City building discussions

[Xarlen]

Maybe it's just me, but blocking out Arcane Magic reaaaally makes my teeth itch. Maybe it's just that Wizards are my favorite class, or a Wizard can seriously help out a city, considering their multitude of spells (They ARE using a Flesh to Stone spell, which is a wizard spell, no?). Not to mention discouraging wizards from coming there for shelter if it's the only place in the storm. But, eh, their game.

The White dragons could be ALLIES. No need to exterminate them if they're willing to make a deal.

Oh, Oh! Perhaps this is your opportunity to put the PCs in the NPCs shoes? Maybe, when they're so distracted with fixing the city, some really puny monsters come along, bothering the wilderness/people/sewer system/etc etc. So they have to hire some 1st level adventurers to go fix it...

That just amuses me.

 

[Snoweel]

The ultimate goal of role-playing is fun. And it looks like the players are having fun - why else would they bother to draw entire maps?

Don't forget the DM should also have fun. Otherwise the entire game will suck, independent of the enthusiasm of the players.

The wording of Sidran's initial post, eg:

My party has taken a wierd turn for the unadventurous.

among other things, led me to believe that he/she wasn't having fun.

But he/she has since clarified his/her position.

 

[WayneLigon]

If they have access to some pretty powerful druidic magic, as they seem to, don't bother with tubing or furnaces or any of that. Open a small gate to the Elemental PLane of Fire and let it heat the city and area.

But really, if there is danger of the city being taken over by ice within even an elf's lifetime don't build the city there! Build it further south. Depends on where it is right now; unless it's a magical process, it takes thousands of years for an ice age to advance. Their civilization won't last that long, much less their city.

Also: they need some other cities nearby to trade with if they're going for something like 25,000 people. Or there has to be something on or near that particular spot that people really, really want.

They need enough farmland to feed those people. 25,000 urban people = roughly 150,000 to 250,000 rural dwellers to support them.

 

[jgbrowning]

We'll i've created a building system thats to complex to post here but i've based it off medieval history books about building during that time period. If you could give me the scale of that drawing i'll come up with a number for you as best as i can. I need to know a few things though..

walls are stone right? just the keep that they have there i'd guess as costing... a smooth 600,000- 800,000 gp if the walls are 30 feet high. let me know the scale and i'll see about the town walls and the internal structures.

a few random notes:

1. the main problem your going to have is carriage. Getting the materials you need from where they are to where they need to be is a big ole pain in the butt.

2. the price for stone doubles every 10-12 miles it traveled on land. Its good you have a river so the first thing you'd have to do would be build docks.

3. even if they want to just use the trees around the town that they're going to have to season the wood unless they just want to use it green and take all the warping that's going to cause. (green wood was the most commonly used mood in the MA)

4. They're going to need tons of morter to hold all that stone together and that means they need tons of limestone and even more tons of wood to heat the limestone.. hope there's limestone nearby...

5. internal buildings made mostly of wood right? any other large stone structures that i should figure into my estamate? how tall are these buildings.. height is very important when technology is limited.

anyway. lemme know the scale.... and i'll give you a back of the envelope GP amount. I'm still working on determining the length of time and number of workers needed for my building system so i don't know how much i can help you with there.

joe b.

 

[Snoweel]

But really, if there is danger of the city being taken over by ice within even an elf's lifetime don't build the city there! Build it further south.

And hope your city's not in the southern hemisphere!

Then again, what fantasy city outside of Krynn was ever built in the southern hemisphere...

 

[s/LaSH]

The city-heating furnace is what gets to me. If they could get it working, it would be a great wonder and probably attract people from all over the known world (and when the known world is covered in snow, that's not too far away). It's getting it working that's the tricky bit.

An ice age means glaciers, plummeting temperatures and lots of snow. All three factors add up to one thing: Deforestration. Even before a city gets in there, nature will have killed a lot of trees. Sure, trees can survive in cold weather. But they can't survive really cold weather. Look at a mountain; halfway up the trees just stop.

Maybe you use coal? Or oil? Or maybe you just go with an elemental portal onto Fire. Or you could enslave a population of salamanders or elementals.

But what happens if they are using wood to burn, and someone burns down their supply forest? Food for thought.

 

[Sidran]

Ice age and Snow
Can you give more information here? How much snowfall per year? Or a sample likes Maine, North Dakota etc.

The dome. Very interesting possibilities here. If you near an ice age, where are you getting all these leaves? You may want to look up thatch roofing with a google search.

Answers to the above and a little bit more.


The Ice age at this point has made nearly all of the world area (roughly the size of the united states and canada) just about the climate of Alaska, Siberia, and Canada COLD YES but still with a good amount of hardy trees.

The city is having troubles now due the hefty amounts of snow that has been falling, covering up the small city that is there now every time it really snows.

About the DM (ME) having fun, well I can see the amount of work involved and the clashes when I say no that will not work, or this will not work refering to the Furnace and the like. But I am having fun, and tend to always have fun.

In the vein of not planning my campaign to far in advance (AKA PKitty style) I have had a marvelous time keeping my players on their toes, and at the edge of their seats.

It is a little different, because all of my players cept one are very new players.

The world they live in is a world of power struggles, and war. A world in which the elemental lords have begun to take drastic steps to prevent the feared last battle. Inquisitors, natural born mage hunters, have been hunting Sorcerers for the last two thousand years, and the Sorcerers have gathered en mass into a Organization known as the Nox Arcanum.

Draconian's (The Children of the Dragons) Are ploting to overthrow the true dragon overseers, And One elemental lord in particular Fenyar "The Ice Lord" has begun a rampage of Ice that is threatening to sheathe the whole world in a new Ice Age.

It is snowing in the Great Nashara desert, the City of Rhys has been sealed in the monolithic Ice and its refugees Mostly elves, Half dryads, and halflings have fled into the area.

The Party saved the refugees from a Unit of Ice Trolls, orcs, and Froth Giants, and fleeing the major bulk of the Northern army fled into a ruins of an old wood Mote & Bailey city stationed on a rise at an old forgotten crossroads.

The Leader of the Party, and the one for whom the Refugees look to as M'Lord is an Endan ( Elve with light body and very large wings) son of one of the old royal house of Iliandar. Then to top it off the female player ( the oldest player in the party) springs a marriage proposal the Endans way....

Oh I love my players

The party consists of

2 Draconians ( 1 male, one female) Sullax, Fael Tiegore
1 Human male Vendaine Rothmyrdan
1 Endan male Adawar Iliandar
1 Half/elven Half Water Genasi ( Elemental as its known in my world) Valanna Lutsgya-Iliandar
1 Half Dryad female Asha Rowen
1 Halfling female Rogue Misha " Mouse" Tosscobble

 

[Desdichado]

I'm not an engineer by training, but just because that stone leaf trick works on huts doesn't mean it would work on a dome around an entire city. Get some professional advice on if that would work, or if it likely would collapse under it's own weight. But don't tell the PCs until they build it!

As to the cost, half the fun is making the PCs haggle! Have them ask for bids from the different dwarven clans, and make them evaluate the merits of each. And how do they plan on getting folks to move out here to this new city, anyway? Offer incentives? Advertise in current population centers?

If the PCs really want to go through with this, make them really go through the details of making it work. They'll either enjoy it more, or get tired of the whole enterprise and go back to traditional "adventuring."

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm not an engineer by training, but just because that stone leaf trick works on huts doesn't mean it would work on a dome around an entire city. Get some professional advice on if that would work, or if it likely would collapse under it's own weight. But don't tell the PCs until they build it!

Don't overdo this, though - we are talking about a fantasy world, after all. Real-world static and physics don't neccessarily have the final say here (and that's a physicist saying this). If it's cool, put it in!

That doesn't mean that the PCs shouldn't sweat to achieve their goals. But this doesn't mean that their problems stem from real-world laws of architecture. Perhaps some of these leaves are the home of a certain type of fey, who aren't too happy to be used as roof material!

Throw problems at the PCs, by all means - but make it ultimately achieveable...

 

[Sidran]

About the site of the future city

It is already home to a small wooden ring fort.
There is a good supply of Stone ( Limestone, and Quarrystone) near the site ( I.E> where the larger area of water is just below the keep.)

The scale of that map hrmm

1/2 equals a mile.

About the wood, good thought I didn't think to tell Adawar about the green wood problem. Hrmm Was calculating last night there is about 10,000 after all of the Refugees regather. And a number of Draconian Troops have asked to stay in the barricks ( which would mean around another 1,000 camp followers being housed.

As for the fun of adventure I am planning on having Ice Trolls hit the city here in the next session very hard ( Over 1,000 Trollocs is what I am using for these monsters)

Yes there is a major chance that the city could be taken by the Ice way before an elve would ever die. Anyone who has read Shannara ( sp?) would understand the Ice Flows are moving like the Stone Kings magical cloud that turns all to stone ( Ice in Fenyars case) trees, buildings everything turns to ice when it fails to save against the Icy mists of the Ice lords magic. It moves about 10 miles a month and is around 320 miles away