alhoon wrote:Dude that's some seriously big map...
what is the scale?
When I was 'guestimating' the scale. There is a rectangle district between canals at the center of the map. Next to the Emperor's District, between the large and small rivers. The distance 'east to west' on that rectangle, plus the width of one canal is 1000 feet. The smaller buildings are 30' x 40' - which is what I used for approximate scale. Thus many of the roads are approximately 50' wide, as major avenues.
In the orient, large cities are known to have extensive canal systems that sectionalize the city by canals. However, Paizo didn't like the idea of long straight avenues and 90 degree canals. I argued to it's authenticity, however, offered that the city existed before the canal system, and therefore, the canals were a second thought. Thus noticeably along canal cuts, some buildings are skewed and not lining up with the avenue at the edge of the canal. This is to show where the older city was demolished and canals were dug in. Paizo wanted all kinds of twisty nooks and crannies where urban encounters might occur.
The part of the city on the bank of the large river to the south (which goes to the sea on the left side of the map) is the old town. This is where the canals do the most damage to the continuity of the eartler street plan which followed terrain, not canal alignment. The entire part north of the smaller northern river that feeds the canal system is controlled by the Yakuza from the entertainment district closest to the river, to the shanty districts of urban poor along the seaside and northern fringe.
I was initially asked to create a city about 35,000, and used the figure that each house holds 10 individuals, large and extended families, I would need to create at least 3,500 homes. Well that's a lot of homes, so I began to draw at a furious pace the streetside shops (some have living space on second floors) and the homes interior to the main surrounding streets. I wasn't counting as I was drawing because I was trying to get at what I thought was 1000-ish - it turned out I under estimated. Once I did start counting, I guessed that the population was jumping from 35,000 to 85,000+. I let Paizo know, and they were pleased.
One particular location of note in the gazetteer of my creation to slip in some Japanese horror is called
Setting Sun Cemetery. Looking at the map, center along the bank of the main river. The main canal exit into the river bisects the old town area. On the west side is a narrow piece of neighborhood, tucked between the river, the canal exit channel, and a canal. You'll notice a triangular shape cut out along the south side of that canal. Before the canals were placed a holy shrine in the shape of a great square occupied this location aligned to the bank of the river. The southeast corner of that shrine complex was the cemetery. When the canal system was placed, the temple grounds was bisected cutting off the cemetery from the main shrine area. Today, a newly established temple grounds has been placed aligned with the canal system, and occupying the site of the old shrine. A small altar remains dedicated to that kami spirit, however the main temple area pursues the state religion. The cemetery has been cursed in it's separation and thus unhallowed. Ghosts, haunts and murders are said to go on here, as a result.
As I was drawing this in, the ideas of the cemetery came to mind, and the seed of that plot hook in the gazetteer came to be. So I see most of my entries in the gazatteer are still there. Some of the gazatteer was cut, due to the extra length the final adventure page count came to be. At least I got name credits as one of the gazatteer authors for Kasai.
I made sure each neighborhood district got it's own shrine and temple, market area, and a cemetery, so I didn't have to build some massive necropolis where all dead go, which is not really authentic to Asian cemetery rites. So there was a lot of thought going on, besides trying to achieve some 'impossible' (I thought) number of structures to meet my quota.
One thing of note, once I had the lower half of the city created and posted to Paizo development, they added $100 to my paycheck due to quality and detail. I was happy with that!