I could use some suggestions about how to turn this concept into a map. What should be my approach?
The adventurers are heading to a lost elven city. That gaming session is 22 days from now. I know who is in the city, what is in the city, the general state of the city. I even have a mental image of the city. What I don't have is a way to capture it on paper.
The following is a description of the city.
Just under the surface of the ground, the huge central trunk branches into 25 smaller trunks that shoot out as much horizontally as vertically. The canopy reaches heights of 650'. The first 500' are livable by medium sized creatures. The trunks and branches have been shaped in ways that ordinarily wouldn't be possible, so that they grow back through each other and are frequently hollow. The tree's natural systems are used for running water, fountains, and the like.
The tree has an extensive root system. In many places the roots extend above ground like the "knees" of a cypress tree. These knees have been shaped into structures like bridges, walls, and towers. Many of the roots are hollow allowing traffic below ground.
The roots reach down through the earth, cutting through the gutrock to a subterranean lake. With the help of dwarves in ages past, the elves have also built an elaborate series of chambers in the rock beneath the city.
As centuries went by and the growth of the treant slowed, the elves lost the art of the treecraft that enabled them to shape their city. Thus there are all kinds of stone structures built on and around the core treant superstructure.
The perimeter of "knee" towers has a diameter of 1 mile. The 25 trunks cover an area about 250 yards by 250 yards*. The largest single trunk has a diameter of 50 yards.
My vision is that the roots and branches both form networks of bewildering complexity.
The whole place is in ruin, except that the treant remains alive. All the stone structures have collapsed/crumbled, new trees have sprouted (some quite large), and various ivies, molds, and lichens reign supreme. Along with monsters and rabid, disease-addled elves, of course.
* EDIT: 250 yrds x 250 yrds at the base. Obviously the spreading branches make the shade this thing produces much, much larger.
The challenge: this is a true three-dimensional setting with no real "levels," except for the caves. Every time I start to map it, I get hung up on little things, like the fact that many of the corridors wouldn't be flat (think about looking at the branches of a tree from the side...especially one with large branches that droop). Plus the sheer scale of it, and my utter lack of artistic skill.
Obviously I need a way to break it into manageable chunks, but I don't really have a clear conception of what those manageable chunks should be.
Ideas?
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Firstly, you need to find a way to break off large pieces.
If you've got it in your head, however it is, then "look" or "feel" your way around, find something that has a minimum number of connections, make sure you know where those connections are, and "break it off".
Now take that piece and map it. Repeat as needed.
***
alternatively, go outside with some graph paper, find a small tree, and try drawing a "map" of it, until you get something that is accurate, easy to understand, and suitably "tree-ish".
Then, after you've done that, take your mental tree-city, set it aside, and re-build the whole thing in your head, using what you've learned and drawing a map as you go.
What I would recommend is to split the tree vertically and cutaway the front to draw a map detailing the general appearence of its interior, with minimal detail or a level that matches your artistic skill, basically just to show scale. Then, on seperate peices of paper, map important areas that are likely to be interacted with on a regular basis or that may involve combat. Either label the main map to corresponding close-up maps or even just draw arrows showing what each map of a smaller area is detailing. First try thinking of what areas are going to be important to the campaign and detail those, then try to figure out how they would fit into the larger picture. It shouldn't be neccessary to map every part of the city unless every part will be regularly explored and interacted with. Write out a few paragraphs of generic fluff text and a generic close-up map or two for when places you haven't intended to be explored are.
I could use some suggestions about how to turn this concept into a map. What should be my approach?
The adventurers are heading to a lost elven city. That gaming session is 22 days from now. I know who is in the city, what is in the city, the general state of the city. I even have a mental image of the city. What I don't have is a way to capture it on paper.
The following is a description of the city.
** spoiler omitted **...
Kind of like this:Elven Tree?
I realize that's a picture not a map, but it took very little search-fu to find that. Odds are there might be such a map already out there somewhere.
Kind of like this:Elven Tree?
Curses! Foiled by the firewall!
I'll have to check that one out from home.