Banister Fletcher series

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I've been posting these in the Roleplaying forum, but since they're scaled for GURPS (one yard per hex, though to save on storage space they're half-inch hexes at their resolution of 72 dpi), I thought I might a) post here instead and 2) put them all in one thread where they're easy to find rather than scatter them around.

"Posting what?", you ask. I've recently started sharpening my Campaign Cartographer skills by constructing maps based on plans in Sir Banister Fletcher's monumental History of Architecture (I recently got a cheap copy, 17th edition, published 1961, in case anyone wants to follow along in the hymnal). Everything's a real building, so there's no worrying about whether or not it's a "realistic" design. Were I clever, I could provide some DR/HP values based on the thickness of the walls. Maybe for the next one.

After doing a few Classical buildings, I'm now dabbling in the Middle Ages. The latest is Stokesay Castle (p. 422). This is a residental castle rather than a purely defensive structure; I'd hate to have to defend all those windows. The exterior staircase leads to a doorway to a room on the second floor. For comparison with the map, I found some nice aerial photos (scroll down a bit) of the structure as it currently stands, with the curtain wall gone and the moat filled in, and provides a look at the immediately surrounding terrain.

Adding to my wishlist for CC symbols: short flights of steps and staircases with landings in the middle (or, indeed, at the end). And I still have to master DD3's corridor tool.

[Philomath]

Very cool! Maps are hands down what I'm worst. They are also the one play aid that seems to add most to my sessions. Much appreciated!

[vicky_molokh]

I think at some point I'll have a use for them.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Church of the Apostles, Cologne (p. 355)

Large German Late Romanesque church, but suitable for any "large church" applications you may have. The grassy area of the cloister south of the church proper is, of course, open to the sky.

Went with a null background for a more "architectural" feel for the drawing. I almost went with an unpaved interior, but decided against it on the grounds that it would make it difficult to distinguish between the paved and unpaved areas of the cloister. The white grid is, perhaps, too pale; I might try a light grey the next time I'm dealing with a grey floor. What I haven't quite figured out how to do (or, indeed, whether I should try) is to represent the varying ceiling heights. The collonaded porch of the cloister is perhaps half the height of the aisle of the church next to it, which is in turn about half the center aisle. I played briefly with some different shadowing effects, but they weren't quite working for me, in part because the walls as drawn don't quite line up with the appropriate heights. The round room drawing tool in DD3 was a lifesaver here. Without it, I think I'd have given up on the apsidal bits. Need to come up with a more graceful way of handling the staircases on the west end.

[Phil Masters]

Nice work. I discovered Banister Fletcher when I was researching Places of Mystery...

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Great Temple at Abu Simbel (p. 37)

Egyptian temple, carved into the face of a cliff. The monumental statues outside are rather iconic. Pictures are widely available, but you can start here. A bit more classically dungeon-y that the previous maps, though not particularly extensive.

Unlike the previous maps, drawn using various wall and room drawing tools, this was, like the temple itself, "carved" into the surrounding material. That is, the bulk of the map is a mostly-filled layer, with an interior border drawn around the shape of the open space, with a bit of bevel and shadow to suggest wall-ness. I think I got the hex grid more-or-less the right color: enough contrast to be seen, but not so much that it clashes with the background. The statues don't look even slightly Egyptian but, hey, they're not just columns or blocks.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Cantonese Merchant's House (p. 1204; yes, the book is that long)

I find this one structurally interesting, similar to the House of Pansa in that it's mostly someone's house but has some other businesses attached. The rooms to either side of the ground floor entrance are shopfronts which can be completely opened, and each has its own stairway to an otherwise completely isolated room for the shopkeeper to live in upstairs. Just behind the ground floor shops are a pair of offices, each with a small window facing the hallway, through which one can transact retail business. The rooms farther back on the first floor and everything else on the second floor is living and working space for members of the household and guests. The ground floor areas without anything above them on the second story map (four small courtyards and a section of the central hallway) are open to the sky. The forward rooms of the rear part of the second floor have a sort of false balcony. There's room there on which one might, I suppose, step out, but it's not equipped with doors to make that particularly easy.

Here's where I really need short staircases. There are sets of two or three steps at two points along the ground floor hallway.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

does he have the Wikalat al-Ghuri, in Cairo?

It's a good model for any medieval/early modern caravanserai.

Three floors. Ground level -- rooms round a courtyard (with a single gate, presumably with a porter to discourage idlers & thieves) rooms being for storage of bundles of goods and as animal stabling.

Second floor -- offices for negotiation/discussion/transactions.

Top floor -- rooms to house merchant, family & entourage.

IIRC each vertical "column" of rooms had it's own spiral staircase to facilitate private movements.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

does he have the Wikalat al-Ghuri, in Cairo?

Nope. Non-western architecture is essentially an afterthought for Fletcher. Out of 1366 pages, maybe 80 are devoted to India, China, and the Muslim world (that's total, not each). It's a lack which is somewhat remedied in later editions, but they're not what I've got.

That said, given the technique I'm working with, I can turn just about any good architectural plan drawing into a CC3 map. When I tire of a steady diet of Fletcher, I may look elsewhere for source material.

[pyratejohn]

Very nice! So nice, in fact, that I'm inspired. So I've just asked my wife to purchase a copy of CC3 for my birthday.

Ok, I'm a cartographer in real life, so I'm curious about the process you are using. Do you scan the base map first, and then bring that up as a layer in CC3 then trace it? Or have you gridded off the plans in the book, then transferred them to a grid in CC3?

Again, good work!