Completed Project Application - House Parren

[Endymion]

Hey!

After going through the application I have some feedback regarding the planning of the project.

My main point of critique is that most of the fertile and flat space in your vale is taken up by the forest and the fields, pastures and orchards are then pushed to the sides, to steeper terrain. I would propose to maybe flip these? Have them along the riverbend and put the forest behind them?

Regarding nature canon states: “The Westerlands are a place of rugged hills and rolling plains, of misty dales and craggy shorelines, a place of blue lakes and sparkling rivers and fertile fields, of broadleaf forests that teem with game of every sort, where half-hidden doors in the sides of wooded hills open onto labyrinthine caves that wend their way through darkness to reveal unimaginable wonders and vast treasures deep beneath the earth." While you both already made great efforts to integrate this canon into your plans, there are a couple points where you could improve upon.

• First of all, the terrain seems very suitable for a lake in the middle of the project. In my opinion it would add to the projects uniqueness and create an open space that could provide great views from and towards the castle. Both your planned streams could feed into it and you could make a river exit it or save yourself a great deal of terraforming work and drop the river. If you want some help with the lake, I’m always happy to help. I already did the lakes at Tarbec, so it shouldn't be that much work to make another one. If you choose to add the lake you should make that the central feature of your project and move the north-western, central hamlet and fields to its banks.
• I would recommend increasing the forestation a bit in your project. Especially around the mountainsides.
• Natural caves with a couple of giants bones would be great!

While I think it's already a step in the right direction to move the castle upwards, I would recommend to either put it even higher or to flatten the top of the small mountain behind it and put it there. This house doesn't seem to be a main vassal so there is no need for a big castle, but I don't mind the current size. The moat doesn't seem necessary to me considering the natural defences around it already. I would also recommend to maybe try some different pallets on the houses inside the castle walls, since now it appears to be all stone. Main take away would be to use the terrain to your benefits and adapt the castle to better suit that, rather than adapt your plans to fit the castle.

Final and rather nit-picky point is to maybe make a clearer divide between the actual book canon and the interpretation / self-added canon. It seems to be interwoven here and can be a bit confusing.

You both picked a great project for your first project. May the Gods bless you with good fortune.

 

[Antony]

I totaly agree with the points made and we will try to better our plans regarding the feedback given.

Thanks very much Endy for the feedback, we will see that they are met

 

[AerioOndos]

If you are going to have brick, make sure there is some means of supplying clay.


alright. So I would like to jump onto the mention of 'giant's graves', nuraghi, in Sardinia.
First off, there must be a distinct connection to the first men with them, as we have only heard of giants making barrows and graves, like in the barrowlands and ...

Spoiler: possible spoiler

"Did she? She burned that fine big horn, aye. A bloody sin, I call it. A thousand years old, that was. We found it in a giant's grave, and no man o' us had ever seen a horn so big." -Tormund

whereas nuraghe are possibly defensive structures and displays of power and wealth.

First Men ringforts could be incredibly similar to nuraghi, if not identical. there could even be a small ruined settlement in the mountains, with terraced fields overgrown with bushes and small trees and a small village burgeoning out from the central structure like at nuraghe arrubiu.
The pallete should try and look like drystone, as little mortar should be visible as possible. smooth brick and small brick should be useful, rather than sandstone which has clear cut edges that look far too recent.

Something that hasn't really been explored much is a 'highlander' westerlands style, people who live in high passes and valleys. There is mention of it in the Silverhill document but I haven't seen much application of the idea.

anything mentioned is just a suggestion, not pressure to include it. Though I am eyeing off the space between Vikary, Kyndal and the Crag for a first men immersion build like what I have mentioned

 

[Antony]

I have here the new and probably final map of the Parren lands:

Let me make some explanations:

The dark grey area, symbolises the castle, which will stand on a rock overviewing the valley. Between the road and gatehouse there will be a ridge with a small stream running thru, so naturaly road and castle will be connected by a drawbridge.

Red areas symbolise the hamlets/villages, the biggest one beeing the one near the castle, the purple dots in the red areas symbolise the village sept.

The light grey dot, symbolise the watchtowers, all not all in use, some abandoned.

The dark grey dots with a light grey dot in the middle symbolise the first men holdfasts or ringforts, all extremely ruined, naturaly.

The white dots show the existanse of a weirwood stump, some big, some small, with the biggest beeing the one to the south east.

The blue lines, show the water, streams, waterfalls were there are cliffs, and ofcourse a lake in the middle of the lands, there's a also a pond in that enchanted pleteau to the south east, next to the wileirwood stump.

The brown lines are naturaly roads and paths.
The yellow areas symbolise the fields, orchards and pastures, which will be littered with some cottages all around.

The black dots show the entrances of caves or mines, mines are the ones closer to the settlements and will be 4 in total, from which only one will be operational.

The dark-light green areas symbolise the forrested parts, which will be littered with ancient secrets, generaly standing stones, even though the parts will contain several, except forrested parts, also in the hamlet near the northern border to the west, there are some dark grey parrallel half circular lines, those symbolise the local quarry. In case the lines aren't visible, they have a winding path on them that does not lead to the hamlet, so where that path is the quarry is there.

I hope that's sufficient in terms of region planning.

 

[Antony]

The Canon regarding House Parren Canon:

Spoiler: Parren History

House Parren was a noble house from the westerlands. According to semi-canon sources, they are extinct. They blazoned their arms with per saltire: burgundy and white stripes, a black lion's head on gold.
House Parren was formed by the union of First Men and Andal nobles during the coming of the Andals to the westerlands.
A member of House Parren participated in the tourney at Ashford Meadow during the reign of King Daeron II Targaryen. Their arms were spotted and identified by Ser Duncan the Tall among the gathered heraldry.

Now follows our backstory:

Spoiler: Parren Backstory

The Parrens took part in the Tourney at Ashford, as their sigil was spotted by ser Duncan the Tall there. That indicates that they probably went extinct some time after that event, probably during the Great Spring Sickness, which wiped out whole families, including them.

After the death of the last Parren lord, their lands were splitted between their neighbors, which include the Greenfields, the Cleganes, although they weren't around when the Parrens went extinct which was one, or two, or even three years after the Tourney at Ashford Meadow and the Heatherspoons (I think), but one House took the biggest part, and that would be the nearby House Crakehall, a prominent house of the Westerlands also of First man descent, so due to some relations a member of the House, a knight, inherited main part of the Parren lands due to family relations, plus the fact that the Parrens had mines, which would enrich the prominent Crakehalls even more.

So, currently the Parren lands belong to a Crakehall cadet branch, which now lives at their ancient castle, aftet restoring it, due to it perilous condition and disrepair, as they didn't want to occupy the house of a dead family wiped out by a plague right from the start. So a decade after, they decided to renovate it and now live there.

I hope that's again sufficient backstory wise

 

[SeapunkPeaches]

Once the other stuff is done, do you mind putting together a doc or something to have all the new/updated plans in the same place?

 

[Antony]

Sure i will

 

[Antony]

There it is, the final application form, probably, (click the word Parren)

Parren project App

Hope you like it

 

[SeapunkPeaches]

No access

 

[Antony]

No access?

fixed it, try again

 

[Willas_Tyrell]

Okay, as Ant said before, we decided to remove the moat and putting the castle on a sort of hill, and adding a steam flowing under the drawbridge...

Here some pics of the modifies we're working on, hope you like it so far

 

[AerioOndos]

the stream is a bit confusing. why didn't it just flow away from the castle in a straight line? also it disappears under the castle walls, meaning there is possibly a structural fault that could be exploited by an attacking force.
I would suggest making the gulley wider and the opposite side a little lower than the castle side with the bridge having a low gradient.


just a bit of a suggestion that could tie in with your Parren backstory.

The first men castle was located somewhere else or on the same sight but very much following the contours of the land. then, after the coming of the andals, Parren's used the superior stone cutting techniques to level the top of a low crest on which the castle is built.

 

[Antony]

I totaly agree with that proposition, even if we didn't include it to the final app I would like to think of it as a fact regarding the House history.


Also regarding the castle, that's just basicaly the way of how it should look, meaning a castle on a rock with a ridge on the north side, as I expect that due to the hasty terra-cliff making there's a lot of room for improvement.

 

[SeapunkPeaches]

Wouldn't the main keep be in the least accessible location aka the cliffside, and the heavy defences (towers, crenelated walls, turrets) on the flatter part?

 

[Antony]

I think it is, basicaly everything is on the least accesible location, as that just the mere top of the rock, which will be surely higher than that and the ridge should also be deeper, making thus a very defencive location.

Plus nearby, I would like to add, i have made a model of what it should look like. Basicaly a tall craggy rock, with a forrested bottom and a bit on the sides, a ridge, traversed by a small stream, on the north side.

 

[AerioOndos]

one thing you can add is to have the yard terraced a bit more, so it flows down the mountain to indicate the original steepness

 

[Antony]

I agree with that too, I'll see to it whenever I can.

 

[Antony]

I would like to make a small notice:

Sorry for not having uploaded any updates to the thread, let me assure you that we have not abandon it, we are fixing some things with the current form of the castle, we will upload an update when the castle is finished.

 

[Antony]

And now, a terra stuff update:

Given our small experience with terra, it took us some time to understand what is needed, and we did, with the help of our good friend @AerioOndos

Terra stuff

Mountains and height map stuff:

The mountains will need to be improved as they are currently worldpainter terrain.
This will include making the mountains to the south east more like the left side of this image

Spoiler: Spoiler

The terrain needs to be made to flow down towards the lake.

The northern border to the project will be graced with a mountain which further cliff-like structure on top of it similar to the Zeus's throne formation or this one at Val Gardena in the dolomites.
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/02/01/22/valgardena1.jpg?w968
https://www.mountain-forecast.com/system/images/18730/large/Mount-Olympus.jpg?1422641093

Below this mountain will be the northern entrance to the Parren lands, a passage formed by two glaciers that began formed an arete then moved in opposite directions. The arete collapsed and now there is a pass with road going through.

Forests:

The current world painter forest will need to be removed in order for the new terra to be put into place. This will be broadleaf forest in accordance with canon.

The map of the project for better understanding:

Spoiler: Project map

 

[AerioOndos]

okay, so what else is needed to have ready before the app can be approved?