Santharian Development

Final attempt, I hope !      



First we have to see, who is interested in the layout, the architecture of the academy - there will be found not much about magic here. Those who are have to be around frequently in the next time, because we need to have decisions this time. We should however stick mainly to what we have discussed already and NOT throw in totally new concepts - it won‘t work then this way.

Rayne
Mina
Talia
Kik
Who else?

But one thing has to be decided after the other. So I will post slowly piece after piece from the huge amount of things we have talked about already, and we should decide about them - finally.

I will keep the next post for those things, which are decided already, and update it, so that we can see at the start of this threat, what is already done:

Here I will post, what is next to decide:


Will take a few days, till Iprepared it, please check if what we have is alright

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 8/10/05 14:07

The towers will be quite huge, about 50 to 70 peds in diameter, up to 200peds tall.

They will be detached, the dome accessible, each tower has however a hexagonal space around, which belongs to it.

See now, which tower is which and the main colour.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 7/16/04 0:12

We have agreed already, that there should be six inner towers around the dome protecting the orb.

We should decide now, what OUTER form they should have.

There are two main possibilities:

1. They have a symmetrical hexagonal form, getting gradually smaller in diameter the higher they are (could be steps at certain intervalls as well, for a later decision)
a. touching each other at the base
b. not touching each other at the base

Here is variety  1.a.:




2. They are round from the base on
a. touching each other at the base
b. not touching each other at the base

Here variety 2.a.:





The touching at the base has the effect, that the ring around the dome is thick, unpenetrable, where possibilities 1b and 2b, even 2a allow access to the dome!

We can mix both models and say, the base of the towers are hexagonal, but further up, they get round and gradually smaller  in diameter.

Variety 3 (Possibilities a. and b. again, b not shown)







Basically, the hexagonal or round form could as well define only the ground which belongs to a certain tower and its form can vary, but I think we said already, they should basically look all the same kind of conform, build out of a white stone (magically enforced or not).



The actual appearance could vary from tower to tower, due to magical illusions, which are either permanent or sustained by the students of a higher level. (I was told, this is not too difficult). If there is no time for illusion - then there is just none. This way we could even have the drop tower Xarl proposed long ago. The door to this tower would be however in the nowhere - well, at the place where all other tower have their door as well - again an illusion.

However, we don‘t have to decide about the kind of illusion now!

The concrete question is now:

Which variety of the six above mentioned will we chose?
Is the concept with conform look and illusions applied ok?
Other proposals - which don‘t go to far away ?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/7/04 17:20

And yes, proposals for the diameter of the towers and their height please! Take into consideration what we have talked about already - number of students and size and function of the outer towers. We don't have to decide it finally, but should think about it already now.

Diameters

- about 30 peds
-  about 50-70 peds
-  about 100 peds
-  smaller
-  bigger

Height:

- about 30 peds
-  about 50-70 peds
-  about 100 peds
-  smaller
-  bigger

Please put down your reason for your choice in THREE sentences!

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/7/04 17:25

I like the idea of rounded towers enclosed within a hexagonal space. However, I think that these plots of land belonging to each tower need to have pathways between them (the towers shouldn't be touching) so that there is some way for people to get to the Shield dome for meetings and the like without having to enter a tower.

I personally like the elegance of the sounded shape, and the hexagonal plot surrounding the tower would allow for more individuality among towers. The earth tower make have a stone garden around their tower, while water might have a small lake.It allows for more individuality, which I'm assuming we're allowing to each tower.

Each tower will have a uniquely different exterior, correct? The same shape, different colors and such?

I personally like the idea of having he water tower having streams of water flowing down the sides. I think it would look lovely and would be fairly doable, with magic or, perhaps, without it.

As for the size and hieght of the tower: I'm honestly not sure. I've never been good with spacial things like that. We have about 450 students per elemental tower, and maybe about 150 students per Archtower.We should keep that in mind.

Have we decided on the inner layers?

I agree with Rayne.  A round tower set in the middle of a hexagonal plot of land should look rather nice, and it'd be easier for the people who have a reason to be at the Shield Dome to get there.  

Right now, I think the idea is that the structure of the towers are basically identical, but near-permanent illusions are cast over them to give them each a unique appearance.  I'm thinking, though, that instead of having the towers be identical, perhaps there could be slight variations in each tower, to help reduce somewhat the complexity of the illusions needed.  

I'm not too sure about the size of the towers either.  They would have to be much taller than any building in Ximax, so they could be seen quite a distance away, like Xarl described in the Ximax entry.  I'd think that a height of about 100 peds should be enough.  And it's probably close to the limit of what can be done with the level of technology available.  However, I'm not sure we can fit 450 students into a 100 ped tall tower without having it look...a little too wide.  I think we all want the towers to look pretty elegant, which would probably mean a relatively small diameter compared to the height.  

In case they cannot fit, these are the solutions I can think of right now:
-Have the towers extend underground as well.  
-Use illusions to make the towers look much taller than they actually are (I'm asuming that it won't be easy to make the towers look more slender)
-Move the stuff that take up the most space (probably the dorms, and maybe the libraries too) into a larger structure at or around the bases of the towers.  

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I'll do a drawing this night with smaller towers in this hexagonal field, so we can compare it better.

My reason to set the towers very close together was, that I thought, the dome and its content is dangerous and that therefore an access to the dome itself should be restricted or not possible at all, except for a few mages, archmages. I think Xarl once said, he intended the dome to be a  place too dangerous for meeting room and such. But I don't mind. If we take the last sketch - there could be gates where the round towers meet to allow AND restrict access to the dome area. (The hexagonal outer space garden and such.)

The highest tower ever build out of bricks is in my hometown, started around 1400n.Chr. and 133 m high. Several other churchtowers which are even far older are still higher, so we could go up to 150 peds for the height .

I will give it some thoughts, how many students have room in there - they don't have to have all their own room! Room is something very precious in middle ages, so let share them a dormitorium and give only the higher ranks an own room.  

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

I propose that each tower be about 20 peds wide and each level between three and four peds high.


My rambling thoughts....

Well, let's assume that each story is around three peds high.  Nine feet seems like it would leave enough room, and I think that's a little tighter then the average modern level but this was the middle ages.  

If we use three peds per level, that gives us 45 stories to play with.  

Now comes the question of how much of the tower we want to be dormitories.  

We'll assume that we have a 3x3 ped dorm room for every two students.  That's enough for beds, some possessions, and a bit of breathing room.  

4.5 square peds per student * 450 comes to 225 + 1800 = 2025 square peds for dorm rooms alone.  

If we have 1/3 of the tower as dorms, that gives us 15 stories, making each story have on average 135 square peds of dormitory space alone and 7.5 dorm rooms per level (the octogonal shape would be perfect for eight dorm rooms).  Believe it or not, that tower would be less then ten peds across (guesstimating here)  

Now keep in mind if we double the diameter, we quadruple the living area.  If each level is twenty peds across, that will still be impressively slender, the kids will have space to live a little, and we'll need less then one ninth of the tower devoted to dorm rooms.

I think we're depending too much on illusions, which, I might add, are kind of exclusive to the wind tower.

Why can it be real water flowing down the sides of the tower be real? Maybe the fire tower will have glowing embers enclosed in glass (to avoid great shets of steam when it rains), so then why can't the embers be real? I imagine each tower would be maintained by those living in the tower itself.

As for the calculations on hieght... again, no clue.

I think we were talking about real water flowing down tower origionally.

How about the middle of each tower being hollowed out and having that element flow through the middle.  

Dear Beth.....

Our interior space is already limited. We have to fit 450 students and teachers in each tower.

Sorry, no new sketch today. Just one note - we can do the towers big enough to allow some interior diversions like Kik proposed it. I wouldn't do too much to the exteriour which affects the substance. Keep in mind, when and for what purpose the towers where build. Too much fancy things contradict somehow the purpose as well - it is not merely a place fo students,a school -  that is an addition, I thought, but for research and dealing with the magical knowledge. All these additions you proposed, Rayne, are not easy to realise with the means of that time, and just a costefective thing  - for which the money was surely not here when build. A later addition? I don't know, if not paying windmages to do the illusions is cheaper. And are only windmages able to do illusions? With illusions you have the advantage, that you can realise much more than in reality - and change it. You could let not only flow water down the respective tower, but fire (magma) as well. Different signs, carvings about the door however are something different. The playing with the element could take place then in a kind of great entrance hall which fills the entire ground level of a tower.
I (hopefully) do some calculations for the size tomorrow.

Where do you have the  450 persons per tower from, Rayne?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Well, I think it was decided that if all the towers were identical, it would be easier and cheaper to build them.  We could go with completely different designs too, I suppose, but it'd probably be a lot more troublesome to build.  

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Uhh, Rayne, space isn't that limited.  Read my post about the dorm room size.

Dear Beth.....

I thought we had already decided on these population figures..


Limited just means not infinite, Kik.  

Well, I don't know about you, Kik, but 3x3 peds seems really tiny to me, even if it's just for 1 person.  And you're trying to fit two people inside.  I suppose it can be done, if we have one person to each room, but I really doubt two students can fit into a room of this size.  The beds alone would take up almost a third of the room.  

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RL keeps me away! Sorry!

Mina, space was not such an issue in old times, in fact it was common that a LOt of people lived together on a very refined space, not having more than one square meters per person.
My first room when started university had 6 squaremeters (not nine!) - and that in an advanced society! A room of 9 squaremeters is pretty fine for two students! But I thought anyway of dormitories with up to 20 students - don't apply modern standards to an middle age society!

But there is no need to decide this now.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Ok, I propose now, to make the towers huge. They were built afterall to guard a very dangerous thing - by powerful, strong and selfconfident people.
I will name exact numbers when we have the outer towers as well, to be able toplay a bit with multiples and such.

So:
Height 180 ped, where the last 20 peds could be entirely ornamental
Diameter 60 peds (the hexagon, maybe the tower itself)

That leaves us every option open, how many people to put in, how to do the exterior, how the interior (they could be hollow, displaying their element in the middle, or a great entrance hall...), but let's us decide that later.

My first question is now:

- Do you agree with the huge sizes?The whole essemble has still not more than 180 ped in diameter!

The form:

You haven't answered my question yet, if the dome with the orb should be so accessible as some sketches would allow it.

We have three choices then:

- Closed walls as above:
- Round towers touching the slightly bigger dome, but with space between
- Round towers around an dome of the same size, room everywhere

We could of course build walls between the round towers to deny the direct access to the dome.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/9/04 23:00

This second pic won't show..  

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Uhh, sixty peds would be more like a building.  And that would be huge.  We should shoot for an 8:1 height/diameter proportion.  16:1 would be better, but that would mean a very high tower.  Still, keep in mind that if the base is twenty peds wide, that gives us 314 square peds of room per level and still leaves us with elegant proportions if we can bump the tower to 160 feet.

Assuming they need 1/2 of the space for halls etc, a 20 ped wide base gives us 157 square peds of living space per floor.  

How much does a student need.  Would a 16 square ped room be enough for two (that's twelve feet by twelve feet, as large as most small dorm rooms).

That's twenty students per level, a good round number.  That means we should have a total of lessee here.. between 25 and 30 levels devoted to student lodgings (We'd need 26 levels at least).

We could also have the rooms rectangular at 3x4 peds (12x16 feet) and gain another 5 people per floor.  That'll just be room for the beds and basic belongings, but I doubt that most of the students will spend much time in their rooms anyway, especially if each level has 100+ square peds set aside as a recreation area.

Dear Beth.....

Kik, no discussions of the interior now! And as I mentioned elsewhere, the towers are not just here to house the students!


And have you any reason, why it should be a 8:1 ratio or a 16.1 ratio?Why should it not be a building? The towers should get of course smaller at the top , in an elegant curve, or with small steps at every level- did i forget to mention that?(Details later!) Maybe 20 peds diameter at a height of say, 150 peds?

We could make them of course smaller like in the ?? pic above - this would apply in the case we leave more space around them.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

This are the rough proportions of a tower with base 60 and height 180. Of course not very elegantly shaped, just a quick little pic.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

IMO, they shouldn't be narrower at the top.  Why not have the six towers the same width at all points?  I always envisioned them as columns, a monument to the greatness of Ximaxian magic.  These would also have twice as much storage space as the pointed towers.

The 8:1 proportion is always used in building.  Any 1:2^X proportion always gives the structures a sense of order.  

Dear Beth.....

I think that storage space is basically unlimited, because we can go deep into the earth. Keep in mind we have catacombs and such running all through Ximax, deep underground. I think the shape is nice, and will show how the population of each level will shrink as one ascends through their studies.

As for the diagrams on what the towers will look like, I'm assuming the slender white lines are walkways? One should be able to walk around every tower, I think, without having to walk on the grass of any plot.

@Kik

Quote:

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The 8:1 proportion is always used in building. Any 1:2^X proportion always gives the structures a sense of order.

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Kik, that is not of interest for me, what is "always used" , we want to do something different - and I don't agree with your sense of order.

@Rayne - no, that is just how it came out by doing the pic with a minimum on effort, such details I would like to discuss later, as the exact shape of the tower and the exact numbers.

Please look closely at my questions and arguments above, so can we go on after having decided the rough outlines.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Why are the towers so high?  We don't need storage space 'coz of the catacombs below.  We don't need to protect the sphere at 150 peds in the air coz the towers wouldn't do that anyway.  The only reason they're as high as they are is for looks.  And those proportions simply look better and more elegant on a tower, that's all I was saying.

Here's a good place to note that if we don't shrink their radius as they get higher into the air and they're touching, they would form a massive wall around the dome..... which would be pretty cool looking ^^

Dear Beth.....

Edited by: Kikhku at: 6/11/04 17:53

They won't be touching. That would cause problems with individualizing. them (water from the Water tower would fall on another tower). It would also make it imporrible to circle any of the buildings.

We don't know yet, what we need, if we haven't decided on the interior, so this is no argument.
They would look nicer, if they were slimmer, but how they will look exactly I want to do decide later. I'm sure, we will find a solution.
Kik, what do you know about the properties of the orb, so that you can say, the towers don‘t have to be so tall for protection? I don‘t know anything, but I can imagine a lot. But the look counts, that is right.
The block is an interesting idea, but the towers are described vaguely as towers already, so no block.

A few clear questions now:

1. Are we all tending to this pic now?



The outer towers are touching the dome, which is slightly bigger.This has the advantage, that each tower can have an own access to the dome on ground level.



 2. Do we agree, that the towers will be fairly big, up to 200 peds, (the top might not have space that can be used), approximately 50 to 70 peds in diameter , getting at least smaller to the top with a ratio of 1:3, maybe 1:4?  Shape and exact measures will be decided upon later.

3. Don't you think, easy access to the dome should not be allowed? Now we have nothing to prevent the smallest student to go near the dome.

Rayne , Mina, Kik??

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

1. I was under the impression that the towers were kept apart so that it would be easier to individualise them, and the area around them.  However, the towers in the picture seem a little too close for that.  I think Rayne mentioned the idea of having a small lake around the tower of water.  It looks rather hard to do here.  Then again, I'm not really sure.  Maybe they are further apart than they seem to me.  Actually, have we agreed to go with that?  

2. Sounds pretty good to me. I'm not sure how a tower with those dimensions would look, but it sounds like it'll have enough space for quite a bit of things.  

3. I think the key is not allowing easy access to the Orb, not the Dome.  The Dome was built to keep the Orb's energies contained, and to keep people away from the Orb.  The only ones allowed inside are the Archmagi.  I think the Dome would be protected by rather powerful magics, and probably quite a few guards too, so it's going to be quite hard to enter it if you're not alllowed to, meaning that it's not really necessary for the towers to physically prevent access to the Dome.  The towers' purpose, aside from the teaching of magic, is, according to Xarl, helping the Dome to contain the Orb's energies.  

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Now I didn't read thoroughly enough. Did you want to be able to go around the towers and circle around the dome as well?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

That could work.  I don't really see any reason for the towers to be connected to the Dome anyway.  

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Let's drag Xarl in here for a final decision about the orb.  He made the dern thing.

At 50x200 peds they're gonna be fat cans or cones instead of towers, but hopefully the tapering will make up for the base.  

For the towers, let's enlarge the area around them, the hexagons.  Maybe have the base of the tower half the width of the hexagon and see how that turns out.

Dear Beth.....

Well, what do we actually want with this extented hexagonal area?

Hmm, and I don't think, that the blue tower above looks "fat", not very slender, I agree, but fat? And as I said, the shape is not defined yet.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

What about this?





Should the dome be bigger than the towers?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

1. The picture looks all right, but I think we should seperate the towers from the Shield Dome a bit. I think that there should be pathways both around each individual tower and around the Shield dome.

2. As long as they taper off enough, it should be fine. We might even consider a more curved side to achieve the measure of slenderness that we want.

3. The Shield dome is meant to keep the orb contained. That is true. But the Shield Dome is also the area the Ximax Council meets to discuss matters of teh school. Not all of the people attending these meetings will be mages! The Ximax school is a large and very influencial school, so you can expect visits from nobles, thains, and other potential donators. The entrances to the SHield dome should be locked when not in use, and when they are in use, I imagine even guards may be outside making sure things go as planned.

Rayne, I don't want to go in detail yet, so we don't need to discuss about locked doors and such and who meets where when (apart that I thought we said once, that there are only mages and pupils allowed in the inner court? -  but later)

Isn't the area around the towers enough distance between all buildings? I didn't go in details yet, the green area marks only the hexagonal plot, the white shapes are the towers. We can do anything in the green area, pathways and fire ditches, but not now!

And again: The shape of the tower is just this way, because it was the easiest to realise! We can decide it later!

My goal is to go forward step by step, otherwise we will end like last time!

Are the rough relative dimensions and distances between the towers ok now?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/12/04 23:24

Just supplying some reasoning to why the Shield dome would be accessible to all.

The spacing looks fine to me. It'll be nice when we get some pathways in there.

I realise that the shape of the tower is just that way because it was easiest to portay! I was refering to Kik's statement about fatness, and offering an idea on how we might make the tower more slender. Don't yell at me!  

I don't think the Dome has to be too large.  It serves as a meeting place for the Council, which doesn't seem to have many people.  No one else is allowed to enter, as it is too dangerous, as far as I know.  

The dimensions seem okay to me.  

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As long as the orb is in its little prodective place, it should be good. The COuncil will probably be a lot bigger than you might think. It might have fifty people or so. These meetins are meant to include researchers, teachers, and of course the Archmage. It's a council of intelliectual and influencial people.

I think that the dome will have as much ground-space as the towers, but keep in mind that it isn't as tall.

Teachers and researchers too?  I always thought that the Orb was too dangerous for anyone except the Archmagi and a few others to safely approach.  Keep in mind that when in the Dome, a mage is exposed to the full power of the Orb, which apparently brings with it a great risk of blowing the entire city up, if I've understood Xarl correctly.  I think that the Dome should remain a private meeting place for the Archmagi.  The larger meetings could be held elsewhere.  

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I always envisioned the protection around teh orb being multiple layers. The outside dome itself is just the first layer. I should think the orb itself would have tens of other layers built around it to keep it's power contained.

Yes, I agree with Mina, I think Xarl wanted to have it this way - but again, something to decide later.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Okay, what's to be decided next?  

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Seems I don't get around to this.

Next I wanted to have decided is which of the inner towers belongs to which element, the entrance to the area will be at the bottom of the last image. So which tower do we face when entering the inner courtyard. We could of course change the angle, so that one faces the dome, having an tower to the right and one to the left.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/18/04 16:52

Perhaps the entrance could be on the side of the picture rather than the bottom?  The entrance faces the east, if I'm not mistaken.  I think it'll look nicer, for a person entering the courtyard anyway, if we had the xeua and ecua towers by the sides, and the 4 elemental towers and the shield dome between them.  

Still wondering which tower should be in each spot...

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Oh, the position of the entrance is not decided wit that, just which towers lies oposite to the entrance.

some pics coming soon

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/18/04 23:40

 


Ok, the left pic was Raynes initial proposal, the right one we talked about later - oposing the elements fire-water;  earth-wind; ecuá-xeua.

First Decision:

Which tower should be which?

Second Decision:

Which colour for which tower?

A post from Rayne out of the depths, do we stay with this?

Our current tower colors are as follows:
Wind: Gray, Purple, Indigo
Water: Blue, Aqua, Turquoise
Fire: Red, Orange, Gold
Earth: Yellow, Green, Brown
Xeuá: White
Ecuá: Black

Discussion about how much from the chosen colour will be actual seen on the outside? Remember, we voted for an uniform appearance and some grey/white stones for the outer look:


Third Decision:

Where should the entrance be(look at first post)

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/19/04 0:10

Well, I would prefer the second proposal...looks more balanced to me, with the entrance at the right side of the picture (the east, I'm assuming).  As for the colours, I'd prefer lavender or plum to grey, but other than that, they look fine to me.  

By the way, can the things already decided on be posted elsewhere or maybe edited into the first post?  It would make things lesss confusing, I think.  

Erm, nevermind about that.  I just found out you're already doing that.  I wonder how I missed it...

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Edited by: Mina Aylwin at: 6/19/04 0:39

In my initial plan, the two arch schools were places such tat they were the first things you saw as you entered the school: basically one white tower and one black or dark tower. The problem with having opposing elements on opposing sides is that it's not certain as to which ones (or one) tower will be front most when you enter the school.

Obviously, any of the towers would prefer to be the frontmost tower, as a symbol of importance, so how do we structure the towers so that each are equal?

Are we deciding the symbolic colors for the towers? In that case, I would suggest the following:

Wind: Purple
Earth: Green
Fire: Red
Water: Blue

And Xeuá and Ecuá would of course be white and black.

As for the actual coloration of the towers themselves, that will probably be decided by the structure, when we decide that. And I was pretty sure we agreed that the uniformity would lie only in the shape.

I like the second one, elements opposite placed better as well.

So which tower should lie opposite to the entrance? Concerning the importance, I always envisioned Xeuá and Ecuá as the more basic principles, so one of the two it should be - and there I would choose Xeuá, the white tower.

Rayne, I just can‘t imagine towers plastered with bright colours, I don‘t think a Hundertwasser would look good here, it is not serious enough.And if the towers are made out of stone, they would have the same colour on most of their parts. I would, depending on the shape,, use the color on the outside more sparsely. The inside could be dominated by this one color, But let‘s decide that later.

I feel ok with all the colours as well, just that I can‘t se wind symbolised by purple as main colour - in combination with gray , yes - but alone? Wind is for me sky, clouds and so on. We don‘t need only one colour though, a main, yes, but additional as the proposal above shows. maybe it could be a colour between gray and purple?

I turn the other pic around and add the entrance later.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

I agree that the frontmost tower should be either Xeuá or Ecuá, but I fear that having one of these in front and the other in back would detract the importance of one and accentuate it in another.

And Talia, you misunderstand! I said the SYMBOLIC colors for each tower - as in, the color that would be used to represent them in a diagram or something. The colors certainly won't be bright! Though I thought we had agreed that each tower should have inidivudality, like water running down the sides of the wate tower, and embers closing in the sides of teh fire tower. The uniformity, I thought, was to lie solely in the shape.

I would prefer the xeua and ecua towers to be at the sides, so that no preference for either tower is implied.  Besides, having either of those towers in front (ie. the entrance being at the top or bottom of the picture) would probably not look as good.  When I tried to visualise what a person at the entrance might see, I realised that the 3 towers furthest from the entrance and the shield dome would probably not be very visible, and whichever tower is in front would appear to dominate the view.  Having the entrance at the side of the picture should look more aesthetically pleasing.  Then again, I was never too good with imagining things, so I have no idea how true that might be.  

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Well, the entrance to the side would not be a problem.

See here



Of course here only Xeuá, Wind and Earth are visible from the entrance.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

If we set the entrance to the east, as in this pic,



we face earth and water (or fire and wind, we could switch it around), the dome and the towers ecua and xeua are partly visible.

You always give preference to some towers, they can't be treated equally.

I don't know,if the entrance in the east is so good, I think the mountains in the back of the academy should be on the other side, so when entering, you see them in the back.
Could anybody look if we have already a description where exactly Ximax lies and where the academy ?  

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Btw, it doesn#t matter in which direction the entrance is now. Even if I put it to the bottom for easier drawing (when adding the outer towers), in the description one can always mention, that the entrance shows to the east, f.e.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

As the story goes, the Shield dome was made first and the towers were built around it, forming into a school. The Xcity of Ximax spread out eastward. There aren't many shops and towns to the west of Ximax, because most shopkeepers want to be able to catch people on their way to the Academy. You're not going to find much activity to the west.

I recommend having Fire and Wind to front and Water and Earth in the back. The Mountains in the back of Ximax as well as the fact these towers would be closer to the ocean might sort of imply their location should be here. If we could have the Wind tower be south of the Fire tower, that might akso be nice, given the Wind tower would then be closer to Elverground.

I think Xarl mentioned that the Academy is located at the centre of Ximax.  The Orb was located at the centre of the plateau, and since it cannot be moved, the Academy was built around it.  I see no reason to leave the western side of the plateau undeveloped.  However, there probably would be more activity in the eastern part of the city.  Anyway, we can leave this for some other time.  

As for the arrangement of the towers, I'm fine with Rayne's idea.  I would like to point out, however, that there are mountains in all directions except the east, and possibly, the southeast.  Ximax is pretty much surrounded by mountains, and beyond that, water.  

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No one has any reason to build behind Ximax, because no one is really going to frequent this area. Shopkeepers want to build there shop where it will be sen by customers coming in to Ximax, and that's on the eastern side. There isn't much reason to build on the western side. There are no ports or anything here.

Well, there might arose space problems at a point, so that the people have to build their houses beind the academy. What says Xarls Ximax entry?

Here we have a close up of the map



Well looking at this map, the hills are in the east.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 6/19/04 23:42

I preferred first the oposite-towers idea, but now I tend to Raynes'

The reason: I think, that Xeua and ecua are the basic principle, and therefor could come first - somehow. So I would propose to take Raynes proposal



Here the entrance would be on the left side, the wind tower to the south. There is no problem however to mirror the whole thing, then the wind tower is still in the south and the entrance in the east, whatever you like.
In this version, the oposite elements are not standing next to each other either. And the dome and two of the other towers are partly visible, one of them the wind tower, the wind being the element closest (?) to Ava

I haven't read Xarl's Ximax entry thoroughly, so I may have missed something,
The new city is stretching around the inner older city - there he doesn't mntion the academy itself, or at least he calls the whole inner city academy. So we are free to turn the entrance to were we like it.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

As far as I know, the Academy is located right at the centre of the inner city, which is in turn surrounded by the outer city on all sides.  

I tend to see the 6 towers and the shield dome as a single unit, so I don't really see it as having any tower coming first, and instead prefer to have them appear balanced (ie. opposing elements on opposite sides).  

By the way, what did you mean when you said that the hills are in the east?    

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Well, these two houses are fairly in the middle of the plain, put if I had to choose a direction, aren't they closer to these two hilltops on the right side(=east) than to those where Ximax is written?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Okay...but how is this relavant to our discussion?  
*seems to be getting confused too easily nowadays*

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Concerning the entrance, if we want to have hills in the back, but that's unimportant, I think.
Is there any mythical/magic reason to have the entrance showing to a special direction, other than aestetic ones?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

I don't know of any magical reason.  The most obvious reason I see is that most of the people would be arriving in the city from the east, so if they're going to head straight for the Academy, having the entrance in the east would be most convenient for them.  

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I have to agree that east would really be the most preferably way.

Then it will be the east, though it might be at the bottom for now, for practical reasons , have to try it out.


And please post again which configuration, it is quicker for me than going through all posts again.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

I prefer the configuration with opposing elements on opposite sides.  

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And where should the entrance be, facing which tower(s)?

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Hmm...well, Talia, I remember speaking to you about the colours on IRC some time ago, not sure if you got what I said though, with your IRC client misbehaving and all that.  Anyway, in case you didn't, I think I said something about grey usually being considered a colour which is a balance between black and white, which happen to be the colours of the two archschools, so perhaps it could be used to represent the Academy, rather than the wind tower.  The colours for the other towers have been deicded, right?  

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But the wind tower color is not grey on the actual pic in the first post, but well, lilac if not purple. Purple didn't look good next to the red.

Grey could stand for the dome itself.

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 7/19/04 21:16

That sounds like a good idea.  I wasn't referring to the picture on the first page, actually, but an idea I remember being brought up in the discussion some time ago.  I didn't know if you were still going to go with that, so I thought I'd bring it up.  

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The thread has been restored!  Yay!  Ahem.  Well, hopefully we'll get around to finishing up the Academy sometime this year.  

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This year, hm, yes - this decade maybe  

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

i think we can do it. but i don't feel like re reading the 4 or so pages of information. maybe we can restart the thread with one giant post of proper editing and suggested ideas?

sig made by gararion

Can you withstand my eternal onslaught of wind and water?
Isaraldor Glamthail-Santharia

pushing up

***Astropic of the day***
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path   that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly. ~Don Juan"

Edited by: Talia Sturmwind  at: 8/10/05 14:07

*bump* Mina, don't forget about this discussion.

Ugh, why did you bump such an old thread?  Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the Academy.  I'm just focusing more on the rest of the province at the moment. 

I'm not really sure, if it is the "newest one", I just looked for the colours of the  earth tower. (Mina, in response to the other thread - brown is not more natural either -  depends on how you see "earth" - as soil or more as the entity of what is on it)

I haven't forgotten it either....  (thinks at what she promised Mina)

Just wanted the discussion to be remembered as you seem to contradict what was decided in here.  At least, thats the impression I got from your and Talia's conflicting ideas on the RPG board.

Well, it is actually not important what colour the earth tower has, not now. This RPG char can just omit the colour at all. Mina and I will come back to the Ximax towers, we have put to much time and effort in it to abandon it totally.

It's not the physical colour of the tower anyway.  The towers are mostly uniform in appearance.  And I think we both agree that green and brown are both 'Earth colours'.  The issue is more about which is the main colour.