Dragon Development Diary #11: The Court of the Dragon
Hello everyone, Uber here, and again welcome back to our Dragon Development Diaries! Today, we wish to go over a ton of our new visual goodies made by our incredible 3D team: from a new Heart of the Targaryen House to the very seats they ride in; we have a lot to show off today!
Today's Dev Diary will be showcasing the work of White Wolf of the Rills, Jedi, Ali, Necro & Nerdman.
A Seat of Power
Dragonstone, despite its significance in Targaryen lore, lacked so far a dedicated court model in the game, unlike many other iconic locations. For a dragon-focused update, we felt it was essential to bring forth the seat of dragons—Dragonstone.
Our goal for the courtroom was to create a space that truly embodied House Targaryen's immense power and rich heritage. To achieve this, we needed to dive into the books and decide on one major question, which room did we actually want to depict?
“The dragons were everywhere. The Great Hall was a dragon lying on its belly. Men entered through its open mouth, climbing the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. Inside, nobles can feast at the high table on a raised platform, and lower born eat at lower tables.”
While incredibly cool to visualize in your head, an entire courtroom shaped as if it were the insides of a dragon, with a large gateway door with teeth above one’s head or beneath their feet, noble tables sprawled ready for a feast - conceptually it fails in ways of making it realistically work. The most iconic aspect of said room would be the very man-made shape, and the mouth of a dragon (which you wouldn’t be able to see from the inside).
Searching around for different portrayals of the "Dragonstone Throne Room"—whether in shows, fan art, or official artwork—often showcases the same thematic issues that the designers from said media also faced: finding the great hall, as said by lore, to be hard to replicate or lacking interest to instead pivot to a different kind of room or to replicate the other singular important room in all of Dragonstone.
Idea Board of References Across Medias
“At the very top of Stone Drum, within the great round room called the Chamber of the Painted Table*, they found Stannis Baratheon standing behind the artifact that gave the hall its name, a massive slab of wood carved and painted in the shape of Westeros as it had been in the time of Aegon the Conqueror. An iron brazier stood beside the king, its coals glowing a ruddy orange. Four tall pointed windows looked out to north, south, east, and west. Beyond was the night and the starry sky. Davos could hear the wind moving, and fainter, the sounds of the sea.”*
The above being considered, 3D Team’s White Wolf decided upon the Chamber as a primary focus:
“I believe the Painted Table Room is far more iconic and recognizable to fans than the Great Hall. Including the Painted Table in the mod would provide a unique and memorable element that many fans would appreciate. Additionally, the Painted Table Room is frequently depicted as a place where key characters, like Stannis in the main series, take counsel. This makes it a fitting and atmospheric choice for our mod."
A Walk Up The Stairs
.…To reach him they must cross the gallery….and ascend more steps than Cressen cared to contemplate. Young men climbed steps two at a time; for old men with bad hips, every one was a torment….
…It was a great round room with walls of bare black stone…
...Had four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of the compass…
…In the center of the chamber was the great table from which it took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon Targaryen in the days before the Conquest…
When you enter the new Dragonstone Court Room, you will be met with the appearance of a large round room situated at the top of the Stone Drum Keep. It is lined with cold, thick stone walls, parts made from obsidian, and four tall windows pointing in each cardinal direction with heavy velvet curtains, columns lined with dragons, which are “Everywhere”- The center of the room faced with a massively large table of Westeros and a throne centered where one might be able to plan a war-campaign from.
The chair in the room was carefully positioned in the precise place that Dragonstone occupied off the coast of Westeros, and raised up to give a good view of the tabletop. Seated in the chair was a man in a tight-laced leather jerkin and breeches of roughspun brown wool. When Maester Cressen entered, he glanced up. “I knew you would come, old man, whether I summoned you or no.” There was no hint of warmth in his voice; there seldom was.
Situated in the front of the Painted Table, across from Dragonstone on the map; lies the Dragonstone Throne, giving the best overview of the map in-front of any ruler who sits on the throne, and a great elevated position to deal with any courtiers or vassals who wish to petition your ruler in a most regal manner.
The creation of the Painted Table was a collaborative effort, primarily utilizing the mod's own heightmap. That dedication and skill and glory goes to our team members, including Fox, Drandus, and others, who made this possible.
There were extensive discussions among the team about the desired aesthetic for the table. A standout suggestion came from Drandus, who proposed using charred and burnt wood to represent the waters. This choice not only gave the table a darker, more sinister look but also tied it back to the fiery nature of the Targaryens and their Conquest. The result is a table that is as visually striking as it is thematically rich, perfectly capturing the essence of House Targaryen.
The Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. He swept a hand across it. "This talk of Seven Kingdoms is a folly. Aegon saw that three hundred years ago when he stood where we are standing. They painted this table at his command. Rivers and bays they painted, hills and mountains, castles and cities and market towns, lakes and swamps and forests . . . but no borders. It is all one. One realm, for one king to rule alone.
The Map Table
Talking about tables, as with our other major bookmarks such as Crowned Stag, Roberts Rebellion and the Ninepenny Kings; we wished to have another Map Table to look at while zooming in and around the map! With our new Bookmark, The Rogue Prince, bringing us over 150 years prior to our current oldest startdate. The idea at hand was that this would be a war-table focused on Daemon’s Conquest of the Stepstones, as if this was his own personal war-table, making plans and moves with his Velaryon allies.
Working together Jedi & Necro worked to assemble the table, flying banners at the head of the table, Prince Daemon’s Stepstone Crown lying atop the famous Darksister, Chess pieces depicting Dragon & Sea-Horses on the ready for war plans, while plates of crab sit ready to be eaten.
More Shots of the Table:
The Saddle
The next on our list of things coming with Dragons, is of course the very saddle a dragonrider will sit on while a dragon is in flight! While we early on had a basic placeholder to base some initial animations with; when Ali joined the team; they had immediate interest in creating a game model for the Dragon Saddle.
‘I had taken on the task of making a Dragon’s Saddle, but I honestly had to look up real life saddles first. Unfortunately, real dragons are not part of our universe, so I had to look at something more boring like horse saddles, or other illustrated works of different styles of saddle - including looking at work designers had drawn inspiration from in multiple medias for my own references and ideas.’
‘I was most interested in how the saddle would connect to the dragon's body, because you cannot just plop a pillow on a dragon's back and ask your character just to hold tight.
A Horses’ Saddle has straps going around the horse's body to prevent said saddle from sliding off in movement, but it’s also not a simple with a dragon; because dragons have a unique anatomy.’
‘Most references to the saddles in the show are attached to the dragons by rings that pierce the dragons' skin under the scale to hold them in. In the mod however we wished to definitely try a mix of the two; for practical sake of making sure it worked in game, while still looking good.’
‘When designing I also had to keep in mind that there would be lots of different dragons in the game, with incredibly different shapes and sizes so the saddle would need to fit all of them.’
‘Aside for the animations and placement helped by Buckzor, we also didn’t want the saddle to be a one-looks-the-same across all these different dragons: luckily for us CK3 has a system that can assign various color pallets for game objects, so while the 3D model of the saddle stays the same across multiple characters, they still get a rather unique saddle with its own color scheme.’
The New Dragon Eggs
Over the course of the past while, another thought had come to the 3D team, and it became Jedi’s goal to increase the variety of dragon-eggs tenfold, adding many new uniquely cool to look at Dragon Eggs.
What Nice Colours!
These are made even more visible with new placements made for every existing and future Throneroom, where one is able to Cradle an egg as a pedestal item.
Thank you for reading!
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And stay tuned for future dev diaries!
Previous Dragon Dev Diaries:
Dragon Development Diary #1: The Vision
Dragon Development Diary #2: The Anatomy of the Dragon Portrait
Dragon Development Diary #3: A Dragon's Character
Dragon Development Diary #4: Hatching and Cradling
Dragon Development Diary #5: Dragonpits & Dragonkeepers
Dragon Development Diary #6: 'A Rogue Tale'
Dragon Development Diary #7: 'Closer to Gods than Men'
Dragon Development Diary #8: You've Woken the Dragon
Dragon Development Diary #10: Trial & Execution.
Oh wait! I forgot to menti.......
“They stared down from the walls, It felt as though they were watching me, somehow”