Vernal Manor

Vernal Manor
Vernal Manor
Survival 4 Husky
Base
World	Survival 4 (Husky)
Builder(s)	ThEquinox2
Founded	April 3rd, 2020
Location	X= -5960; Y= 70; Z= -8760
Transport	-1098 North;
	Map Click for full map ;

Vernal Manor is the Husky base of ThEquinox2 on the Survival 4 iteration of the Dogcraft Server. Often just called "The Mansion," it has been in progress since April 5th of 2020.

About

The Vernal Manor area is situated between a birch forest, swamp, and ocean on northwestern Husky, and features a large restyled and refurbished Woodland Mansion. It is comprised mainly of dark oak, spruce, and birch wood along with stone bricks and cyan terracotta, with a more varied selection of blocks in the interior rooms. Great amount of inspiration in the design process were taken from a similar build of Grian's, but much of the base was actually freestyled, or built without planning.

Aside from the main structure, the base has a few developed periphery areas. One is a small, sprawling village to either side covered almost entirely in a custom-built roofed forest that is tall enough to shroud whole houses. In front, there is an orchard and historic park square, and the rear contains an industrial area with a creeper farm and several varied manual and automatic tree farms. The back is also host to a giant, accessorized statue of Equinox added throughout the course of several pranks by her friends. There are a few other decorated features such as campsites, training areas, a graveyard, and a market square dotted around in between the others.

Mansion Layout

The main structure's core layout is similar to vanilla mansions but different in many ways. There are fewer rooms in total, but said rooms encompass more space. The corridors are symmetrical instead of haphazard, and are featured much more on the ground and top floors than the middle floor. The familiar red carpets with white borders are a featured detail.

Ground Floor

Most of the first floor's area is taken up by halls and corridors, which have miscellaneous decorations lining them. It features access to four patios and the main staircases right at the entrance. There are a total of four rooms here: a map room, one room to house the nether portal, a dining room, and a kitchen.

Middle Floor

The central staircase surrounding a chandelier leads into a large library that takes up the most space on the the middle floor. There are no halls on this floor, and every room leads to another room. Two resident pillagers wander the library, which are kept from hurting themselves with pathfinding tricks beneath the carpet. In the library's main room, two staircases lead to the top floor, and a doorway leads to the laboratory, which is fit with a redcoder-based potion brewer and many other decorations. On either side of the library are entrances to four more rooms: the forge, office, guest room, and vault.

Top Floor

Stairs to the top floor lead into a commons area. Further in, a hallway cuts down the middle of six bedrooms, each designated for a mansion resident. The back exit provides a takeoff spot with elytra to the industrial backyard.

Basement

The mansion's basement is accessible from a staircase on the ground floor. It leads both to the storage and crafting room, and to the underground Dragontooth Arena.

Dragontooth Arena

A winding cave-like tunnel that begins in the mansion's basement brings the player nose-to-nose with a giant dragon skeleton resting in a spacious cavern. Even as a group effort, the excavation and construction of Dragontooth Arena took upwards of a month. Major contributors were Hippo1418, who turned the giant hole into a terraformed cavern, and TekBot0507, who helped liven the cave with colorful features on the sides.

The arena itself is quite large and suited well for battles with many combatants. There is natural cover and height differences, along with certain hazards like slowing water, hot lava, and darkness that allows a few monsters to roam. It is equipped with a countdown system that uses a beacon to flash three shades of blue, then green to start the match, activated only when two players press a button at the same time.

History

Server-Side

ThEquinox2 discovered the original vanilla woodland mansion on April 3rd, after growing tired a crowded jungle. Construction on the remodel began on the 5th, and the outer structure was completed on the 28th. At that point, the interior became a slow work in progress. The excavation of the basement space began shortly before then, and was completed about half a week later. The space was then transformed from a boxy hole into Dragontooth Arena, with most work having been completed around the end of May; though many details and afterthoughts have been added since.

Decoration of the grounds, especially the roofed forest section of the village, picked up in speed in November of 2020, and ran through December and into the new year. Most interior decoration of the mansion was completed around this time as well. Details and small structures have been added steadily around the back industrial area and the sides since then, and up to the present.

Lore-Side

Many, many years before the mansion's founding inhabitants were around, a dragon inhabited and protected the forest where it now stands. When the beast met the end of its time, it was buried and fossilized in its home; then its skeleton was discovered when the mansion's foundation was dug. Now, the manor's tradition is to pay special homage to the dragon every spring, so that even in death it may ensure the health of the lands.

Several generations passed on through the manor, before the wonderfully temperamental Player was introduced to the world. Though often using their power to transform to bring unimagined beauty to the lands they traverse, players may also use their potential to bring destruction for their own gain. A few such players challenged Vernal Manor with the help of neighboring villages and razed it for loot. Its inhabitants at that time were either killed or driven into hiding, unable to return to the now dilapidated and bare structure.

Equinox was one player brought into the world at that time. She found the broken down mansion, and decided that she would restore it into something to be proud of. Both during and after construction, it became a refuge for illagers that could not hold out against the overwhelming speed of player advancement. The Manor is now ever-expanding and has accepted residents of all kinds.