Approved Mance's Camp - A Farewell Project to Otty's Sanity

otty

Sorcerer
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CashBanks

A Knight at the Opera
Staff member
This is very good and you should feel very good.

Do you think you'll stick with all skin/thatch/leather tent exteriors or will any be covered in snow?

These rope ties are also kinda fun, might be a pain to add to every tent though.
 

otty

Sorcerer
Pronouns
she/her
This is very good and you should feel very good.

Do you think you'll stick with all skin/thatch/leather tent exteriors or will any be covered in snow?

These rope ties are also kinda fun, might be a pain to add to every tent though.


Naw the snow-covered looked very "messy" and didn't translate well into Minecraft on the smaller scale compared to its use on castles.

I guess the occasional exposed rope tie could be used to help add but used limitedly on the tents as not to add visual clutter.
 

Iwan

Boldtown
Staff member
Mance's Camp is one of the last remaining mammoth tasks (pun intended) on the server, and IMO the most difficult one. For a number of reasons.

To create a compelling version of this very unique part of Westeros, we need to find answers to a number of questions.

What is Mance's Camp not?
Mance's Camp is not a settlement we usually create. Usually we build villages, towns or cities and assume they are static entities. Houses, walls, castles, those are all rather reliable so we can safely expect them to still be where we left them when we come back after a week, month, or year.

What is Mance's Camp?
Thousands and thousands of refugee wildlings fleeing an unknown terror. Through icy winds, rough terrain, deep snow. The cold. It's a death trail. Thousands of people marching south, thousands of people in motion, plowing through the snow, leaving behind a trail of destruction and death: all trees are cut down and burnt, all wild animals hunted or scared off, broken down sleds or tents, dead horses, dead lifestock, dead people. Fights for food or firewood. Old and sick dying, children dying, and no time to bury them. Whole families freeze to death in their sleep. They are all left behind.
And every day the camp moves on.

Then the camp, or rather, the camps: Families stick together, tribes distrust each other. Every night there are fights for food, for resources, for the best places to camp for the night. There's group pressing forward to be the first at the prime spots. There's others that fall behind. Some try to find their own ways south,... In fact, the entire north would show signs of people fleeing south.

In order to depict these dynamics, Mance's Camp is much, much more than building tents. It's mostly a terraforming project.

Where does that leave us in regards to this app?
I can see two different approaches to this, both with different pro's and con's:
a) We Stick
We simply split the project into a Camp and a Trail/Environs part, and, if you don't want to blow this project up into something you didn't really feel up to, you focus on the former, while we hope someone will pick up the latter eventually.
b) We are stuck
We decide it's better to follow each families trail from the start and roll this project up from the start by focussing on the latter aspect first before seeing where each all these people would have ended up at.

Either way we go, here's a bit of hands-on feedback for you:
a) The Location
The nature of Mance's Camp (people on the move) suggests that there is a somewhere all these people came from. The current location (at the far end of a number of valley surrounded by very tall, very rocky mountains) does not really help tell this tale. I suggest moving the camp east to the main river coming south from the Thenns (if that does not conflict canon).
b) The Communities
The camp as I understand it consists of numerous clans and tribes and families who all aren't quite friendly with one another. They'd all stick to one another and try and protect their immediate kin not only from the cold or icy terrors, but also all these other tribes they learned to distrust. The entire camp should be more spread out, and clearly depict individual communities.
c) The Resources
All these people need to eat, drink and stay warm. There'd be hunting parties sent out in all directions, trees cut down, etc etc. Lifestock and horses need food also, so this needs to be depicted.
d) The (immediate) Terrain
Wherever the camp ends up at (if we decide to move it), the terrain will need fixing. The rivers are bad and could be made much nicer, the immediate surroundigns should show the things I listed above, the mountains, cliffs, plains etc all need detailing.

---
I know you've been interested in Mance's for a long time. The tent tests are cute and work great (love the yurts). But, you said it yourself, you didn't put much effort into it. I think due to its very unique nature, Mance's deserves a bit more of that.
 

otty

Sorcerer
Pronouns
she/her
I guess there were some certain aspects I didn't clarify clearly in my applications.

"All these people need to eat, drink and stay warm. There'd be hunting parties sent out in all directions, trees cut down, etc etc. Lifestock and horses need food also, so this needs to be depicted."

This is indicated in my community and the addition of forests into the project. I didn't explicitly state it because I figure it was implied. I did not include livestock as there was only an indication of horses as they travel easily/are the source of travel. I figured their primary source of food was through hunting of hares, foxes and seals and apparently polar bears (according to the fur used on the tents). Which where the research of Sami, Mongolians and Eskimos came into place.

"The nature of Mance's Camp (people on the move) suggests that there is a somewhere all these people came from. The current location (at the far end of a number of valley surrounded by very tall, very rocky mountains) does not really help tell this tale. I suggest moving the camp east to the main river coming south from the Thenns (if that does not conflict canon)."

I simply kept the location and accepted the fact that where it was originally placed potentially had fair reasoning, not being able to offer my own defense to move it. I had no better idea. Considering it was a server build I figured there was more behind the decision than I was able to find out. I placed more faith in the original mods to have thought out the location than I should have.

Wherever the camp ends up at (if we decide to move it), the terrain will need fixing. The rivers are bad and could be made much nicer, the immediate surroundings should show the things I listed above, the mountains, cliffs, plains etc all need detailing.
I guess I didn't describe enough how much I was intending to undertake. I just fear that with how the rest of the far north looks, I shouldn't make half look one way and the rest well... the crummy WE we have in place now. It makes me fear that if we were to redo the entire river region and make that look pretty we might as well redo the entire "Beyond the wall" to the same standard as there is almost nothing else there at the moment. However, all that seems like a massive undertaking. So I centralized my plans to the small area and would have made the spread more gradual and blended it out. Rather than redoing it to just one entire river. As well Emot told me to quote "keep the river frozen" I did as requested. The immediate terrain was discussed and was retested. I believe I can redo the river but I do not have faith in myself to get it done in the near future.

The camp as I understand it consists of numerous clans and tribes and families who all aren't quite friendly with one another. They'd all stick to one another and try and protect their immediate kin not only from the cold or icy terrors, but also all these other tribes they learned to distrust. The entire camp should be more spread out, and clearly depict individual communities.

The current camp was going to be considered one type of community. There were going to be other large ones as well with minor ones in between. My highlighted red area was my initial claim. But I make note of the fact that I do not plot ahead of time until I have the project as so much will be affected by terrain rework and the flow of terrain. Rather I had even told myself that once I begin to plot I could always apply to expand my work if need be. It's not like I have other projects around me defining my boundary. So rather than paint, an entire area red I had my area of initial focus and if that wasn't enough then I could easily work out once I had that area complete. Again I mentioned the planning of communities and I had mentioned that I work better by just going with the flow of the terrain rather than taking the time to photoshop little squares over a flat picture of the land.


I struggle to put my research ideas to paper to describe to other people. Its a design weakness of mine. It is why I stated to you I hadn't put any effort into it, I didn't put any effort into fully elaborating what I knew. I know more than what I put down to know. I research more than I indicate but I don't ever express that in my app because I simply do not know to put the clutter of thoughts in my head to something comprehensible. So instead I rely on photos and basic broad explanations. Rather if someone asked specific questions I will have considerably more reasoning behind it.

Heck I didn't even include to cave system or "Gornes Way" or the spot with the two <3 characters. But I know about it, and I understand how I may implicate it. It's just my inability to put that information onto paper. I just didn't even bother. Its not an ideal trait I have, but I know how much longer it would have taken for me to apply had I absolutely planted all that in knew into my pdf. I also would like to clarify that my "very much me trynna look fancy but not actually putting any effort into doing so" was about the document design, not the effort I put forth to research and test this project. I'm trying to get back into my graphic design swing of things.

I decided to take up Mances because I knew no one else would besides this mad woman. It's in no area of my interest to be completely honest but if I wanted to migrate away from fostering, it was a nice transitional project. Aswell I saw it as a challenge to grow my building, planning and WE skills without jumping in the deep end. But the issue is I suck at about 3/3 of those things, which is why I fostered for so long. But I don't want to foster everything all the time and would really like to take absolute recognition to a project other than crummy Falwell with my time on the server. I realized that if I really would like to learn more about project planning and design I needed, to start moving back to doing full projects. This was the in-between I saw suitable. But I reverted back to my fostering application ways feeling scared to take on more than I can chew or more than I am capable of making work. As well I tend to be the kind that learns/works best with a brief breakdown and then thrown into action. Which I think shows.

*Deep breath* TL;DR I know more, researched more, tested more than I present/let on. I just don't really know how to take all that I know and express those ideas/ information and thats where didn't put any effort. I didn't try expressing them as I got away with it in fostering, and knew I work best designing and presenting in action anyways.

I don't know what else to put here other than maybe I underestimated the required work for mances. And that maybe I should focus my work elsewhere.
 
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CashBanks

A Knight at the Opera
Staff member
I don't know what else to put here other than maybe I underestimated the required work for mances. And that maybe I should focus my work elsewhere.

Just wanted to jump in and encourage you to continue with the application. Iwan made a lot of good points but I don't think anything he raised would be insurmountable. In terms of the scale of the terra I did a similar amount with Wull and would be happy to help (the mountains are basically done up there anyway)

Here's a comparison of the area of Wull terra I did and the approx location of Mance's

Let us know if there's any elements of the feedback you're stuck on/not sure about and we'll help with solutions.
 

Iwan

Boldtown
Staff member
I had a nice little novel typed out in reply to your last post, but then Chrome crashed. Gee, thanks for that!

The tl;dr is essentially what I told you ingame the other day:
1.) It'd be silly to limit our goals to create the best Mance's (and surroundings) possible by the possibility that it may turn out so beautiful, we will want to redo the rest of the Lands Beyond the Wall, as well. It's certainly probably that this may happen, but I 100%, hands down, guarantee you that no one will ever expect or ask you for that. You sign up for Mances, and Mances alone. If it turns out as nice as I anticipate it will and you enjoy continuing beyond its reach, then hardly anyone will object. If you are one day glad you can leave it all behind, and the necessary parts are done, then no one will object either.

2.) I have found the old applications, but not found any reasoning for the location. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't correct a previous mistake in this iteration and relocate the camp to a different location, especially considering that the current location is right next to the sexy time cave as well as the Pass which name I forgot. It needs to be located a good deal further north as there's one and a half books between server now and Jon's arrival at the camp.

3.) I'm willing to help mock up a few terrain tests if you want me to. I'm confident we can work out a good script for the rivers, and I'm sure we can find ways to limit necessary terraforming to the immediate surroundings to camps without having to turn the Lands Beyond the Wall into the biggest sandbox the North has ever seen.

X
 

CashBanks

A Knight at the Opera
Staff member
It needs to be located a good deal further north as there's one and a half books between server now and Jon's arrival at the camp.

Further north to an extent, but Wildlings would've been coming from all directions towards the camp, the further south it got, the more numbers it presumably acquired. How far north would Wildlings really be living anyway? You'd figure they'd try and stay as far south as practical, and maybe near the ocean too for fishing.

Westeros_-_Byound_the_wall.jpg


Apparently there's:
  • Hornfoots in the Frostfangs
  • Nightrunners, maybe in the Frostfangs (Mance brokered a truce between them and the Hornfoots so makes sense)
  • Men of the Frozen Shore who fish the Bay of Ice
  • Ice River clans, I guess those are the ones on the far west
  • Thenns, potentially the clan furthest North.
  • Then there's the peeps at Hardhome.
Anyway, my point is that the camp doesn't need to be much further North, since many would be coming from the east and west.
 
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otty

Sorcerer
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I'm still interested in the project as just a heads up; I'm just busy with my semester at Uni seeing I have friends now. However, I want to discuss some research. The canon suggests sparse foliage yet, the entire right half of the map has trees for the haunted forest, this indicates the wildings could not be significantly further west.

The tv show filmed in Iceland, which according to the canon, seems accurate considering the imminently rocky terrain and "scraggly trees."

I do want to note that Mance's camp is only assumed to be in Skirlings Pass. It is clear that the characters make several advances through there as it is where Jon captures Ygritte. This indicates that the Pass is not their exact location but potentially close by, as Jon and the scouts are also captured by the Fist of the First Men—noted to be a little southwest to Skirlings Pass. So if Jon is captured at the Fist of the First men, and Ygritte is captured in Skirlings Pass, I have a sneaky suspicion that means Mance's Camp north of these two locations. Which, ope, is where our camp is now...

So rather than moving much farther west, I think we should place it at the mouth of the mountains where the river branches off twice. This way the foliage from the Haunted Forest can sprawl out to create the scraggly trees described as well as offer a semi-nearby location for hunting. It may also make it plausible they'd still see animals that have wandered a bit far from their home.

However, the canon also suggests that they do livestock animals as noted the hens being cooked. I still find this odd they were a migratory camp and it's a lot to lug around animals despite their ability to use mammoths... Nevertheless, G.R.R.M says hens so we will have... hens *sighs*. But I will minimalize it to hens and only hens as they can at least be kept in small cages.

So, all that being said. That's my new plan for a location. The new location still makes it reasonable to assume that the Cave Dwellers would prefer to be deep within the mountains where they can find caves, whereas the rest of the wildings would stick to the edge of the range where can they could weave in and out of the mountain. This also allows for hunting and lumber parties to be placed as they can access the forest, both will be indicated by paths they've followed. So, The camp will flow up the Milkwater river and up to Caver Dweller section and the "You know nothing" cave. This location will help keep the cave structures already built, it meshes with canon and fits with our desire to be a bit more logical.
 

otty

Sorcerer
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she/her
Alrighty, up-ity date-ity. I'm still interested. I have a test on my plot for items/concepts within the project. I suggest you check it out as you can meet Stannis the Mammoth, he's just a large puppy. Some things not shown I will leave up to the community to interpret such as weapon making, rope strewing etc as we would for any other profession. However, these are just general expectations/minimalistic pieces for inspiration. These tests also try to address canon.

*Stares at the horrendous sleds and chariots* I built ... eh, Sleds suck. So I decided on a very minimalistic approach where it is essentially like this: https://snowsleds.net/product/the-classic-wood-toboggan-sled-6ft/ OR, you can assume the runners are in the snow. Any other design got too bulky or broke logic, so this doesn't mean I'm not open for other ideas. But I'd assume their sleds would be minimalistic, for functionality and would be just a slab of wood built to be able to travel through snow.​

Please feel free to laugh at my stupidity in this, but I considered the idea that mammoths (Which are present in canon) would be utilized to pull larger sleds. But they too look goofy. The current test was a one and done, and I will finalize it if the idea doesn't get thrown out the window like a hotbag on a Warped Tour bus.​

I also built larger firepits where they burn the bodies.​

Some historical communities/tribes would have large tents for gatherings. Doesn't seem unlikely that clans like the Thenns would have a tent as part of their cannibalistic rituals. Thes would also let us indicate some variation among communities.​

Then... THEN I have great news. GREAAAT NEWS. It is believed that anywhere between 20,000 - 100,000 wildings a part of mances. Most were guesses from the nights watching predicting how many would be attacking the wall during the battle of Castle Black, so this doesn't even include the women and children who stayed back. However, make each tent suitable for 3-4 wildings you're still looking at a minimal 5000 tents... That's nearly the size of KL and I accept that challenge. However, if mods disapprove of this fat number I can lower it a too 1000 wilding tents/tent equivalents. If Mance's is as large and as expansive as Jon Snow says it is we shouldn't cheat it out by only having only a few hundred tents.

"Mormont will not run, Jon thought. He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers. One day soon he would hear the sound of warhorns, and see a column of riders pounding down on them with black cloaks flapping and cold steel in their hands. Three hundred men could not hope to kill a hundred times their number, of course, but Jon did not think they would need to. He need not slay a thousand, only one. Mance is all that keeps them together."

he fury of the wild, Jon thought as he listened to the skirl of skins, to the dogs barking and baying, the mammoths trumpeting, the free folk whistling and screaming, the giants roaring in the Old Tongue. Their drums echoed off the ice like rolling thunder.
He could feel the despair all around him. "There must be a hundred thousand," Satin wailed. "How can we stop so many?"

Jon saw men advancing on the Wall with bows and axes. Were there twenty or twenty thousand? In the dark there was no way to tell.

though he would have balked at the notion of letting thirty or forty thousand wildlings loose on the Seven Kingdoms.

That is my up-ity date-ity. Later I will fully address the professions and culture of clans.
 
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thecoddfish

Emissary
Staff member
5000 tents is way too many. King's Landing is meant to be home to 500,000 people (ASoS, Tyrion V) and we've translated that down to around 5000 houses in game. You could do the calculations from there and work out a reasonable number of tents keeping to that same scale, but the numbers aren't the part that matter. What matters is that the build feels appropriately scaled looking at it in game, and frankly I feel that 5000 tents would appear excessive. I think 1000 is a good place to start, but play it by ear and check back in with us if you feel it's necessary to upscale.
 

otty

Sorcerer
Pronouns
she/her
5000 tents is way too many. King's Landing is meant to be home to 500,000 people (ASoS, Tyrion V) and we've translated that down to around 5000 houses in game. You could do the calculations from there and work out a reasonable number of tents keeping to that same scale, but the numbers aren't the part that matter. What matters is that the build feels appropriately scaled looking at it in game, and frankly I feel that 5000 tents would appear excessive. I think 1000 is a good place to start, but play it by ear and check back in with us if you feel it's necessary to upscale.

I completely agree. I am beginning to question my late night pride in making it 5000 tents.
 

otty

Sorcerer
Pronouns
she/her
The Thenns are only cannibals in the show not the books.

That was more in theory rather than actuality; I have no intentions of actually making them cannibals. That was just a reference towards the show canon as it was the first thing that popped into my head as being ritualistic. They're arguably the most advanced clan.
 
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