Creating a City Map

The Moonlight Project

Creating a series of maps to outline a city is by no means any easier than creating maps for a realm. If anything, the thin alleys, the convoluted labyrinth of roads, and the layered stories make for a challenge greater than simply showing where a forest lies.

But the Moonlight Project is a series of resources — videos, updates, and behind-the-scenes images — in which I create a city from scratch. A city worth exploring.

Moonlight is the name of the city most often used by travellers, but there is a score of them, from different languages in different worlds. The Silverlight City, or Selepolis, are amongst the most common. It is so ancient, so steeped in magic, that is origins are nearly lost.

Long ago, in a pass in the mountains, a great ritual connected eight different planes of reality, and anchored this singular point to each. It chose locations across creation to match its departure point, and the orbit of the moon -- in the hells, in the feywild, in the astral seas, and more.

Now, Moonlight is a waystation for travellers, a means of voyaging across the different planes, and a powerful extraplanar city-state all rolled into one.

Within the city, ancient families and guilds vie for power. Some wish to isolate the city from other worlds, some wish to open its gates further -- and high above the city, in the towering castle of Waningmoon, the Hemagaithel family watches, and waits.

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