Block Change Request: Red Dorne palette

Azulejo

Bloodmage
Staff member
Request: Red Dorne palette

Request Type:
General Addition

Try to describe all workarounds and associated issues that make it necessary to add this block in your eyes.

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First of all I have to point out this is a big additon. I think there's a missing aspect in Dorne: red and orange tones. Rammed earth/tapial and red sandstone are used widly all over areas from where inspiration is gathered in order to build the region. A new palette would greatly improve the look and feel of it, futher sepparating its look from the Westernlands (I think we're already in that path), something sometimes is brought up. This, however, does not mean that our current builds would become outdated. Both styles are perfectly compatible and could be used to create different areas, making Dorne feel much more deep and diverse.

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Our current terrain sets already display this colour variation in the rocks. Those would be the tones I think we should strike for. A full set made of several textures, like the Arbor set, would be the best fit and will allow great exploration with the style. It might be necesary to add some transitional blocks, so it can blend with the plasters and the stones we currently have, mainly in order to make a beautiful gradient. I would suggest adding:

A block with the texture of the Arbor Brick and another with the texture of the Arbor Small Brick. They could be used to represent adobe/mud bricks.
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A plaster looking block, either like the Arbor Light Stone or Dorne Mud Plasters (it'd be great if plasters did not create a border when in contact with each other, but i understand this is a complicated request). Although not necessary this could be complemented with a timber framing set, useful in Dorne and maybe some areas of the Stormlands or places with high amounts of clay, like the Red Fork.
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A block with a cobble like texture to represent rougher tapial works (which are ususally combined with stones at the bottom to give them more stability).
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A block with a big bricks texture to represent big sandstone blocks
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A block(s) to trasition from the red pallette to the yellow tones of terracotta and sandstone and/or a block(s) to trasition from the red pallette to the more desaturated dark dorne plaster, dull terra.cotta and monochrome sandstone. If we want we could go for a block that transitions with red blocks that could be usefull to make Riverrun.
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A test phase will determine which ones need a full set (walls, stairs, slabs etc.). Here I link an imgur album with some inspiration pics.

Types of evidence to support your request: Historical, Canon

Historical Evidence
Many of the areas and builds we use for inspiration for Dorne display orange-y tones that match the materials and the terrain of the area they're built on. There is not explicit canon information that metions this tones on Dorne, but we do know that there are red sand deserts and, of course, the Red Mountains. The Sandship is "dun-colored", something that could be interpreted as a more sandy, desaturated brown or clay like (apparently dun is a term used for horse colours). Mud bricks are present on Sunspear and the Shadow City architecture.

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Even if Sunspear is made with a more desaturated brownish colour I think other areas of Dorne could benefit from this addition, like Hellhot, Sandstone, Salt Shore or potentially, although not necessarily, the area around the dornish rivers (maybe one or two of the tributaries, while the Greenblod stays with a pallete similar to Tor, for example).​

Canonical Evidence
The prince leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes, but Hotah knew he did not sleep. He is in pain. For a moment he considered calling Maester Caleotte up to the litter, but if Prince Doran had wanted him, he would have called himself.
The shadows of the afternoon were long and dark and the sun was as red and swollen as the prince's joints before they glimpsed the towers of Sunspear to the east. First the slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded steel that added another thirty feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with its dome of gold and leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some monstrous dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone.
Only three leagues of coast road divided Sunspear from the Water Gardens, yet they were two different worlds. There children frolicked naked in the sun, music played in tiled courtyards, and the air was sharp with the smell of lemons and blood oranges. Here the air smelled of dust, sweat, and smoke, and the nights were alive with the babble of voices. In place of the pink marble of the Water Gardens, Sunspear was built from mud and straw, and colored brown and dun. The ancient stronghold of House Martell stood at the easternmost end of a little jut of stone and sand, surrounded on three sides by the sea. To the west, in the shadows of Sunspear's massive walls, mud-brick shops and windowless hovels clung to the castle like barnacles to a galley's hull. Stables and inns and winesinks and pillow houses had grown up west of those, many enclosed by walls of their own, and yet more hovels had risen beneath those walls. And so and so and so, as the bearded priests would say. Compared to Tyrosh or Myr or Great Norvos, the shadow city was no more than a town, yet it was the nearest thing to a true city that these Dornish had.​
A Feast for Crows - The Captain Of Guards

File(s) attached
 
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Azulejo

Bloodmage
Staff member
If by Doku textures you mean the ones already in our pack, I've added them thinking it would make life easier for those in charge of making the textures, consistency and as a way to explain what types of blocks I was referring to. If you want to make your own textures from scratch feel free to do so, that'd be lovely! I think there's enough inspo already linked but don't hesitate on hitting me up if you need more.​
 

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
The textures don't need to be recycled from other brick/sandstone textures (we have other one-off stone types such as river cobble, for instance). However, it's important that they're still in the same general style as our other Doku-based textures, and transition well enough with the blocks that they'll be in contact with.

That said, I'm wondering if we're putting the cart before the horse here. I love how thought-out and detailed this request is! But I also think we need to have more centralized discussion on our plans for Dorne itself before we start putting new blocks into the development phase. What different stylistic influences and color palettes do we want to see in different subregions of Dorne? Endy and Dragons also sent me a list of their own block suggestions for Dorne about a year ago, and I'm not really sure how those fit in with the palette proposed here. I'd like to see all our Dorneheads come together and come up with a cohesive vision for the region, a complete set of block suggestions that they feel necessary to achieve this vision, and maybe some nice maps delimiting the substyles and palettes (similar to that timber frame map). Then we can run through the block suggestions and move stuff into the development phase.