Friday 31 May 2013

Lord Azzur's Palace

This is a first draft for Lord Azzur's Palace. Totally non-canon, but it might provide some inspiration for writers. The basic idea is to reflect the development of the site. It begins with a simple motte and bailey castle built on an artificial hill. The other buildings are extensions and additions which appear plausible in the progression from a defensive castle towards its current status as a grandiose palace and centre of government. It has its own dock and garrison. The finished site plan might well include seven or eight levels, three of which are below ground. 



Salamonis

Designing a city map from scratch is considerably easier than mapping an existing fantasy town, many of which do not make sense in practical ways. Cities grow from successful settlements and change over the centuries in ways which are fairly predictable, as common requirements dictate. The reasons for a settlement being where it is, and the landscape itself shapes the way a city changes. These sketches are based on real town maps of the 15th and 16th centuries.


Because the size of Titan has yet to be decided, the map area above is not to scale but still gives an impression of the landscape. The type of bedrock, water aquifers and shape of the hills all have implications which help narrow down the options for development later on. 


First draft for the 3D map area.


A more detailed map showing possible land use and the different trade quarters one might expect in a growing town. One of the principle aspects of town layout is the fresh water supply, irrigation and, of course, plenty of underground (or covered) rivers and sewers to dispose of the enormous amount of refuse generated in a town of this size. "Wooden hills" should read wooded hills.


Based on a 14th century town plan, the 3D sketch above shows a citadel and defensive structures, viewed from the northwest. The four islands are artificial. The moats have been cut into the landscape and bridged strategically. Once these are in place, the rest of the city and the faubourgs (literally "out of town") can be planned around it.


These initial sketches are speculative but seem to work quite well, despite the fact that the landscape doesn't quite match the 3D map of the area around Salamonis. Feel free to use this as a base for designing your own towns and cities.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

That's more like it...

The new maps of Titan have taken months of development. Learning new software, playing with ideas that didn't work and making dozens of experiments and errors means these maps are 90% accurate. The globe has been assigned an arbitrary circumference of 12,000 miles, but can plausibly be as small as 6,000 miles.

If they are not too busy with other projects, the Titan Re-Building team will be doing their typically excellent job and collating my new cartographic cock-ups in a handy list while I am busy messing up something else. 














Other maps in progress include sketches for Azzur's Palace, the area around Salamonis and a 3D model of Port Blacksand. There are some sketchbook pdf's for you to hunt down. If you have them please share them around. More updates coming soon.