Approved Lonely Hills Terra Project

Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
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Would've been covered in turf too, this type of structure is fairly old (there are prehistoric examples afaik).

Structures like bothies are a bit anachronistic tbf, but are what the shieling developed into much later on.
Yeah I like the idea of including some of those, especially higher up in the mountains where they'd need to use what's around them.
 

AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
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Bothies and shielings are a bit more of a principle than a particular design style too.

A bothy is a bad weather shelter that I think needs to have two rooms. Doesn't matter if it's wood or stone or even fully enclosed. There are some bothies made as basically just stone lean-tos that look more like dolmen or megalithic tombs. These could be packed with pine branches or other things to wind proof and insulate them better too ofc.

Maintained bothies properly stocked with wood and tinder could be a matter of life or death in poor weather so nearby villages would be responsible to keep them well provisioned.

A shieling is a shepherds shelter capable of having humans and animals. Could be wood or stone also but often is much more of a back country kind of thing. Hence the clochan like stone construction that Finn linked. Shielings aren't something that needed to be maintained so much, so often with if they were stone like the pictures they'd slowly develop a turf roof through grasses and mosses gathering enough dirt on the roof to insulate it better.
 

Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
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Here's a draft of some shepherd paths that extensively cover the region. While not all of it would be under my jurisdiction, I'd just make the start of the roads and then mark them with melons to be joined up to projects like the Dreadfort and Last Hearth and Karhold when they get picked up. I've also added in some glacial tarns, which are lakes that form in glacial bowls near the peaks of the mountains. This just breaks up the monotony of having several empty valleys, and allows a greater variety of landforms. I've also decided to include river braiding as a result of all the deposited glacial till, there'd be multiple channels of water flowing in every which direction. Let me know your thoughts !

LonelyHills.png
 
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Finn01

Envoy
Here's a draft of some shepherd paths that extensively cover the region. While not all of it would be under my jurisdiction, I'd just make the start of the roads and then mark them with melons to be joined up to projects like the Dreadfort and Last Hearth and Karhold when they get picked up. I've also added in some glacial tarns, which are lakes that form in glacial bowls near the peaks of the mountains. This just breaks up the monotony of having several empty valleys, and allows a greater variety of landforms. I've also decided to include river braiding as a result of all the deposited glacial till, there'd be multiple channels of water flowing in every which direction. Let me know your thoughts !

View attachment 16826
Important to remember that with the terraforming around Long Lake - the White Knife currently does not have rapids (canonically they should have) and the current form of the river in server is too level/low - the river and therefore the Lake itself will probs be 3-5 blocks higher if this ever gets sorted out. Just something worth keeping in mind I guess.
 

Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
Pronouns
he/him
Important to remember that with the terraforming around Long Lake - the White Knife currently does not have rapids (canonically they should have) and the current form of the river in server is too level/low - the river and therefore the Lake itself will probs be 3-5 blocks higher if this ever gets sorted out. Just something worth keeping in mind I guess.
Definitely something I can work around, I’m not terraforming the white knife itself, merely a branch of it, which will look somewhat rapid like as a result of the river braiding.





Here's a basic test of what that may look like ! I tried to show scroll bars but they didn't really show up how I wanted them to, but you can appreciate some of the differentiation in sediment through biomes and different pebbles.
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IronGentleGiant

Playwright
I love the terra layout and as for the various streams and creeks coming down the hills well I was wondering if beaver dams could be added at locations where the elevation drops. Beaver dams are very good for a healthy water habitat and do protect native fish populations. You can find some facts on Beavers and their dams here and how they help local ecosystems.
 

Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
Pronouns
he/him
I come bearing gifts! A 3 week update! So landscaping is going well, the main valley and its offshoots are mostly done or being worked on by myself. In the more complete valleys, I've started to map rivers, landslides and forests. As a rudimentary colour and method test, I've whipped up this. Let me know what we think, and how it can be improved!

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Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
Pronouns
he/him
Hey all!

I'm here to bring up a little roadblock. So canonically, the White Knife has rapids downstream of where the Lonely Hills are. With that, comes the need to raise Long Lake and the White Knife itself. While Carc's terrain is brilliant and has revolutionised the North, I think it's inevitable that it needs to be scrapped and raised in order to make those canon rapids further downstream, as would the Long Lake.

I am writing to then ask for guidance. I would need to get very close to the river and lake anyway for the immersion, so I'd like to know how much freedom I have to change things with respect to the river and the lake? Obviously I don't want to lock myself into something long-term, but if it has to be done at some point, why not now when half of the lakeside terrain is getting a revamp?

Let me know your thoughts, mods,

- Jake
 

DutchGuard

Shadowbinder
Staff member
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Hi Jake, I think we're leaning towards getting it sorted out now while you are working on the lakeshore. Could you try to tell us specifically how to you want to go about doing this? How much higher do you expect the water level needs to be? How would the existing project there be affected?
 

Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
Pronouns
he/him
Hi Jake, I think we're leaning towards getting it sorted out now while you are working on the lakeshore. Could you try to tell us specifically how to you want to go about doing this? How much higher do you expect the water level needs to be? How would the existing project there be affected?
That is something I haven't even thought about yet (if I think about illustrious plans, I tend to set my heart on them lol). Uh, well I would reckon anywhere between 10-20 blocks to allow someone to create some really good rapids downstream. I reckon anything north of Ashwood is at risk of some sort of change. Afaik canon dictates the rapids are closer to WH, so that area seems to be where they'd be placed. Projects around Long Lake are, to use the technical term, *fucked*. The portion of Kings Road as well probably needs to be shifted up.

I'm not going to lie, this definitely seems like a much wider scope than my original intention with the project :oops:
 

AerioOndos

Donkey Lord
Staff member
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Seems like a good time for someone to apply for Harclay.... :D

Anyways, yeah we've got enough lore details for the kingsroad journey to be revamped a bit.

If you wanted to, you could put the long lake development as a later stage of the lonely hills immersion. maybe lift half of/one bank of the waterways so there's not absolutely enormous selections and disruption to existing projects.

Then the height fix up on the west bank could be done together with a Wolfswood Revamp/Lake revamp/Project Harclay.
Just thinking of how to get one part completed before there's another big area of placeholder terrain.

Alternatively, we could use this long lake fix up as a way to try 'speed running' a terra project by getting multiple (3+) editors on board to work simultaneously on the area, possibly across time zones. Admittedly this would be difficult because it would require working out a Wolfswood style and possible new tree schema, snow transitions, working across lore from Stannis/Asha, Bran, Tyrion and Jon who have passed through nearby as well as WOIAF notes.
 

Finn01

Envoy
That is something I haven't even thought about yet (if I think about illustrious plans, I tend to set my heart on them lol). Uh, well I would reckon anywhere between 10-20 blocks to allow someone to create some really good rapids downstream. I reckon anything north of Ashwood is at risk of some sort of change. Afaik canon dictates the rapids are closer to WH, so that area seems to be where they'd be placed. Projects around Long Lake are, to use the technical term, *fucked*. The portion of Kings Road as well probably needs to be shifted up.

I'm not going to lie, this definitely seems like a much wider scope than my original intention with the project :oops:
Rapids should really be north of Ashwood - need a reason for inability to sail up to WF.
 
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Jakethesnake8_8

Firemage
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Hiya gang!

Here's my 7ish month update! The greater portion of the hills are terraformed now, it's just a matter of doing rivers, vegetation, roads and the odd shepherd plot here and there. I'm also contemplating a small hamlet in the wider part of the valley just as a POI to draw people into the landscape.

I've also come up with some etymology for the Hills. They are the Lonely Hills because the few people who live there have seasonal depression and get lonely af :'(.

So, what's left to do? Well I need to transition things into the surrounding terrain and create a cohesive border. This will then lead into the raising of Long Lake (eek). I want to outline what that will entail in more detail (that rhymed lol). Anyway, it will result in the marked area being raised up and then patched into existing terrain.

There are two possible ways to go about this:

1) wipe projects around the lake and slowly build surrounding terrain in to raise the lake that way

2) poly select an area and raise it 10-15 blocks and then smooth the edges as best as possible

I am personally a fan of doing option 1) as it allows the snow border to be updated without having to skirt around structures. It also would end up with the most aesthetically pleasing version. It would also allow for the Wolfswood to be updated- something I believe is already on Carc's radar.

Let me know what is the most feasible solution and I'll set about making plans and preparing an application for an immersion to carry on when the lonely hills are complete.

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