More Mapping Fun - Halep

With some time today between coats of wall paint and trim paint drying in the master bedroom, and 3 racks of baby back ribs cooking and needing some periodic attention, I was able to spend 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there to finish the simple town sketch for Halep, a frontier town of ~600 on the Great North Road.

Halep

A little more pondering while scribbling has resulted in:

• A stone walled citadel controlled by the ruling noble family.
• Fortified stone houses being built on the southern hill by the wealthier citizens, bypassing the need for the Baron to provide protection (and rent his fully-owned buildings within the citadel).
• Middle class artisans and craftsmen banding together to start building wooden palisade walls around part of the lower town. It's a modest beginning with expansion plans for the future.
• A fortified temple compound that is a dominant economic force in the town, extending well beyond their primary function as a place of worship for the goddess of the harvest.
• A three or four way power struggle simmering, and perhaps soon coming to a boil.

Honestly, do I need any of this? No, probably not. But it was a fun diversion from painting, cooking and playing with the dog (all of which are fun in their own right).

Next up - the town of Forlorn, a remote town off the main road approximately 60 miles northwest into the wilderness. I'm thinking Forlorn will be perhaps half the size of this, maybe even a little less. It's in a much more remote and dangerous area. And that's about all I know of it at this point. So...to start the mental processes percolating, who would live in Forlorn and why? What special thing or two could be there? Why would anybody who doesn't live there go there?