Proposal for a Town Lot sized Keep Home

The Founder Knight's Keeps, Knight Marshal's Keeps, and Duke's Keeps are all well designed (Though imperfect) Keep type homes. An equivalent for a Town sized lot has been a hole I've been hoping would be filled.

Therefore, I would like to put forth what I would like to see to fill this void.

A square Keep, with towers on the corners, in the same vein as the Knight Marshal's and Duke's keeps, but with round towers (as I understand there are Decorating challenges with Round Towers... Square Towers would be acceptable), and sized for the Town lot. It would have three interior floors, and rooftop, and accessible tower tops above the roof.

Details:

General notes on the illustrations below

• These are drawn to scale, the outline around the border of each is 30 x 40 m, the size of a Town Lot.
• The walls are drawn to a 1/2 meter thickness, though a full meter wouldn't be unreasonable, and might be preferable.
• The central room would be square if the towers hadn't removed the corners, 18 m center wall to center wall.
• Each tower is 8 m diameter center wall to center wall.
• I envision this in the style of the Stone Castle Walls available in the Add-On Store. Personally, I would like White.
• I'll consider the top of the illustrations to be North, and use compass points in descriptions.

The first floor: The Dungeon



This is the first floor of the keep, but the entrance is on the second floor. There would be no windows on this floor. If you wanted to get fancy, the walls on the first floor might flare out somewhat, thickening toward the bottom.

• On the South are the stairs that lead up to the entrance to the keep on the second floor.
• In the Northwest Tower are the stairs up to the first floor. This tower contains stairs that spiral up the wall from the Dungeon to the Roof. This door on each floor should likely be differentiated in some manner, either with a different style door, or a unique stone set in the wall above the door. Something that says "The Stairs are Behind this door" short of an EXIT sign in Britannian Runes.
• Each Tower Room has its own door separating them from the main, central room. This is consistent on all floors.
• Perhaps the doors on this level might be Metal cell doors.
• The floor here would be flagstone; the ceiling timbered wood.
• Lighting could be provided by wall mounted torch sconces.

The second floor: The Main Floor



This simply stacks on the First Floor, and has the same configuration. Open central room, 4 tower rooms with doors. Stairs continue to spiral up the Northwest tower, going up to the third floor, and down to the first.

• Double Doors on the South Wall are the entrance to the Keep, opening on the landing at the top of the stairs.
• Towers and Straight walls in the Central Room could have windows, preferably glazed, narrow Gothic Arched tops, and set into the wall in a niche that widens to the inside. The bottom of the niche could be level with the floor, or the bottom of the window. The windows in the Knight Marshal's Keep would be good for this, or, at minimum, a good example.
• The floor should be wood (or possibly tiled) and the ceiling should be timbered wood.
• Lighting might be provided by a central chandelier.

The third floor: Upper Floor



Almost identical to the Second Floor, though lacks the double doors on the South wall. All other comments from above apply to this floor.

The fourth floor: The Roof



The central area of the roof is open to the sky and flat. Note that the Towers continue above the roof for a story, so the Tower Rooms exist on this level. This arrangement allows the stairs in the Northwest tower to come all the way to the level of the roof, removing the need for a ladder to or a trapdoor, and, as the stairs end in an Interior space, there is no need for a gaping hole in the roof as exists with the Knight's Keeps.

• To the right of each tower room door (as your facing it) is a ladder that leads to the tower tops.
• The ladders could be in the same style as the Stone Castle Walls w/ Ladders.
• The tops of the straight walls should be crenelated in the same style as the Stone Castle Walls.
• The roof itself should likely be flagged, or tiled.

The fifth floor: Tower Tops



Not much to say here. We're at the top of the keep. All that remains are the rooves of the round towers, and the ladders used to access them.

• The tops of the towers should be crenelated in the same style as the Stone Castle Walls.
• The floor should be consistent with the roof flooring.
• Having Conical Peaked Rooves covering the tops of the towers might be something to consider... It would be different visually, though having an unrestricted view of the sky is also desirable.

 

I know one of the greenhouse, I think the small one from the store, could fit inside the town size Keep home. However, what I do not know is if a clock tower could fit inside it.

An idea that would work with the current system is to use the craftable castle walls and a structure that can be moved around inside the lot. Move the structure to the back/misdle of the lot and use the castle walls to create a rather large courtyard. There are even a few nice village sized houses that would work well with the craftable castle walls.

The main problem is that I don’t believe you can place objects in the clock towers, but you’d still have a large yard to play with and basement. Unlike the craftable castle walls, if you manage to work with the town sized keep you’d be able to place items atop the walls.

Personally, I think that if the clock tower idea works you’d have a unique looking house design. You could even skip a house all together and use the stackable blocks, which match the coloration of the craftable castle walls.

 

If a building like this were to be made, I would certainly use it as my home among the ruins of Dead Horse.

 

After going over your plans I've a few suggestions.



First, the entrance needs to be pushed into the keep, not extending beyond the boundaries and using the shape of the building to fill in the entirety of the keep lot. Second, if you want a 'dungeon' then I just personally think it'd be cool if the entrance was concealed by a sliding floor, something which I don't think exists in any other house.

As for how tall you're proposing, I just gotta say that this things gonna be an eye sore. It'll be a huge block of bricks from the perspective of anyone viewing it outside with a whopping 5 stories to it. The towers on the outside really shouldn't be any taller than the castle wall towers, which are the same height as the current town sized Keep. While the first and second floor may be a large square to optimize space, once you hit the 3rd floor it'd be cool if the central room changed to a round shape and acted more as a central tower. With the 4 towers on the outside limited to 2 stories the central, 3rd story, larger tower would be clearly visible. I feel this should stop at a 4th floor, either making it an open space or adding a rounded roof with attic space and windows.



You're proposal for a spiral staircase leading up through the middle would work with the rounded, middle tower here. The stairs can stop at this point with roof/attic access limited to a ladder to maximize space or by a curving staircase along the back wall. There can either be a single door leading to the outside where you can walk along the top of the 2nd floor onto the towers or there could even be 4 doors leading to the 4 towers. If the attic isn't used the rooftop area could be slightly larger than the rounded tower below, causing the barricade of the highest point to flare out a bit. This, to me, would only serve to make it seem more like an outpost than a house.

 

Please feel free to create your own proposal... in your own thread.