# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Town/City Mapping >  Korobrom - The cradle of Dwarfkind

## Abu Lafia

Hello everybody,
this is a city map i'm drawing for an rpg campaign in the World of Splittermond, we recently started. As the roleplayers here know, sometimes you have to improvise, when the plans for "your" campaign are crossed by the decisions of the players and suddenly you have to pull a new rabbit, or map out of your hat (on the other hand, exactly this is the best part about it, isn't it?  :Smile:  ). In this case a dwarven priest in the group who was expelled from his hometown for raising his hand against his cruel stepfather and thereby thrown into the world of adventures heard from a far away city called "Korobrom" the holy city of his God Furbrom (the main god of the dwarfs), a site of pilgrimage for dwarfs from all over the world. Allegedly the dwarfs originate from there and so the city also has a certain cultural or historical value besides the spiritual. So the priest decided to make his "walk to Canossa" to Korobrom, to find guidance and (hopefully) mercy there. Since he could convince the rest of the group to follow him there, i suddenly needed a map of this place...  

Some info about the city itself. It's a synopsis of the (rather short) description in the Splittermond-sourcebook 
Korobrom is the Capital of the Borombri Kingdom, a dwarven nation on an archipelago of hundreds of islands seperated from the mainland by the "Moonfall", a cataclysmic event a thousand years ago. It's the place of origin of dwarfkind and the centre of the church of Furbrom, the dwarven creator god and deity of volcanoes (yeah, it's always like that  :Very Happy:  ). The "Island King", chosen by an oracle, is at the same time the patriarch of the Furbrom-church, so the character of the city is deeply pious (some say fanatic  :Wink:  ) and ascetic. Many monasteries and temples where built around the grand cathedral which is built into the crater of the central (slumbering) volcano on the island. 
The other settlements of the Kingdom, like the capital, are built into the rough cliffed islands, partly connected by tunnels or bridges and the whole archipelago is hardly navigable without pilots. 

The autor who wrote about the region in the sourcebook wrote in the Splittermond-Forum, that he imagines Korobrom a bit like a dwarven Mont Saint-Michel, which i found a really cool idea. It has a population of ca. 65.000, 99% of them dwarves.



As you can see, i already worked a bit on this. After all it's my first serious approach of (digital) city-mapping, so i decided to go with a rather simple style for the buildings so far (since there are so much of them and it will be even more!). 
Like in other projects before, i found it easier to stay motivated when i make "the second step before the first" and so i already played with colors, fonts and "stuff" without having finished the whole linework. This way, i feel, i can immerse better into the world and thereby be more creative AND logical at the same time regarding the "urban-planning".

At the moment i'm working on the walls of the palace district.

Here is a short translated key to the german labels
Handelshafen = Merchant's Harbour
Pilgerhafen = Pilgrim's Harbour
Muschelhafen = "Mussel" (Fishing) harbour 
Kriegshafen = Military Harbour

Lotseninsel = Pilot's Island (My idea was, that the pilots in Korobrom are organised in a sort of spiritual order, as they see the piloting of ships to the sacred capital also as a spiritual/pastoral work. They have a lot of power and influence in the city...  :Wink:  )
Palast = Palace
Kloster = Monastery
Pilgerstieg  = Pilgrim's Stairs/Trail
Ahnenstadt = "Ancestor's City" / necropolis
Kathedrale = Cathedral
Hammerwerke = Ironworks
Ewige Grube = "eternal pit" deep strip mine
Admiralität = well... admiralty

Gromotok, Stichlingen, Gronden, Fatargonia and Bromdal are names of the different quarters, Some more might follow...

Since Splittermond is a fairly new german pen&paper Rpg settled in a rather massive world, there isn't much "map-material" out there, besides the fantastic official world maps of Lorakis by Sapiento (you can find Korobrom at the northern coast of the "Kristallsee") and so there is much room to produce some "fan-made" maps for the game (yay!  :Very Happy:  ). I think i will also post this map on the Splittermond forum, to get some more input about the worldbuilding aspects of it.

As i said, it's my first big city-map project, so all kind of critique comments and suggestions are (as always) welcome!  :Smile: 

Cheers,
AL

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## Diamond

Ambitious!  And awesome looking so far.  I like how you handled the different elevations/heights on the islands - that looks cool.  And nice color scheme and font choice.

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## Abu Lafia

Many thanks Diamond. Haha, yeah it's a bit ambitious, but hey what can you do if your players decide they want to play next in a city with 60k inhabitants... oO For the elevations, i worked with that wonderful contour line script for gimp again (also to find a nice island shape from random clouds/heightmaps in the first place). The font (Possum Saltare) was the most "dwarfish" i had, glad you like it.

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## Josiah VE

That's a pretty big city! At first I thought it was a regional map.  :Smile:  I love what you have so far.

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## Barek333

Oh wow Abu...this will take some time and nerves but it is already looking amazing! Cant wait to see it develop. Love seeing your work  :Wink:

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## Abu Lafia

Thanks Josiah, yeah in fact it's a "hybrid". If i find the time (and nerves) there will be little villages on the other islands too...  :Wink: 

Thanks a lot Barek, always appreciated!  :Smile:

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## ChickPea

Wow, this is going to be epic in every sense of the word!! It's looking glorious so far. I love your colouring and the linework is fantastic.

Can you say some more about this gimp script or share a link? I don't recall hearing of it before and I'm always interested to know about a new trick!  :Very Happy:

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## Freodin

> Wow, this is going to be epic in every sense of the word!! It's looking glorious so far. I love your colouring and the linework is fantastic.
> 
> Can you say some more about this gimp script or share a link? I don't recall hearing of it before and I'm always interested to know about a new trick!


I guess he means this one.

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## Abu Lafia

Hey Chickpea, thank you for the nice feedback!  :Smile:  It's a gimp plugin made by Zach. I used it already in my (unfinished) Mon Calamari map for the Star-Wars Challenge and another map i made some time ago that i haven't uploaded yet. I used it to make those plain contour lines (which are great!). But since i haven't the slightest idea about scripting, i had to make some working steps manually. The plug in works on the basis of selections "by color" (i guess), but after stroking the selections it doesn't save those selections. That means i had to manually select every single strata again to manipulate it later on, to color them differently,  stroking it again for lights to make it look more plastic, etc. The creator Zach seems not to be active here anymore to ask him, but i bet it wouldn't be to hard to implement such things into the plug in (but again, maybe i'm wrong here because i'm a total noob with these things  :Very Happy:  ). Anyway, it's totally worth playing around with this thing.

Edit: Oh Ninja Attack!  :Very Happy:  Yeah that's the one  :Wink:

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## ChickPea

Ah, thanks for the info. A new toy to play with!  :Very Happy:

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## Ilanthar

That's a damn big project! I'll definitely follow what you'll do with it. I like the colors a lot. Do you intend to put some kind of transition between the contour lines?

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## Tom

Really awesome Abu!! For me your maps always have a "rusted/warm" feeling that describe them perfectly! can't wait to see it finished!  :Smile:

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## snodsy

This look awesome Abu, look forward to seeing it develop for years  :Smile: , love the topo and the type, nice start. I find it a little dark, but wait to see.

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## Abu Lafia

> That's a damn big project! I'll definitely follow what you'll do with it. I like the colors a lot. Do you intend to put some kind of transition between the contour lines?


Thanks Ilanthar. In fact, i wanted to use the contour lines as marking the edges of "real" plateaus/strata of the landscape, not just abstract "height-lines" on the map, so there wont be any transitions except some stairs from one level to the other (hope that makes sense...)




> Really awesome Abu!! For me your maps always have a "rusted/warm" feeling that describe them perfectly! can't wait to see it finished!


Thank you Tom, glad i found the right tune  :Smile:  




> This look awesome Abu, look forward to seeing it develop for years , love the topo and the type, nice start. I find it a little dark, but wait to see.


Hope it will be only months!  :Very Happy:  Thank you snodsy, as i've written on another map before, you approving of the type makes me think: "yesss, one thing less to worry about"  :Wink:  

Here is another update: It takes some time, but i got two more neighbourhoods done, yay! Bromdal and Fatargonia are the only densely populated quarters to come, the rest will work out comparably fast (i hope!)

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## ThomasR

That's an interesting setting, it makes me think of favelas with their houses build on tricky terrain. Nice colors and a pretty huge amount of linework ahead so ... good luck with that  :Wink:  I'm sure it'll be marvelous. Do you plan on adding some vegetation ?

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## Ilanthar

> *By Abu Lafia*
> Thanks Ilanthar. In fact, i wanted to use the contour lines as marking the edges of "real" plateaus/strata of the landscape, not just abstract "height-lines" on the map, so there wont be any transitions except some stairs from one level to the other (hope that makes sense...)


Ah OK! It makes sense, indeed. A dwarfized landscape somehow  :Smile: .

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## Diamond

*Taps foot impatiently*   :Very Happy:

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## Abu Lafia

http://truecrime.glorianana.com/wp-c.../12/garlic.gif
 :Very Happy:

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## Diamond

Hahaha nice!  :Very Happy:

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## Abu Lafia

Being totally in "city-mode" atm, i stumbled once again over this rather ambitious project of mine and found that i haven't posted an update for quite some time. Don Diamond was already tapping his foot impatiently and now that i'm done "slicing the garlic", i thought it might be better for my kneecaps to deliver something  :Wink:  The houses crawled over the hills to the other side of the island into the valley of Fatargonia and parts of Bromdal. As written above, the biggest part of the densely built living areas is done. I still haven't sketched out most of the major buildings, like the monasteries, the military harbour and ofc the cathedral and palace(s), but i hope the wonderful things happening in the Guild City Project atm will give me some inspiration for them.     



Edit:
@Thomrey: There will be some vegetation, but not much. The dwarves chopped a lot of the trees hundreds of years ago already  :Smile:  I might "break up" that plateauish landscape in some areas to add some pastures and tiny bits of forests.

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## J.Edward

That is very cool Abu  :Very Happy: 
I had forgotten about this one. Glad it is revived  :Smile:

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## kacey

OMG! Abu Lafia! This is insane! I love it!

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## Abu Lafia

Hehe, thanks you two. Any (therapeutic) suggestions are greatly welcome!  :Smile:

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## Ilanthar

You're braver than me toward your unfinished gigantic project(s)  :Wink: ! Glad to see more progress on this one, I'm still very curious to see this dwarven city develop  :Smile: .

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## Diamond

Bless you, Abu!  I'd given up hope on this!

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## Mouse

I remember looking at this map when I first joined up and was too shy to comment (hmmmn... seem to have overcome that somewhat!)

I was as fascinated then as I am now with the style - like copper sheets cut into delicate filigree contours, with tiny bead-like houses.

I love it as a map, but even more as a piece of art  :Smile:

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## Kellerica

I sense a Cartographers' Choice in the making...  :Wink:  

This is an ambitious piece if I ever saw one. Can't wait to see it finished!

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## Diamond

Must... have... update...

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## Ilanthar

> *By Diamond*
> Must... have... update...


I second Uncle Joe, here  :Smile: . In your place would take precautions about my brain, though  :Surprised: .

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## Diamond

> I second Uncle Joe, here . In your place would take precautions about my brain, though .


Yessss.... I'll eat its brains, my precious... and with all the ingested talent I'll finish the map myself....  gollum....

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