Inside the Towers of Sharn (Eberron)

[The_Magician]

I have read both the "Eberron Campaign Setting" and "Sharn, City of Towers" sourcebook, and failed to find a good description of how those towers look from the inside. I am aware, that there isn't a single stadard repeated in all towers, and I can figure some stuff out, but my biggest problem is trying to picture the bottom level of towers that have an area with 2,500 feet in diameter. Since the books say that most streets in Sharn are indoors, and that towers are built close ot eahc other, connected by bridges and walkways, I wonder how this architecture work. If the are inside the tower is 2,500 feet wide, you have more than a single street (even them being 25 feet wide with 5 feet wide sdiewalks on both sides) crossing through the tower E-W and N-S. Take a residencial tower in Dura, for instance, at the lowest levels. Lets suppose one of those bottom level sis 2,500 feet wide. How are those house/apartments organised? Are there street blocks, with buildings that go from ground to ceilling? As if you had walled a portion of a city inside the walls of a tower?

And yes, I know I can create anything I want, but I thought I would come here and get some advice from a bunch of people. =P

 

[Andor]

The towers of sharn are, for all intents, arcologies. Think of them as a combitation apartment complex/super mall, only empty.

The trouble with Sharn is is a city built for about 10,000 times the population it actually has. Honestly it's about like Corusant from Starwars, with the population of Grand Rapids.

 

[cmanos]

I imagineyou could find just about any setting you would like in the towers. Ther emay be close, tight winding catecombs lined with windowless houses and merchats to vast open indoor plazas. I would think a lot of it would depend on what district you were in. The lower districts would probably be mostly empty, with clusters of civilization. I would think in the Lower City, most people would eant to congregate together for safety, but then there would also be your hermit who lived off the beaten path with a view of the Cogs or one who lives in a hugee abandoned chamber lined with pillars carved to look like trees. There are some mods and such that have small areas of the city outlined, but thats what I expect from Eberron. Small, discrete encounter areas as opposed to actual fully mapped out areas. Gives the DM a lot of creativity.

For the most part I don't see buildings inside the towers. More like tunnels or hallways. But I could also see some places where some floors have fallen in or been removed to create vast interior chambers where there could be , oh, say a wizard's tower inside another tower.

 

[Rel]

I'm running a Sharn campaign right now and one design that I go to for some of the towers I've described is like this:

Imagine a very small, walled city that is circular. At the center is a plaza out from which streets radiate like the spokes of a wheel or the cuts on a pie that render it into slices. There are other concentric streets that break each slice of the pie into sizeable blocks (at the outer edges) and individual buildings (closer in near the center). Then imagine that you put a roof over the entire thing and do it all again right on top of that.

And so on. Up to 5,000 feet high.

Collosal does not even begin to describe this level of architecture.

The interior of such a structure will vary by neighborhood and the purpose of each neighborhood. For commercial neighborhoods some small businesses might open large shutters and use the windowsill as a business counter, dealing with customers who pass by in the streets. Others may be shops that might have windows into the streets or not.

For residential areas I would suspect that lower class areas would have few windows for security reasons. Upper class areas might have lots of windows from each apartment looking inwards so that they might chat with the passing neighbors.

If you're lucky enough to live on an outer wall (this will probably be were the rents are highest) then there are good chances that you'll have windows or balconies so that you can actually see the sky, a luxury seldom afforded to the poorer inhabitants of the city. But also remember that all the flying skycoach traffic makes this a security issue. So the windows are likely made from something tougher than glass (if they have glass in them at all) for the rich folks or have sturdy, lockable shutters for the poorer areas.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The image which I've settled on for the moment is taken from the Matrix - Zion. The towers have a hollow core with open walkways "streets" around the inside, buildings are in the thickness of the walls so a cross section looks something like

outside || apartment/shop/etc || sidewalk || open space || sidewalk || shop etc || outside

Open space takes up a large proportion of the diameter of the tower.

Within this general structure there are arched openings to outside bridges and walkways, large windows to allow light in, several full floors that cross the whole area (at least at the lower/middle/upper divides) and many partial floors that cover 25%-50% of the width of the open space (open spaces, parks etc)

Any help as a visualisation?

 

[Klaus]

Anyone intrigued by Sharn (and Eberron in general) must read Keith Baker's most awesome first-ever novel "City of Towers".

Yes, in some towers there are buildings inside. And it also rains inside, due to condensation of sweat and stuff...

 

[ken-ichi]

I think the connection to the plane of Syria (spelling?) is more of a factor of the rain than condensation.

 

[fafhrd]

I think the connection to the plane of Syria (spelling?) is more of a factor of the rain than condensation.

An excellent idea for a new organization in Eberron: Hizbollah!

 

[Klaus]

I think the connection to the plane of Syria (spelling?) is more of a factor of the rain than condensation.

Syrania, The Azure Sky.

But no, in City of Towers, Lei d'Cannith specifically mentions that it rains inside the towers as a result of condensation.

 

[Shadowdancer]

When they first built the Astrodome, it rained inside it from condensation until they got the air circulation and temperature problems worked out.