Great, thanks for offering to clean the map up jodydhee!

WIP (work-in-progress) Update:

Map imported, clean-up in progress. Estimated 10% complete.

Well hurry up JK, take your time, I'm sure it will look great!

How is the map cleanup going? I'm going to sit down this weekend and put my himmelveil notes to solid prose so we have a "flavor" starting point.

I'm keen, but in no rush.

By the way, belated thanks for taking on the map clean-up joydyhee

You are quite welcome.

It is going a bit slower than I expected, mostly due to RL commitments on my end, but I am making solid progress. Look to see something soon!

No worries. Background is coming along a bit slower. Same reason. Events in the larger world are increasing my real life committments at the moment.

I've got almost the entire map converted to a clean version. I have as many text labels as possible (based on what is on the map), but many are partially or fully unreadable. If anyone has any info on the text labels (the small ones; the large ones are readable), that would be a big help.

Jodyhee,
PM Denny or Bob. They are the only ones who might be able to decipher what was written.

Managed to work out most of them. Starting from the top left it looks like (format = Area: small text):

Left side (top down)
Farmlands: Old City wall
14: Old City Wall
15: Old City Wall
11 Byrch District: Middle class Homes & Businesses
Zigurat of Uros(?)
Circus Maximus District:
- 25: Old City ???
- 24 (above): Royal Hospice of St Cyanorrd
- ??? of ???
- Guild College
- 24 (beside): Royal Himmelveil Merchants' Bank & Stock Exchange
10b Granary: Royal Granaries & Warehouses
1 (left): Government District
1 (right): Embassy District
4: Preator's Palace
4: Barracks of Praetorians
5: General Market and Obelisk of Simala(?)
Westwyck District: (Middle class Homes & Businesses)
5a: New Market
22 Fillinstead: (Middle class Homes & Businesses)
23 Westdocks: (Warehouses, Docks & Slums)
21 Westdocks: (Warehouses, Docks & Slums)
12b Mages' Corner: Mages' Market
Old City Wall
(Bottom of map): Village of Nichelstrand(?)

River (top down, including islands)
Bargetown: Bargetown Docks
Beside the '11': Royal Riverwalk Theatre
Grandbridge
Ynys Padard: Island Shrine and Statue to the River God Padarn
Slavers' Island: Slavers' Market
Slavers' Island: Slaverton
Ynys Gael: Private Island Estate of ??? ???

Right side (top down)
Farmlands: Coileach Dike
Colecollen (left): Green Man Inn
Colecollen (middle): (Entertainment District)
Colecollen (middle): Rom's(?) Heart Inn
Judon District: (Middle class Homes & Businesses)
Crionna: (Dwarven District)
Eastdocks: (Warehouses, Docks & Slums)
Custenn: (Middle Class Homes & Businesses)
51 (left): City Legion Barracks & Parade grounds
51 (right): (Keep, Grounds & Gardens of the Earl of Himmelveil)
Galanta: (Elven District)
Eastdocks: (Warehouses, Docks & Slums)
The "Rookeries": (Slums)
38: Teithian Cathedral & Grounds
39: The Sated Worm Tavern
Barleyhome: ?????, Oil(?) Dealers & Dyers
Niamstead: (Middle Class Homes & Businesses)
Segwyck: (Bakers, Butchers, Spice & Tea Dealers, Grocers, etc.)
Piperforge: (Iron smelters, Metalworkers' District)
Riverside: (Shipyards, Drydocks, Sailwrights & other ship craftsmen)
Covettry: (Gem dealers, Jewelers & Goldsmith's District)
West Hamble: (Tailors, Furriers, & Haberdashers District)
East Hamble: (Carpenters, Masons & Craftsmen District)
42: Linen, Textile, Wool & Leather Market
Salmongut: (Fishermans' Quarter)
Salmongut (below left): Fish Market
Salmongut (below right): Fresh Meat Market
Woodfell: (Lumberyards)
Woolerstoke: (Wool Factories & Spinners)
The Yards: (Livestock Yards & Dock)
Millsheath: (City Quarry, Coal Yards, Mills & Slaughterhouses)
Offshore: ??? Jetties
Offshore: Foddstern(?) Lighthouse & Reefs

Corrections and improvements most welcome.
The most annoying area is Barleyhome - the trades/businesses in this district should be fairly logical, just couldn't figure out what they are.

I've made some guesses about at the geography of Himmelveil:

Looking at the overall layout, it looks like the prevaling winds must be from the North West: wealthy areas in the north and west, smelly businesses in the south east. This makes the location of the wealthy districts (e.g. Niamstead, Covettry and West Hamble) South East of the East Docks and Canbree/Rookeries slums unusual. This really only makes sense if the the wealthy districts are at higher altitude, above the odor of the slums. Which gives us an elevated area that runs south from the City Legion Barracks and the Old Qaali Fortress to Covettry and the Hambles. This also explains the "Rookeries": a steep area, overgrown with slum dwellings, that climbs up to the higher areas occupied by the wealthier trades.

In the Western half of the City both the Temple and Mages Quarters are likely to be located on rising terrain: Temples to show off their grandeur and Mages residences for the better views. This suggest that in these areas the ground rises steadily from the river to the base of the cliffs surrounding the Qaali Quarter. The other districts around the base of the cliffs may also rise, though probably to lower heights.

Overall, rather than being a flat city with a couple of fortified high areas, this suggests that there is considerable variation in height around Himmelveil.

As a balance for all this elevation, Himmelveil is also famous for its canals. This means large areas of the city must be low lying and flat. West of the Kriegstrom, the districts of Granary and West Docks would be serviced by canals, although large areas of Granary would sit higher above the river to ensure essential grain stores are safe from flooding.

Where the canals on the west half of the city may be mainly functional, east of the Kreigstrom they are a way of life. The districts of Colecollen, East Docks and the Alggardi quarter are probably riddled with canals (in many areas, there may be no roads at all). The canals could also reach right around the south of the city, through Salmongut to Millsheath, and may even extend up as far as Piperforge.

As for the canals themselves, the ideal is an inland canals system supplied with fresh water from the Kreigstrom, and which operates at a level above the high tide line. This is easiest if the tidal zone only reaches as far as the Grandbridge (fresh river water above the Grandbridge, tidal below). The inland canals can then be fed from the Kreigstrom (through Colecollen district) - the height difference this gives keeps the canals clean by giving them a slow but steady flow south where they eventually drain into the sea. This leads to potentially two parts to the canal system: the inland fresh water canals whose height is stable; and the tidal canals whose water level may vary considerably over the course of a day. The two systems would be linked by locks to protect the fresh-water inland system.

The locations of the docks suggests that the south coast itself is generally too exposed for most commercial boat traffic. Canals in the southern districts are therefore probably not linked to the sea. The exception would be at the docks in The Yards district, which are then linked back to the fresh-water canal system (though how fresh it would actually be by the time it gets there is anyone's guess).

With a canal system this extensive, some of the major routes marked in the eastern half of the city may well be waterways, rather than roads. [We may want to agree on whether this is the case, and if so, which ones.]

Thanks Zenguy for the deciphering and the outlook.

Below, is my first pass at the map conversion. I will attack the elevation as you have described it next (so this is fairly flat with the two obvious areas on plateaus).

Also, as you can see, this is the "clean" version, with only major city/geographical features. I have hidden the text labels (and grid overlay) for now so I can actually draw the map. All of big the text is in, and I will use
Zenguy's list to fill in the rest.

Looking good!

Bump to get this back on my build list.
Where are we up to with this?

Thanks for the bump! I needed the reminder

Text tags, gridding, and dissemination sound about right...thoughts?

Sounds good to me. I still owe a background to the group as well. I've a project with a deadline approaching, but I'll see if I can squeeze this in. Thanks for the bump.

Good deal. I will work on the tagging and gridding...did we decide what the size of each grid square should be?

I suppose we can figure it out two ways: in actual feet and in TLX tiles. That will help when it is overlaid. It basically comes down to how much do we expect one person to do for one grid space?

Also, I have the two high points on the map marked in gray, but how about actual other elevations / actual building heights?

Thoughts?

1. Size of each grid square: I think 6x6 tiles is a fair compromise between breadth and build time. This would allow people to easily break a grid square into manageable pieces in collaboration. Remember, there has to be a sewer/subterranean level below the street for EVERY build. So in a 6x6 build you are talking 72 tiles, 36 for each level. THoughts?


2. Other elevations: I say the intermediate elevations are up to the individual builder. I will try to provide some loose direction in the city background, but I think this is a place you let people loose with their imagination. You've pegged the extreme elevations, so that should help guide people.

We might even be able to break the above-ground below-ground separately so perhaps people do not necessarily have to design both...I have to think about that more. Unless we do a "basement" level that is optional for each above-ground square and have the actual sewers and dungeons below that. Let me know what you think about that.




Sounds good on this point.

Nice! I'd almost forgotten about this, but I'm going to (hopefully!) have a lot of time to build this summer, so this is good timing.

BUMP!
Any progress on this?

above ground/subterranean split: I think people collaborating on a tile can split it any way they choose, but I also think you want to leave it as a standing rule that the tile has to address a subterranean layer. This keeps things standardized across the whole city. It's fine if someone builds out a street and states that there is no subterranean layer or sewer below, but this at least gives people working on adjacent tiles a heads up that their sewers and such need to end at the border of their tile.

Bump!
This was such a Phantasmagorical idea you guys started. Status?
I just started grabbing some Himmerveil TLX sets and printing out tiles and this seems a great way to start using them as I do not have a gaming group to otherwise use them for [damg dangling participle!). I look forward to participating.

I was thinking that there should be a cavern/mine complex deep within either of the butte/bluffs...

Definitely. I've always liked mixing newer excavations with older ones - maybe the Oubliet of Peril with older LHotDK dwarven tunnels.
But first we probably need to make some progress above ground.

Did we get anywhere with working out a scale for Himmelveil?

As a follow-on to zipdaddy's 6-05-11 post:


How are we thinking of handling the "layered" feature of the city in terms of subsequent cities being built atop one another? Is this being interpreted as an optional depth(s) in certain areas to represent these older cities (likely with usually one or two levels)? And would these be below the existing sewers - or is the entire city using in (some parts) the original sewers that might be dozens if not hundreds of feet below the current surface levcel. The main problem here, of course, is that the main sewer level would have to be at sea-level, otherwise where would it go? It could be conceived that some portions of the earliest cities sank under the weight of the later builds. Some of their original connections to other parts would have been severed to in this case a sewer (or street) line would come to an abrupt end.

We will definitely have to have a subterraenean number system for the levels. Has this been addressed as of yet?

Thread necro!

Anyone interested in reviving this project?

I wouldn't be opposed. Especially if we can find a way to do something similar with Deadfall. At the very least, the Feisty Friar will fit right in.

Much as I'd love to, my build time is much reduced right now. It's on my list of projects to do when I get running again, though.