Tags
Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, House, Labyrinth Lord, Mansion, Maps, OSR, RPG, Urban
Bearing obvious similarities to the mansion of the Dervel Merchants in blueridge, the Mastervale Estate is slightly more regular in shape and less alien in material – appearing at first glance to be made of grey stone. The actual material is an unworldly grey crystal that seems utterly smooth to the touch, and yet seems to be easy to grab onto and grip to. Because of this “grippiness” and the whims of the owners the outside of the structure is covered with vines and other green creepers, further enhancing the appearance that the structure is made of some normal stone. The alien construction extends even to the windows which are thinner and translucent but not fully transparent and which are also as hard as the walls.
Assembled using the same strange magics as the Dervel house, this structure was originally the headquarters of the Mastervale Merchant Consortium. However, as the fortunes of that business waned after a series of bad investments and destroyed cargoes, the Mastervale family ended up selling their extended properties and moving into the estate – converting offices and libraries into living areas.
Still considered one of the main merchant families of the city, the Mastervales are a bitter clan who remember their time of greater affluence and prosperity and allow it to blind them to their current wealth and success. They hoard the last of their great treasures and seek to reverse their recent decline – however they have become very risk-averse… Combined with their bitterness and penny-pinching, they are unlikely to climb their way back to the top.
The Mastervale clan can be used as a patron for an adventuring group as they are well-regarded by most in the region and do have the money to afford good work. However, they are cheap and quick to reduce payment for mistakes or unforeseen setbacks. They also may become the target for adventurers seeking to get into the good graces of the thieves’ guild, other merchant families, or those seeking out the remaining treasures of the clan.
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It is an one-floor house with a circular tower (down, left in the house plan), a closed garden (down, right) that has a strutcture, a gazebo, perhaps.
Is that right?
I know I am a bother, but everytime I see one of your plans, I have this strange desire to start drawing how it could be in 3D (even tried SweetHome3D). I’m trying hard not to do that, because I don’t know where it will carry me, where it will ends, and when.
BTW, what is the scale? 1 square meter each square in the ground? Not that I’m thinking on drawin this…
Best regards.
That’s how I picture it.
Single-story ranch-style house.
Second story on the circular tower.
Walled garden with gazebo.
Scale is whatever the DM wants.
I’ve only been following blog for a bit so you may have already answered this, but styles of pens do you use to do your mapping? It looks like a large permanent marker and a thin tip pen. Brands and tip thickness would be superb!
Thanks!
Most current maps are drawn using Sakura Microns.
05 or 08 for the walls
02 or 03 for the hatching
01 for details
005 for floor grid if there is one
I’m slowly transitioning from Microns to Mitsubishi Uni Pins because I find the tips slightly softer, giving me more variety of line thickness.
Noticed the viaduct sideview under the map in one of the pictures. It reminds me a lot of the viaduct in edinburgh. They built one through the city so the affluent people of newtown could skip over oldtown, a wretched hive of scum and villans, and get straight to the university. The shored up the sides with tenament buildings and in time the undergrounfld vaults became home to criminals and maybe ‘other things’
Edinburgh is a fantastic inspiration for urban games, its all twisted narrow streets and secret underground buildings and tales of murders and monsters.
The tl;dr is- Will we ever see some urban street mapping from you Dyson? 🙂