Abandoned Project Application: Clan Burley by Joseidon

[Joseidon1]

Here is my application for Harclay to extend Johan's dream of a done North-Western North.
Link

 

[AerioOndos]

Hey! Another adventurer venturing into the mountains! I wish good fortune to you in the battles to come, their both fun and formative

Anyway, I've had a look at your map and you seem to misinterpret where Harclay is. Harclay is on the eastern side of the range and Bran indicates that they have passed through or at least within sight of Harclay land. They also are a clan of the hills, rather than the mountains, so it would make more sense for them to be where Mollen is, south of Liddle, and in east-running foothills that stretch towards the long lake. Additionally, with your current placement it would make Liddle the closest of the Northern Mountain Clans to Winterfell.
It would involve extensive snow and no snow terra. the transition between the two has never been fully made, with a few projects in progress (Frost, Dreadfort) but no completed examples.

Another point, John notes at some point (don't have time to find the reference rn, will edit) that almost all the valleys of the Northern Mountains run East-West, meaning your Harclay plateau valley currently faces the wrong direction.

Your tests for the castle and structures seem to take inspiration from Norrey primarily. Please, try something for yourself! currently housing gets more advanced the further south you go, being most primitive closest to the wall NORRAY STRONK<Knott/Wull.
Additionally, the rooves of the snow roofed houses should be arched upwards rather than inwards as to knock snow off.

Also, why Norrey has a lake is because of the very weird topography of the Gift. Either I was to tear up half of the north to make a stream going from Norrey all the way to the Last River. You have the advantage with Harclay to have streams that go all the way to the main bodies of water for your project. You have the Longlake and the White Knife as major catchments and the Bay of Ice/Sunset Sea as another possible one, use them. Have interesting streams and woods full of game as per canon

 

[DutchGuard]

Anyway, I've had a look at your map and you seem to misinterpret where Harclay is.

In Joseidon's defense this was the area where the Harclay warp was located.

Harclay is on the eastern side of the range and Bran indicates that they have passed through or at least within sight of Harclay land. They also are a clan of the hills, rather than the mountains

I'm assuming this is in regards to this passage:

“There’s people,” Bran told her. “The Umbers are mostly east of the kingsroad, but they graze their sheep in the high meadows in summer.
There are Wulls west of the mountains along the Bay of Ice, Harclays back behind us in the hills, and Knotts and Liddles and Norreys and even
some Flints up here in the high places.” -Bran II SoS

Which is complicated by another quote in the same book:

To the Umbers and the Boltons, to Castle Cerwyn
and Torrhen’s Square, Karhold and Deepwood Motte, to Bear Island, Oldcastle, Widow’s Watch, White Harbor, Barrowton, and the Rills, to the
mountain fastnesses of the Liddles, the Burleys, the Norreys, the Harclays, and the Wulls, the black birds brought their plea. -Jon VII SoS

They also are a clan of the hills, rather than the mountains, so it would make more sense for them to be where Mollen is, south of Liddle, and in east-running foothills that stretch towards the long lake.

I agree this placement would make more sense (even though you are wrong about Liddle being closer to Winterfell as it currently stands) for the principle reason that Bran & Co are roughly following the Kingsroad north to the Wall and say that they have passed through hills where Meera has been hunting, and then comment on the Harclay's being in hills behind them, and, putting two and two together, makes the Mollen area more suitable as its eastern border is defined by the Kingsroad.

The only issue would be that this area is currently very flat, so some elongated foothills coming down from the western mountains would be requisite. I also don't think Mollen should be swapped with Harclay (Mollen should probably just be a holdfast within the Winterfell lands). There should be another clan put in its stead. Perhaps it would be a better spot for the First Flints? I don't see anything but a mountain clan going there due to the terrain and proximity to the other clans.

 

[AerioOndos]

Hi, sorry if that came off as being standoffish. The mountain clan warps weren't brilliant to begin with.

But to defend myself quickly on the liddle proximity point, it was in regards to foot traffic. One could follow the kingsroad and get to Liddle lands more quickly than to travel across the mountains, hills and forest to reach Harclay. Travel time, rather than as the crow flies.

Agreed though that Mollen should be within winterfell's lands. Perhaps along the White Knife? Its a major river and trading route so it makes sense for a house to set up on its banks. Maybe further upstream from Cerwyn and Barkwood.

"There should be another clan put in its stead. Perhaps it would be a better spot for the First Flints? I don't see anything but a mountain clan going there due to the terrain and proximity to the other clans."

The Wolfswood houses are already described as clans, so maybe similar structures without the healthy dosing of snow? I'd be up for doing a project like that.
The First Flints are, along with Norreys, closest to the Gift, therefore they shouldn't be moved from the current spot (flint1 iirc).
A random nameless Wolfswood clan would work, even an extension of Bole, Branch etc would be fine.

 

[Joseidon1]

https://imgur.com/a/nGnhrW7

This shows the current borders in the Northern mountains as of now. If Harclay gets moved into the Mollen lands (and Mollen maybe into the uninhabitated Condon lands), it would leave a large area without a canon clan. Merging clans and moving them seems not like a good option, as it would make one of them as large as Wull contradicting canon. One could go down tho route of placing some smaller immersion clans there (as I have already partially suggested in the application nad there are roughly 40 of them, so we shouldn't be in danger running out of them).
I haven't heard anything about Wolfswood clans, but that error might be on my side. When talking about this border area, we should also think about Highpoint which was introduced in the telltale game. If the game is considered canon, it would be helpful if there was a canon document mentioning the things from there (as A search of ice and fire is not including it). I am not sure if introducing wolfswood clans in the current Harclay territory would be a good idea, as it is pretty mountainous. It would probably also require a wolfswood redo to show them in their main territory.

currently housing gets more advanced the further south you go, being most primitive closest to the wall

From my point of view that is rather the opposite, but that might be related to the age of the projects. If I would try to make the houses in this region more civilzed, they would probably end up as you regular stone house with a sod roof. I am not sure if that represents the mountain clans in any way.

 

[IMajic]

Looking at that map, Winterfell being the primary seat would have extensive lands due to needing a larger population to martial Winterfell itself and being the primary seat of the north. its lands would then need to have enough farmlands to thrive for the castle and populace around.
as the Starks would have a large amount of manpower to bring to there own arms when needed. so the lands around Winterfell I feel need to be extended out by a 1/3rd at least. so if there is empty land that hasn't been given to the clans then it should be added to winterfel's border.

 

[AerioOndos]

I'd say for ^ IMajic, that Winterfell would have more crofters within the wolfswood, like the crofters village Stannis camps at in ADWD or the crofter's sons that Theon kills.
They would also probably control most of the settlements along the White Knife down to Condon. Cerwyn currently is in the place shown by a battlemap in ACoK rather than south of the White Knife, which would make sense.
Cerwyn is described as being closest and among the more powerful of the Stark vassals so I would presume that they would not be literally a holdfast of Winterfell, as is currently the case.

To go back to the Northern Mountains, Where Mollen currently is is actually the foothills of the Northern Mountains, Joseidon.
And Liddle/Burley need to have larger lands already, as they can't be smaller than Knott (JohanKR850), so if they are spread further south/SE then Harclay should fit well. Its also possible to switch shuffle the remaining clans in terms of their position. We can't shift Flint but if Harclay moves into current Liddle and Mollen, Liddle moves into Burley and Burley moves into current Harclay, it works in terms of canon (Bran never encounters a Burley).

Hurley-burley also means fight.
Being on the Bay of Ice makes more sense to me with that since there'd be fighting with the other mountain clans, with the Ironborn, with Wildlings and potentially in the past with Wolfswood clans/houses and Bear Islanders.

My point on the wolfswood having clans is that we don't get much information on what their architecture is like other than DWM, which is a wooden motte and bailey with longhall. Asha Greyjoy, thinks of the Wolfswood houses as clans and the woodsmen sent to DWM to guide stannis also sound more like they'd be from clans.

Heres an image of what I tried to make sense of with the mountain clan switch around. Harclay(Brown)->Liddle, Liddle(Green)->Burley, Burley(Blue)-> Harclay. Mollen should go east on the river that flows from Long Lake imo. Greater Stark area in Grey

 

[JohanKR850]

Looks cool Aeks. That could work. But what about the lands south of Harclay and north of Winterfell, there seems to missing something. But we can talk about that somewhere else.

Also about Winterfells very small lands, we have to remember that dutch made these borders based on our construction/progess of the lands. Not based on canon and logic. That way the map borders could show us which lands needs to be done, and in which projects. So if a project has oddly small lands (like most northern projects) thats just a shame, not much we can unless someone would do an extension of a pretty old project.

I think we can take from this that Joseidon can continue his application as Clan Burley. We can discuss the borders of the clans in a map thread or something, and maybe Dutchgard could be convinced to redraw the borders, once we have a clear plan.

 

[DutchGuard]

Looks cool Aeks. That could work. But what about the lands south of Harclay and north of Winterfell, there seems to missing something. But we can talk about that somewhere else.

Also about Winterfells very small lands, we have to remember that dutch made these borders based on our construction/progess of the lands. Not based on canon and logic. That way the map borders could show us which lands needs to be done, and in which projects. So if a project has oddly small lands (like most northern projects) thats just a shame, not much we can unless someone would do an extension of a pretty old project.

I think we can take from this that Joseidon can continue his application as Clan Burley. We can discuss the borders of the clans in a map thread or something, and maybe Dutchgard could be convinced to redraw the borders, once we have a clear plan.

Yes I think we need a clearer picture for this area. I second the idea that this app continue as a relocated burley, which should change this app in no way other than name. It would be great if those builders involved came up with an agreed plan for how the clans are arranged, and I can redraw the borders to match.

 

[CashBanks]

I had a hand in cobbling together our original guess about the borders. I've no issue with the clans getting reshuffled if necessary. I haven't totally followed the thread of the discussion here though, if you could ELI5 the issues and the proposed fix I can sign off on it.

 

[Joseidon1]

Canon situation:
Harclay: Is said to be in the foothills of the mountains and closest to winterfell
Burley: not much known about them
Liddle: Bran meets a Liddle on his way North
Mollen: no keep/lands mentioned
Winterfell: big castle

proposed Changes:
Harclay gets moved to the current Northern Mollen/Southern Liddle lands, so we can create foothills there and they are close to Winterfell
Burley gets moved to the current Harclay location, because we lack information about them and we agreed that a mountain clan should be in this area
Liddle gets Burley and the Northern Liddle lands
Mollen gets relocated to somewhere between Cerwyn and Condon, as they would probably only have a small keep and support Winterfell
Winterfell gets the Southern mollen lands and space for immersion projects

 

[Joseidon1]

This is the mixture between a few hours early bump and some updates:
According with the changes CashBanks accepted in the Mountain clans thread, this application should be continued as Burley. (Changes in the application document will come soon)
I've made some other house tests for Burley I am not sure whether they would fit the region better than the ones used in the document, but I'll still post them here (They can be found at my plot). Also I am not sure if Burley should have a more advanced architecture than Wull, because while they are more South, the Wulls still are more powerful and could show this also by architecture/house style

 

[Joseidon1]

Bump

I have new house style tests for Burley, as seen in the application document. I have added some more rivers to the map (although they don't go into the white knife, as it is canon that it doesn't start in the mountains).

 

[AerioOndos]

Hey, just going to ask you here to please redo the forests, please. Burley is in NP2 and so uses ancient wolfswood schems and has irregular snow patterns, weird breaks and other issues that make applying any kind of update more painful than it is worth. Please, if you can, clear the area and begin again. we've got some beautiful schems and you, with some non snow mountain clan areas in your place can do so many interesting things with that. Please experiment with the Wolfswood!

I'd also suggest not having a lake as the end of the Burley Glen stream. Maybe have it form a deep bend on the eastern side with steeper hill or cliff above it and raise the whole eastern side (not too much though) so that the stream flows to the west and makes a gorge through the mountains, forming a southern border. Looking back at Norrey, the lake ends up taking more space then you would expect, as well as posing a great danger come snowtime when snowmelt is going to swell its banks enormously.

Apologies if I haven't communicated effectively

 

[Joseidon1]

Do you mean something like this for the river?

https://imgur.com/a/I6yxXlA

Cause then I'd need to annex some deepwood motte land.
About the forrest redo: I have pretty much no knowledge about trees, so I definetly need some help there if I should do this. Also, what is NP2?

 

[Joseidon1]

I've added a new settlement map for the new map to the application. Almost every Western town has now water access with the water system. I have some difficullty planning the water ways for the eastern part as this would greatly influence Harclay and Mollen.

 

[CashBanks]

Approved by me, would just recommend making sure your house style has good diagonal options before committing to it. We're making solid progress with these Northern clans now!

 

[AerioOndos]

Diagonal options have been tested for the main house style iirc. Should be on Joseidon's plot if you want to check them out.

 

[CashBanks]

Yeah I had taken a look at those before approving but wasn't sure if they were part of the final style Joseidon was going with.

 

[Joseidon1]

Bump the third. I still need a second approving mod.