MAP: Stage 2

Drawing + Color

The lineart is complete!

The cells are organized both by usage and availability—the more time characters spend in the cells, or the more “open” they are, the closer to the center they go¹. In order from left to right, top to bottom, counting the tiny slivers of hexes outside the drawing, they are:

1. Boxes? Containers? Where did she even get all those?

2. Chamber 0

3. An ancient “blogging” cell²

4. More supplies? Is she going somewhere?

5. Mapping cell³

6. Armory⁴

7. Utilities

8. Surgery

9. Sleeping quarters (end of Chapter 4)

10. Laundry machinery⁵

11. Laboratory

12. The Gate

13. Kitchen

14. Where does food come from?

15. Her Office

16. Hygiene

17. The Bridge

18. Another ancient cell

19. “Library”

20. Ancient videogame cell

21. Storage

22. Water

23. Destroyed

The cells in Ascenkor’s domain differ radically from the rest of The Eldernet in three major ways: the walls seem to be a stone surface covered in square indentations, there are plastic and cloth sheets hanging everywhere, and the lighting is mostly open flame. I’ll discuss this more in my next post, but there are three reasons for these three quirks:

1. The walls are modified to maximize sound absorption and textural/visual noise.

2. The sheets disconnect and hide what The Eldernet wants to connect and expose.

3. She has a few rudimentary generators. It’s safer not to use them.

Time to add a little color.

These first spots are areas where I’m certain of the color to use. I wasn’t sure how dark to go for the background or the larger props, so I decided to work on smaller elements and expand from those.

In the next⁶ post in this particular series, I’ll finish the colors (and the map entirely) and give a little background on the initial development of Ascenkor’s cells.

1. Conveniently, cells that haven’t appeared yet and that I don’t have as much reference for wind up closer to the outside.

2. The ancient cells haven’t been “converted” by Ascenkor like the others; they just form a convenient buffer around her domain.

3. Before Nikola met her, Ascenkor had already spent many years trying (and failing) to map The Eldernet.

4. Despite the name, Ascenkor doesn’t keep weapons in there. It’s just where she hands them out.

5. Mainly stolen from disused environment-simulator cells with whirlpools or mechanized pools.

6. Last.