Sharn: City of Tower Streets?

[Arnwyn]

One of the serious problems I found with this book is the lack of an "example area" of Sharn. The city design seems pretty confusing to me, and makes it a bit difficult to map out and describe details during something like a chase and/or battle scene.

It would have been really nice (and useful - go figure) if they had mapped and detailed a reasonably sized tower/city block, at the scale of 10' or 20' squares, so that the DM could get an idea on what an area specifically looks like and thus could make reasonable maps on certain areas when needed.

An unfortunate failure of this book.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I agree. The map overlays of the various levels using the same small map was handy, but a nice fold out map and some up close examles showing the difference between a street, a bridge, and an opened vs closed area, would be great.

One of the serious problems I found with this book is the lack of an "example area" of Sharn. The city design seems pretty confusing to me, and makes it a bit difficult to map out and describe details during something like a chase and/or battle scene.

It would have been really nice (and useful - go figure) if they had mapped and detailed a reasonably sized tower/city block, at the scale of 10' or 20' squares, so that the DM could get an idea on what an area specifically looks like and thus could make reasonable maps on certain areas when needed.

An unfortunate failure of this book.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I agree that we sorely need a better example of the streets.
On a grid would be great also.
I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around how the city looks in the middle to lower sections.
I picture a 5th Element-like atmosphere (with skywalks er streets) for the upper parts.

 

[EricNoah]

I think if someone put together some "tower city geomorphs" that might be a big seller. I'd love to have several 8x10 maps with this kind of "geography" on it for random street battles -- the maps would have to indicate heights relative to some point, show covered and uncovered walkways, etc.

 

[Oghma]

I agree absolutely. In my copy of the Sharn book, the binding was too close to the map edge, so I couldn't even scan it well. I was going to do a linked larger map for my players to buy and explore with.

I think a map book with shops, taverns, different disctricts and ward examples would be great.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Mmmmm, I may have to try and see it I can do something with CC-Pro Perspective or my Animation Factory (thinking building a ward and a fly by movie).

Sure, I have to become better with both but a project...

 

[Rel]

One of the serious problems I found with this book is the lack of an "example area" of Sharn. The city design seems pretty confusing to me, and makes it a bit difficult to map out and describe details during something like a chase and/or battle scene.

It would have been really nice (and useful - go figure) if they had mapped and detailed a reasonably sized tower/city block, at the scale of 10' or 20' squares, so that the DM could get an idea on what an area specifically looks like and thus could make reasonable maps on certain areas when needed.

An unfortunate failure of this book.

One of the jobs of GMing that I seem to enjoy is mapping, so I may take a stab at a "sample district" during my free time over the next week or so. I'll be sure to post whatever I come up with here at ENWorld.

In the mean time, I've done some sketching with a scale here for a few minutes and have come up with some very general baseline assumptions you can keep in mind (if my math and measurements are correct):

According to the section on City Architecture (p35), the largest towers are some 2,500 feet in diameter at the base and narrow to 600 feet in diameter at the top. Assuming that this structure rises to a height of 5,000 feet then we can derive some information from this.

If we assume that the biggest towers are built base to base or nearly so then that means the distance from the top edge of one to the top edge of another is going to be approximately 1,900 feet. Going down the tower by approximately 1/3 (and calling that the approximate start of the Middle Ward) then we have an average distance between the largest towers of around 1,200 feet. Going down another 1/3 to the start of the Lower Ward this distance falls to 600 feet. So even from one large tower to the next in the lower wards we have a bridge extending the length of two (american) football fields. Manifest zone or no, that's a helluva long bridge!

We can cut these unsupported spans down a bit further if we make a couple other assumptions. First it seems not unreasonable that smaller towers will jut from the sides of these larger towers and can act as supports for these bridges. If we assume that these smaller towers rise the entire height of a ward (approximately 1/3 the entire height of a large tower) then we get the following:

At the top of the upper wards the support towers extend out around 350 feet, cutting the unsupported length of a brigde to the next large tower to only 1,200 feet. At the middle wards it cuts the bridge length in half to around 600 feet. For the lower wards we now have pretty reasonable distances of only about 300 feet and it is far easier to imagine intermediate supports to cut this down even further.

The most stunning aspect of this analysis is that distance connecting the tops of the upper wards. A 1,200 (quarter mile) bridge boggles my mind just a bit and I think I'm going to stick with my earlier assessment that these are few and far between, with most travel between towers of the upper ward being by Skycoach or winged steed. Alternately those afraid of flying could simply use the nearest lift or stairs to descend to a lower area that has a bridge of less mind numbing unsupported length.

For those few places where such enormous bridges do exist, I think I'm going to adopt the idea that there ARE supports either by way of permenantly enchanted sections of bridge or by tall, narrow support towers that have exceptionally thick walls. These could serve all the functions of a normal tower but would have a lot less habitable space within them due to the smaller starting diameter as well as the thicker walls. They would also be ideal places to have lots of structures having been built to hang off the exterior of the tower.

Lastly, when they talk about virtually all "streets" being enclosed, I'm assuming that they are talking about what we would traditionally think of as hallways or corridors within the towers themselves. I picture these as being similar to the center walkways of your local mall.

If you consider the sheer size of a 2,500 foot diameter tower that rises 5,000 feet into the air, the huge majority of rooms will be windowless and on the interior, accessable only by these streets. When I think about this it makes me want to add sizable holes in the sides of some of the towers to allow places where at least a bit of sunshine can penetrate at odd times of the day (and year), plus allow a breath of fresh air once in a while.

But maybe I'm just claustrophobic. Arcology life is not for me I guess.

I'll post more thoughts if I have them and see if I get a chance to gin up some kind of map. Is there a particular part of the city that somebody would like to see mapped?

 

[Rel]

Ok, let me make an addendum to some of the concepts that I just put forward in that lengthy post. I went back and took a long, hard look at the various maps and illustrations in the book and I'm a bit confused.

There seems to be some disparity between the text and the various bits of artwork throughout the book. Some of the pictures seem to support the idea of individual towers that rise up through the various layers of the city. These towers are individual structures, albeit crammed together somewhat, with smaller spires jutting from them in various places.

However, the picture on page 11 seems to imply that what we would tend to think of as an individual "tower" stretching from Cogs to Upper Ward is a rarity. Instead what you have looks to be an ever thickening set of "roots" all jumbled together to basically make the Lower Wards all but a solid foundation for the areas above them. It looks like things are so crammed together, even at an altitude thousands of feet above the level of the river that each Lower Ward is nearly a single building. There will doubtlessly be gaps here or there and these will be bridged by short spans to the next area. But without travelling to at least the Middle Wards, the people who dwell in Lower areas will seldom even get a chance to see the sky, much less breathe fresh air.

At the Middle Wards we start to see a bit of separation between actual "towers", although some areas they will still be crammed very close together. The spans between towers here can probably be largely supported through normal means or using support towers that stretch down to sit upon the upper layers of the Lower Ward.

It is only at the Upper Wards where you get enough separation to start having to worry about unsupported spans and this problem is solved thanks to the magic of the Flying Butress. It still seems likely that, given the affluence of the area, travel by private Skycoach or steed will be common if not prevalent.

Whether this view is "correct" or not probably depends somewhat on personal preference and who you ask. I think the idea that I'm adopting for now is that it depends on what part of the city you're talking about. Lower Dura is probably more crammed together into one huge mass of pitted stone, only occasionally punctuated by a chasm where you can see the bases of some of the towers. Lower Northedge is probably more individual towers with interspersed smaller spires and long bridges.

 

[Henry]

I would like to see Central Plateau, or part of Dura, most likely. If you're thinking of a certain ward, I'd say one of the higher centrals, and one of the lower Duras, just to get a sense of contrast.

Also, for supports, read up on the magic item "Flying Buttress." I'm not sure who to thank for that name, Keith or James.

EDIT: Based on your second post, you seem to have the right of it. Looking at the Lower Wards map does reveal more "building" than "tower." Also keep in mind that Lower Dura has MUCH more detritus than other areas laid across it, especially considering detroyed districts (fall of the crystal tower, and such like). Very likely, even the open areas of Dura are closed now due to the debris.

 

[Shadowdancer]

One of the serious problems I found with this book is the lack of an "example area" of Sharn. The city design seems pretty confusing to me, and makes it a bit difficult to map out and describe details during something like a chase and/or battle scene.

It would have been really nice (and useful - go figure) if they had mapped and detailed a reasonably sized tower/city block, at the scale of 10' or 20' squares, so that the DM could get an idea on what an area specifically looks like and thus could make reasonable maps on certain areas when needed.

An unfortunate failure of this book.

In my copy of the book, there is an example area of Sharn. It is small, but it is there nonetheless. It's near the back of the book (I'm at work right now, so I can't look up the page number).

I agree that a wider variety of example areas would have been more useful. Maybe WOTC will do some as online bonuses.