Approved Project Application: House Swann by Aino

[Aino]

Hello, this is my application for House Swann of Stonehelm:



Have fun reading
-Aino

 

[lemonbear]

Hi Aino,

This app is overall looking really cool! Do you have a justification for the castle palette? Additionally, Stonehelm is outside of the region for whitewashed timber blocks, although you can use the mud red ones.

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

Very detailed application! I have a couple of points relating to terra that would be helpful to you.

Rivers
On the map of your plans, you have the river coming from Lonmouth and then a stream that intersects it. However, it intersects it at an angle that isn’t realistic. The competing flows would work against, not with each other. If the stream were at that angle, it would indicate that it’s an easier path for the water to take which would change the course of the Lonmouth river.

Secondly, you’ve got some bifurcation going on. The river near the town splits off into two vastly different directions, which is unrealistic. The river you’ve planned would most likely continue its journey westward, rather than split into two forks, each going in a different direction.

Windswept plains
I’m not entirely sure of the canon for these windswept plains, but they shouldn’t have any flowers in them really. They should primarily consist of sedges and various grasses. Flowery plains and meadows are a much more Reach feature, and are more at home there rather than in windswept plains. Moreover, windswept plains should mostly be grasses with perhaps the occasional patch of wildflowers.

Hope this all makes sense!

 

[Margaery_Tyrell]

I disagree about your point on flowers Jake, it is entirely possible for a windswept plain to have flowers as their growth isn't limited by any particular ecological feature and are present in all biomes. I think that Aino making a small test of how the plains will look like in-game should help but she shouldn't have to be limited by just greens and grasses.

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

That's a valid point Marg, thank you for weighing in. I guess my point against the flowers is more from an aesthetic standpoint then. Flowery meadows are a staple of the Reach, as dictated by canon, and not something I necessarily associate with the Stormlands. I acknowledge however, that this is completely arbitrary and personal argument, so it's entirely up to you whether or not you implement it.

 

[Gealrüable]

the slayne valley also doesn't necessarily feature the "windswept plains" as imagined for the marches as much as the area west of the mountains..its a lot more wet too, definetly a much greener part of the dornish marches

 

[Aino]

Hi Aino,

This app is overall looking really cool! Do you have a justification for the castle palette? Additionally, Stonehelm is outside of the region for whitewashed timber blocks, although you can use the mud red ones.

My idea behind the palette was to make it not like blackhaven while also keeping within the “black and white” palette described in the canon. I figured that since sources go out of there way to describe blackhaven, and not stonehelm, as made of black basalt stones, these castles would be notably different in palette.

I can remove the whitewashed timber that’s a pretty simple change.

 

[Aino]

Very detailed application! I have a couple of points relating to terra that would be helpful to you.

Rivers
On the map of your plans, you have the river coming from Lonmouth and then a stream that intersects it. However, it intersects it at an angle that isn’t realistic. The competing flows would work against, not with each other. If the stream were at that angle, it would indicate that it’s an easier path for the water to take which would change the course of the Lonmouth river.

Secondly, you’ve got some bifurcation going on. The river near the town splits off into two vastly different directions, which is unrealistic. The river you’ve planned would most likely continue its journey westward, rather than split into two forks, each going in a different direction.

Windswept plains
I’m not entirely sure of the canon for these windswept plains, but they shouldn’t have any flowers in them really. They should primarily consist of sedges and various grasses. Flowery plains and meadows are a much more Reach feature, and are more at home there rather than in windswept plains. Moreover, windswept plains should mostly be grasses with perhaps the occasional patch of wildflowers.

Hope this all makes sense!

The exact coursing of the rivers/streams isn’t meant to be completely realistic or accurate to what it will actually look like; I plan of altering the terrain of the entire project and establishing an exact pathing of the rivers atm is a fruitless waste of time. I will try my best to make the rivers work as realistically as possible and if that means some of the intersections being removed or altered thats fine.

 

[Aino]

the slayne valley also doesn't necessarily feature the "windswept plains" as imagined for the marches as much as the area west of the mountains..its a lot more wet too, definetly a much greener part of the dornish marches

George really had to make my life harder by specifically describing the marches as inland while also saying the Red Watch is in the marches while also on the coast \-_-/

 

[AerioOndos]

and doesn't mention but makes readers presume that this intersects with the 'broad plain' that covers the southern third of Cape Wrath.

 

[AerioOndos]

I'm happy with your plans and the style tests for houses. Approved from me. What would be good is for there to be a few small samples of meadow/grassland and to be able to check over plotting before you start work on the town but otherwise I'm fine.

 

[Elduwin]

Nice app aino! Just a little feedback:
"Emphasis on trade; notable port town with infrastructure to receive ships, store goods, and construct new ships for both trade and war."
Small reminder that Weeping Town is the main harbor of the southern Stormlands coast. It's fine to have another one but it shouldnt compete too much with WP.

"A strong number of skilled artisans, including but not limited to glass blowers, iron smiths, ship builders, masons, weapon smiths/bow makers, book binders, and scribes."
I dont think there should be any book binders or scribes there, especially if the town is more focused on weaponry and shipwright. Overall, Aino needs to be careful in the balance of lower vs higher professions.

PS: Aek convinced me about the bookbinder, but I want to keep the warning about the balance of professions in general.

Also, what's your plan for the terra? You plan to do it yourself or need the help from editors/others?

 

[Aino]

Nice app aino! Just a little feedback:
"Emphasis on trade; notable port town with infrastructure to receive ships, store goods, and construct new ships for both trade and war."
Small reminder that Weeping Town is the main harbor of the southern Stormlands coast. It's fine to have another one but it shouldnt compete too much with WP.

"A strong number of skilled artisans, including but not limited to glass blowers, iron smiths, ship builders, masons, weapon smiths/bow makers, book binders, and scribes."
I dont think there should be any book binders or scribes there, especially if the town is more focused on weaponry and shipwright. Overall, Aino needs to be careful in the balance of lower vs higher professions.

PS: Aek convinced me about the bookbinder, but I want to keep the warning about the balance of professions in general.

Also, what's your plan for the terra? You plan to do it yourself or need the help from editors/others?

So I in no way plan on making the town similar in size to WT, I've been pretty vague about exactly how large I intend the town but it'll be roughly a third the size of WT or so. I also don't want to make the port too large as well; it's hard to say to what extent it will be limited because, well, WT was never finished, however I want to try my best to make it feel to scale.

On the second point, Seemingly Aeks has already discussed this with you but for any port town under the control of a powerful house, you would have certain high-class professions as well as specialty professions you do not commonly see. In the app itself I did not really bring up more "average" professions such as farmers, basket makers, carpenters, etc. because I though they were so obvious it would be moot to do so. The vast majority of the town will not be made up of the professions I listed but the more run-of-the-mill occupations that you would find anywhere.

For the terra I will need the editors (or really anyone able and willing) to teach me how terra works and what exactly to do, but after that point I intend on doing it mostly myself. Most everyone seems busy enough as it is with terra I don't think I could get others to do it for me even if I wanted them to :>

Hope that answers you questions/addresses your concerns.

 

[Homiesucc]

the united states of soviet westeros approves of this application

 

[Elduwin]

Approved for me!
I just want to check the plotting before opening any settlements, and feel free to ask for anything.

Just a reminder as well that any big change of plans need to be discussed and approved before being implemented.

Edit: Oh and try to salvage as much as you can town and castle to oldprojects (in test world)

 

[Aino]

Project Update: so at the moment I'm still working on the terra for the mountains, some of the stuff near lonmouth/wagstaff is approaching completion but most of it has a long way to go. Once the mountains in this approaching completion area are essentially done, I plan on building the first actual structures in the project. which will be composed of a few small settlements, a water mill, and likely others though I havent fully decided yet.

I would also like to make a request to extent the terraforming past the borders of stonehelm and into a currently non-developed mountains area of wagstaff. I'll highlight my plans here:

https://imgur.com/a/lUpbuJr

It will be based around Little Yosemite Valley and Clark Canyon on Yosemite National park, purple = valley, red = ridgelines/spurs, orange = a glaciated upwards, rocky plain leading up from the valley to the ridgeline as seen in the images in my imgur post. I don't plan on having any settlement in the valley other than a lone gay witch . It will be mostly maid of of rocky soil, a forest, and a stream leading from a glacial lake and emptying into the Slayne River.

 

[AerioOndos]

I approve, the valley plans are pragmatic and the worldpainter terrain is something quite weird in the area, which would be good to update.

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

Hi Aino, just posting on here about braided rivers, which you could include in the wider parts of your valleys.

"They join together and form a braided river. The reason this river is braided, is because it has a height change of about 10 blocks over a distance of 300-400 blocks. While it may not look very steep in game, in real life, this is a significant height change, which is enough to warrant braiding. If there were changes in rock type here, we may see rapids form instead. They typically form on steeper slopes when a river goes through soft rock, meets hard rock and can't erode through it, so the water goes around or over it back through soft rock. For a good example of rapids see below."

3.2. Alluvial

The shape of the mid-section of an alluvial river can be assigned to four principal categories. Note that any of the four categories can coexist in the same river down/upstream of one another, and that many intermediate versions exist. For instance, individual channels of an anastomosing river may themselves be sinuous, meandering or braided.

"This subdivision in four distinct fluvial styles should be seen as end-members in a continuum of fluvial channel patterns (Miall 1996). Fluvial style may change in a downstream direction, and also depends on stage. Makaske (1998) showed, that anastomosing channel patterns may consist of individual channels that can be braided, meandering or straight (Figure 5)." (Source: http://www.geo.uu.nl/fg/palaeogeography/results/fluvialstyle)

Here is a handy overview of the principal shapes of an alluvial river:

(Source: Figure 5. http://www.geo.uu.nl/fg/palaeogeography/results/fluvialstyle)

Any natural system is chaotic, so very fine difference in the sediment bed that a river flows through cause the slight sinuous (also often called 'straight') flow of an alluvial river. Over time, the slight bends turn into meanders as erosion slowly eats away at the banks. The principle shape of a river section depends strongly on the volume of water flowing through and the slope of the valley. To a degree this is also affected by the size of the grains of sediment a river is carrying. Take a look at:

(Source: Figure 7. http://www.geo.uu.nl/fg/palaeogeography/results/fluvialstyle)

Read through these for a sense of where and why they form.

- Jake

 

[Jeffjunior77]

Hey Aino i have a cool idea u maybe can use in Stonehelm!

They are called Watermills of Jajce!
Sinze u have some mall streams that come done the mountains it could be a cool feature. They are in Bonsia Herzegowina so in eastern europe the main inspiration for the stormlands !
U could place them down the stream when it flows into the ocean when the Stream is split a bit.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/watermills-of-jajce



Maybe u like the idea it would be very Unique and could fit the eastern europe style !

~jeff

 

[Jeffjunior77]

Hey aino I wanted to ask how the project is going.
I plan to apply for projects in south cape wrath when greenstone is approved. I have following questions:
1. what’s ur plan with the mountain that border horpe ?
2. what house style u plan at that area ?
3. will there be cliffs or more beaches along the area that border horpe.
4. terrain set: u have any plans yet how the mountain will change and what terrain set the cliffs will use ?

Greetings Jeff