What use is Orbis Mundi 2? Part #1
While I believe that the material out there does a fair to good job of explaining what use OM2 will be, one recent backer asked this question, so it probably isn't as self-explanatory as I thought.
It was a dark and stormy night ...
... and Aelfric the Thief silently jiggled open the Tower window ...
!BZZT!
What window?
Towers have have either very narrow window apertures, with, possibly, wooden shutters or they don't exist and they have arrow slits ... IF there is a window, then there's almost certainly no glass ... and if there is, the window is fixed and cannot be opened (even if the 'window' used panes made of flattened Horn, they don't open either). If there are only arrow slits, then they're too narrow for all but a literally skeletal Aelfric to get through and have no window filling material to jiggle.
Oh, and on a Tower, that non-existent 'window' (or narrow arrow-slit) is probably a minimum of 25 feet up a sheer wall.
So, Aelfric the Thief hoists himself over the Castle Wall and, skulking in the shadows, heads over to the Wall Tower (or, maybe, across the Bailey to the Keep) and gets out his lockpicks to pick the lock ...
!BZZT!
Who needs lockpicks? The locks of the period, insofar as they existed, could be picked with a narrow bladed knife or dagger! No need for special tools!
Then, of course, Locks are relatively rare. On a Wall Tower, the door from the wall walk will either be unlocked or barred from the inside and somewhat more difficult to deal with than a mere lock (yes, you can, in some instances, lift the bar and slide it aside if there isn't a masking door jamb ... maybe ... no special tools needed for that, either).
So Aelfric slips through the door into the corridor behind ...
!BZZT!
What corridor? Corridors simply didn't exist in medieval buildings for the most part - rooms opened onto other rooms directly (or onto the outside) ... and a Wall Tower isn't likely to have room for one anyway. The Keep Tower might, except that, as noted, they don't exist ... and, in the Keep, each floor is probably only divided up into nominal rooms with curtains or is simply one big room.
Worse, on the wall walk level of a castle Tower, the entry level will either be barracks for the Castle Guard (or, perhaps, the household of one of the officers) or a Guard Room ... and the Entry doorway of the Keep will have a Night Porter if not an actual guard.
Aelfric, having cased the joint, knows this is the quarters of one of the Knights in command of the garrison and slinks silently through the darkness ...
!BZZT!
Well, it's dark inside ... pitch black, most likely. Not only are candles expensive, they need constant tending or they will quickly gutter out! Then there's the fact that there aren't any windows - so no help even if it's a full moon!
The Knight and his wife are sleeping in a curtained bed, so they might not notice Aelfric's stealthy progress. But the servants sleeping in Truckle Beds or on Paliasses on the floor are an obstacle course!
Then there's the fact that pre-modern sleeping patterns divided the night into two equal parts with a couple of hours of wakefulness between ... dusk to sometime an hour or so before midnight asleep, then everyone's awake eating, talking, reading, having sex, then back to sleep an hour or two after midnight and sleep till dawn (even earlier for the servants).
Aelfric quietly rifles through the drawers and wardrobe ...
!BZZT!
What Drawers? What Wardrobe? Neither item of furniture yet exists!
Aelfric's gonna have to rifle through chests ... which, at least, probably aren't locked and merely have a simple latch ... but he'll have to do it by feel (remember, the Knight, his Lady and their servants are all asleep [Aelfric hopes!] in the same room!) unless he's really lucky and the chest's contents are divided up internally by, say, trays ...
I think by now you're probably getting some idea of how the information in OM2 can be valuable to GMs and add challenges for the (usually very cocky) players!
While I believe that the material out there does a fair to good job of explaining what use OM2 will be, one recent backer asked this question, so it probably isn't as self-explanatory as I thought.
It was a dark and stormy night ...
... and Aelfric the Thief silently jiggled open the Tower window ...
!BZZT!
What window?
Towers have have either very narrow window apertures, with, possibly, wooden shutters or they don't exist and they have arrow slits ... IF there is a window, then there's almost certainly no glass ... and if there is, the window is fixed and cannot be opened (even if the 'window' used panes made of flattened Horn, they don't open either). If there are only arrow slits, then they're too narrow for all but a literally skeletal Aelfric to get through and have no window filling material to jiggle.
Oh, and on a Tower, that non-existent 'window' (or narrow arrow-slit) is probably a minimum of 25 feet up a sheer wall.
So, Aelfric the Thief hoists himself over the Castle Wall and, skulking in the shadows, heads over to the Wall Tower (or, maybe, across the Bailey to the Keep) and gets out his lockpicks to pick the lock ...
!BZZT!
Who needs lockpicks? The locks of the period, insofar as they existed, could be picked with a narrow bladed knife or dagger! No need for special tools!
Then, of course, Locks are relatively rare. On a Wall Tower, the door from the wall walk will either be unlocked or barred from the inside and somewhat more difficult to deal with than a mere lock (yes, you can, in some instances, lift the bar and slide it aside if there isn't a masking door jamb ... maybe ... no special tools needed for that, either).
So Aelfric slips through the door into the corridor behind ...
!BZZT!
What corridor? Corridors simply didn't exist in medieval buildings for the most part - rooms opened onto other rooms directly (or onto the outside) ... and a Wall Tower isn't likely to have room for one anyway. The Keep Tower might, except that, as noted, they don't exist ... and, in the Keep, each floor is probably only divided up into nominal rooms with curtains or is simply one big room.
Worse, on the wall walk level of a castle Tower, the entry level will either be barracks for the Castle Guard (or, perhaps, the household of one of the officers) or a Guard Room ... and the Entry doorway of the Keep will have a Night Porter if not an actual guard.
Aelfric, having cased the joint, knows this is the quarters of one of the Knights in command of the garrison and slinks silently through the darkness ...
!BZZT!
Well, it's dark inside ... pitch black, most likely. Not only are candles expensive, they need constant tending or they will quickly gutter out! Then there's the fact that there aren't any windows - so no help even if it's a full moon!
The Knight and his wife are sleeping in a curtained bed, so they might not notice Aelfric's stealthy progress. But the servants sleeping in Truckle Beds or on Paliasses on the floor are an obstacle course!
Then there's the fact that pre-modern sleeping patterns divided the night into two equal parts with a couple of hours of wakefulness between ... dusk to sometime an hour or so before midnight asleep, then everyone's awake eating, talking, reading, having sex, then back to sleep an hour or two after midnight and sleep till dawn (even earlier for the servants).
Aelfric quietly rifles through the drawers and wardrobe ...
!BZZT!
What Drawers? What Wardrobe? Neither item of furniture yet exists!
Aelfric's gonna have to rifle through chests ... which, at least, probably aren't locked and merely have a simple latch ... but he'll have to do it by feel (remember, the Knight, his Lady and their servants are all asleep [Aelfric hopes!] in the same room!) unless he's really lucky and the chest's contents are divided up internally by, say, trays ...
I think by now you're probably getting some idea of how the information in OM2 can be valuable to GMs and add challenges for the (usually very cocky) players!
