Approved Project Application: Darkdell

AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
Pronouns
they/them
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House Vyrwel of Darkdell
Presented by the illustrious GentleIrongiant, ContraBlonde and AeksioOndos

House Vyrwel of Darkdell is one of the principal houses of the Reach, sworn to Highgarden. They are Andals that were given land by the Three Sage Kings during the time of Andal invasion in order to protect the borders of the Gardener’s realm. Igon Vyrwel is the current captain of the guards at Highgarden — AGOT Appendix and WOIAF

A previous Lord and Lady Vyrwel attended the disastrous Tourney at Whitewalls. During the attempted Second Blackfyre Rebellion, a man in service to House Vyrwel was killed by a Costayne knight after claiming to be one of Bloodraven’s spies. — The Mystery Knight

The fiercest fighters in the stormlands, and perhaps in all of Westeros, are undoubtedly the men of the marches, who are said to be born with sword in hand and oft boast of learning to fight even before they learn to walk. Theirs is the task of protecting the realm of the Storm Kings from the ancient enemies to the west and, especially, the south. — WOIAF

The castles of the Dornish Marches are among the strongest of the realm, and for good reason, for seldom has a generation passed when they have not faced some new attack. They (the Stormlands Marcher castles) were established to create a bulwark against incursions from the Dornish and the Kings of the Reach. — WOIAF

On the server, House Vyrwel is currently located north of the Prince’s Pass (historically called the Wide Way) and so is one of the Reach Marcher lords.

The hundreds of leagues of the marches consist of grassland, moors, and plains, with a portion of the Red Mountains to the east. The Marches formed an effective buffer zone between the three kingdoms (Dorne, Stormlands, Reach) The Kingdom of the Reach included western marches from Horn Hill to Nightsong … most of the marches are now in the stormlands. However, Hornhill and Starpike are Reach marches. — WOIAF

Despite being so close to the deserts of central Dorne, the highlands of the marches have a rather cold climate. — ADWD

The marches are known for producing excellent bowmen. — AGOT, WOIAF

The marchers sing lengthy ballads which, according to Tom of Sevenstreams, are each a hundred verses long. — ASOS, WOIAF




The Plan

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Maroon border with red squiggle — Darkdell (the castle)
Maroon border — Vyrwel town, House Vyrwel’s trade hub where traders stop between the Mander and the Princes Pass
Maroon triangle — Vyrwel vassal
Maroon dot — Canyon holdfast
Lime green dots — Herders and shepherds crofts and hovels
Lime green lines — Farming hamlets
Pink dot — Hermitage
Orange — Industry i.e. logging camp, charcoal burners in the forest and clay pits along the stream
Dark green lines — Yew woodland
Light green dotted lines — grassland
Brown lines — roads, some have blended a bit too much with the terrain
A road will be added that heads to Starpike and will be plotted as terrain of the two projects is completed further.

Settlements
The main village, called Vyrtown for ease of communication, is a major revenue source for the Vyrwels. It’s a trade hub on the Marches situated on a major road from Highgarden, through Whitegrove and into the Prince’s Pass to Dorne. While this isn’t the only road, and its tributaries and the main overland route to Dorne.
The town itself is built on the side of the hill that overlooks the small floodplain where they grow their crops. Because of this, many pathways through it become winding and alleyways can be quite steep.
In the past, the town centre served as a refuge for peasants from Dornish reavers, if they were able to flee in time. Nowadays, that same walled square serves traders between Dorne and its northern neighbours with multiple smaller inns having developed (one almost like a multitenant spreading through multiple buildings) to cater to travellers passing through. On the square is a fortified sept, which was the last redoubt in case Dornish assault broke through the outer walls. It features a tall belltower and significant Vyrwel house crypt. A drinking house also is situated on the square, as well as some horse breeders and salesmen who supply fresh mounts and oxen to trade caravans hawking their prices. Approx. 30 houses
Inspiration comes mostly from Languedoc-Roussillon, Pyrenees-Orientales and other areas of the French Pyrenees, and vaguely from Circulade and Bastide planning with some influence from Sos del Rey Catholico in Aragon.

In the north of the project, a hamlet (vyrham1) sits on the road near a stream fork at the edge of the yew woodland. Mostly focused on horticulture with some silvopasture, it functions as the hub for workers at the tile maker downstream and the charcoal burner and logging camp (vyrlogging). A workshop for bowyers is present in the hamlet and supplies the area’s bowmen with weaponry. Approx. 10 houses

Between the town and castle is a small farming hamlet (vyrham2) that has fields on the bend of the stream. Approx. 8 houses

The road from the Prince’s Pass runs through a canyon on the way to the town. A holdfast (Vyrhf) sits above the road.

To the east of the town is a fortified manor of a vassal of House Vyrwel (Vyrvassal/Corvobianco). These landed knights have a mostly self-sustaining estate with olive groves, a small vineyard, livestock and a weaving workshop. Approx. 6 houses + manor

A mountaintop hermitage (Vyrhermitage) sits south of the castle with a long winding path from the Marches below.

Small herder’s crofts are present in the foothills and mountains. They won’t have warps.



The Vyrwel Castle - Darkdell

Darkdell will be settled on the edge of a mountain spur, with a stream below. The modest but still formidable castle lacks many ornamental elements found in other areas of the Reach. The upper castle and particularly the keep are older, of Andal construction, and the scant ornamentation has been added later. Part of the curtain wall is built on top of an arch, which bridges the titular ‘dark dell’. This steep wooded gully is shaded by the castle and features scrawny pines and plentiful blackberries that make it more intimidating (feature inspired by Chateau de Roquefixade). There is a cave beneath the castle said to have once been the home of the silver wyvern on the Vyrwel sigil. However tale this is contested by other local legends.

Main castle inspiration is from Chateau Foix, Peyrepertuse, Puilaruens, Roquefixade (Aeks fav for terra) and other ‘Cathar Castles’, Zamek Ogrodzieniec, Klis Fortress, Chateau Bonaguil
Broad inspiration document



Tests
/warp vyrweltest on the green platform

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Economy
The region around the town caters to supplying travellers. Artisans and yeomen that sell beasts of burden make up some of the wealthiest individuals in Vyrwel. The town produces fine leather equipment and saddles, with hide and gut cleaning being an important task performed outside the walls.
To supply the leather work, many shepherds roam up the marches into the mountains, taking herds to the greenest available patches.
Livestock is dominated by cattle, goat and sheep rearing. The leaner animals are slaughtered for their intestines and hides, rather than meat. The gut strings are used to create the weapons of famed Marcher bowmen and musical instruments to accompany the long ballads sung by them. Fletchers reside in most settlements, and impromptu ranges are an infrequent but not unordinary sight. The bowyers of the northern hamlet regularly make forays into the forest to cut quality yew boughs.
Parts of the forest are managed, with coppiced and pollarded trees near hamlet 1, as well as silvopasture.
Another large part of the livestock rearing trade are horses. While no match for Dornish sand steeds, the region takes pride in its horseflesh and a number of merchants hawk fresh horses and mules to traders with carts and wagons.


Terrain
The terrain is roughly split into three broad areas. Yew woodland in the north blends into central clear grassland which morphs again into grassland with low scrub.
The yew woodland would be made up of hawthorn, blackthorn, juniper and hazel at the edges of grassland, which would be crowded out by yew. The canopy of the main forest will be made up of yew, ash, with some (whitebeam) and hazel. This then transitions into the neighbouring forests by decreasing yew canopy and instead having them as understory trees.
The grassland is relatively simple as it is maintained by grazing. It covers the central third of the project and most of the hills.
The mountains themselves are covered in low scrubby trees and based on the environment of the eastern French Pyrenees.

Schems to be made: Yew M|L, (Whitebeam), HazelS|M|L, ChestnutS|M|L(?), CoppicedHazel, Blackthorn​

Headcanon creation story
WARNING - THIS IS ENTIRELY A NON CANON STORY THAT AEKSIOONDOS CREATED WHILE INCREDIBLY SLEEP DEPRIVED AND IS BASED ON THE DRAGON OF KRAKÓW (SMOK WAWELSKI), MUTUAL OF BEAUCLAIR’S WILD KINGDOM QUEST IN WITCHER III AND FLIGHT OF THE CONCORD’S ALBI THE RACIST DRAGON
The Vyrwel legendary progenitor was an Andal warlord with a well sized but tough and hardy warband, so the Gardener king of the time offered them a tract of land on the south eastern borderland with Dorne and the Stormlands, under one condition. A drake of some kind, according to the tales of marcher folk, had been molesting the countryside and carrying off goats and cattle.
The Andal - who of course was also a knight - then set off on his quest and hid among the hills, watching and leaving out bait to see if he could draw out the beast or at least follow it back to its lair. After a few weeks of watching and waiting, the Andal knight was surprised by Dornish reavers while staking another goat carcass. The Dornish charged on him, throwing spears that the Andal caught in his shield before fleeing, for while they were strong of arms, they didn’t think that one against two score was survivable and honourably fled for their lives.
Behind him, the knight heard the terrified whinny of the sandsteeds but didn’t turn around, focused on getting over the ridge and out of sight. They forded a brook and climbed up to one of the rocky hilltops where he happened upon a cave. Hearing an alarming clatter from the direction of the brook, he climbed in, worried the Dornish were still on his tail and prepared for a final stand. But, instead of swarthy men with steel in hand, a silver beast with a blood-caked muzzle filled the entranceway, clutching a sand steed in its jaws.
~
Recognising the beast had saved him, the Andal chose not to attack and instead built a fire, which won over the creature - for it had no fire of its own - and the two enjoyed a cooked meal of horseflesh. Strange as it may sound, scaley lord and the wannabe human dined on a Marcher delicacy, for sand steed slain in battle is considered the most delicious meat.
The knight returned to their camp afterwards and investigated a hunch developed in the cave. It turned out that somehow, the wyvern was racist and only attacked Dornish animals and people and so the knight reassessed his quest and instead focused efforts on convincing smallfolk to slaughter any animals taken in raids on the Dornish mountaineers.
Trusting his plan, mostly due to its key element of no loss of limb, the Andal went back to the king of the Reach and told them that the silver wyvern would no longer be an issue and if it were, he would forfeit his life.
~
And so the noble house began, with a wooden motte on the grasslands and a ban on the purchase or theft of Dornish livestock. No further attacks happened and the marcher herds were developed into prime breeding stock without hardy Red Mountains genes.
Reavers were found dead in the hills, supposedly due to the might of these new Andals, and the new Faith of the Seven rituals seemed to strangely involve sacrificing animals in the highlands.

Eventually, an enterprising man of the mountains came up with a stratagem to open up the cross border trade, allow raiding to resume and stop the wyvern which now plagued the mountains. They stuffed a goat carcass full of sulfur, phosphor and the hottest Dornish peppers available and bound its legs so it stood upright. The beast took the bait and then headed back to its lair, terribly unwell.
After noticing how his tributes were not being eaten, the Andal lord returned to the lair and found the wyvern dying, with the stinking, spicy sheep nearby. Rather than see it suffer, the knight decided to give the gift of mercy.
The sigil legend is safeguarded by a hermitage in the foothills of the Red Mountains maintained by House Vyrwel, whose cave sanctuary houses the skull of an enormous creature. Thought to be the wyvern of the story, in reality its a series of confused mammoth and mountain lion bones. The hermitage is devoted to the Crone, while the chapel in the cave is dedicated to the Warrior.


Google doc link
 

DutchGuard

Shadowbinder
Staff member
Pronouns
he/him
Looking good! Could you be more specific about how the proposed changes will affect Leygood, Nightsong, and ToJ?

Could you also check the route of the proposed Mander tributary through Cockshaw lands? Any thoughts on a Cockshaw redo/update/foster re: style? Would the vassal near the Cockshaw border have a transitional style? Will you have a transitional style to the north where the project meets Whitegrove?

Could you draw more specifically how you would like to re-route the Prince's Pass, and elaborate on why this necessary?

I would also love to hear feedback about your proposed style and palette from SseriousBusiness who has been perfecting neighbouring Starpike, and to make sure the proposed new terrain along the shared border is agreeable.

I am very keen on your proposals for grasslands, could you provide some tests?

Do Darkdell and Nightsong jointly guard the Prince's Pass or is Nightsong the first line of defence? I suppose the answer to this relies on if you believe Nightsong is in the right location as it stands. I personally think it should be shifted north and replace Leygood, which is in a very strange position for a Reach house that isn't a Marcher Lord. Your thoughts?
 

AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
Pronouns
they/them
Looking good! Could you be more specific about how the proposed changes will affect Leygood, Nightsong, and ToJ?

Could you also check the route of the proposed Mander tributary through Cockshaw lands? Any thoughts on a Cockshaw redo/update/foster re: style? Would the vassal near the Cockshaw border have a transitional style? Will you have a transitional style to the north where the project meets Whitegrove?

Could you draw more specifically how you would like to re-route the Prince's Pass, and elaborate on why this necessary?

I would also love to hear feedback about your proposed style and palette from SseriousBusiness who has been perfecting neighbouring Starpike, and to make sure the proposed new terrain along the shared border is agreeable.

I am very keen on your proposals for grasslands, could you provide some tests?

Do Darkdell and Nightsong jointly guard the Prince's Pass or is Nightsong the first line of defence? I suppose the answer to this relies on if you believe Nightsong is in the right location as it stands. I personally think it should be shifted north and replace Leygood, which is in a very strange position for a Reach house that isn't a Marcher Lord. Your thoughts?


First off, the plan is to have as little impact on the neighbouring eastern projects without being influenced by their older style, most specifically with Leygood (LG). And then potentially have them done to a high standard as separate projects. With Nightsong (NS), the only effect this project should have is to change terra on the western border and to remove nshf/move it to old builds and reroute the Prince's Pass to be further east rather that its current 90° bend westwards. The Tower of Joy should be unaffected by this, due to its position directly south of NS castle, on the eastern side of the pass.

In regards to Cockshaw, it is entirely possible to redo or update Nero's project as part of this one. This would require some group discussion. However, I'd say that in keeping with desire for grasslands, much of the southern lands would need to be redone, making a foster an unfavourable option. It might be best to do after Darkdell is progressed/finished so that burnout is avoided (speaking mostly for myself here. I don't want to do too much terra).

I've worked on how to plot the Mander tributary through Cockshaw and asked Nero about it and that rough course seemed like the best one at the time. It flows through the lowest points of the project. If necessary Contra, Iron and I could annex a portion of Cockshaw around the stream and in order to create a riparian/small flood plain environment. However that might be edging too far into just applying to redo the other project.

Yes, there will be a transitional styles. The vassal near the Cockshaw border uses a transitional style for its houses. Currently we have 4 general styles used in parts of the project. Apologies, I thought I added captions to the imgur album but it seems I forgot them. They've been added now. I'm working on a map quickly to illustrate the areas different styles are used in.

As stated earlier, the changes to the Prince's Pass are necessary in order to fulfil the lore that Nightsong is north or at the head of the prince's pass. Currently its position puts it east of a bend in the pass, in the mountains, not the marches (the castle looks down on Kingsgrave). The positioning of Darkdell north of the current server route makes it easy to confuse DD for NS and NS for Kingsgrave. If the pass were rerouted to at least move past/under Nightsong it would be far more difficult to confuse the two.

In our planning, Nightsong guards the path to the Reach heartland from the Prince's Pass while Nightsong is the first line of defense. This is why Darkdell is not mentioned in the Vulture Hunt.
My original idea for this project back in June 2019 was to do a huge reshuffle with Nightsong to move to Leygood, Cockshaw to become a vassal of Darkdell centred around a managed wood on the river. The reasoning for that change being that shaw means forest and the local Mander tributary is the Cockleswhent. Darkdell would then shift north to vaguely south west of the current Cockshaw castle. However, this was planned many years ago as a Megabuild and the idea was dropped.


My position is to rename the Leygood project and simply make it a town belonging to Caron of Nighstong. Then the Leygood name should be given to a vassal or Holdfast in either Hornhill, Starpike, Vyrwel or Cockshaw lands. We do not know if Leygood are a house of landed knights or lords, as the Caltrops only refer to Lucas Leygood's father as Leygood, not as Lord or Ser. This gives room to argue they only have a modest castle and lands.


There'll be more info about grassland terrain tests in the morning. I've got to sleep now.
 

IMajic

Royal Messenger
Good luck with your first project, Im sure it will be great one!!
It is a great project to be doing and plenty of scope to keep you all busy doing things collectively and separately across the project.

Looking forward to see the Layout for the town.

Hopefully the princes pass area or where both terrasets meet, [the mountains] and to the west; hopefully they don't look to contrasting as seen in other areas on the Reach/Dorne border. Not sure if the (new ish) terraset-alt sorts this issue out. As would be good to see some tests to see how it could be resolved or how it would look?

anyway,
good luck.
 

AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
Pronouns
they/them
I made a grassland test in the Darkdell test area awhile back that Aeks, CC and Peanut liked, though I’m not sure if they still want to go in that direction


The grasses and the rockiness of it is what we are going for, however it needs a different tree mix to fit the cool highland environment. This could be done with using schems to represent young twisted yew trees, Hawthorn and potentially some Hazel rather than Aleppo pine. You're tests are regardless beautiful Jake!
 
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DutchGuard

Shadowbinder
Staff member
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he/him
Bump, Again.
It’s been 2 weeks without a mod response
:(
I'm just waiting on some promised grassland tests.

Also, it seems as though you are unsure of what palette to use for the castle. Has that been decided?
I'm not such a huge fan of the mixed gradients. I think a transitional style should be a mix of buildings of each style, and not literally mixing the palette together. This is the case IRL. The poorer housing/industry might use the cheaper local stone, while the higher status buildings could afford to have the better quality reach stone shipped down from the north. e.g. the further north you are, the more reach palette buildings you get, and the further south, the more OT palette buildings as distances between each resource change.

Besides that I think the rest looks good and seeing as the three of you have a fair amount of experience behind you I have very few reservations. Just a grassland test for now would be enough for my approval, and the condition that palette options are elaborated on in this thread before the go ahead is given.
 

ContraBlonde

Bookbinder
So the Castle itself will be the standard pink reach palette.

As for the mixed palettes, I do understand what you mean but I feel there are instances where it looks good, for instance in Horn Hill and Oldtown there are houses that are pink reach with arbor and oldtown stone mixed in. Also the Mixed stone often represents erosion (wether it be from dirt, rain, or air) not a different type of stone. My rationale for the mixed palette was that it is mean to match the associated terrain set, whether it be Reach, Westerlands or Arbor.
 

lemonbear

Nymeria
Staff member
Pronouns
she/her
I kinda agree with Dutch about the mixed stone palette. I have seen instances where a mixture (more similar to your tests that just use oldtown/arbor stone at points of erosion, rather than a main part of the gradient) is used effectively and well, but it's usually at a larger scale than in a small town house. I'm fine with you keeping the tests that I mentioned in the parenthetical, but otherwise I think having individual houses that are all pink reach or all arbor/oldtown will overall look better.
 

ContraBlonde

Bookbinder
I kinda agree with Dutch about the mixed stone palette. I have seen instances where a mixture (more similar to your tests that just use oldtown/arbor stone at points of erosion, rather than a main part of the gradient) is used effectively and well, but it's usually at a larger scale than in a small town house. I'm fine with you keeping the tests that I mentioned in the parenthetical, but otherwise I think having individual houses that are all pink reach or all arbor/oldtown will overall look better.
I am fine with that idea. I can compromise and only have the mixed gradients on larger builds while having standard palettes on small peasant houses if that works for y’all?
 
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otty

Sorcerer
Pronouns
she/her
Here is the Grassland test

Hello Hello,

Someone who grew up on the great plains here with a massive prairie reserve south of her home.We don't have rocks! (Even in Africa, no rocks :D ) If we do they are narrow little strips which are very difficult to replicate well Minecraft, so I would just suggest having none

Also, the shrubbery is odd as it wouldn't coniferous (even if you used it for the darker color it's still not great). Mostly deciduous trees are present. Also, trees and shrubs are found in valleys and crevices between hills — where water runoffs would be. I do know that in African grasslands they're actually flatter than the ones in many parts of North America and have their trees more sporadically place due to their more adaption to the almost desert-like arid climate.



Document_6__c4ec477a-6130-428f-ba53-5da23efd02b8.jpg


Here are the beautiful Flint Hills surrounded by my Alma Mater. These are a particular sector of the Great Plains along with the red hills and Smoky hills and ... if you wanna use Kansas / Nebraska as your Inspo this was what all my local biology and geology lessons were about hah! But as you can see no rocks, and trees found in valleys. And let me tell you, I had to really hunt for a photo with trees that were not planted by ranchers and farmers to prevent wind erosion. So really there just shouldn't be many.

However, all this said... I don't think "grasslands" fit

Grasslands as am referring to it, are found in the flatter parts of each continent, yours are in very mountainous areas. If these types of grasslands are what you're wanting be wary of that yours are too close to the mountains to really be true grasslands. I think something like the Badlands in South Dakota is a strong set of inspiration seeing that they're these huge sunken rock formations that occur within the great plains and are surrounded by prairie. Could look at some of the transition areas there for inspo!

Hopefully, this helps!
 
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AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
Pronouns
they/them
Trees in the valleys and grassy tops is exactly what I was thinking originally for the grasslands! I had a great image on my old computer taken in Segovia but I have no idea where it is now that demonstrated what you're roughly suggesting.

It'd be entirely possible to work out some new tests for the area. I'm a bit busy with exams so I'll probably get onto it next week.

On the point of mountainous stuff, The southern part of the project will be hilly and mountainous while there will be a grassland section in the centre of the project which will then blend into yew woodland, which can start to colonise grasslands if sufficient grazing is not present. This begins with hawthorn and in rarer cases juniper, which is why I converted some trees from Jake's earlier test into the small juniper bushes, though perhaps that makes them seem a bit too common. The majority of the colour palette will be oak and birch leaf, with only smaller spatterings of the spruce leaves.
 
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