| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So my players have restricted all of their invesitgation to the Town Hall, and so they know the Town Hall Records area quite well having literally spent days in there.
They have asked for any floor plans of Harrowstone. As someone who works at a Council, this is something that Town Hall records would have. So while I could be a jerk and say "they've mysteriously disappeared" because I can't be bothered making them up, I'm not going to do that.
That said, I'm not content to simply hand over the map from the book as is because it has secret tunnels and doors clearly marked. So I was wondering if anyone has made a floor plan of Harrowstone at all? Ideally a floor plan of Harrowstone of before it got burned down and suffered structural integrity issues?
I can (and will) make it up myself by hand if I have to. But I was hoping I wouldn't have to.
You don't need a player handout for this, I don't think. Just say, "OK, you find a copy of the floor plans."
A little bit more work, maybe, but not really overwhelming. You can also make it their responsibility to remind you if you forget to add the extra details.
Alternatively, you might just rule that since the prison was built before the town, the floorplans were never recorded there.
EDIT: I didn't read your last paragraph until after I posted, narf. So, yeah, I'd just make it up on the fly.
You don't need a player handout for this, I don't think. Just say, "OK, you find a copy of the floor plans."
Pfft. They spent an entire session doing little but combing through those town hall records. I want to reward that by giving them a handout.
As it is, it isn't as time consuming as I thought it would be (I'm doing a bare-bones layout that shows walls, windows, which way the doors open along with labels for each room). I've almost got the ground level done. All I need to do is add windows and labels for each room.
If anyone's interested I'll upload the final copy.
You don't need a player handout for this, I don't think. Just say, "OK, you find a copy of the floor plans."Pfft. They spent an entire session doing little but combing through those town hall records. I want to reward that by giving them a handout.
As it is, it isn't as time consuming as I thought it would be (I'm doing a bare-bones layout that shows walls, windows, which way the doors open along with labels for each room). I've almost got the ground level done. All I need to do is add windows and labels for each room.
If anyone's interested I'll upload the final copy.
Color me impressed! That's a level of record-combing my group could not easily match.
Alas, I'm afraid I can be no help to you whatsoever as I cheated in my game--I told my players there was a note in the town hall records indicating the prison floor plans were on file in the far-away city of Lepidstadt...
Oddly, my group didn't think to ask for that in the townhall. But did ask when they were searching the Administrative offices on the first floor.
...In my world the person who drew those blueprints had horrible horrible handwriting.
I was just going to suggest drawing it out by hand. But looks like you have, I would also be interested in seeing your final results when you are done.
+1. My group also asked for one when they reached the administrative offices.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well here is the ground level. This was the one that required the most work, as I had to create not only the floor plans, but the template for the Plans itself (the footer).
It's important to note that this is the floor plans that was used to construct the prison, so it doesn't match the map in the book exactly. I've also removed the waiting rooms in the front foyer, because it felt like it had two foyers and that seemed silly. It was also difficult to draw those curved walls, so I just gor rid of it.
The features of the map are:
* The lift
* Windows along the outer walls
* Stairs leading up and down
* The doors and the way in which they open
I'll post the basement and top level sometime later today. I'd be interested in feedback and thoughts about the plan.
I use a differnt approach.
I use "some PDF Extractor" (yes thats the name of the proram) and get the Image of the floors out of the Pazio pdf's (BTW: great work with the new MapPDF's in Jade Regent). This saves the maps WITHOUT all the room numbers etc as a jpg. Then I just use some Paint Program (Paint Shop Pro) and erase the Secret Doors. Takes like 5min.
THEN I print them out in color as large as posible, after that I CUT them up and give them bit by bit to may players as they explore the map. They clue it in their Player Diary and it works like a charm.
Same goes for all the over land or city maps....
Have a go...orks awesome.
Well here is the ground level. This was the one that required the most work, as I had to create not only the floor plans, but the template for the Plans itself (the footer).
nice work that. My players tried that too. I told them that after the "revolution" all the maps where centralized in Tamaria. :)
Nothing is better then Office-Red-Tape in the endless dispencer.
My PCs didn't ask, but I think I'd have said no map is found. Tthey do find a note saying they were removed due to families of prisoners coming here and trying to use them to plot an escape.
Huh. My party asked and I told them there weren't any plans in town - the plans to the prison would not have been available to the public.
But that's neat.
This map rocks the proverbial socks, sir! Stellar job!
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alright, here are all 3 of my maps. I had to alter the design considerably, due to the size of the basement. My players got a real kick out of them so I hope someone here might find them useful in their own campaigns. They are formatted for an A4 piece of paper.
First Floor (ground level)
Second Floor
Basement Level
Remember: These are the original floor plans (with a couple of slight alterations from what's in the book)
Very, very nice.
I'd have the floor plans be very outdated. They don't include the East and West balconies, the torture chamber isn't on them, and the whole thing is covered in so much architectural jargon that it would take a DC 17 Knowledge: Engineering check to get a basic idea of the place.
Once they get that check (which I would give some XP for), I'd draw up a basic, if incomplete, outline of the prison, like John Lynch 106 did.
That's pretty awesome. Certainly better than anything I'd have drawn up for my players.
I'm curious about the people who have said their party would find a note saying "no maps"...is this because you don't want to write them up, or because you don't want to party to have the maps? I ask because after years of playing Shadowrun, it just seems odd that so many people would seem to be so opposed to something that makes so much sense.
In my own group, there are a number of players who's background is more in D&D 3.? and beyond), but there are either enough historians/educated folk, coupled with at least one player who spent most of those same years running the shadows right along with me, that I imagine the subject will come up, so these maps'll be coming in handy.
Thanks for posting the maps! I'm 3 games into HoH, and my players will almost certainly be researching in the Town Hall next game, so the timing is perfect.
Thanks so much for sharing these! I'll have to think about whether to give these to my players. They did ask if there were maps when they did research, and I said there were none. And there is some logic to there being no such maps in the town hall. But it does make sense the maps might be in the admin or warden's office. My players have already explored the upstairs and half of the first floor without visiting those offices, but I'll have to consider giving them the maps when they do get to the office (if they search it well). I probably will, because I don't think the maps confer any huge advantage.
|
I erased the names and a couple of the rooms to make an earlier version.
These will have been only a copy of the original, which is at the County Archives in Tamrivena.
While the prison was operational, the maps were not available, but since then, the prison's archives have been mouldering in the the town hall's basement.
I also "aged" it in Windows Photo Gallery by taking the contrast almost all the way left (down), making the color temperature all the way right (warm), and the saturation all the way right (up). It resulted in what really do look like old papers. :)