Entry 7: St. Laurenz, Biberstein
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A big thank you again to mitsos, MissVanleider, ulisse, and RobertLM78 for your interest and your comments! In fact, thinking of a background to the region I'm developing was something I was lacking when starting it 5 years ago, and it really helps making it more lively and unique. I'll try my best to keep it up. For some reason, the tagging function doesn't work for me, so I need to include you this way.
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In this entry, I'm completing the city tile of Storchenfeld. Not much is left, so this will be a rather short update. But it still makes more sense to share it independently, the next project I'm working on is rather huge and includes 3 large city tiles, therefore requiring good planning, so it will take me a while to share another update.
First, a bit of MMP work. Recently, a beaver dam has been spotted near Biberstein, the small forest village we've alredy seen in Entry 5. So, we are traveling into the forest to have a look at it, and first, we have to cross a small suspension bridge:
Beavers create dams at flowing bodies of water in order to flood the entrance to their lairs whenever the water level rises. Beavers are good swimmers, so they can enter their lair from under water, making it more safe against predatory animals. To do that, they sometimes cut trees literally by gnawing around the stem of a tree until it falls, along with using other materials such as fallen branches, twigs, mud, and stones. While beavers are protected in some areas of the world, of course their activities aren't always popular with us humans, and can cause issues such as some trees being flooded by the rising water, dying thereby.
Therefore, to watch the beaver activities, a ranger station has been built. It also serves as an info point for interested people.
And here, we have the beaver dam in its glory. One can already see the dam itself, the lairs, made from wood as well, and the tree stumps.
By coincidence, this path here leads to another area of interest. As already mentioned in the last entry, some Pagan myths have survived in Maxiland until this very day - although the times for sacrifices are over, there are still some people meditating close to this mysterious stone circle, and it is a popular spot for summer parties. According to some people, this stone circle has been used to worship the God of the forest, although recently, there are speculations that it has something to do with Zodiac, as there have once been 12 large rocks surrounding the huge rock in the center, placed in equal distance to each other. For reasons unknown, 4 of these rocks have been removed, which may indicate that there still were times when whatever Deity has been worshipped there, this area has completely been ignored and the rocks have just been recycled as building materials.
And an overview of the entire area:
Next, we are visiting an area close nearby, but actually part of the community of Storchenfeld. This is the small hamlet of St. Laurenz, which has been founded by monks several centuries ago. Back in these days, when the river was a bit farther to the west, this was a really enjoyable spot - the scenery was awesome, with the view to the river, and there was still enough farming land available for a secluded life but still not too far away from humanity. Nowadays, due to decline in interest in such a lifestyle, there are only few monks living there. But they are allowing educational institutes, professors, and artists from all around the world to perform courses at their monastery of St. Laurenz in order to help adults further improve their education or develop their interests in art. Stl Laurenz only contains 6 houses, the monastery itself, a restaurant, and a small church.
This is a view to St. Laurenz from zoom level 2, along with the street to this hamlet, so you can notice its location in comparison to Storchenfeld.
And an overview over almost the entire large city tile. Whatever is missing is mostly forest, without any special development.
And with that, we can consider the first city tile of Maxiland finished. I hope you enjoyed this short update. I'm currently developing the areas to the west and north of Storchenfeld, as well as Zirbenhang (to the east of Michaelshaven), so you might expect the next update to show some pictures from there.
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