mentioned in the featured texts, only in the text and PDF files), as the houses there appear to be made of thorny bushes, for instance.

    Now we only have five more "Places" groups to discuss...

    LoopysueMonsenJimP[Deleted User]DaltonSpenceLoreleiRicko Hasche
  • Community Atlas: Embra - Crossing Places

    The last of the individual Crossing Places maps covers the part of the Twilight Market here, Slateford Market (with a second view below showing just the map, hopefully for a little better clarity at the typical Forum resolution):

    That the road layout and market stall placements look like the wings of a butterfly is not accidental. The original Judges Guild map on which this was based only had the layout on one side of the stream. It was though obvious that a simple ink-blot-style mirror image would produce this more pleasing pattern, thus this segment of the Twilight Market was designed with that in mind. Of course there's a watcher at the ford (from the featured text), and some more of the Mike Schley tree-houses, including an aerial tavern in the bough-structure overhanging the River Clack in the Butterfly Tree, "The Tasty Drop" (also a comment on patrons who miss their footing and end up in the Clack below...).

    There aren't any actual buildings here however, simply tents, stalls, awnings, wagons and several open-plan covered spots (including a pair of green-tiled, circular bandstands). The thatched buildings in the treetops are intended as living parts of the trees, so aren't real buildings as such. Or that was my excuse for not providing interior layouts for them anyway!

    LoopysueJimP[Deleted User]Lauti