Author Topic: The scale of Belynar.  (Read 3974 times)

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Offline Bruce

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The scale of Belynar.
« on: February 14, 2014, 09:34:01 PM »
In recent news I have had to move my entire HARP game over to Maptool, which by the way is a real great online gaming tabletop. This is because of limited play and the hardship of getting everyone together at the game store (for at best two hours of play every other week). Which has put a big delay on the other projects I am working on submitting to ICE. In doing this I have been vectoring Belynar so that I could use it in Maptool. Originally I intended to do the entire city then port it directly into Maptools. That, unfortunately, will not work because for one Maptools could not handle a file that large and for another the bandwidth and RAM usage would be to much for some of my players. So I decided to do it in pieces.

In the process of vectoring and using what I have so far in my game I have noticed that the scale is ridiculous. It is my understanding the scale is correct according to another post. With that in mind, were all the previous inhabitants giants? I would figure not as I believe the city is originally a dwarven built city.
In the first adventure for Belynar "Cleaning House", on page 15 it lists "map 2: mission goals". The scale on that map shows 500' per square. That would make the central court where the refugee first appear about 2800' by 3000'. The characters (PC's and NPC's) all look like ants when I zoom out enough to see at least part of one building. Also none of the paths are less than 80 ft wide at the most narrow point.

If this is the correct scale, then  pray tell, what is the function of all those huge buildings on that central court area? Also when reading another post about the height of Belynar (about 3000 ft), I realized that this is a short squat mountain when compared to the area covered by it.  The central court is the same width as the height of the mountain! The scale on the full size Belynar map sets the are covered by the mountain something like 16,000 cubits x 21,000 cubits (roughy, 24,000ft x 31,500ft).  If the scale in the "Cleaning House" adventure is correct could someone give me an idea of what all those super huge buildings were used for?

Bruce

P.S. Yes I am vectoring the entire map of Belynar and it will give much better resolution. Though I am not sure what some of the details are on the original map I am vectoring. So some of my thoughts may be very different from what the original artist thought. If I ever am able to finish this immense project, I will with ICE's permission, put it in the vault for others to use as they will. But take note I am no professional graphics artist, but I do ok.
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Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2014, 09:58:56 PM »
The topic of the scale of Belynar has been brought up before and the response from one of the authors was that the scale was indeed immense... similar to the scale you are referring to, so officially that would be the rough estimate of the scale of the locations in the city.


I would say that from my own personal opinion, I wouldn't feel tied to those dimensions.  If you were to re-map Belynar with the same general layout, but different scale and greater detail it would likely be very welcomed... even if it meant we had to revise canon.
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Offline Bruce

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2014, 10:18:11 PM »
The topic of the scale of Belynar has been brought up before and the response from one of the authors was that the scale was indeed immense... similar to the scale you are referring to, so officially that would be the rough estimate of the scale of the locations in the city.


I would say that from my own personal opinion, I wouldn't feel tied to those dimensions.  If you were to re-map Belynar with the same general layout, but different scale and greater detail it would likely be very welcomed... even if it meant we had to revise canon.
Noted... and I will take for action. With that in mind I may post a poll to see what everyone else thinks. once I query my players. Though my players tend to tell me to go with what I feel fits. Which can be one of two things, A. They trust my judgement as a GM, or B. They don't care and just want to kill things regardless of the details....lol.

Bruce
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Offline Zut

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2014, 09:09:09 AM »
In the process of vectoring and using what I have so far in my game I have noticed that the scale is ridiculous. It is my understanding the scale is correct according to another post. With that in mind, were all the previous inhabitants giants? I would figure not as I believe the city is originally a dwarven built city.

The city was build by the Cyrads, and I don't remember any physical description of them, just to let you know. ;)
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Offline Bruce

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2014, 11:42:40 PM »
Isn't there something in there about dwarves being involved in the construction? Either way I don't think the Cyrads were giants of that scale.
Look on page 14 of the "Cleaning House" module were it indicates one square = 500'. Take 1/100th of one of those squares and you have a 5' square block, of which you can stand a few humans together. That scale does not match the scale in the picture on page 6 of the same module, you can see humanoids (refugees) in the pic and they are a lot bigger than what the scale on pg 14 would indicate. If I used the scale on page 14, they would be about 1/10th the size in that pic. How would anyone be able to climb any of the stairs?

Bruce
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Offline WoeRie

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2014, 02:21:03 AM »
I heard something that the scale was increased after the product was nearly finished. This could explain why the pictures and the scale do not match properly.

Offline Bruce

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2014, 10:28:22 PM »
If it was increased, the city was not meant for human sized creatures. If you look close enough at the primary Belynar map, look for a set of steps on the central plateau. Based on that huge scale, you could camp at least two rows of tents on each step. That is how small people are on that map. So the scale as presented in the "Cleaning house" module (which consequently matches the big map scale) does not make any sense.

Bruce
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Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2014, 08:38:27 AM »

Here are some Belynar facts from the timeline....
20650 - Cyrads founded Belynar


Then in 22380 (more than 1,700 years later....)


Quote
The Cyrads make a treaty with the Mablung
Dwarves. The Dwarves are fascinated by the
Belynar building project—there is knowledge to be
gained and great work to be done. The Dwarves
offer to assist the Cyrads with the building of
Belynar, in exchange for the privilege of building
their own city, Blackflame in the northern mountains.
The first of the underground chambers are
opened inside the slopes upon which Belynar rest.


Belynar was built as a joint effort between Cyrads and Mablung - I would go with Mablung handling the inner-volcano construction and Cyrads handling the external buildings.


22650 (270 years later)  Belynar is completed.


Here is some more info from a previous thread...


Quote
Quote from: dutch206 on March 05, 2007, 07:13:23 AM
2)  On the map of Belyanar, there is a bridge which runs across the top of Mount Belos' crater at its widest point.  Depending on how high Mount Belos is, it might be extremely difficult for humans to cross this bridge without passing out and plunging to their deaths.
What is the Elevation of Belyanar?  How tall is Mount Belos?



And the response was -
 
Quote
I would say that the Camal Sea is at most 100-200 feet above see level.
 
Now, I would turn your attention to the Belynar map that is on the reverse side of the Cyradon map. In its lower left hand side, you will see a drawing showing a side elevation of Belynar, just below the cubits legend.
 
We used 18 inches for the length of a cubit. Looking at the building on the right hand side of the side elevation, you can see that it is the gate house out at ground level, however the map does not go all the way down. So. we extrapolate that ground level is just above the left-to-right bit on the bottom of the symbol that looks like an "L" with the hook at the top, this will give us an approximate elevation for the top of the volcano of somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 cubits.
 
In feet that would be (adding in a base of 100' above see level) somewhere between 3,850 and 4,700 feet in total, depending upon where ground level actually is on that side elevation map.
 
The portal itself is located approximately 1,500 cubits from ground level, making it somewhere around 2,350 to 2,450 feet in elevation above sea level. This is also the same level where the refugees are living for the first few months (except for those that travel to Sefnar to set up the farming village there after the Restoration of the Belynar area.
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Offline markc

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2014, 12:38:29 PM »
 ;D Off the reservation time: Well I think that maybe there is a local magical effect in that people and things actually shrink while they enter the cities magical radius. Or maybe only specific things shrink at specific times of the magical seasons and no one knows what the patterns is yet.  ;D   


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Offline Old Man

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2014, 11:51:14 AM »

Might be a good time to reconsider the scale on the Belynar map before reissuing the core book? Or redo the map - keep the volcano to the old scale and shrink the city somewhat. ... (Those outer walls look to be 200-300 cubits across ... )
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Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2014, 01:55:11 PM »
Stop peeking behind the curtain....
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Offline Bruce

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Re: The scale of Belynar.
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2014, 10:00:38 PM »

Might be a good time to reconsider the scale on the Belynar map before reissuing the core book? Or redo the map - keep the volcano to the old scale and shrink the city somewhat. ... (Those outer walls look to be 200-300 cubits across ... )

Consider it a definite maybe........

Bruce
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