Northold Hollows

Northold Hollows
Survival 4 Beagle
Tableau, at the heart of the Hollows, frames the storage room and smelter. The Willow Rock can be seen at the foreground, where mobs drop to their demise persistently to this day.
Base
World	Survival 4 (Beagle)
Founded	5th November, 2020
Transport	Adjacent North 2 Station Beside the 3,000th mark; across North 2 Station portal
Map

Northold Hollows, or the Hollows, is the subterranean Survival 4 residence of  eybwam on the Dogcraft Server. It was founded on 5 November 2020 in a snowy taiga biome about 2,900 blocks north of Camp Beagle.

Foundation and Early History

Northold Hollows was born as a starter base carved straight into the side of a mountain. The site was surprisingly unoccupied, considering it borders  xcoffeequeenx 102 blocks to the east and Chaincastle Station just nine blocks to the west. In its earliest days, the location was originally intended as a starter branch mine but was later reconsidered upon the discovery of four cave spider spawners and an urgent need for an xp grinder.

Layout

Situated at the heart of an abandoned mineshaft, the Hollows encloses a claimed area of 10,960 blocks (136 by 79 blocks) with a further nine unclaimed blocks cardinally around it, except to the east, constituting the entirety of Northold — land under direct influence of  eybwam and reserved for future underground expansion. Deliberately orientated with its longest side parallel to Beagle SRN North Line, it would have dominated a stretch of aboveground land for preservation.

The Hollows is made up of four planned floors; with two floors mined out, the third floor semi-done, and fourth floor yet to be mined out at the time of writing. The first two floors contain the Tableau which houses the Willow Rock situated at the very center of the base and is the earliest built part of the Hollows. Willow Rock is a three by three polished blackstone slab that serves as the splat point for the mob farm 27 blocks above. Encircling the Tableau is a variety of rooms connected by the Vintage Corridors, an enclosure of hallways. Although there were several phases of expansion after its foundation, the general layout has remained the same.

Architecture

Premeditated on a 'modern mineshaft' concept, it was later deemed as artistically limiting after the first two rooms were built. Later expansion saw the base designed in various architectural styles while maintaining a mix of Beaux-Arts style, with decorative Renaissance and Neoclassical cues throughout, and a rustic contemporary theme to anchor them with the Hollow’s early modern builds. The principal areas of the Hollows include the two-floor storage room, the smelter area and armory, the Tableau, the Ingress Foyer, and the Ore Atrium, together with areas devoted to farms and trading halls, such as Xenocrates Court and Hermittwt Chamber, respectively. The Vintage Corridors connecting the principal areas display a collection of Cyberdog-given items that  eybwam kept as mementos.

Ingress Foyer

Designed to be ill-lit and intimidating, the Ingress Foyer serves as the primary reception area from visitors entering via the nether. It features a diamond-centered chandelier suspended from a domed smooth sandstone ceiling, accented by the light cyan tone of stripped warped stem. Flanked by black stained glass floors and basalt columns, a sandstone path emerges from the tetrastyle portico framing the main nether portal to lay out the arrangement of entry into the Ore Atrium and Tableau.

Ore Atrium

The Atrium was built to pay homage to eybwam's first mined ores in Dogcraft. It’s described by eybwam as ‘so far the closest Northold gets to lavish memorial services’⁽ᵃ⁾. Two rows of four embedded dark oak wood columns line the width of the Atrium and are richly decorated at the base. Wall portraits made from various ores and glazed terracotta complete what has been described as a ‘tour de force of Minecraft decoration’.

Xenocrates Court

Named after xenocrates32, Xenocrates Court stores the string collected from the cave spider farm situated behind it.

Construction of the room has countlessly been delayed due to ‘indecisiveness over farm design’ — between an automated one or a manual xp farm. The farm had to be finalized first before construction of the room even began. In mid-November 2020, xenocrates32 asked eybwam if they could use the farm’s output to supplement their gaming district’s demand for wool⁽ᵇ⁾. From there, the farm saw multiple reworks before settling on an automatic cactus-trap design. A striped tone to tone wall bathes the room to create a cohesive yet cozy feeling within the space. Aside from associating red with xenocrates32, the warm palette filled with red shades was chosen by eybwam to also offset the room's softer colours.

Hermittwt Chamber

Hermittwt Chamber, named after the unofficial Hermitcraft Twitter fandom, functioned as the venue for cartographer trading until the construction of a new dedicated cartographer trading room. It features a patterned floor and barrel vault ceiling supported by decorative endstone columns. The walls of the chamber consist of vertical alternating stripes of clay and light blue terracotta, and are decorated with a gallery of maps, including those of the City of Alina and Camp Beagle’s. A floor-to-ceiling fireplace is the chamber’s centerpiece, with Northold’s coat-of-arms resting on its mantle. At present, the Chamber serves as the lobby for the seven planned villager trading halls in the Hollows.

Accessibility

Northold Hollows can only be accessed via the Nether Transport Network ⁽ᶜ⁾. Its nether portal is located beside North's 3,000th mark and is across the Chaincastle Station portal stop. The aboveground site can be accessed via North Line of Beagle's Survival Railway Network (Survival 4) through the Chaincastle Station .

There is no designated /phome for Northold Hollows as of 29 January 2021.

Expansion

Being a work-in-progress residence, this section will continually be updated.

Scisfy Vault

Planned as a two-floor vault to contain  eybwam's cache of elytra, Scisfy Vault saw construction begin on 28 January 2021 with the help of Scisfy_PB's Redstone Security Systems™ ⁽ᵈ⁾. So far, it has been installed with two vault doors using an item-frame and password lock, respectively.

Notes

a. Memorial service for Sidekit,  eybwam's first snowy fox, was minimal despite a 21-arrow salute; tributes were borderline nonexistent.

b. Gaming District to be named. It is Xenocrates32 and eybwam's work-in-progress project on the Beagle Survival World approximately located at x:2,400; z:-6,300.

c. Above ground access can only be available once the fourth floor's construction begins.

d. Unofficial name. Scisfy_PB however remarked it along the lines of a 'good name'.

Trivia

 eybwam has a mild dislike for roofs, hence the subterranean base. He enjoys designing ceilings, though. >.> woof

Gallery

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