So... talking about Keeps and the mousehole.. and we'd mentioned before here on Stratics about putting in doors or something to make the keep more useful... I made a proposal to "change" the keep just a bit. Something I think could be done that wouldn't affect much ... and since you can no longer mark a rune and recall into your keep voids I think that considerations should be given to make the keep more not only user friendly but open and useful. Now mind you I did this in another game... a voxel type game so if it looks weird that's why but I think you can get the idea by looking at the pictures of what I'm proposing. Now I couldn't put the doors on it but where there is a beam over an opening that is a door. I left the current holes in the wall for shooting intruders but I also added a second inner door. So Keep owners can let folk "in" without granting them "full" access to the keep. So if they wanted to place a bulletin board or something in the entrance they could but still keep folk out by securing the second set of doors..... Now here is the "current" keep so you can compare I made it as well using the voxel program:
This is the First Floor Current Keep layout
Current Keep Second Floor Layout (blocks in inner corners represent the down stairwells)
Now this is the proposed changes I'd like to see to the Keep:
First floor: Note, this is adding basically 4 doors, 2 in the "front" side rooms and two across from the current entry doors. Note as well both sides would now extend all the way to the outter wall and the back while divided yet significantly increases the size of the two back rooms ..... note as well the front stairs are both removed and the back two sets of stairs remain... Now I don't have the mainfloor stairs in there but they would remain as they are....
Now this would be the proposed new second floor. Note that I moved the back wall of the main room back to the back of the keep... Honestly I think it improves the room significantly ... Now the stairs in the two front rooms are gone making these two room much larger and more useful. The center room while it will have stairs in the middle of it will still be greatly improved as well as the roof over the middle room will now be connected to both the back towers and will be significantly more useful. Now if you really wanted to be more useful another set of stairs could be put in beside the current stairs leading up to the roof.
Now I highly doubt anything would ever come of this but ..... I think it would be a big improvement. Castles can use the courtyard now but keep owners are still SOL on using the voids in their walls. The VERY least they could do would be to put doors in the two front rooms and one of the back rooms to allow us to enter the voids and if we can no longer mark and recall into them we ought to be able to deco them. Even some sort of teleport could be placed to let you into those area's and give us some space... The keep while a lovely building on the outside is vastly useless on the inside. The rooms that are there are so tiny and taken up by stairs that they honestly aren't really useful for much of anything. You can hardly but a chair and table in the upper side rooms since they are largely dominated by stairs.
Anyway just a thought I had while I was tinkering away in another land.
This is the First Floor Current Keep layout
Current Keep Second Floor Layout (blocks in inner corners represent the down stairwells)
Now this is the proposed changes I'd like to see to the Keep:
First floor: Note, this is adding basically 4 doors, 2 in the "front" side rooms and two across from the current entry doors. Note as well both sides would now extend all the way to the outter wall and the back while divided yet significantly increases the size of the two back rooms ..... note as well the front stairs are both removed and the back two sets of stairs remain... Now I don't have the mainfloor stairs in there but they would remain as they are....
Now this would be the proposed new second floor. Note that I moved the back wall of the main room back to the back of the keep... Honestly I think it improves the room significantly ... Now the stairs in the two front rooms are gone making these two room much larger and more useful. The center room while it will have stairs in the middle of it will still be greatly improved as well as the roof over the middle room will now be connected to both the back towers and will be significantly more useful. Now if you really wanted to be more useful another set of stairs could be put in beside the current stairs leading up to the roof.
Now I highly doubt anything would ever come of this but ..... I think it would be a big improvement. Castles can use the courtyard now but keep owners are still SOL on using the voids in their walls. The VERY least they could do would be to put doors in the two front rooms and one of the back rooms to allow us to enter the voids and if we can no longer mark and recall into them we ought to be able to deco them. Even some sort of teleport could be placed to let you into those area's and give us some space... The keep while a lovely building on the outside is vastly useless on the inside. The rooms that are there are so tiny and taken up by stairs that they honestly aren't really useful for much of anything. You can hardly but a chair and table in the upper side rooms since they are largely dominated by stairs.
Anyway just a thought I had while I was tinkering away in another land.