OOC Info Discussion Table

[Prophet]

Avanthal Discussion Table

Welcome to the OOC set aside for all things development. You have an idea for a new location? Let's talk about it. You want to add a song to the list of ballads and lullabies? Run the lyrics past your peers. Hey Prophet, do you think this would be a good event for next season? I might say no but I might call you a genius! If you don't ask, the answer's always no. It's cliche but so true. Also, this is a great place to test out gossip!

This is your city, too. I want you to each feel that you can make suggestions and have them taken seriously. Discussions are encouraged but I will not tolerate a player belittling or mocking someone else's creativity. If the idea contradicts the lore, chances are it's not going to be approved.

Previous OOC Discussion Thread

[Karin]

You posted this today, and I don't know what's actually happening with this yet, but whilst it's up- here's something I worked on for my music instrument lore before I changed it to a skill. I didn't want to lose it entirely, so I thought I'd post it here. Not very important or influential, and I'm not even a PC of Avanthal! But if you want it, then here it is

Shimmerbowls
Physical Description

Shimmerbowls: Shimmerbowls are a set of instruments solely produced by the Vantha of Avanthal. They are bowls made out of Icestone, which when tapped and rung with a metal stick will produce shimmering, icy sounds of different pitches, depending on the size of the bowl. The appearance of the bowl is much like a pestle and mortar, and the stick works in much the same way, as if it is crushing something.

Stick: The stick is made out of wood, with a fine coating of metal on the head of it. It is rotated around the inside of the bowl, or tapped on the rim of the bowl, depending on what type of sound is wanted.

About

Shimmerbowls are are only available in Avanthal, due to the nature of the Icestone they are created from, although imitations made from glass or other resonant materials can sometimes be found elsewhere. These instruments are often used to tell stories, singing over the sound of the 'bowls to create a beautiful, shimmering sound. They can be used for effect, but are not a very practical instrument, and are primarily used for entertainment purposes.

I'm just posting this because- excitement!

[Junco]

So reading through the Avanthal Player Information forum I noticed one large thing was missing - funerals! Throughout my lore reading I've seen funerals mentioned a couple of times but never gone into detail, so I thought I'd start a discussion on what everyone thinks a Vantha funeral would be like.

In the Location forum for the Ice Fields Cemetery there is a lot of information about how someone is buried.

The cemetery is divided into eight parcels of land, one for each of the seven Holds, and one for Avanthal’s highly respected and most distinguished citizens.

In each of the cemetery's regions, there is a large and intricately designed mausoleum made of icestone...house the bodies of the departed Hold leaders

The eighth mausoleum...are for Morwen's priestesses and champions.

[Everyone else is] buried outside, deep in the ground reserved for their respective Holds. The graves are marked with headstones made of sandblasted icestone, where the names of the departed are engraved onto the slab's surface. It is common for members of families to choose to be laid down next to one another. In many cases, spouses would request that their bodies be placed together in one grave, bound together by love even in death.

While the Linkmap description for the cemetery states that the

dead are buried in ice.

Now that's all and good for the manner in which they are buried. But I have a few more questions. What are the actual funerals like? In the Icewatch Lore Wiki it is alluded that black is a common color for funerals:

The Far Scouts is by far the smallest but most respected branch. Far Scouts are not allowed to discuss the details of the missions they undergo and some citizens darkly joke that the reason they wear black armbands is so that they are always ready for a funeral since few Far Scouts make it to old age.

I think this would make sense since during weddings, a celebration of life in some sense, everyone is required to wear white. And funerals are kind of the opposite.

So besides wearing black, is it a mournful event or a celebratory event? The presence of black makes me think mournful. Also what about the Icewatch and their Kelvic bond mates? Are Icewatch guards buried in their respective Holds area. And if they have a Kelvic, where is the Kelvic buried? When the two die, either separate or together, would they be buried similar to how wives and husband are buried?

EDIT: More questions!!
1) Would Morwen be a common sight at funerals like she is at weddings?
2) Are the caskets made of ice or icestone? I think it'd be cool if skilled Ice Reavers created the caskets and they were super intricate.
3) I think like birthdays and weddings, funerals would also be completely open to the public, and I think every member of the hold the deceased was part of would be expected as well as almost everyone else.

[Epifanio Snowsong]

Another thing I have noticed is that there is not a lot of description based in how the halls are composed. Are the rooms family size like some of the lore states? Are they like actual rooms? What is the exact size and what sort of furnishings could be found inside of a room in the halls?

[Junco]

Epifanio, in the offical Wiki there is not much description. However there is more detailed descriptions of each Hold in the Linkmap in the Player Information forum.


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Under Skyglow Hold

The rooms in the Skyglow arvintas are quite comfortable and have a bed, closet, work desk, and any other person effects the individual wants to put in. Each person gets their own room when they reach the age of thirteen unless they are married. In that case, they share a room with their spouse. Children sleep in an Arvinta common room at night until they are old enough for their own room.

UnderSkyglow Arvinta

Each Arvinta consists of a communal meeting space and private rooms for the couples and adults. Children sleep in a shared room adjacent to their parents ...Each of Skyglow’s arvintas are situated along the exterior of the Hold and their common rooms have one wall made entirely of glass so the Vantha can always have access to the aurora for inspiration. The meeting space is also usually filled with the art of its residents,...Skyglow private rooms are also filled with their art....Upon marriage, Skyglow couples are given a bed frame with smooth sections on the head- and footboards. The couple will paint an image or scene on the smooth sections with their combined skill to represent their new unity.

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Under Frostfawn Hold

Frostfawn Hold was settled out into the trees...The Hold itself it very open on the inside to allow animals to move around freely. The Hold is quite large in order to hold all the animals and Vantha who are in the Hold.

Under Frostfawn Arvinta

Each Arvinta consists of a communal meeting space and private rooms for the couples and adults. Children sleep in a shared room adjacent to their parents...The communal spaces of these arvintas have hay covering the floor...The most common accessories in these communal rooms are pedestals of varying heights around the edges of the room that contain dishes of food for the various types of animals that roam the area...Their bed frames are very simple but also very tall. They purposely have their frames built on tall legs so that their various pets can sleep comfortably beneath

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Under Whitevine Hold

The hold has four stories. The two bottom most levels are for living spaces and each arvinta holds a family...The third floor is used for medical offices ...These rooms are outfitted as offices... The fourth level is for visiting patients that need to stay the night or need to have round the clock medical help. These rooms are just as good, if not better than the Whitevine personal rooms.

The Whitevine Arvinta Location is not set up yet.

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Under Iceglaze Hold

The Iceglaze Hold is a large building which is actually one of the least elaborate buildings in the city...The Hold is set up with rooms and living space on the ground floor with workshops either in the basement or out back in two person workspaces.

The Iceglaze Arvinta Location is not set up yet.

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Under Coolwater Hold

Coolwater Hold is right off the water. They have one of the smaller Holds but what it lacks in size it makes up in it's large docks...

Under Coolwater Arvinta

Each Arvinta consists of a communal meeting space and private rooms for the couples and adults. Children sleep in a shared room adjacent to their parents...This Hold decorates the communal space of their arvintas with interesting tidbits that wash up on shore as well as the skulls of large sea creatures that they’ve killed....When ships are retired for use Coolwater will usually pry off the boards that carried the ship’s name and hang them up in their communal spaces as well...In the arvinta private rooms individuals usually keep mementoes from their journeys out at sea...adults sleep in hammocks made of furs....

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Under Snowsong Hold

The Hold is one of the smaller Holds but it has many rooms for teaching music...The Iceglaze hold took special care in building the Snowsong Hold. While other Holds did not need specially made rooms for acoustics Snowsong did. With this in mind all the rooms have fantastic acoustics.

The Snowsong Arvinta Location has not been set up yet

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Under Winterflame Hold

The Hold is much like a large restaurant...The Hold is much warmer than the others

The Winterflame Arvinta Location has not been set up yet..

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I know you probably didn't need all the information as you were probably asking about the overall architecture. In the Player Information forum there is one sentence that hints to one aspect of the holds, what they are made out of.

Each Hold forms its own cluster of buildings that are essential to the residents of that Hold while the city proper is a massive cluster that is located near the center. Most buildings are made from icestone and wood though some are made of stone while only a very few buildings are made with metal.

But again that is very broad.

________________

If looking at the images placed within each Linkmap location listed above, each picture looks like a large wooden lodge. I'm not sure how accurate this is, as you are correct, there really isn't much lore on this. I will give you my personal opinion, though, and maybe this can become another discussion.

In my mind at least I think of the holds as a bunch of really big igloos (made of Icestone of course) mashed together. In the middle of each hold is one HUGE igloo. This is the common area of each hold and houses the businesses that reside in the holds, such as the 'Aurora Showcase' of the Skyglow Hold. Other businesses that cant fit within their holds, such as the 'White Elk Stables' of the Frostfawn hold, are located directly outside and around their holds.

So there we have the huge, middle, common area of each hold. I then picture this huge igloo branching off into smaller, although still very large igloos, those are the arvintas. Each arvinta also has a common room, this is the large igloo. Branching out of the large igloo are small igloos that are the private rooms within each arvinta. So think of it as a huge tree that has bubbles for branches.

Here is an extremely horrible and crude representation of what I explained above:

Holds :

Of course for some hold descriptions, like the Coolwater or Whitevine Holds where multiple stories and levels are mentioned this wouldnt work would it? Again this is simply how I picture it in my head.

[Junco]

I found in the old Development Discussion Thread a quick discussion about the layout of Avanthal. I'll post the quotes of the conversation below. It is between one PC (Meville Brightshade) and an old ST (Noblesse).

Discussion :

Meville:

Hey there, everyone!

Note There are places missing from this map at the moment, which I will add in once these major places have found a home!

So I've been working on a map of our dear snowy city! It's still in progress, I but I wanted to show you all what I've been picturing in my mind.

I love LOVE feedback! Though I'll just let you know what shouldn't be changed only because of the previous version of this map made by the DS.

Edit Locations not shown:

Snow Stained Bows - FFM
Laria's Furs - FFM
Nimble Thimble - FFM
Northern Inkantations - FFM
Drunken Apple - Winterflame
The Port - Coolwater Hold
Frostfawn Arvinta - Frostfawn Hold
Skyglow Arvinta - Skyglow Hold
Coolwater Arvinta - Coolwater Hold
Hall of Aural Creation - Snowsong Hold
Strings 'n' Things - FFM
Hunter Savant Lodge - Located outside

Fixed locations:
The holds. If you think they should shift slightly north or east or something like that (or have more buildings to better represent their size) that's great! But the Winterflames won't be able to switch with the Iceglazes.

Morwen's palace, the Crystal hall, and the Icewatch bulidings. Not to say they can't be rearranged with how they are now, but they'll have to stay in the middle. Other than that... I'm a little confused on where they should be, so any help in that regard would be great!

Pending locations: These locations are just what I came up with. They could really go anywhere, I think.

Grey areas. I have no idea where those should go so I stuck them where I thought it would make sense.

The springs and the prison.

The Chapter house and tower.

The tree retreat.

Finally, I forgot to key in the color codes haha. So here it is:
Dark Blue : Coolwater
Light Brown : Winerflame
Light Grey/Purple : Iceglaze
Yellow : Snowsong
Purple : Skyglow
Red : Whitevine
Orange : Frostfawn
Dark Grey : Savintar Warrens

Grey-outline Green : Gardens

Thanks all! I hope we can work together to be able to create a legit map for our happy little city!

Noblesse:

So first of all Meville, I sincerely thank you for helping me on this project. I only wish you upload this to Miza's galleries instead of external image hosting sites. I've found, from personal experience, that having an image disappear on you and being helpless about it is not a pleasant experience at all.

Going back to the topic of the map, here are some comments I have at the moment:

Avanthal is actually a city consisting of a cluster of micro-settlements surrounding a main city proper. The main city have all of the locations that would not be categorized as exclusive property of only one Hold.
You drew the Holds as a cluster of small buildings spread out in a specific area. Actually, a Hold consists of one large structure for the arvinta (think of longhouses a la apartments) and only a number of smaller Hold-specific buildings that surround it. A Hold will never come close to the size of Avanthal's city proper, probably except for Frostfawn since it's hands down the Hold with the largest land occupied in the city.
Holds are actually a ways away from other Holds and Avanthal's city proper. An exception would be Winterflame since their professions demand them to always be at the hub of Avanthal, and closer proximity to the central city locations saves them valuable travel time.
I'd like for you to keep to the alloted areas the individual Holds and main city occupy in the map I gave you. However, it would be best if you can make a list of which locations wouldn't really work well in where they're placed right now. We will see what's best to do about them, and then work from there.

Meville:

AH, I think I kind of understand now... The idea of the Holds was really fascinating to me, but I still struggle with the concept of one giant building, haha.

So, for example, using the Winterflame hold:
Is it a giant building with a few close to it (e.g. the Commons and the Red Diamond) or a bunch of buildings that are connected?

And as for the proper, is it kind of like a city plaza with the Crystal Hall as the epicenter?

Thank you so much for your notes! Maps are a lot more work that I thought, haha, so I think I understand why we haven't really had one until now! I'll definitely want to chat with you a little more when we have time!

Oh also, when the map is finished, I plan on uploading a smaller sized one to Miz (the current one is too big, haha), but since we're still working on it, I don't want to put partials on the site. (I also have all the files backed up on my computer, so if the link does break, I still have it.)

Nolesse:

One Hold never really exceeds 700 in population so there aren't really too much people in the arvintas.

You got the idea right about one giant building having a few close to it. That's what consists a Hold after all. People think of just the arvintas when they hear the word Hold, but it's not just that. Hold refers to all the buildings built on the area they own that falls under their exclusive control. There are some locations in the link map built within or connected to the arvintas, but it really just depends on the Hold and the purpose of that specific location.

The Commons and Red Diamond are both found in the city proper instead of Winterflame Hold.

The city proper is like any other city minus the residences and Hold locations. If I remember right Morwen's palace should be at the heart of the city. I will do some rereading in the morning to confirm this.

Sure, just ask away if something confuses you!

So I see that both Morwen's Ice Palace and the Crystal Hall claims to be at the center of Avanthal. Disregard the one about Crystal Hall. Literally and metaphorically, Morwen should be found at the heart of Avanthal, not any other location with lesser significance to the Vantha such as a gathering spot. You can situate CH nearby the palace. I will make the necessary changes to the latter's writeup after this post.

Meville's Map :

To give a quick run down Meville created a crude map of Avanthal, and as Noblesse points out there are MANY flaws in it, although I think it does give a good VERY BASIC layout of most things. However I would definitely not look to this map as a guide in any way. Noblesse, in the middle of correcting Meville, does give some very important details about holds. Some of these I will list below:

• a Hold consists of one large structure for the arvinta (think of longhouses a la apartments) and only a number of smaller Hold-specific buildings that surround it. A Hold will never come close to the size of Avanthal's city proper, probably except for Frostfawn since it's hands down the Hold with the largest land occupied in the city.
• Holds are actually a ways away from other Holds and Avanthal's city proper. An exception would be Winterflame
• One Hold never really exceeds 700 in population
• Hold refers to all the buildings built on the area they own that falls under their exclusive control.

[Epifanio Snowsong]

Ice reaving would allow for more complicated construction. The lodges wouldn't be wood, but they could be ice. Windows could be made of glass, but when you think of how ice in thin layers acts as a sheet a of glass then the crystalline structure is transparent. Ice comes in different thicknesses and mildly working with ice sculptors myself I can say that depending on how it is formed tells how strong it is.

Since ice can be composed of more than just water (you can find minerals within it too) that can also affect how it is formed. I would assume that those that love the craft could also color the ice.

Now to the biggest point here in this explanation. Ice Reaving can be used with natural architecture. Using points of beams, and etc. Take a look at these modern ice houses, bars, and etc in the form of links

Secret :

Crystalline Igloo
Ice bar
More of the bar
Minerals within ice
A fort
An ice glacier home
One of my favorites

After looking at varieties of the pictures I would assume that even the blocked crafts from Ice Reaving would not be needed as they can form and construct things openly! Almost makes me want to make an architect instead of a bard!

[Junco]

I absolutely think it would make the most sense if all the buildings in Avanthal were made of Icestone and ice itself. The Wiki even says that wood is rare and metal is extremely hard to come by and since the only quarry in Avanthal, or near it, is the icestone one, then I dont think there would be much regular stone either.

About windows I think the icestone could be cut that thinly, and I absolutely think ice reaving could make a good window too. The only thing about that is ice usually has patterns in it and never really gets super clear, especially if it has an abundance of minerals, like you mentioned. However Avanthal is on a coast so there would be some sand right? Perhaps covered in snow and ice but sand all the same. I could easily be wrong though I dont know much about snowy beaches. As long as there is sand I'm sure there are some glassblowers.

I definitely think that the linkmap location pictures of the Holds and Arvintas should be changed. I dont think any of the holds would be completely wooden like they are shown.

[Prophet]

You two might be the death of me.

I lean towards everything being made of icestone as well. Much like I am doing with Endrykas, I will go through bit by bit and fix these minor inconsistencies. What I really need at this point are your astute eyes to find contradictions in the lores. While appearances are important, information must come first.

I would like to add that if you come across pictures that you feel would suit a hold well, tuck it into the image repository thread. That would make my job easier down the road. Thanks for all of the effort so far.

-P

[Epifanio Snowsong]

Another thing that has bothered me greatly is that is said that the city has a port, and does trade. However, there are NO sea trade routes connected to Avanthal or the northern reaches in general. Sea Trade Routes

So how specifically does the city trade with the rest of Mizahar? Specifically considering this apect

No significant roads lead from Avanthal to any other overland city. The cities listed for overland movement include only those that could be reached by mount within a single season. Listed travel times assume modest mounted travel at 8-10 hours per day. Terrain is taken into consideration. More time spent traveling per day may only lessen the travel time by a couple of days at most. Travel in Taldera is easier than most other areas due to the over-sized landscapes and flat tundra. Wagons and extra cargo add 10 days to travel times and winter travel doubles travel times.

If no roads led from Avanthal to another city, then how would travelers know where to go to or trade with if no sea route exists? Seems a large bit controversial.