D&D General A Question about Waterdeep - Where does the Drinking Water come from?

[Parmandur]

Nah 0% chance, IMO.

Highish chance of a reboot to an earlier year, but rewriting problematic elements and bringing Ed onboard to help do it so fewer grognards cry about it, though. It would be more 5e Ravenloft than Grey Box Redux.

Not reprinting it precisely, sure, but the timeframe, before any Realm Shaking Events.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not reprinting it precisely, sure, but the timeframe, before any Realm Shaking Events.

Oh yeah for sure I could see that.

Especially if Ed is down to help them restart it.

 

[Demetrios1453]

As for the climate of Waterdeep, I always figured it was drier than Seattle/Portland due to not having the Cascade Mountain range to keep the rainfall close to the city.

The one thing with the wells is that unless they are spread throughout the city, there would be a lot of walking to get water for the day. I would think they would have them spread throughout the city, so it's not a long trip for anyone to get to a water source (Rome is a good city to look at for this as there are public fountains all over the place).

The bigger issue for me is the transport of all the food that would be needed to support the population of Waterdeep (going by 1e as that is what I have, 122,000 people year round and up to 610,000 during the peak trading season, so I averaged it out to 366,000 for the year). You would need to transport 183 tons of wheat each day (this gives about 1500 calories per person per day which is about what the average Medieval person ate for grain) to just feed the people. The only way to do this at scale would be to use river barges (which don't look like modern barges at all) to bring the grain downriver during the two months of harvest (assuming you would get a spring and fall harvest of wheat). Even with barges there would be hundreds required to bring that much grain downriver during the harvest time.

You don't necessarily need to walk to get to cisterns and rooftop tanks; presumably they are located around the city for people's convenience...

And the food for Waterdeep is grown locally - they have several thousand square miles of farmland around the city, from the Dessarin to the east, to the coast to the south and west, to the environs of Amphail to the north. On top of that, Goldenfields provides a lot of food that's sent by wagon daily to the city (one book, SKT maybe, talks about the lines of wagons that make the trip). There would have to be grain silos for storage somewhere, probably scattered throughout the countryside, but close enough to ship in when grain stored in them is needed. Or maybe in some area just off the maps in a huge silo complex.

Some quick calculations: it's an approximately 75 mi x 75 mi area here (Amphail is "three days ride" from Waterdeep, and a day's ride is usually around 24 miles) , or 5625 square miles. There are 640 acres in a square mile, so 3,600,000 acres. In medieval times, an acre of land in England produced 7 to 15 bushels of wheat per acre ( Agriculture in the Middle Ages - Wikipedia ), so let's go with 10 as an approximate average. That's a potential of 36 million bushels of wheat per year. Each bushel will be 60 lbs of wheat (so 2,160,000,000 lbs of wheat). We'll turn those pounds of wheat into pounds of bread (although the addition of water and other ingredients means that it's not an exact equivalent) - each pound of bread contains approximate 1000 calories, and an adult needs around 2000 calories, or approximately 2 loaves of bread per day, or 730 per year. 2,160,000,000/730 = 2,958,904 adults that can be fed if the entire area is used for farmland. That's enough to feed the city and the population around to actually grow the crops. Presumably due to magic, yields, especially from Goldenfields, will likely be much higher than this. Conversely, obviously some of the land will not be arable, or would be used for other purposes, probably even a substantial percentage. But it definitely looks like the city can easily feed itself just from its environs. As a side note, aren't Imperial units fun lol.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You don't necessarily need to walk to get to cisterns and rooftop tanks; presumably they are located around the city for people's convenience...

And the food for Waterdeep is grown locally - they have several thousand square miles of farmland around the city, from the Dessarin to the east, to the coast to the south and west, to the environs of Amphail to the north. On top of that, Goldenfields provides a lot of food that's sent by wagon daily to the city (one book, SKT maybe, talks about the lines of wagons that make the trip). There would have to be grain silos for storage somewhere, probably scattered throughout the countryside, but close enough to ship in when grain stored in them is needed. Or maybe in some area just off the maps in a huge silo complex.

Some quick calculations: it's an approximately 75 mi x 75 mi area here (Amphail is "three days ride" from Waterdeep, and a day's ride is usually around 24 miles) , or 5625 square miles. There are 640 acres in a square mile, so 3,600,000 acres. In medieval times, an acre of land in England produced 7 to 15 bushels of wheat per acre ( Agriculture in the Middle Ages - Wikipedia ), so let's go with 10 as an approximate average. That's a potential of 36 million bushels of wheat per year. Each bushel will be 60 lbs of wheat (so 2,160,000,000 lbs of wheat). We'll turn those pounds of wheat into pounds of bread (although the addition of water and other ingredients means that it's not an exact equivalent) - each pound of bread contains approximate 1000 calories, and an adult needs around 2000 calories, or approximately 2 loaves of bread per day, or 730 per year. 2,160,000,000/730 = 2,958,904 adults that can be fed if the entire area is used for farmland. That's enough to feed the city and the population around to actually grow the crops. Presumably due to magic, yields, especially from Goldenfields, will likely be much higher than this. Conversely, obviously some of the land will not be arable, or would be used for other purposes, probably even a substantial percentage. But it definitely looks like the city can easily feed itself just from its environs. As a side note, aren't Imperial units fun lol.

I wonder how much the coastal fishing would reduce the food needs even more.

I assume there is a source somewhere that talks about what kind of marine life is in those waters.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I wonder how much the coastal fishing would reduce the food needs even more.

I assume there is a source somewhere that talks about what kind of marine life is in those waters.

I know that fish has been mentioned as a major food source for the city as well. I'm sure there are whole fleets of fishing boats heading in and out of the harbor at any time.

There are also substantial ranches up around Amphail; and presumably the less arable land nearer the city that can't be farmed would be used for herding/ranching as well. And not all the farmland would be dedicated to wheat, but also to other grains as well as vegetables. All augmented by the more specialized stuff grown in Goldenfields. They're probably getting a pretty decent diet in the city.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

From every map I've looked at, the Sword Mountains would be in the wrong position to increase Waterdeep's rainfall amount as it would need to be East of Waterdeep to have the same effect as the Cascades do.

If I remember correctly from the 2e City of Splendors box set, Mt Waterdeep is only like 1200-1300 ft, so it wouldn't have much effect on the rainfall (if it was taller, it might actually lessen the amount of rain to Waterdeep as the city would be in the rain shadow of the mountain).

There are other factors that affect precipitation, such as prevailing wind direction and ocean currents. There is no reason to suppose Waterdeep has the exact same climate as Seattle. It might be more comparable to the west coast of Ireland, Glasgow, or Bergan.

Nor do you need huge mountains to trigger precipitation, the land just needs to be rising. In Lancashire, precipitation tends to pass over Blackpool*, which is flat and at sea level, to fall on the hills around 20 miles inland. Those hills are only around 1800 ft above sea level.


*It's wet enough compared to say California though!

 

[R_J_K75]

Waterdeep is nowhere near an actual fresh water source.

This is one thing that I never really thought of. But if you read the blue book in the 2E City of Splendors boxed set theres 1-3 pages detailing the day in the life of an average Waterdhavian that's says if you listen at the pipe you can hear your upstairs neighbors conversations. implying they had indoor plumbing.

I always assumed Aghairon made sure his citizens had fresh running water. Isnt his tower ensorcelled with a permanent forcecage with a skeleton floating in it infinitely? So indoor plumbing seems like a no brainer

 

[pukunui]

This is one thing that I never really thought of. But if you read the blue book in the 2E City of Splendors boxed set theres 1-3 pages detailing the day in the life of an average Waterdhavian that's says if you listen at the pipe you can hear your upstairs neighbors conversations. implying they had indoor plumbing.

As per Scourge of the Sword Coast, Floshin Manor just down the road (well, halfway between Waterdeep and Daggerford) has magical plumbing. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Waterdeep does as well.

 

[Hussar]

I’m likely losing all geek cred here but who is Aghairon?

 

[pukunui]

I’m likely losing all geek cred here but who is Aghairon?

Ahghairon was a powerful mage and the first Open Lord of Waterdeep. He created the eponymous staff that enables its wielder to allow dragons to bypass the eponymous dragonward protecting Waterdeep. The staff features in Dragon Heist, so I'm a little surprised you don't already know about it and its creator.