EN World City Project: Geography

[Conaill]

Nice pictures there, TGD!

"Ye old bridge" might work for one side of the island. Northern side, I'd say. But the other bridge has to be tall enough to let sailing ships pass under it. Maybe we can call it "Highbridge"? Highbridge would be built on a rocky outcropping on the south side of the river

PS: I've got a great idea for the second island, tying together some history, geography, NPCs and even my own guilds & organizations thread, but we'll need to remove the bridges connecting it to the mainland.

Here we go...

When the first settlers arrived in what would become Mor's End, they found some ancient ruins already there, aminly on the small island. (Every good fantasy city needs some some kind of dark and ancient ruins, even if it's only 300-400 years old! Besides this could tie in nicely with the warren underneath the city and The Thing That Lurks Below.)

A reclusive elvish wizard settled on the small island, building his tower among the ruins there. (Or perhaps the wizard was already there? Elves live up to 750 years!) It is said that at night he digs down into the ruins, looking for knowledge of ancient civilizations. Others say he descends into hell and consorts with demons.

Nobody messes with the wizard though, and the wizard keeps to himself. The rare occasion that he is seen in the city, he barely says a word, and if he does it is with an air of cool disdain.

The wizard is the highest level mage in the city, and thus by seniority the head of the Mage's Guild, at least on paper. However he rarely if ever shows up at guild meetings, and it is really the second-highest level mage, an ambitious and power-hungry human who is the de facto head of the Guild and who sits on the City Council.


What do you think? It provides for oodles of possible plot hooks: tie-in to the warrens/monster, ancient civilizations, only powerful elf in a city of humans and dwarves, could play an important role im Mage's Guild and City Council if he ever bothers to come out of seclusion, possibly the only link to Mor's End history, etc...

It also allows DM's to scale the magic level in the city: Low magic - the wizard is just a hermit and never shows himself, effectively lowers the highest level wizard in town; High Magic - the wizard is 15th-20th level and suddenly decides to take an interest in city affairs.

I also like the idea of somewhat reducing the number of bridges we have. Seems more realistic, looking at those medieval maps. Plus the bridges could form useful bottlenecks...

 

[Conaill]

Why doesn't the city grow towards the lake more? All the coastal medieval city maps I've seen, the city really becomes spread out against the coast because much of the empahsis is on fishing and the sea.

Perhaps the silk jellyfish can use their tentacles to catch prey off the shore? That would probably dissuade people from living right along the coast, but it would make harvesting more dangerous.

And why isn't there a bigger population on the "big island" between the two branches of the river? An earlier suggestion I had was that that's where the special clay is being mined. But it could also be some sort of "radioactive" area: leftover magical energy from an ancient battle? Maybe that's what made the clay special in the first place?

(crossposted from "open shop" thread)

 

[The Grey Dwarf]

I like the wizard idea. We'll have to find someone to make a good drawing of this. We can leave the plans to the DMs.

The city developed around the original ford. That's why it's far from the lake. As it's still a young city, it needs room to grow. There again, I think we'll leave that to the DMs. But I agree, the city will probably grow towards the lake.

 

[Buttercup]

Let's ask Knid Vermicious to create the Highbridge for us. In fact, I think I'll go and direct him to this thread.

Knightfall, I like the word stedding. It's more archaic than farm or ranch.

 

[Krug]

Yeap, and make it one hell of a bridge. This city needs some flourishes; the bacon bits on the cream.

Perhaps something like the Rialto? Yet quite original?

Also a Tower of Glazers, whose walls sparkle with different colours from Glazework

 

[Conaill]

Yeap, and make it one hell of a bridge.

Keep in mind that Highbridge would be *old* though. We also have Newbridge, which crosse the entire river further downstream.

Perhaps something very sturdy, dwarvish, roman looking for Highbridge, and a more modern, gothic one for Newbridge?

Hmm, for Newbridge, here's a nice picture of the Sunderland Bridge, a beautiful castiron arch that perhaps the dwarves might have been able to pull off:

Or a less ornate castiron bridge, which might be more appropriate for Mor's End time frame (love the sailing ships in the previous picture though!):

One more for Newbridge. This one is castiron bridge proposal for London:

And this is along the lines of what I was thinking of for Highbridge (except with bigger, more "dwarvish" stone blocks):

Gad these suckers are big! My apologies to our non-US friends for the download time. If it's too much of a pain, let me know and I'll swap in the thumbnail pictures.

 

[Krug]

Wow all of them look great Conalli. We'll let Gray Dwarf decide.

BTW, I like the last one. Fits the concept. 'Highbridge'.

 

[The Grey Dwarf]

Hello everyone.
Just dropping by to say I'm still there.
I've got huge connection problems atm but I'm working for the City project.

It isn't worth a Knid but here are some of the latest screenshots.

 

[The Grey Dwarf]

Wider ...

 

[The Grey Dwarf]

Lake and hills ...