The current Neoclassical Geek Revival game I’m playing in is set in a neo-Mesopotamian pastiche. A land of deserts and mountains where cities are built up on mounds made of the crumbled bricks of the buildings that came before. Strange desert gods and Conan-inspired snake religions compete for worshipers and the dead. Deep in the desert, ancient cities are buried under waves of sand.

Combined with my existing interest in the Babylonian and Sumerian mythoi (and love of ziggurats), I started researching the building styles of the setting. Today’s map represents an upper-class home in a fairly rich urban environment. The ground floor is based almost entirely on a well-known existing ruin that I then expanded upwards to be a three story structure (well, two and a half as the upper floor is half the size of the other levels).

Sumerian Three Story Home

The construction would be sun-baked mud…