Situated on Cormyr's northern border and nestled against the rough and wild Stonelands, Arabel has always been a frontier city. Throughout the years it has been an independant hold, overrun and occupied by Orcish hordes, and, briefly, served as the seat of government for Gondegal the Usurper King.
Arabel today is a booming, prosperous center of growth. Both newcomers and young Cormyreans are settling in the lands all around it, making Arabel, as the only practical place where they can hire services, ever richer and busier. It's a city of opportunity that is still lacking many of the sophistications of Suzail but not consumers' appetites for them.
Often referred to as the Caravan City or Overland City of Cormyr, Arabel is dominated by land transport. It is a city of trading costers, warehouses, caravan companies, wagon makers, horse- and bullock-traders and merchant investors. All these are ably governed by ex-adventuress Myrmeen Lhal, the king's lord of Arabel.
This is my take on Arabel, using the maps provided in the Shadowdale supplement, but it can be used as a generic city in any context. I wanted to have a city which could be explored in one area, rather than separae areas for each of the districts. As such it's large, but can be cropped down using TerraCoppa as required.
Ambient placeables (barrels, crates etc) have been left out for now so this can be used for whatever purpose.
I've added some small areas to accompany the city
Kabarr's crystals - a store selling magical crystals and gems
The Pride of Arabel (unfinished) - the basis for a high class inn
Citadel - the Purple Dragon's base in the city, including rooftops access with views over the city
That sounds great and happy to see it being used.
There is another map I used that I found on the web - with the same numbering for the most part (I know what you mean about the poor scans...) - I'll see if I can dig it out again _________________________ Wyrin
Posted by NWN DM at 2009-01-05 22:02:45 Voted 9.75 on 08/03/09
Thanks for doing this map. Must have taken quite an effort to stay proper to the official city maps in the FR Cormyr source books.
I've taken your map, broken it into four quadrants and started populating the south western section of the city.
I'm hampered in this by a poor quality scan of the city map, where many of the building numbers are not legible.
At any rate, once the exterior is updated to my satisfaction, I'm going to start on some interiors, both originals and using prefabs from NWVault and various modules.
My hope is to have the SW quadrant done and available for a MP city based campaign later this month.
After this, I'm going to slowly expand development to one of the other three remaining quadrants, adding content that is designed for DMed play (I'd like to integrate conversations and quests but really not sure how to do that right now).
So, thanks a lot... this got me enthused in building again.
Posted by Carlo at 2008-12-28 12:57:10 Voted 9.00 on 12/28/08
Very well done exterior of Arabel and an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to create the interiors. (One can only hope!)
Posted by Raith Veldrin at 2008-12-25 20:06:15 Voted 10.00 on 12/25/08
From someone who has spent a good portion of their NWN time on 1372 Arabel (a few iterations for a NWN1 Cormyr PW, and then an early spacial test in NWN2), I have to give you a 10. The Trade Jewel is a very sprawling city with many named locations that fitting into one single area is in itself, a miracle.
You got the orientation spot on, as well as the street layout. I realize some parts had to be scaled/reduced/cut, but you definately have most all of it represented here.
Realism and source material accuracy are one of my many afflictions. You sir, did not set off any alarms. This is stellar work. _________________________ Raith Veldrin
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Posted by Jackal_GB at 2008-12-24 10:21:29 Voted 9.00 on 12/23/08
I went back and took a look through Volo's Guide. Several things he mentions does indicate your orientation IS indeed the correct one.
The Citadel, Volo says,is "near the middle of the North Wall" and the statue is in "Northwestern Arabel." Clearly, this is not the case when viewing the TSR maps (they are shown West and Southwest, respectively). Kudos to you for doing your homework and I stand corrected. :)
Thanks Jackal. There's actually been some controversy over the map orientation. Is is usually printed rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise, but reading the locations, The East gate is actually to the north, (and Volo's guide mentions the statue to the north-east), so I flipped it on it's side. _________________________ Wyrin
Posted by Jackal_GB at 2008-12-23 19:31:18 Voted 9.00 on 12/23/08
An outstanding job recreating Arabel. It is very close to the original in layout. Very well done! Although, according to my map source (tsr09410-Cormyr) the area needs to be rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
There is a couple of doors missing, but with something this big it's easy to miss one or two.
My vote is based on the NWN2 standards, not on me nit-picking. :)
Thanks! Yeah the sho over the rooftops was what I really wanted to acheive - Neverwinter in the OC feels so open, and really most medieval cites weren't that spacious. The tradeoff is the walkmesh, but we'll see how it turns out _________________________ Wyrin
Sweet! It looks great from the screenies, and this is a city that should be most useful in many FR campaigns. I believe that there are at least a couple of official adventure modules, too, that take place in Arabel (at least in part) - that set of four Cormyr modules (some of which were converted for NWN1), and so on. I could remember wrong, though...
Also, one thing that stands out in the pictures is that there clearly is a distinctive look - some distinctive character - to the city. That's very neat. That's how cities are, after all - individuals with their own looks.
I very much hope I'll be playing some adventures set in Arabel, at some point. We are starting to have quite many of the great cities in the Realms - there's BG, there's Waterdeep, and now Arabel!
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