Thursday 24 November 2011

Mapping Flaimehaven

So I generated a rough description of Flaimehaven using Abulafia and tried to sit down to map out the place. My first attempts using Vornheim to create a street map failed. Alphabet roads, although they've worked for Portherion (in the Great Campaign) and the ruined city in the Celestial Door setting, just wouldn't gel for Flaimehaven.

Flaimehaven felt like a planned town so I sat back and did the most "planned" map I could think of and placed the locations Abulafia had provided.

I hate it. The grid and the scale. I reckon each block is about 200' to a side which makes the whole place roughly a mile to a side. It's a small city and not a town. I put it to one side and let my thoughts percolate.

This afternoon I sat down and made a second attempt. Same locations but instead of a lazy grid I thought things through. Here's what I came up with:



There's still a grid but it's less formal. The scale is better too. I reckon it could be 5 foot to the pixel and I could probably map it on a much grander size but probably don't need to.

Only there's still a problem. As Terry Pratchett says the first priority with any town and city is how the water gets in and the waste gets out. So unless I make a third attempt and remember to put a river through the town there's a spring that rises up under the plaza. The resulting stream flushes out the sewers and exits from under the northwest corner of town. Possibly accounting for all those disused houses.

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