A Land Far Away

Sneak peak of the progress... pretty happy with the texturing so far
Texturing mostly finished
Village partly finished
Moving on to placeables in the ruins

Many thanks again for your work on this El. I am happy.

Holy crap! ...that's brilliant stuff, El Cad

The detail with crops, market, and stonework is phenomenal...thanks very, very much for all you do for us

aie, that looks big. hopefully the walkmeshes aren't too nasty?

Paz, I always try to make the walkmeshes neat, and I'll be blocking out unwalkable cliffs and such with walkmesh cutters instead. Good, huh?

When the Sun goes down... don't get caught outside

Looks fantastic ElCad, and youve even used the same textures as the rest of the server so it all times neatly in

Now I just have to get the link areas done...

I just need the textures for the roads so they match. some screenshots of the style of the roads would be good.

Check the screenshots thread

cobble 45 with cobble 46 for breaking it up, and an underlying terrain colour of grey.

Any lore on why the ruins called Tempus Tears?

I've a rabid tempusean who would like to know if relevant

Dorn wrote:Any lore on why the ruins called Tempus Tears?

I've a rabid tempusean who would like to know if relevant

The village of Tempus Tears is detailed in the old AD&D resource, "Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast", lots of copyright-infringing pdf files are out there to be found on the web. Usually any time I link 'em, they vanish within a short time from people overloading and somehow attracting negative attention.

I bet that canon of that area could well have evolved since, say, before the TIme of Troubles. Never looked into it. Also as with any Volo junk, it'd be loaded with meta information (hey, don't take too many stones from the ruins or the local dwarves will summon a friendly amethyst dragon on you... WTF??). Maybe different "Knowledge" (Local) or (Geography) or (History) (??) DC's would be set by a DM team to know all kinds of Volo-ish facts, that's all DM call.

EDIT: To your "Tempus related question", this is an excerpt from Volo, whether it's still the case in "current" canon or even ALFA canon, beats me... really related to a rune marked stone at a particular crossroads there:

This small, little-known village rests
quietly where the Skuldask Road
meets Thundar's Ride in the heart of
the Fields. Most folk think it's just a
huge, abandoned, ancient stone city,
fields upon fields of once-proud
towers fallen into rubble and ruin.
Its name comes from a standing
stone set up at the intersection that
bears the words:

Here was peace this day made.
Let Tempus cry bitter tears.
No more our dead we’ll parade
And live cloaked in waiting fear.

This stone is believed to mark the
spot of one of the parleys that ended
a long war and with it, any hope of
creating a northern realm ruled by
those Calishite satraps greedy for
ever more land to bring under their
rule. The date of the struggle, who
exactly was fighting (beyond Calishites
on one side, and humans
already here who wanted to remain
free on the other), how long the
peace lasted, and who wrote the
words on the stone are all lost in the
mists of the passing years.

Ah..so THOSE sort of tears.

Some Eldath-bothering peace loving hippees place then;)

cheers BB

Yeah, "boo to peace treaties", brings a tear to the god of war's eye.

My vision for this area.

Nothing much grows in the ruins, except twisted and tortured trees, sickly grasses and tough hawthorn bushes. Mists rise at night over the waters. Giant vermin and unseelie fey lurk in wait for the unweary.

Those who enter the ruins alone perish, save the most forceful or the most stealthy. Horrendous undead patrol the area, both solid and incorporeal.

Several old ruins with entrances to musty interiors (not yet constructed), so plenty of opportunity to venture in and never be seen again.

The ruins exert constant pressure on the small hamlet, as undead often find their way over the ridge, occasionally stumbling on an gap in the outer wall, only to be beaten back by grizzled old dwarves in slapshod armor... who succeeed.. most of the time.

By contrast, in the hamlet, the tough circumstances outside have given the dwarves and gnomes who reside here a quiet pride in their own accomplishments, and warmly welcome those who bring coin to trade for their goods, their leatherwork is excellent, and a small smithy forges weapons from rusty scraps which surface in the bog from time to time, some with interesting properties.

A gnomish Cleric of the Rose Bear has managed to coax gardens and trees from the reluctant soil, bringing a small spark of beauty to the otherwise bleak landscape.

A pyre burns on the hill above the village, fueled by the corpses of the undead, never ceasing to smoulder, a testament to the stubborn determination of these hardy folk.

Just doing the roads and fine detailing now.

It's a neat vision, but I thought the canon was basically "people occasionally take stones from the ruins for construction, and if it irritates the dwarves after repeated warnings, they summon a friendly local amethyst dragon to get people to bugger off." I did get the impression folks plumbing the ruins, seeking an artifact ("the Stone that Speaks") often vanish, it's speculated to other planes.

There may be more recent sources than Volo though.