Housepets!

Given everything else that's happened recently, I'd say the answer for #1 is "that's up to you".

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to clash with any of the town's backstory which might have been already written is all.

1) Just remember that RA is a largely wooded little town. Also if you go far enough in one direction you'll find a massive expanse of grassland that is yet unexplored.

2) I'm working on it I swear! I'm just not much of a cartographer

For reference: places recently referenced in the story:

Sparagmos stables, which includes open paddocks and some kind of equine veterinary area adjacent to...

Walton's clinic, which is also a wildlife rehab center with several buildings. There's a side road owned by the Sparagmos family that runs past the clinic and meets the main road near the clinic and near the stables, and also extends into...

A state park area, where the action "yesterday" started, with a number of relatively developed roads and trails.

This area is at the foot of a ridge, and there's a relatively new housing development on top of the ridge, one of those cookie-cutter developments that tends to produce homeless wildlife during its construction. The stables are closer to the town than the clinic, because the "first entrance" leads into the stables, and it is tricky driving through the park at night to get to the clinic at the other end.

In an older part of the town, "Freedom Drive", with a big house at the end of it.

A library.

A hideout with two "poachers" and a wolf in it.

A large city within convenient helicopter flight of the town (how far is convenient for a round trip in a helicopter? Fifty miles? A hundred? [Edit: googling suggests a couple of hundred miles max]).

Edit: There are also farms adjacent to the park, within easy hiking distance of the clinic (say, a few miles).

Thanks!

Hey... Some of those seem to be out of place (the state park, the housing development) I mean that's okay, it just sort of messes with the map and such. RA is supposed to be a small, close to rural place, right? I just thought everyone was just in the woods, also where even does the development go? Also, just for the records, is there any specific reason they cropped up? Also there shouldn't be an "older" part of town, it's all old I thought?

Sorry for coming so late, I was busy helping set up for a health fair.

Esper wrote:Hey... Some of those seem to be out of place (the state park, the housing development) I mean that's okay, it just sort of messes with the map and such. RA is supposed to be a small, close to rural place, right? I just thought everyone was just in the woods, also where even does the development go? Also, just for the records, is there any specific reason they cropped up? Also there shouldn't be an "older" part of town, it's all old I thought?

The state park at least doesn't mean anything. A lot of state parks are pretty much just chunks of land owned by the state, and even have towns and farms embedded in them, and apart from nominally having their own police force they're just another chunk of undeveloped land. Heck, I'm in Houston and there's half a dozen state parks nearby, right up against the city, let alone little towns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_parks

Alrighty, but the rest?

As someone who lives in what once was a rural area slowly becoming a suburb, a housing development in a place like this is usually small (no more than a 5 or so streets and a cul-de-sac or 2) and centered around something major (for instance in my town it's the high school)

1] there isn't really anything big up on the ridge
2] RA isn't really becoming a suburb. It already kind of has one, I think
3] Okay I'm sorry but I can't draw maps

It's alright, I think we can make do without a map for now.

I never thought of "small rural town" and "housing development" as being contradictory. If the town's growing, people are going to be buying land and building new houses. I used to go camping all over Texas and the gulf coast, and I've seen clumps of houses going up in little towns with no city in a hundred miles.

If that's a problem, I'll go back and edit that out, I don't think it's anything critical. I was thinking of one street along the ridge and houses either side of it, and maybe one or two little spurs where it joins the main road.

Ido t even know. Whatever. I'm just still trying to put these fragments together with the original post. Gah, this sucks. All I know is that there is town square where all business is usually done, in one direction there is a suburb that is very old and in the other direction is farmland. In the other two cardinal directions is a dense, flat forest containing a river and a massive grassland after the forest ends, in the other direction is a small ridge covered in trees. I guess the big house would be far off in the very back of the little suburb where the encroaching trees are more plentiful. I'm pretty sure the stables and thus the clinic would be near the farmlands... I guess. I can only write up area like that, not draw maps

That was actually really descriptive. Good job.

Oh [@]~[@] okay thanks

Your welcome.

I read the first post in the OC thread which mentions the forest, the town and some old ruins from the '50s on the other side of the woods so I was kind of wondering about the proximity of the town to the old ruins. Is it say, hiking distance? Or would you need a car/bike? I just wanted the map for scale etc, although I think you're doing quite a good job of explaining that without it.

Did anyone ever explain how the old town was ruined?

Oh the old town is just sort if a myth. The grassland can have all manner if things, do be creative! Also I'd only say hiking distance if you're either persistent, or fine with a long trek. It's not too far, but its hard to not get lost/ distracted/ stuff like that. Personally I lean towards the old lab myth 0u0

old lab myth ? like that creepypasta story ?

I like the old lab myth too.

I smell a new arc after this whole poacher one

It would also be a good way for everyone to meet up.

Yep yep, but I don't know that pasta yet

Well, it's a long ways off anyway.

Esper wrote:Ido t even know. Whatever. I'm just still trying to put these fragments together with the original post. Gah, this sucks. All I know is that there is town square where all business is usually done, in one direction there is a suburb that is very old and in the other direction is farmland. In the other two cardinal directions is a dense, flat forest containing a river and a massive grassland after the forest ends, in the other direction is a small ridge covered in trees. I guess the big house would be far off in the very back of the little suburb where the encroaching trees are more plentiful. I'm pretty sure the stables and thus the clinic would be near the farmlands... I guess. I can only write up area like that, not draw maps

Ah, see, I was visualizing a real town.

Real towns are generally pretty higgledy-piggledy *. If they're really old the higgledy-piggledy goes all the way in to where they started in a farm or church or pub at the intersection of a couple of roads. In the USA towns on the east coast can be like that, but usually they have a grid in the middle, and a few more or less aligned grids nearby, and unless it's built on a plain you have jogs and curvy bits where topology gets in the way of planning. If there's a ridge nearby there's probably topology everywhere, and maybe a river, and if there's a river there's parts of the town built along the river, because there's business that can use the river and people who like to live on the river.

If it's in the middle of the US there's probably one grid all hail the grid aligned with the railroad, but no hills or ridges to speak of, and the higgledy-piggledy comes from different-sized aligned grids running into each other.

You tend to get farmland in all directions, outside the higgledy-piggledy, except for chunks where some farmer was particularly stubborn about development. Stubborn farmers are often responsible for higgledy-piggledy bits.

Unless the town has never grown past its original street map, but towns like that are generally shrinking by now, and don't have many new people moving in. Those kind sometimes get revived by a factory or something moving in, but that generally brings the higgledy-piggledy with it.

* And full of timey wimey stuff.

Okay I'm sorry but what? I mean I get what you're saying, but is it supposed to relate to the layout? I suppose RA is more like a village than a town. Just, um, do I need to rewrite some things? That's okay, but I need to know and all that

Esper wrote:Okay I'm sorry but what? I mean I get what you're saying, but is it supposed to relate to the layout? I suppose RA is more like a village than a town. Just, um, do I need to rewrite some things? That's okay, but I need to know and all that

You don't need to rewrite things, unless you think it makes for a more interesting layout. I was just explaining what I was visualizing when I wrote my bits.

I'm going to have to sit down with a piece of paper and sketch out something that fits your description to wrap my brain around it.

Ooooh okay. Thanks for clarifying. I'm very much close to being asleep right now, sorry

How about if you went from the town to the grasslands as the crow flies... but underground? Would that be much closer?
We could end up finally discovering what's out there thanks to Flynn's discovery.

It'd probably be close to the same... Also what? Tunnel?

Secret passage under his house. That's what he's researchign in the library, although he hasn't told any of the others yet.

Yeah, how close is he to discovering that anyway?

I'm stalling until I get a PM back from a mod but we're hopefully not too far off.

Okay, cool. I was just curious.

OK, I have a literal back of the envelope sketch that is way too ugly to post, even if it was my place to do that. Besides, I need to wait until I'm at work to tidy it up, I don't have a drawing program at home. Anyway, I'm going to check what I wrote and rewrite the new construction that orphaned Cinnamon as being along the edge of the state park between it and the two-lane state highway that runs past the town

Also looked at maps of real towns, and the kind of layers of building that go on.

How about Freedom Drive runs parallel to Main (there's always a Main), mostly east from an old armory that became the library. When the town was no longer on the edge of "indian (coyote?) territory" the old fort next to the river was pulled down and replaced by docks and warehouses. Then when the river trade fell off that became the edge of the "new suburb" (new means 80-100 years ago). The old house was somehow associated with the old fort, and the tunnels lead all the way under Freedom Drive to the basement of the library.

[I grew up in Sydney near a bunch of old abandoned military fortifications, and there's nothing better for war games.]

Argent wrote:OK, I have a literal back of the envelope sketch that is way too ugly to post, even if it was my place to do that. Besides, I need to wait until I'm at work to tidy it up, I don't have a drawing program at home. Anyway, I'm going to check what I wrote and rewrite the new construction that orphaned Cinnamon as being along the edge of the state park between it and the two-lane state highway that runs past the town

Also looked at maps of real towns, and the kind of layers of building that go on.

How about Freedom Drive runs parallel to Main (there's always a Main), mostly east from an old armory that became the library. When the town was no longer on the edge of "indian (coyote?) territory" the old fort next to the river was pulled down and replaced by docks and warehouses. Then when the river trade fell off that became the edge of the "new suburb" (new means 80-100 years ago). The old house was somehow associated with the old fort, and the tunnels lead all the way under Freedom Drive to the basement of the library.

[I grew up in Sydney near a bunch of old abandoned military fortifications, and there's nothing better for war games.]

That sounds really cool.

I'm sorry but that's all confusing my sleep asked head. Also the river isn't near town. Like at all. Also the town square basically holds everything. If you need it, it's there. Also highway?

Highways tend to either bypass towns like this or go through them and basically destroy them. That being said, it's likely the highway isn't too far off.

This is sort of like a puzzle that looked complete, but then I keep finding pieces everywhere that I have to jam in between existing links and shapes... I'm sorry but its getting getting really hard to keep track of these details that keep coming up... Um.. I dunno, I guess it's okay. I'm just getting really confused trying to fit this all together

Also the highway probably wouldn't directly pass through, RA is really small