TK room concept art.

[Pitch]

Okay, so. I took this project on, like....2 years ago and never got a chance to work on it. I think I will go back to it, now. I really need the practice anyway when it comes to environments as I seriously need to take a break on the human figures; commissions or otherwise.

SO.

How do YOU picture the rooms? Namely: The desert, Arena, Pub, Forest and the east and west towers? (I'm obviously not doing the MH or OOC Lobby)
Here is a thread for you to dump ideas, pictures and input on how you might like to see these rooms visualized.  That's 6 rooms I'd like some ideas on. Also, any volunteers to help render them in any way are also welcome. (Hint, hint fellow concept artists. I know you exist on TK.)

And remember the KISS principle!! (Keep. It. Simple. Sweetie. Because calling you stupid would be mean. <3 )

[Kade]

How do YOU picture the rooms? Namely: The desert, Arena, Pub, Forest and the east and west towers? (I'm obviously not doing the MH or OOC Lobby)

Desert - Think the movie The Mummy. Bedouin raiders roaming around and everything. Oasis, maybe a fertile shoreline. Trade caravans. Blah.

Arena - Like the Roman Coliseum, but not Roman culture.  Instead of Neptune, Venus, etc sculptures and latin entablature, I see it culturally neutral.  As culturally neutral as you can get with collumns and arches, anyway.  Sometimes I see it kind of shabby, sometimes I see it more grandiose.  If it is shabby I see it as just a prosaic stone building for use by the public and for certain festivities hosted by the public.  If it is more grandiose, fighters from all over Nexxus are going to the Arena to cut their name into history. They register, get matched up, there's always at least a little bit of a crowd during the day, always a fight going.  Lots of space in the pit, enough to actually hold chariot races (and safely contain the more 'super-duper-powered' fights that go on there sometimes).  It's not just stone. There's a big awning over the top like the actual Roman Coliseum, statues of hundreds and hundreds of different Nexxus-deities outside and inside. Busts of warriors past with plaques detailing their achievements. http://i.imgur.com/xELtD.jpg This, but less orange, less steam everywhere. Slightly more decadent, and slightly less alien.

Pub - The stereotypical tavern with dark corners where weird people like to twirl daggers and smoke opium.

Forest - http://i.imgur.com/X1mdV.jpg More sunlight though. I only see PARTS of the forest being dense enough to make it that dark. The lighter, more people-friendly portions of the forest have trails/roads that people use regularly.  The "deep" portions of the forest are full of all the creepy crawlies. Drow, monsters, demons, undead, fair folk, whatever, which stresses the importance of staying on the roads if you're not trying to get lost or killed.

East and West Tower - I've never decided which tower is which, but for some reason I see one as a monument of an ancient, dead civilization.  Like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, but scaled to still be hella impressive and irreplaceable even in Nexxus where everyone can magically pull cities out of their ass and crush them to dust twice as fast.  Just a reminder that even the self-proclaimed gods of Nexxus were once dwarfed too.  The other I see as a very tall mage's tower, grey in color and standing alone on a roughly one mile in diameter rocky plateau raised hundreds of feet over the ocean. And it's so far out in the ocean that there's nothing but blue as far as the eye can see. Virtually no vegetation either, other than moss. The mage is such a hermit that he/she doesn't even show his/her face when visitors show up.  People tend not to bother him/her though.  I probably see it this way because whenever I look at the room there's no-one playing in there. The towers just come off lonely.

My imagination is probably way too vivid to be helpful in this thread. :| Sorry.

[-=Styles=-]

Yeah Kade, you suck.

I'd actually have to agree with most of everything Kade's mentioned. With the Towers, though, for some reason I've always pictured them as lone Towers in an expanse of some open field/battlefield with a scale of mountains in the backdrop; heavily fortified stone supports with typical arch designs and the ever significant 'castle' like turret at the top. (this is even after taking into consideration that the towers were literally considered towers as part of The Keep's unwritten design)

[Pitch]

KEEP EM COMING

[Flamme Noire]

West Tower - Begin Description (Egotistical)  [[ A white-gray tower subject to a frequent garrison by the Lord Noire and his knights ]]
                          - Begin Description (Pragmatic)  [[ A white-gray tower subject to the occasional garrison by the Lord Noire and his knights ]]
                 
Begin Description (Common)   [[  A fortification of meticulously polished stone; a single-spired tower of ornate design, with a wider base that curves gradually to a point at its apex.  Windows are tall, narrow, and garnished with attractive vines carved into the tower's aforementioned white stone.  At said tower's apex is found a dome of pristine gold (think Byzantine Architecture?), with equidistant black lines (lines which partition the gold plates used for the roof) coming to a point at the center of the domed roof. ]]

Addendum:  Styles had an excellent idea with the mountains for the backdrop of the tower.   Oddly, this is always how I've thought of it, though I've also envisioned a surrounding forest area, immediately visible from the cleared groud upon which the towers (both East and West) were situated.

Forest - Agree with Kade.  You have your copses, your clearings, your dense woodland subdivisions, et cetera.

Desert - Agree with Kade.

Pub - Agree with Kade  (Though, the TK staff should be lobbied to change the name of the default room to tavern, imho  )

Arena - Gold columns and gray sand.

East Tower -  A black tower, for balance.  Shape should be of a different architecture, naturally, presuming the distance between the two towers is similar to that which was established on Atheism's original map of TK.  This would reflect the idea that different peoples/cultures are responsible for the various landmarks of the world.


That's all for now.  If I think of something more, I'll edit this post accordingly.  So please keep checking back!
 

[Styles]

This actually begs the question as to whether or not people will be following Athe's map of the Nexxus or if we're going by the "old standard" of what tK used to be, which was literally a Keep.

I do believe I showed Pitch a screenshot from a game I fucking love to death. Chaos Legion. (best game ever imho) One of the Citadel/Cathedral's in the game, to be more specific. The Overall architecture has a stunning look to it, not too far gone gothic style, and has the presence of adaptability to befit almost any setting. Not saying that's set in stone, but if we're going for architectural balance for the Towers and the Arena, aside from what Kade's mentioned and Flamme's dabbed at, that's where I go for inspiration.

[Pitch]

This actually begs the question as to whether or not people will be following Athe's map of the Nexxus or if we're going by the "old standard" of what tK used to be, which was literally a Keep.

I do believe I showed Pitch a screenshot from a game I fucking love to death. Chaos Legion. (best game ever imho) One of the Citadel/Cathedral's in the game, to be more specific. The Overall architecture has a stunning look to it, not too far gone gothic style, and has the presence of adaptability to befit almost any setting. Not saying that's set in stone, but if we're going for architectural balance for the Towers and the Arena, aside from what Kade's mentioned and Flamme's dabbed at, that's where I go for inspiration.

I dunno, Athe is around more. If he doesn't bring the map back I might make on myself.

[Kade]

(Though, the TK staff should be lobbied to change the name of the default room to tavern, imho  )

Totally. For some reason "Pub" makes me think of people saying "blimey" all the time.

[Styles]

The only issue I have with Athe's map is that it would require days upon days upon days of traveling just to get from one destination to another. Like literally, unless he's updated it recently, the Arena is a big ass Island out int he middle of a large body of water. I understand the overall lay out was intended to glorify certain aspects of the RP community; kingdoms, territory claims, large estates, the Desert, Forest, etc.

Meh, just food for thought. KISS, remember?

[Styles]

(Though, the TK staff should be lobbied to change the name of the default room to tavern, imho  )

Totally. For some reason "Pub" makes me think of people saying "blimey" all the time.

Double totally.

[Kade]

The only issue I have with Athe's map is that it would require days upon days upon days of traveling just to get from one destination to another. Like literally, unless he's updated it recently, the Arena is a big ass Island out int he middle of a large body of water. I understand the overall lay out was intended to glorify certain aspects of the RP community; kingdoms, territory claims, large estates, the Desert, Forest, etc.

Giving RPers a little bit of recognition for their work is awesome.  The way my old profile was set up everyone that ever RPed with me got at least a little recognition in the Friends/Foes/Acquaintances section. It just ended up getting too grotesquely large for my profile, so I removed it. Imo, the map sort of worked the same way. Every little territory on that map was a piece of someone's story, and it helped people stay aware of what was going on in the "freeform" section of TK. But...

Styles is right. Hyper-realistic [see: stupid] RPers always got hung up on issues of "travel," and there was no consensus on the representation of the default rooms.  So unless you literally want to take the map, write up some rules, and play "TK Risk" with your buddy I don't think the map was necessary. A "freeform newsletter" or "freeform bulletin board" would work well enough if it was organized properly, imho.

The map did look fuckin' sweet though.~

[Furr]

Travel in TK has always been sort of non-euclidian. A trip from one end of the forest to the other could take 3 weeks, or 2 minutes.
Also, Waygates.
Waygates everywhere. That's how to get from point a to b instantly.

[Styles]

Right. I'm not knocking the map at all. I admire what was done and that someone took it upon themselves to do what had been done with it. I just had a personal difference with the distance required for certain things and little retinues of overlooked ideals. Like east and west tower being on opposite sides of the world (used loosely) I understand what it was intended for, and I encourage the growth and potential growth it was intended to provide, but on a smaller scale it was difficult to corroborate with particular sequences of Role Playing (assuming one was not lazy and defaulted to meaningless travel) with people who have been around on tK longer than some, and held a certain...eh....sentimental (?) quality to how their visualization of tK is/was.

But this isn't so much about the philosophy behind the preferences of the locations in query, anyway.

P.S. I'm drunk, so I'll decode this when I'm not. X_x

[Styles]

Bump.

[Jason Baane]

I always figured that in cases of long-distance travel the nexxus transwarped characters around, bending on itself to allow a seamless transition between two locales that should not in any logical way be physically connected. Or portals. Or wormholes.

[Furr]

Allow me to again refer to the concept of waygates.

[Kade]

Travel doesn't need to be explained, imo. All the rationalizations just make it feel corny. Cornier than if you'd simply just not worried about it to begin with.

IMHO

[Jason Baane]

Travel doesn't need to be explained, imo. All the rationalizations just make it feel corny. Cornier than if you'd simply just not worried about it to begin with.

IMHO

That's a good point. I'll buy that.

[The Turtle]

Arena: Basically a more spacier Roman coliseum sort of building, made of stone of course but with like modern Arena seatings.

Desert: Basically the typical oasis ya find in the hottest of spots, only with a few brown (dont ask me why) tall dusty rocky mountains/rock formations, along with a few actual spots one could live on, a few trees and a nice little disposable lake here and there...Also, just for the hey, throw in a REALLY long river to, just to give it Some possible life source.

Forest: Trees, a lot of trees, some roads, some dead areas, and a lot of brown and green coloring.

East tower: I imagine an old school sort of (enlarged) square fort tower with various windows and a military looking outside but normal look inside.

West Tower: Imagine a spiraling wizards tower only a bit bulkier with a staircase leading to the front entrance and such.

Pub: ...Eh, insert stereotypical Irish Drinking building and apply here...Only put a rainbow flag outside for being a bar situated to (One lining) Fags.

[Pitch]

These are all very good ideas. Thanks guys!

[Kade]

You're not welcome.

[Pitch]

You're not welcome.

YES I AM

[Kade]

lol, your sig.

[Styles]

So recently I happened to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I must say the backdrop for both towers are utterly impressive and clearly represent the idea I had for the imagery of both East and West tower. At least as far as the landscape surrounding each monolith would be concerned, especially when taking into consideration the possibility of such a macabre undertone from a partially destroyed forest at the gates of one of the towers, at least. The translation, however, would likely be misinterpreted as some sort of "Good vs. Evil" cliche by veterans and newcomers alike, considering the resonate influence stemming from the movies.