Making a Growing Town in INKARNATE

welcome back adventurers today we are going to be designing a fledgling town in incarnate I'm going to walk you through my process and the best part we are using incarnate 100% free um this is just I really do love this program and they do it for so cheap guys I think it's like $4 if you really want to sign up for the monthly actually here let me show you uh yeah $5 a month um and you get access to all of this stuff this really sounds like I'm being promoted uh I swear to you that I am not being promoted I just really really love this program and I think they do some rible stuff and it gives you a lot of freedom so with all of that out of the way let's create a new map let's do this one watercolor cities free so right away you can see that um I can actually add land I'm adding it here and you can see I have all these brushes to pick from right now I'm doing uh terrain so I'm going to add all of this and to make it a little faster I'm just going to increase that there we go um and so I've added all of this and now what I can do is select a brush go into the catalog so if I wanted to add uh and I do this all the time make sure you've got the foreground selected and then you can see you're actually painting um this looks a little off uh for the town size so I'm going to decrease the size of this a little bit go into the settings and just uh make it a little smaller and paint it back over let's talk a little bit about how towns form right and like I want to start this off by telling you guys I am not a historian I am not uh an expert on on building towns I'm not a city planner I just love history and I have a passion for creating things and I have a specifically I have a passion for creating things that feel real like they're rooted in reality and not only fantasy so the first thing we want to think about is picking a location right is this a spot that's near a river or a lake or some fertile land next to a volcano or something like that why did people decide to stop here now for this video like I said we're going to be doing a fledgling town so it's going to be a small town um and uh and I I think if this video does well and you guys are interested in watching that and seeing my thought process I'll do other videos in the future where we're where we can see the actual growth of the town and I'll expand on that same town and see how it might go from a small little stopping Place uh post uh you know what I'm talking about and see how it grows over time and turn it into a city uh with you guys so first up let's think of the location so for this specific town I think that would be interesting is to think of a place that was chosen for its defensibility right we live in a fantasy world and there are all sorts of dark things especially if you live in malade so I'm going to say that there is a very rare resource in a forest nearby um but you can see here's a bunch of the trees and what I love about this is that you can choose to keep random stamps on or off and you can actually see how it automatically moves to switch to a a different stamp which is really cool because you don't have to cycle through that and if I don't want that and I want the same one over and over I could turn that off so I'm looking here because I see that there's a sort of a a Hill Design here that's already been created and I kind of like this because as I said I want to I want to think of this as like a place I was chosen because of its defens ability um there's a forest nearby it's got some rare Amber let's just go with that almost like a gold rush or something like that right so maybe we put an in um and already what I'm not liking is the rep repetition of the pattern here so I'm just going to go in select one of these um maybe lower the opacity a little bit lower the size and just start kind of hitting some of these spots and just kind of breaking up that pattern a little bit and in fact you might even see a wearing down of the ground based on where people are trotting a lot you know so the grass might not be growing as full eventually uh you know people start showing up and bigger houses get built you know maybe the owner of the Inn decides to build themselves a house next door because now they can now they've settled down down and you see um more buildings popping up you know and obviously as the buildings start to grow you start to see more people settling down and homes actually appearing and and creating sort of rows right you know I'm trying to think if if I came into a town and I was the first person you know one of the first people to be settling here I want to put my building up somewhere where I know I'm going to have some room some privacy I don't know all of these people so that's sort of my thought process I could be wrong what I want to do now is actually create some paths so what I'm going to do is take this I'm going to make this small and I'm just going to paint a little bit more of this where people would have trotted the most right and around the buildings where land was cleared there might be a little bit but over time you know the grass starts to grow and things start to grow into the buildings and people actually live there so I'm going to continue the road up this way a little bit and now what I can start to see is that this town is going to grow outward from here right we'll talk about how but these areas is out here at the uh edges of the town probably you're going to have more foliage a little denser um because they haven't been touched yet you might start to plop in some logs here and there just to show that things are being collected uh that they've been felled and that there's actual industry here where you know there's a need for these for the trees and and the resource nearby and you know honestly you might even have just a collection of them you know like uh somebody's job was to haul them and you know they've started collecting them there just trying to get a little bit into the psychology but now what we're going to do is actually build from here so like I said this was a place where a resource right there's a resource nearby and this town has sort of sprung up because there's entrepreneurs here and adventurers looking for whatever this thing is and people who see um a possibility of of turning it into an industry or into a business or some sort of venture or likewise they could be creating a venture or an industry or a business to supply some something to the people right so like for example you have these trees out here you know there's a sap there that somebody out there is finding useful well if there is a business savvy person out there for whatever reason they can't or don't want to go into the wilds and look for that sap themselves but they still want to make money so what do they do they come and settle down where these people are and start offering them supplies to help in their Ventures axes sap collectors whatever the hell that is tools to help them go out there you know uh supplies ration butchers uh you might even have guides that take people out from here and there and you know um because you might have a guide that sets up and uh and they're not you know always around so they put up a building at the edge of town you know and everybody knows like oh that's the guide you know and and sort of builds a reputation for himself you're like oh go look for the guy at the bottom of the hill then you want to start thinking about um how are these people going to be sustaining themselves right they might start with a field and realistically we'll probably uh have more more than that they'll they'll have several fields nearby where people might purchase some land I'm not a farmer I'm not sure if this is accurate but uh that looks like it'll sustain a town I'd imagine honestly it's probably many many times larger so right and you don't have to show all of the land either you know I could do something like this just to show people like oh there is Farmland over here and then you can say you know however many acres it's are appropriate and you know maybe you have a house that pops up over here the owners of this and uh you know sort of storage or something out there right and you can see that this is probably somebody wealthier because of the size of this building and there is a storage or something out here honestly this is just to kind of make it feel a little more lived in so now you have people that are actually supplying they have come here they know that the people who are adventuring out here need food so what do they do they buy land and start to settle down create some fields and within a few years they have uh something to bring to a market but they're not the only ones thinking like that right right like I said there's people who might be supplying axes for the trees and uh and that sort of thing so that's where you start thinking about well how many you know this person you know if they're a lumberjack probably comes from Humble means so they set up shop um and uh you know they get welcomed to the town and they start you know giving people General goods and you have that here now as far as those Farmers well those Farmers need somewhere to actually display their goods so uh a sort of Market starts to pop up and uh let's see what they've got got I like this one it feels kind of like a tent you might have some stalls right this looks like it's a little bit in the way so let's move this building over here actually and you can see that now as these buildings go up now what you see is that a sort of if if we're assuming that all of these are tents or stalls or something like that a little bit of a Marketplace starts to develop you know something like that right and now you can see that there's actually a flow starting to happen because as this need developed people moved into these areas where they knew the traffic would be you know made deals with each other like this is my land this is your land contracts other things you know to make sure you know obviously to protect each other because these people aren't going to look for a problem with somebody they're about to spend the rest of their life probably around so you can see how they start to think and develop a sort of a Market Center and obviously I would use something more akin to uh these tents something like that and put those in to make it feel a little more to just make it feel a little more realistic but honestly this does a great job you know especially if you're a DM on a budget or you know your players don't care as much about all this stuff like this already looks fantastic uh a little bare down here but we'll fix that so you can see that uh you know now the farmers have a stall The Lumberjack that came here with uh supplies to help adventurers out there now they have a stall you know you have the The General Goods here you have the the farmers who you know honestly they're probably going to have multiple stalls you have the Lumberjack uh who sets up their shop as well um right here and uh and then you have competitors coming right and they start setting up their place and you have a stall for somebody who's uh actually um got some livestock you know way out way out of town and they bring them here uh and and you know they bring the meat here the point is you know you don't have to think super hard about it what you do want to be thinking about is how the development of these stalls and how that sort of um I'm going to lock this in position in that way I think I can stop selecting it yeah that's much better you know you have the guide and honestly now that you have all the you you have a road kind of coming in and out of town probably leads into the forest um you do start to set up a little bit of a stable right so maybe there's that and uh and this building that's sort of connected to it right and you can see that I'm just trying to create a little variety by you know adding some some buildings and and sort of joining them legoing them together and creating something different so that it doesn't all look like the same but honestly it doesn't matter so you have a stable and a guide and as people come into town multiple vendors have set up shop you know they might live in one of these houses they might be rooming together but as the town starts to grow more houses start to pop up and now you have streets that are starting to form um you can see you know now you have sort of a a little bit of a of a culdesac that's starting to form here and now that room is is getting kind of tight you start being very diligent with the way that you build new buildings and now you can see a street that is formed here so I might go in and just show a little more wearing of the of the town this is the point where the town starts to get sort of uh big right you know and and you might remove some of these buildings um people might decide oh I don't want to live here anymore and so they move and uh and maybe they go to the base where there's more access this building gets torn down and uh and can now put up a bigger building right there right and then you know the inke keep that was here now builds a place over here this place is now available for sale and uh and goes to become a Tavern or something like that and now you have a little more room for more buildings and you can see another Street form and again I just want to point out guys I have no idea if this is exactly how things would happen I've watched a lot of history stuff and you know there is a pattern to the way that things happen um and there's this one channel that I watched this video video where the guy was talking about the history of San Francisco and his whole Channel um was about maps and how how actual cities get formed and it was just really fascinating to see how San Francisco was built over time from this very widespread out Town um to to becoming the San Francisco that we see today because it's just it's it's incredible how the different districts formed and the reasons for that and all that um and that's kind of what I like to put into my games is just a little more thought something to kind of uh to give reason to why they grow the way they do um because they don't just Sprout up out of nothing and you can see I'm tweaking things here and there because based on what the building is like this is a stable I think it might be a little bit bigger than the than the other rest of the buildings here I don't know I've never ridden a horse but you know then you have people probably within a few years just start to build and settle on the outskirts of this hill because they want to be close to everything you know and so they start sprouting up uh around here and you know then these people need their own storage area or a hunting Shack or whatever it is that's going on over here and then you know these people might become loggers and they see industry here so what do they do instead of hauling it all the way back to town they start setting up these little uh places where they can uh work quietly or somebody decides to move out there and that sort of thing the buildings start to appear in a sort of fashion and now what happens is this Main Street that used to connect from this Central Area out now starts to get worn down and create sort of Little Road uh smaller roads um that aren't necessarily streets yet but enough wear and tear from the wagons coming in and out that you start seeing something happen and I'll turn the opacity down a little bit make this a little bigger so that I can sort of hit this area a little wider and just add a little uh add some Feathering to not make it so yeah so now again the whole point for this town being chosen here was because of this hill and its defensibility right so so what does that mean that means that there was something in the area that made them feel the need in to to have a defense what starts to happen is you start to see perhaps uh a town perimeter be built some Walls Start to go up and you know Stone might be something that they have access to around here but realistically it's probably going to be wood this town has gone from being this Outpost to a relatively small town you know it was a shopping place for specific adventurers who were looking for a particular item out here and there were enough of them that Drew them to this spot because somebody else decided this was a good spot to set up camp and never left and put up a building and put up an in for other adventurers and you know maybe had a couple buildings here or there and then other people decided to settle there as well and ultimately what happened was that there were dozens if not a few hundred people that saw the defensibility of this position were fearful enough enough of the outside world or whatever is beyond and started to settle down here uh and create their own food and take from the land around them and leave their Mark right all these little paths that have developed and start to attract other people and now you have a place that's probably a population of you know maybe a couple of hundred people uh thousand people depending on how many uh families you can squeeze into these and and what happens is that as as other people get drawn to this area well you have other buildings start to pop up and more houses and especially homes along this uh this spot right here along the main road where you know now the stable needs an extra hand so they set up a a a place there homes start to pop up along this path and maybe now people start to settle here you know so somebody tears down those two homes and puts up their new one and then you have people who need access to the land Beyond and and now you know you're having multiple places where gates are being created um because you needed access to the Farmland these Farmers instead of using all you know going all the way around or you know this way now they have an access point back here and a secondary Road starts to get created and now this town is attracting people from farther and farther away because other people have heard of this uh Miracle sap or whatever the hell it is and so they start to settle here now you have to decide is this a place that was untamed and so there is no rule or perhaps it's within this Untamed area of an Empire and now that this town has popped up now the Empire their attention is on this town and now they want to start collecting so what do they do they send somebody here that can run the place they send a governor or or they send a lord or somebody comes and takes over we're going to say for this town that this is on the land of a local Empire um and they drew a little too much attention to themselves and now a lord uh is being sent to be established and just down the hill uh you start having to create a place for military training right so you you set up multiple Barracks to house your troops and maybe a storage building and then those troops need somewhere to live so you have a sort of uh military District that pops up so you have a checkpoint on the way in and on the way in here and perhaps over here as well and now you have places for the soldiers to go to and actually do their jobs um because the Empire feels the need to uh protect this place now that they've realized how important whatever this sap is that the trees are producing is um and they want to protect it and they want to protect their interests so now that you have an Empire involved and you have somebody who's ruling it um who's ruling this area now W starts to get out and This Town starts to boom right and remember that there's a lot of movement that happens right so this this Market that was here could start to become you know perhaps a little more permanent and at this point you know of course you would have blacksmiths and General stores and workshops Fletchers for hunting places like that start to pop up and they start to sell their goods and uh and their services all around here and this sort of market area that used to be just a bunch of tents now becomes uh a main street and these tents that were here either get moved or removed and Make Way for new buildings you can see more of these streets that start to pop up and uh you know you you'd want the the Inn to be sort of a a focal point because that's a place where people can uh quickly gather and and find rest and you know do what they need to you know the the the inkeeper decided to move the building or rebuild um or something happened right fires happen attacks happen if there's something dangerous enough that they need walls there could very well have been an attack somebody broke through um and set fire to some buildings and the in burnt down right these are all things that you want to think about because they add a sort of level of History um to to everything that's happening you know and perhaps as the town is growing more Farmers start to settle down and so you have a couple of uh of homes pop up over here and you have more evidence of farms out this way which means you know they need more storage and since the town is now attracting a lot of attention more and more of these little streets start to pop up and you have people with more money start building bigger houses buying up larger portions of the land um to build themselves you know a nice new life somewhere far away that wasn't exactly where they were now you want to think about the people that are coming here right maybe there's a group of half elves um that were ostracized from a city that you know they just this town decided we're going to get rid of all half elves we don't want them here they traveled super far um to try and find somewhere for themselves and along the road they discovered this place and the promise of a new and of a new industry right this new sap that they could get a hold of and maybe make something for themselves that was far away from the people um that were uh looking down on them just for being half off or whatever right and so what happens is you have a community of people that shows up and decides they don't want to be away from everybody but they're they want to stay with their own people right because they're maybe they don't speak the language or uh because they're just not ready um or they don't feel safe or whatever and so now you have a another District that pops up and so this other Street pops up from this Caravan of you know half elf migrants or whatever and you know if I had access to other things I'd be changing the colors and making them look a little different because this group of houses will look different than the soldiers you know and the soldiers may have more money or they may not need the money and and this is standardized by the Empire or whatever but uh you can see how this is growing to become a little different a noble lineage that settles here and they buy a big piece of the land for themselves and nobody can build on this area anymore because they own it all this is all hilly and and it's all theirs and they want that yard um but over here where there is room more and more people start showing up so you have uh a you know this this becomes an actual Street at this point where they're just trying to get as many people in because the town is growing faster and faster and faster and now this town went from being a little Outpost with a brand new vision of of you know taking these trees and has become a growing town with actual structure evidence of Life out there uh beyond the walls and a reason and a rhyme for everything that's happening here yeah anyways that's where my brain goes you let me know in the comments if you are an expert in this stuff and you know you're a city planner or something and if I'm way off leave in the comments why I'm way off um because I want to learn just as much this is just where my brain goes and honestly for the average player this is fine this looks fine you start throwing in things like um you know some trees for to make it look nicer right because especially here where maybe they don't want to look at these new neighbors that they just got and they want separation you know and you have maybe a little bit of a public area trees have started to sprout up at some of these edges and people have let it happen because you know it looks nice or whatever but the idea idea is to just give it a touch of [Music] realism and you know maybe this town becomes wealthy enough so that this Noble's house becomes bigger they start adding on to it and now you have this crazy mansion that's up at the top of this hill and now you see the beginnings of of sort of a social structure because now the person who lives here now demands power because not only do they have the nicest house in the area they're also at the top of the hill and so what happens is as people are moving in these are the cheap places right because this is where they can settle this is the quick available land that they can get at a good price and uh and this is where they decide to settle right near the gate lots of noise lots of hustle and bustle and uh as people are moving here these buildings are getting upgraded as a sort of class structure um starts to show up you know over time these Shacks get removed because they need more space up here and they get moved down here where the original Lumber um you know stop was and now these Lumber workers out here now have a place to go to and they have sort of a building this becomes an actual shop and now the town looks very different and you probably have other random buildings out somebody who decides to come and live out here and doesn't want to be too far from the city but they like their Solitude and so they set up a a hunter Shack or something out here and uh you know maybe uh same thing happens out here now what you can see is that the wall has been placed so a couple things have to happen people have to uh let go of ego and you know make room for new people which means the local Noble might pay for some of this land at a much higher price than what they paid for it so they're willing to give it up or because and I say that because real estate now becomes very uh expensive right there's not a lot of room and if you want to put up a house it's going to come at a price or the local Empire starts to take these walls and expand them slowly these walls either get moved or they become inner walls right because you might have uh a secondary wall a larger wall that starts to get built and extended outward or a secondary ring and this becomes the inner city and all of these buildings uh you know now the the outer city all of this stuff starts to get moved and and more and more buildings pop up here and this inner city you know as the real estate becomes more and more Prime these buildings start to get upgraded you might have a couple of buildings that get replaced by nicer looking ones you know maybe this becomes an officer's house or something like that or a big time officer moves here and says I'll take up the position but I want a bigger house and so they built him this um and you know uh some of these houses get bigger they get added on districts change a little bit but now what happens is that these now they they've gone through this process a little bit and these buildings start to pop up a little more methodically right and now you have the beginnings of what could be slums because this is all that they could afford or uh a secondary neighborhood out here a different District right like why did people move here all at once was it a some sort of Boom because people don't just show up in waves like that uh for no reason you know why did these people decide to all move here and when they moved here they decided to stay here together now you see the evolution of this of this town from this fledgling uh little Outpost that was here for adventure and for something new has become the beginnings of a small town um and this went from a few hundred people to several hundred maybe a few thousand people that live here you know if you multiply each of these buildings by four plus people who live out there and uh and now you have a town now you have this whole little fledgling town that was placed here for a specific reason not just randomly right this hill was chosen for its defensibility and uh and I think I'm going to leave it there um you know I talked a lot and I I hope to speed through this I'm I'm hoping that it's not just another video of me rambling but you guys seem to really like my map-making video uh when I was using uh incarnate as an example with Photoshop how I made my world map so I figured why not dive in and uh and give it a shot here and uh just give you guys a little bit of an inside look into how I design my maps and why I'm designing them that way that's just my thoughts if you design your town a little different tell me why um also give me a name let's name this town uh so that I can change this from fledgling town to something much much better so uh maybe I'll put up a poll or something there you have it guys thank you so much for watching forge on my friends and we'll see you next time adventurers

Channel: The Fantasy Forge

Views: 4,986

Keywords: dungeons and dragons, dnd, d&d, tabletop roleplaying, dice, d&d tips, beginner d&d, how to play dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons gameplay, dungeon master for beginners, d&d for beginners, tips and tricks, d&d tips and tricks, dnd beyond, onednd, how to be a dungeon master, how to be a dm, game master, making a map, using inkarnate, how to make a map, making a town, how to make a town, is Inkarnate worth it, inkarnate, inkarnate tutorial, inkarnate city tutorial

Id: v4tu9LOrKYw

Length: 28min 44sec (1724 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024