So my question is how do you visualize the destruction here? In the Fallen Angel adventure it shows a map of one building with a glass tower embedded in it and this is situated near the Dagger River. I'm thinking that was an oversight since there's the whole community of Cliffside in between the river and Dura.
So how exactly did the Glass Tower fall? Was it floating over the west side of Dura and so the destruction is focused there? If so why did this cause the whole district to be abandoned? Were all the temples focused there? Would there be signs of destruction in Cliffside?
What about the towers above it? Weren't they affected? Or did people just build over Fallen? What about Blackstone Church? Is this a free standing structure or part of a community in the base of a large tower?
I guess this could go many different ways. I'm just curious how you guys visualize it.
EDIT: I just realized the tower could have fallen straight down and have been tall enough to fall sideways filling most of the district (or across Cliffside to reach the river).
EDIT: Hm...actually looking at the mud caves in Cliffside to the south of Fallen that could have been the path of destruction of the tower falling over and actually reaching the river.
"9 Olarune 918 YK. The Glass Tower broke apart as it fell, and while most of the floating citadel landed in the Dagger River, some of its spires struck the old district of Godsgate, shattering buildings and killing hundreds. It was after this tragedy that Godsgate began to be known as Fallen and fell into ruin."
So maybe it was floating over the river south of the mudcaves and fell over northward.
Or if it "broke apart as it fell" maybe it was floating in Dura and it trailed pieces as it floated down and southward into the river.
To expand upon what you originally posted, I am most curious to hear how others depict the city and its structures in play and how they design practical maps for encounter areas.
Not only is the cliff face that tall, but then there are also the ruins of old Sharrat, otherwise known as The Depths (which are not actually underground. THey're just the sealed-off levels of the city that Sharn is built on-top of).
So then on top of the cliff, on top of the first abandoned layers of towers that Sharn is built on, THEN you come to Lower Dura's wards.
What happened is that the Crystal Tower fell, it fell from levatating at about the level of Upper Dura, passed Middle Dura, and landed in Lower Dura. You can think of it as falling diagonally into Godsgate. There most likely was a bunch of debris that fell into the side of the cliff, possibly knocking out a few of Cliffside's buildings and piers, but Sharn's harbor is a much more important place than the largely-obsolete temple district of Godsgate. So the city cleaned up the areas of Cliffside that got hit with debris, but didn't bother fixing Godsgate, which became Fallen.
As for the districts directly above Fallen in Middle Dura, and the ones above that in Upper Dura, they didn't fall because all you'd need to keep them up is one bridge connecting to the upper levels with a Flying Buttress. The manifest zone would keep everything up no matter how much of the foundation was knocked out.
For the most part, I depict the towers of Fallen to be mostly intact, however, with just huge crystal spires and parts of the crystal tower itself impaling them. Damage gets worse the closer to the "outside edge" facing the Dagger River you get, but there is still damage all the way toward the edge facing the canyon between Fallen and Lower Menthis, because the Crystal Tower was very tall and sorta got speared right through the entire district, in my mind.
This image seems to help, thought it doesn't quite match up with the map:
i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo192/bayush...
But it's images like this that confuse me. I assumed these cranes were coming from Cliffside instead of Dura warehouse towers.
www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sharn_gallery...
So more like this?
cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/45717/Clif...
Or this?
farm9.staticflickr.com/8487/8225134418_e...
Or this
images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb201103200...
I hadn't thought of the Depths that way before, but that makes sense. The book seems to contradict itself on the order of the lower levels.
I think the obsidian portal image you linked is pretty close, except that the towers at the top are several orders of magnatude too short to be Sharn.
Actually, my only problem with the first image, from the Wizard's gallery, is that too many of the buildings in it go straight from Lower wards to Upper Wards. My vision of Sharn has a lot more towers starting at the Middle ward levels and a few at the Upper Wards, who's foundations are only supported by Flying Buttresses attached to bridges.
Has anyone created or stumbled across something functional to what I describe?
images.community.wizards.com/community.w...
darkwarlock: No, I haven't seen anything like that. Would be great to see, though. It would probably never happen, but they could do a whole other Sharn book just full of maps and images. Or they could do an adventure path that takes place all within the city. I'd definitely buy that.