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~:~|~:~ The Great Mines ~:~|~:~
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Project Leader: @Wyattrox03
Co-Leader: @Joske50
Project Staff: @Mershy, @barteldvn, @Human100
Project Shadow Leader: @DoctorDaom
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OVERALL PROGRESS AND STATE
Approximate Overall Progress Percentage: 100%
Current Progress State: Planning + Building
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Introduction
Sing goddess, the rage of Davyck, Daom, and Lacotax. The bane of such great builders returns, to be beaten to a bloody pulp by commoners and builders alike. Great Mines is the greatest single mine complex laid out by Despott and connects the areas of moviecave and eastgold on the fellowship path. Great Mines is shown in the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring as the place where Gandalf shines his light over the edge and says the wealth of Moria is in mithril. These mines, unlike others built thus far, are primarily made for the extraction of mithril, a precious and quite uncommon ore, and the dwarves have delved eagerly to reach it.
Project Sections
Section 1: This is the eastern exit towards Eastgold. The connector itself is low priority but the scaffolds at the end of the cave have been pretty much laid out by Joske already.
Section 2: This is probably the most densely built area in great mines, the wall is covered in horizontal mining layers facilitating surface level quarrying/mining, and also large wooden mega structures for mining high on the walls, and moving material between levels.
Section 3: Opposite section 2, section 3 is also very busy, there are less quarrying levels than section 2, but there are many deep cracks inside of which are ore enriched veins.
Section 4: Section 4 has a large steep side cave facing into it which is heavily quarried, there is also a large elevator shaft for minecart transport which feeds into the main ore collection and transport hall.
Section 5: Section 5 is relatively small, but the density of large wooden mega structures will begin thinning out at this point going towards section 7.
Section 6: This area has a number of hall connections, mostly relating to foot traffic between great mines and chamber of light and also mining tool storage. There will not be many huge structures here, but there will be a few hanging cranes, mimicking the style of section seven as seen in the movie.
Section 7: Section 7 is the movie scene, we want to try and recreate this as accurately as possible, and in the movie there are not many huge structures visible outside of a few hanging cranes (see inspiration image 1). Seeing as how there are only a few structures here, this will be the western reaches of the actively mined area of great mines. Going on westward, there will be very little mining.
Atlas Cave: Pending a better name for this large area of the project, Atlas cave is essentially a large terrain project which encompasses the huge cave between the great mining chasm and moviecave. This area needs a gradient to be made for it and also concepts for cave detailing. There will be no recent mining remnants in Atlas Cave.
These Sections refer principally to the surface of the main cave of Great Mines, the mining tunnels are handled differently.
Project Progression
1 - Cave Voxelling and Layouts - 100%
2 - Wood Megastructures/Main Cave - 100%
3 - Tunnels and Connectors - 100%
4 - Halls - 100%
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1 - The main cave and over half the tunnels are layed out. The south side of the project however needs more tunnels and larger interior caves. These will all need to connect into the future hall complex leading to the Chamber of Light. There is also a minecart system which has a number of elevators and conveyor belts included.2 - Wood Megastructures/Main Cave - 100%
3 - Tunnels and Connectors - 100%
4 - Halls - 100%
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2 - Joske has planned a large number of wood mining mega-platforms and elevator/conveyor systems on the eastern end of Great Mines and we are moving west. There will also be large structures in the bigger caves within the tunnel systems. Because of the complexity of many of these structures, the planning of their shape will probably be a foreman/artist job, but detailing can be done in plots. The planning consists of a wool layout of the structure and the movement system, and the detailing will entail blockmixing, ruining, laying out of crates/cobblestone mining areas and crane construction. There will also be a number of jobs in the main cave for rubble detailing and roads so look forward to those!
3 - Here is where the community gets its overdose in involvement. Great Mines will probably in the end be the densest concentration of mining tunnels and caves that Moria will ever see. Each level of the outside cave will have an entire system of carved out passages behind it, connected through various large carved out caves with structures, as well as more simple mineshafts. More information will be available once we find the best workflow, but it is very likely there will be plots on these, if not jobs or even a build day. Due to the likelihood of burnout on these as was seen with the relatively few tunnels in westgate, I intend to involve as many people as possible and maybe even some adventurers.
4 - Throughout the Mining Sections of Great Mines there are a number of Halls of different degrees of roughness and various purposes. On the north side there are a number of tool and wood storage halls as well as a tool repair workshop and a minecart repair and turn around hub. On the south side the hall situation is a bit more complex. There will be two forges for Great Mines. The first forge is at the eastern end quite high up. This forge would have been the first forge for great mines when the mining operation was smaller. As such the architecture utilizes a lot of rounded arches which in our head cannon is more of an older dwarven style. As the dwarves moved further west and deeper down they would have needed another forge for the other side of the mine which is both lower and larger, leading to the construction of the second forge complex. This complex uses the more typical dwarven angular arches as seen in west gate and is on the highway leading from the northern lodes.
Section 1:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls/Connectors: 100%
Section 2:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Section 3:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Section 4:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Section 5:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Section 6:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Section 7:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Wood Megastructures: 100%
Tunnels: 100%
Halls: 100%
Atlas Cave:
Cave Voxelling and Layouts: 100%
Cave Detailing: 100%
Side Caves: 100%
Background Lore
Great Mines is ultimately a movie location, but there does exist some justification in lore for a large mithril mine on the northern reaches of Moria.
'The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down into darkness. ... they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin's Bane.’ LoTR Book 2, Ch 4, A Journey in the Dark
'The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down into darkness. ... they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin's Bane.’ LoTR Book 2, Ch 4, A Journey in the Dark
Mithril is the most valuable metal in middle earth, because of that we imagine the handling and transport of that ore to be well guarded and accounted for. The processing of this will take place in the Chamber of Light in a very concentrated fashion.
'Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.' The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 4, A Journey in the Dark
'The Elves dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin, starmoon, which you saw upon the doors.' The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 5, The Steward and the King
Note: This is not where the balrog was awoken in our Moria headcanon, that will be in the yet to be laid out Moria Deeps.
'Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.' The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 4, A Journey in the Dark
'The Elves dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin, starmoon, which you saw upon the doors.' The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 5, The Steward and the King
Note: This is not where the balrog was awoken in our Moria headcanon, that will be in the yet to be laid out Moria Deeps.
Inspiration
The style we will be working with is very much inspired from Moviecave, Upper Mines, and what Dave left us, but we are of course building on a bit of a bigger scale.
How to Help?
Join Jobs when they happen or DM Wyattrox03 or Joske50 on discord or in game for plots!
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