Mictlatepec and Mictlaneca

[Seethyr]

On page 51 in the Maztica Boxed set there is a mini adventure or lair (it is set up in the format of the old "Book of Lairs", in fact).

There is a City of the Dead for an old civilization (the Zateca) which no longer exists in Maztica, except for this one city loaded with undead known as "Mictlaneca." The city's name is Mictlatepec.

I'm including a trip to it in the next Maztica adventure, but the map from the boxed set is a little poor in quality, so I thought I'd update it with a 3D rendering. Here is the original...



And here is about 3 hours of work using Google Sketchup...



Douglas Niles was very specific in his description of the city, and I am trying to follow his parameters exactly (even though the city would likely have changed a bit in the last 130 years).

I'll be updating my work here with additional lore on Mictlatepec as I make progress. Even if you don't use the adventure, maybe you can get some use out of the city.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Google Sketchup is an awesome piece of software for doing 3D models of adventuring sites. So far, I have only used it once for this purpose, but I will definitely doing more of that in the future.

In "Returned Maztica" Mictlatepec will get a major focus - it will basically be the local equivalent of Barad-Dur, ruled over by an undead dragon. So I am looking forward to what you can come up with!

[Seethyr]

Yeah I have to say I love Sketchup. It’s particularly friendly even to people whose art skills amount to zero (aka me).

That’s awesome that Mictlatepec is playing such a prominent role for Maztica Returned. I love the idea of a dracolich ruling the city - unfortunately for the lore I’m working out, that would be too much going on (or maybe not, the dragon could be away from the city in my adventure?). Have you considered making the dracolich a tlalocoatl? That would mean there are rain dragons on Abeir but that’s not too much of a stretch. (Lennart’s Maztica Bestiary has tlalocoatls updated for 5e).

In the end I’m going to try to keep to the original map perfectly, it’s just going to take a while. One structure at a time....

[Big Mac]

It's been a while since I've seen you make a 3D map of something Mezoamerican. I look forward to seeing more of this.

[Seethyr]

It's been a while since I've seen you make a 3D map of something Mezoamerican. I look forward to seeing more of this.

I didn't realize how fun it could be. I kind of wish I could show this to Douglas Niles, considering he drew the original map.

Definitely could use more tutorials though - my structures are as basic as can be.

Here's a few more buildings done.



EDIT: The middle temple's platform somehow got brought up too high (resulting in a 3' high doorway) - it has since been adjusted.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yeah I have to say I love Sketchup. It’s particularly friendly even to people whose art skills amount to zero (aka me).

That’s awesome that Mictlatepec is playing such a prominent role for Maztica Returned. I love the idea of a dracolich ruling the city - unfortunately for the lore I’m working out, that would be too much going on (or maybe not, the dragon could be away from the city in my adventure?). Have you considered making the dracolich a tlalocoatl? That would mean there are rain dragons on Abeir but that’s not too much of a stretch. (Lennart’s Maztica Bestiary has tlalocoatls updated for 5e).

In the end I’m going to try to keep to the original map perfectly, it’s just going to take a while. One structure at a time....

For aesthetic reasons I went with a blue dragon, sibling to two of the other dragon overlords. His siblings got killed by Maztican heroes, giving him another reason to hate mortals. He used to be alive, but he did pick up certain artifacts from Mictlatepec during his reign of Huacli - which resulted in him coming back as a wight when he was "slain" in a recent battle.

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's been a while since I've seen you make a 3D map of something Mezoamerican. I look forward to seeing more of this.

I didn't realize how fun it could be. I kind of wish I could show this to Douglas Niles, considering he drew the original map.

Definitely could use more tutorials though - my structures are as basic as can be.

I uploaded the image generated by SketchUp into graphics software (I believe I used GIMP at the time, but these days I would probably use krita - both are free) and "painted over" the image - giving me a great scene without having to worry about things like perspective. If you can afford a cheap graphics tablet (I think the cheapest Wacom tablets with pressure sensitivity start at €50 or so), this can be pretty fun and fairly easy.

What I haven't figured out with SketchUp yet is how to do some simple terrain shaping (such as defining hills and the like) - if you come across a good tutorial for that I would appreciate it.

[Seethyr]

Hard to see detail from here, but the adventure will have closeups for each structure...

[Seethyr]

What I haven't figured out with SketchUp yet is how to do some simple terrain shaping (such as defining hills and the like) - if you come across a good tutorial for that I would appreciate it.

I'm sure there is a much better way, but what I do for tunnels, hills, mountains, etc. is pull down a bit, scale up or down, rotate, then repeat.

[Seethyr]

Final product.

[Jürgen Hubert]

If you are curious, here is an example of using a SketchUp mockup as a base for a digital drawing that I did a couple of years ago - you might want to do the same for your images.