User blog:Fingowin/Starter Base 5: Dúnedain of the North

Hello everybody!

I'm back again! After a pretty long break where I couldn't see Elves and Orcs anymore I finally found my love for the lotr mod again and returned into this lovely world of blocks and items! Even before the game load my new survival world I knew that it was time for me to pick up my blog series in the forum again. So I spent the first time back in middle earth to build two new exampels of Starter Bases. The two small buildings weren't just built for survival mode but also in survival. That took me a little longer but was huge fun! As always I hope you enjoy reading the articel and geht some interesting information.

Please forgive me for my bad english. If not written an english articel for a couple of months!

Introduction
 I've often been on servers where I found a lot of  simple "wood cubes" as houses. They were often built by new players who need a cheap and useful shelter. As a survival player I know this issue too but as a builder it just makes me cry. So many great servers and their player citys loose their lotr atmosphere because of these "cubes". So I started developing starter bases. They should look nicer as the cubes but should cover everything a new player needs. You'll fing everything from a crafting table, to a small kitchen garden in a faction specific building. I only use blocks from the lotr mod and vanilla minecraft, so everybody can build this. Please note that it will take longer to build such a base and that it might be difficult for some new players but I'm very sure that these starter bases will help to improve the look of many servers even if you just take this blog as a source of inspiration.

I hope you'll like these buildings! Please let me know if you find the post interessting/useful!

lg Fingowin



Ranger Hideout
A hole in the ground?! Are you serious?! - Yeas I am! That's how true Rangers of the North hide from from hostile eyes and it's propably how most players start their life in a new mc world.

Eriador and the lone lands are a very dangerous place for the Dúnedain to live. As their number got very little in the third age they retrenched in a rural and secret life. Not much about their society ever reached the ears of the historics in their pillared libraries. That's why I needed to improvise a little bit. This Hideout is one example of how the Rangers which are famous for their secret, almost mystical way to fight could set up a small base when wandering the endless plains west of the Misty Mountains.

This small cave was digged out by myself but of course you can also use already existing caves. There you should just check how deep it goes to avoid Orcs from spawing inside your lovely home. One of the biggest advantages of this very natural home is that most people won't recognize it. Along with the inaccesible entrance this camp is perfect for PvP servers!To decorate the entrance without making it to obvious you can place a few berry bushes and use some slabs to make walking into the base easier. Please be aware of the fact that light alsways reveals your position. So don't place down torches in the entrance area!

Insinde the cave you finde everything a new player needs: A ranger crafting table, a bed, a few chests, a place to lay down his weapons and armour. Behind the chests, hidden in the wall, you can find a vanilla crafting table too. The small fireplace hides a forge and a furnace. This way the cave looks a lot better because there are no furnaces standing around which would look very stupid. The trapdoor in the floor leads down into a natural cave where I farmed my first ores. Of course it offers a perfect escape route too.

The only thing that's still missing is a source of food. The Rangers mostly hunt and collect their food in the woods around their camp. Ingame this is possible if you have no problem to spend half of your time hunting rabbits. Because I like having another food source I placed down the berry bushes and looked for a very small hole in the side of the mountain. In this hole I placed a little creek and planted a few seeds. Thanks to the flax and the dirt i placed in front of the hole you won't see my farm until you stand directly in front of it!



Materials I used in the building:
- Dirt (blocks, slabs)

- Cobblestone (blocks, stairs)

- Spruce wood (planks, stairs)

- Faction items (Ranger armour, Ranger bow)

- Utility blocks (crafting table, chests, forge, furnace, bed)

- Decorative blocks (trapdoor, torch, hearth block, ladders, weapon rack, berry bushes, flax)

Variations: Edit
'''cheaper or easier variations are marked by numbers. More difficult or expensiv variations have letters as prefixes.'''

The structure of this building offers endless room for your own design!







Dúnedain Homestead
When not chasing Orcs and Wargs in the wilderness of the north the Dúnedain live in small farmsteads and villages in Eriador, the Lone lands and the Angel. Once they were the great men of Arnor but this time is long gone and so the stettlements of thoose people are only a pale shadow of this once great kingdom!

If you are play in the time of Arnor I recomend you to check the variations I propose below. There you find a way to fit this in an anorian townstyle.

The outer area of the building offers everything a lonely farmer needs to survive. A small cropyard allows to grow your crops, the cattle is located in a small fence behind the house and in the little forge in front of the house you can you can forge your tools and weapons. A hedge out of berry bushes protects the fire form the cold wind. For the fences I used oakwood and the forge is made out of stone bricks. Because the Dúnedain live a poor and rural life t he most parts of the house, as well as the outer areas are made of wood. I used oak wood for the fences and the roof, while the pillars and details of the walls are made of spruce wood. Only the foundation and the forge are made of arnor/stone bricks.

Materials I used in my building:
- Spruce wood (planks, stairs, slabs, beams)

- Oak wood (planks, stairs, slabs, fences)

- Wattle and daub

- Arnor bricks (blocks, cracked, mossy, slabs)

- Stone bricks (blocks, stairs)

- Utility blocks (crafting table vanilla + factionspecific, forge, furnace, bed, chests, anvil, barrel, stone chest)

- Faction items (ranger armour, ranger banner, arnorian spear)

-Decorative blocks (iron bars, doors, ladders, plates, mugs, pressure plates, weapon rack, armour stand)

Variations:
'''cheaper or easier variations are marked by numbers. More difficult or expensiv variations have letters as prefixes.'''

1. Instead of using cracked, mossy and normal anor bricks you can use cobble stone.

A. To give the building a military look you can add another 5 block element and build it up so you have a small watchtower. You can then either have an open plattform or a closed tower with a roof (don't use a flat roof!)

B. If you build an anorian city you can replace the wattle and daub with arnor bricks, the beams with stone pillars and unse a foundation of normal stone bricks instead of the arnor bricks. A roof out of a dark wood (spruce, or fir for example) would fit better than a oak roof in this case.

C. A roof out of thatch looks great too!



That's how the base looks in a longshoot of the lone lands.