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Belated Self-Promotion: Mapping Cities


sdavies2720

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Somewhat off-topic for BRP, but of interest to RPGers:

Profantasy posted my first two installments of an article on mapping cities. You can find it on their blog at http://www.profantasy.com/rpgmaps/.

I have a whole series er um, mapped out, but I'm sure that a few comments or traffic will help them decide to go forward.

The articles feature Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer, but a lot of the information is about where cities grow, where to start in laying out a city, that sort of thing, which is useful no matter what you use to make maps.

Steve

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

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That's pretty cool, Steve. Thanks for sharing! Are you using any particular historical model for the designing of cities? What I mean by that is, if we follow your method, will we end up with basicaly a medieval city, a modern city, or neither?

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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Just had time for a quick glance, but it looks well worth reading. Building an obscure ancient city of minor religious importance are we?

You could call it.... uh, Kerusalem maybe.

;D

LOL. I hadn't seen the connection, but you're right that it's clear -- especially with the temple mount. I'm using the process (and some maps) I used for one of the cities in my campaign. There's something buried deep and forgotten beneath the city. There's actually a passage that leads down to it, but it is protected by magic that turns away people who are not consciously looking for it. The players haven't picked up the clues to start looking, so the compulsion magic appears to still be working :)

Steve

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

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That's pretty cool, Steve. Thanks for sharing! Are you using any particular historical model for the designing of cities? What I mean by that is, if we follow your method, will we end up with basicaly a medieval city, a modern city, or neither?
I'm basing this off a city I built for my campaign, which has a mishmash of elements. One of the advantages of writing for gamers instead of a historical journal is you can pick and choose. So, for example, the city is inward-focused, so many of the blocks are full side-to-side with buildings facing a courtyard -- that's more common in the middle east than in say medieval england. But it's a temperate climate, so protection from cold and rain are going to be more important than heat avoidance. There's a big river that periodically floods, more like Sumer or Babylon in design than London.

So my hope is to provide a practical "do this, do that" level of tutorial for a fantasy early medieval city, while pointing out alternate decisions and styles along the way...assuming that Profantasy wants me to continue writing these!

Steve

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

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  • 2 months later...

I've read through most of the first article, just have to find the time to finish reading it and then continue on with the next one!

Congratz!

Skunk - 285/420 BRP book

You wanna be alright you gotta walk tall

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