Maps and Levels

[manikus]

Is anyone working on, or worked on in the past, Dungeon Craft versions of cities, towns, villages from the Forgotten Realms pen and paper game? I'm especially interested in any levels you've made (placing walls) and if you used official resources to arrive at your layout.

If you have, let me know in this thread which cities, if you would be willing to share the level with me and what resources/references you used.

Also, if you could list the region that the city is in, that would help me too. I know where many of the major cities are, but the little towns, dales, villages and hamlets, I don't know so well.

[manikus]

In case folks aren't working on any levels for the Forgotten Realms but would like to...

I'm working on the Silver Marches, so anywhere else in the Forgotten
Realms is up for grabs. I should prioritize this statement a bit,
though.
Top priority: Dalelands, Moonsea, Cormyr, The North, Waterdeep (b/c
it's so huge, I'm considering it as it's own region), Underdark (not
counting Undermountain at Waterdeep)
Medium priority: any of the lands surrounding the above mentioned, top
priority regions, including Undermountain at Waterdeep
Low priority: Maztica, Kara-Tur, Realmspace(?), Zakhara (Arabian)

I would like official resources to be used - modules, accessories,
etc. for either 1e or 2e. Dragon Magazine is quasi-offical, and if
there's a map in it, I'd probably accept that.
Computer games are not official, though I may be able to be swayed on
some of the NWN maps, but not on the old SSI maps.

Scale- this is such a hard thing to define. I would say that most
houses are 1x1, 2x1, 1x2 or 2x2 (either square or 'L' shaped), nobles
or wealthy merchants may live in something bigger, but nothing larger
than 4 cells on a side. I would say that most shops are in the 2x2 to
4x4 range, depending on what they do and if the proprietor lives
there. Government buildings and temples can be just about any size
depending on the context. Castles and keeps are probably at least 4x4.
Use whatever walls you would like, if it's something not in the
default art, just send it along with the finished level. The same
thing goes for backgrounds. (Or if they're on a website, let me know
and I'll download it.)

As for events, that's up to you. If there are famous or notable
places that you want to label with a text event, that would be nice.
As for events that depend on the databases, I'm still building them
for this project, but they will include everything in the current
databases plus a lot more.

And since I didn't mention it earlier, this can be for any resolution
that you want to work in. When I import the levels, the Global Data
will override the resolution for the level and it will be fine.

If you also wouldn't mind listing what resources you use and whatever
your current level/city is so that others can work on something else.
(I want to know the resource so that I can fill in events later.)

[Uatu]

Never was sure how to map things like diagonals when translating over to DC...

(I did consider doing a town from Greyhawk once, but... there were rivers! Arrrgh!)

[manikus]

Diagonals are a pain - you end up with "staircases".

It turns out that all four of the Realms cities I've done have rivers in them. Lots of special walls and backgrounds...

[manikus]

I have a map of the town of Yartar and I have a description of the town of Yartar, AD&D calls a city even though it only has a population of 6000.
The map shows room for a few hundred people to live and work (it's supposed to be a thriving trade center). So, now I'm the spot of sticking with the map or going with the description. I use Yartar as an example because I've already done it, but just discovered that I screwed something up and have to basically start over. (I somehow got disoriented and used East as North...)

I'm going to go with the description over the map. I think this is going to hold true for all towns (10K population and under) in the Realms. The maps typically show a village, say 15 to 20 homes and 2 to 5 large buildings and the text says that 5000 people live there...
The big cities, like Waterdeep, Skuld, Silverymoon are much more accurate in description versus map.

[Uatu]

Doh! Starting over a map of 6,000 residents?

Looking at 1st edition Greyhawk sources, it seems that there are only a few town/village maps (pop. 100-300 or so) (cities are all not described), all including some kind of river or other water bodies

But yeah, some changes may be necessary in general in mapping the various official maps of AD&D, or else we would end up with lots of "staircases" (as you said)...

[manikus]

That's a good point, I didn't take into account that each house is 30 to 40 stories tall.

Even worse than starting Yartar over, is that I'm going to redo Silverymoon. Which I am not looking forward to. If we could only cut and paste walls and backdrops, that wouldn't be so bad.

[Uatu]

Silverymoon? Did that city ever have official maps of any sort? (Before 3e, I mean.) Guess you will have to be making lots of elvish-like architecture walls, etc.

[manikus]

There are lots of maps for Silverymoon, pre-3e.

As for the elvish architecture, that was all before the great fire of O'Leary. Now, Silverymoon uses the same stone that every other city in the Realms uses, except for Skuld where they use a a vaguely sandish-looking version of the same stone. It's in the union contracts, there's nothing I can do about it. Also, and I don't know if you know this or not, but much like Pokemon, people with the same jobs look alike in every city. It goes back to the troubles right before the Time of Troubles, the Attack of the Clones. Now they're everywhere. Every blacksmith looks the same as every other blacksmith, every bartender looks the same as every other bartender, etc.

[Uatu]

There are? Where?

(Good thing that elves have broken down and started to hire the one stonemason of the Realms to make all their walls, as well as hiring all the non-pointy-eared clones that are wandering the Realms now... It only makes your job easier )