lunar temples and floor plans

[Dimbyd]

I'm in the initial thinking stages of a Gloranthan heist scenario. Are there any floor plans of a typical Lunar temple out there which I could shamelessly use. I'm quite willing to make stuff up, but if someone else has done the lifting work, grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks

Andrew

[Joerg]

The map of Nochet has outlines of the former temple buildings, but no floorplans.

http://www.glorantha.com/nochet-city-of-queens/

[Dimbyd]

Not quite what I'm looking for, but it's lovely map. 

 

While, I'm thinking this as a Heroquest scenario and thus "theatre of the mind", players quite reasonably ask questions. My map making skills are very poor as well...

[Jon Hunter]

Its an area where i think which could be interesting,

In the real world the near east had somes pretty standard temple layout with the Jews and the egyptians using the same temple layout

it would not be weird to find the same hapepning in glorantha.

 

[Byll]

The Seven Mothers Temple in New Pavis has its long side facing temple court. Instead of a classical temple with its main axis down the long dimension, an 'open' colonnade at the front and a sacred enclosure at the back I am going with a single row of columns on the long side and a central entrance with two (or more- I haven't done an interior) enclosed cells, leading off it. Maybe this is more suitable to the multiple sub-cults of Seven Mothers rather than a temple to (an aspect of) the goddess. The main driver in this case might have been suitably prestigious land available to the Lunar Authorities for development.

[Darius West]

We are referring to just a middle of the range Seven Mothers temple yes?  If the temple is in an area where the Lunars just make do with improving an existing structure I would guess any shape would do.  I think the preference when they can design their own buildings will be for a circular compound, with an open air half compound area with sail cloth awnings, and a hemicircular temple surmounted by a red dome.  As the Red Moon never moves, no doubt the dome will have a focal lens that captures and reflects the light onto the primary central cluster of statuary.  Teelo Norri will run a kitchen that utilizes the open air, and quite possibly there will be an Etyries market presence however small, even though Etyries isn't one of the Seven Mothers.  I think most Seven Mothers temples will have at least one altar dedicated to the various aspects of Rufelza, even though she too is not one of her Seven Mothers (though arguably the girl is the parent of the woman?).  Preferred colors will be Red, White and Black, possibly pink and grey too.  There may well be a dovecote (for the pink mourning doves the cult seems to like) somewhere on the premises.  There is also a good chance that the compound is marked out into sevenths with an idol at each mark (crudely every 51.4 degrees of the circle), and worshippers can "pray a Septena" (a bit like praying a Novena) over the course of a week.

[Joerg]

I may have been unclear. There is the razed area on the eastern shore of Nochet, which has outlines of a number of temples that were built by Fazzur's engineers between 1620 and 1621.

The ruins of the Seven Mothers Temple look like a square colonnade surrounding a central yard, but that may just be a result of the dotted lines indicating the ruined status. Another way to read this is as the remains of a two steps ziggurat, or a ziggurat-like basement for the real temple atop the central square - we have seen plenty examples of Theyalan religious architecture using such a structure, e.g. the Ivory Plinth or Wasp Nest, or the outer appearance of the bottoms of Sun Dome Temples. The enclosure-like structure might be a Pelorian, perhaps Carmanian, architectural influence, if you decide to go for that.

(And nothing stops you from having a step pyramid with colonades on the the single steps...)

The (apparently surviving) Sleeping Mother's house follows a similar architecture. The other temples in the razed (by Hendira and Fazzur's engineers) then burnt area appear to be of simpler design - mainly a single big building, probably with a huge central hall.

 

Is this heist going to target the Seven Mothers (what for? Irrippi Ontor scrolls?), Yara Aranis (fighting the Glowline), Etyries (in for the profit, perhaps also the tax collected waiting for a strong escort to expedite it northwards), or some other Lunar deity?

[Richard S.]

Could this help?

http://ruleonemagazine.com/Iss6/Myth_GreatTemple.php

[Dimbyd]

Thanks all for the contributions- keep them coming in.

In terms of reasons for the heist- I'm thinking of a number of possible  starting points; from part of Dragonrise to "knowledge wars", rather than mere wealth. (I tend to go mythic if thinking of a Heroquest scenario). I'm at very early thinking stages- what I would prefer to do in writing a scenario is avoiding funnelling a group down only one way to achieve success.  

 

Andrew

 

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Dimbyd said:

Not quite what I'm looking for, but it's lovely map. 

While, I'm thinking this as a Heroquest scenario and thus "theatre of the mind", players quite reasonably ask questions. My map making skills are very poor as well...

Oh.

 

That's a very different thing, IMHO!

I'd do the GM-facing map as a very conceptual bit, maybe use Fate's "zones" mechanism; then I'd find some relevant images via Google, DeviantArt, etc, to show your players (1-3 images per Zone).  You don't have to describe them if Fate's "zone" language, or even use them the way Fate does for combat/etc; but it seems to me a good way to conceptualize what you want, and provide the players what they will want.

 

[David Scott]

Personally I'd use stuff like this:

https://www2.palomar.edu/users/mhudelson/StudyGuides/EgyptTemple_WA.html

20120222-720px-Greek_temples-es.svg.png from http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub367/item2012.html

I'd ignore 3D versions of these as they clearly look Egyptian or Greek 

This gives a bit of the feel 

likewise this for the circular Greek one above

[Dimbyd]

Lots of food for thought here. I'll also have a look through my photos of Sri Lankan temples for some inspiration. But some re-reading of works will be required to start stitching stuff together to make "Gloranthan sense" and dramatic sense. 

[Eddy]

I think the RQ3 Griffin Island had a floor plan of the newly constructed Lunar temple in Elkoi, indeed my players broke into it 

[David Scott]

19 hours ago, Eddy said:

I think the RQ3 Griffin Island had a floor plan of the newly constructed Lunar temple in Elkoi, indeed my players broke into it 

Sort of. Griffin Mountain had the Seven Mothers Temple:

Griffin Island had the Redeye Temple:

The Redeye Temple is fully detailed elsewhere in the supplement where as the Seven Mothers is just on the main Elkoi map.

[M Helsdon]

My (non-canonical) interpretation of a Lunar temple to Hon-eel (exterior based upon an illustration by Kalin Kadiev) and interior floor plans.

[Roko Joko]

Awesome.  It's great as a general-purpose fantasy RPG resource / 5-room dungeon, too.  (29-room, but same difference.)

For the convenience of people using it in certain kinds of games, it might help to size the floor plans at the same scale as the illustration, and/or provide some kind of scale ruler.

Are any windows or skylights in the upper floor?

Edited May 12, 2017 by Roko Joko

[Runeblogger]

Amazing.
However, I think there should be fewer rooms on the first floor, since the doors on the front are very high, so any rooms on the sides of the 1st floor are going to have an extremely low ceiling.

[M Helsdon]

3 hours ago, Roko Joko said:

For the convenience of people using it in certain kinds of games, it might help to size the floor plans at the same scale as the illustration, and/or provide some kind of scale ruler.

The warrior in A is intended to provide scale - unfortunately whilst the originals are the same 'size', the forum resizes the uploaded pictures.

3 hours ago, Roko Joko said:

Are any windows or skylights in the upper floor?

Possibly there are narrow windows at the front, and perhaps skylights.

3 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

However, I think there should be fewer rooms on the first floor, since the doors on the front are very high, so any rooms on the sides of the 1st floor are going to have an extremely low ceiling.

The chambers on the ground floor don't have ceilings of the same height - the main chamber and the side shrines have tall ceilings, but the other rooms do not. The stairwells to the rear lead to the upper floor via about three flights of stairs (not all are shown). The greyed out area on the upper floor isn't a chamber but a narrow (at the edges) ceiling space only accessible for maintenance. There's a further set of stairs up to the chambers at the front of the building.

I did start drawing a cut-away to show the stairs, but it became too messy.

Am slowly creating more floor plans - this is the second. The first was of one of Saronil’s Towers. The next one may be of a Temple of Ernalda...

Here are all images at the same scale.

Edited May 12, 2017 by M Helsdon

[soltakss]

22 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

However, I think there should be fewer rooms on the first floor, since the doors on the front are very high, so any rooms on the sides of the 1st floor are going to have an extremely low ceiling.

One of the players in our campaign is an Architect in real life. Whenever I draw plans for buildings, he takes a sharp breath and tries not to point out the many places the buildings would fall down or the rooms don't get enough light, or the staurcases that don't work. I rarely bother with floorplans now.

[Byll]

The old Traveller Sulieman scout ship (which was shaped like a NASA Almond) had several compartments that were entirely  outside the hull when you considered its 3D slope.

[M Helsdon]

17 hours ago, soltakss said:

One of the players in our campaign is an Architect in real life. Whenever I draw plans for buildings, he takes a sharp breath and tries not to point out the many places the buildings would fall down or the rooms don't get enough light, or the staurcases that don't work. I rarely bother with floorplans now.

Whilst there have to be sufficient strength to hold up the walls and floors, most ancient builders were constructed to a distinctly different set of priorities. Most ancient temples lacked all but a few sources of sunlight: mainly from the doorways, sometimes from window slits high on the walls, sometimes from interior courtyards, rarely from light wells. If you walk around any of the still standing Egyptian, Greek or Roman temples you will be struck by just how dark they are inside. Ancient houses tended to lack windows on the outer walls, at ground level, and sometimes above that because unless the windows were very narrow, they were a security risk; instead houses were built around an inner courtyard. The Minoan houses on Thera are an exception. The rich in Peloria and Esrolia might have access to glass, but are you going to put a glass window where it can be smashed by outsiders, or have it facing into private family courtyards?

In Glorantha, things will run along religious lines. Darkness temples will be... dark; Air temples will be open to the sky; Light/Fire temples may rely upon fires for light, or, as is the case with Yelmalion Sun Domes, the outer shell will magically permit sunlight through; Earth temples are likely to be entirely enclosed, lit perhaps by torches or oil lamps; Water temples... might be outside or open to the weather. And of course the main temple building won't host all the worshippers: the inner sanctum will be the preserve of the priesthood, so ordinary worshippers will probably gather outside. Moon temples... I imagine that some have an open roof to permit the Red Moon to be seen, but others will be enclosed, as seems to be the case for the Seven Mothers temples that appear on canon maps.

Edited May 14, 2017 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

This Seven Mothers Mission is located at Stonegate Fort in Sartar.

Edited May 23, 2017 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

And by way of comparison, here's the Mission beside the frontage of a far grander temple, such as the one built at Elkoi.

(The larger temple is not square but built in the hexastyle peripteral style.)

Edited June 1, 2017 by M Helsdon