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(Discussion) City of Orussus Description
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<blockquote data-quote="El Jefe" data-source="post: 1600391" data-attributes="member: 19990"><p>I'd like to expound a little bit on the size of the city. Again, from the <a href="http://www.livingenworld.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=City%20Of%20Orussus&wikiid=5245&wpid=144417" target="_blank">encyclopedia</a>:</p><p></p><p>Thanks to the "large sewer system", there are "hundreds of ways in and out of the city that one can use without being seen". That implies a fair-sized city. The map we saw in the other thread, by my count, is suitable for a city of about 2-3000. I think Orussus is bigger than that.</p><p></p><p>Looking for real world examples, only fairly large cities had sewers. Even London didn't have a network of sewers that we would recognize until the Renaissance was pretty much over. Paris is a poor example, mainly because it's underground was dug up and rebuilt several times over as the city grew. Rome numbered over a million inhabitants at it's height. It's true that the Cloaca Maxima was built when the city was much smaller, but even that wasn't needed until the city had completely covered the Palatine hill and was rapidly filling in the swamp we now now as the site of the Roman Forum. That's right, the Cloaca Maxima was conceived less as a sanitary sewer and more as a public-works style "drain the swamp" project.</p><p></p><p>But if we go back, back to the very earliest sewers, they belong to the now-abandoned city of Knossos on Crete. It's hard to tell just how big the city was when the very first sewers were laid, but when it was abandoned about 1500 BC after a series of earthquakes and invasions, it had a perimeter of about 3.5 miles (the same as a circle 1.1 miles in diameter). That implies a population of between 50,000 and 100,000.</p><p></p><p>Now from the encyclopedia, the sewers "could provide service for a city twice the size of Orussus". I'd say that implies that the pre-human city of minotaurs that forms the ruins beneath Orussus would be about the size of ancient Knossos, especially if there are "hundreds" of secret entrances. "Twice the size of Orussus" could mean twice the population, twice the area, or twice the diameter (2x as big a "spot" on the map). Twice the population would imply that Orussus occupies about half the area of the old city, which would be a circle about 3/4 of a mile in diameter. Twice the diameter would mean Orussus has 1/4 the population of the old city, and that would be a circle about 2900 feet in diameter.</p><p></p><p>So, depending on population density, my estimate of the population of Orussus would range from 12,500 (for a city half the diameter of one that once held 50,000) to 50,000 (for one that had half the population of one that crammed 100,000 in a 1.1 mile circle).</p><p></p><p>Even 12,500 would be an ambitious mapping project if we took it down to the level of every shop, house, warehouse and shed. But maybe a simplified streetmap wouldn't be too bad, showing the principal places of interest.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="El Jefe, post: 1600391, member: 19990"] I'd like to expound a little bit on the size of the city. Again, from the [URL=http://www.livingenworld.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=City%20Of%20Orussus&wikiid=5245&wpid=144417]encyclopedia[/URL]: Thanks to the "large sewer system", there are "hundreds of ways in and out of the city that one can use without being seen". That implies a fair-sized city. The map we saw in the other thread, by my count, is suitable for a city of about 2-3000. I think Orussus is bigger than that. Looking for real world examples, only fairly large cities had sewers. Even London didn't have a network of sewers that we would recognize until the Renaissance was pretty much over. Paris is a poor example, mainly because it's underground was dug up and rebuilt several times over as the city grew. Rome numbered over a million inhabitants at it's height. It's true that the Cloaca Maxima was built when the city was much smaller, but even that wasn't needed until the city had completely covered the Palatine hill and was rapidly filling in the swamp we now now as the site of the Roman Forum. That's right, the Cloaca Maxima was conceived less as a sanitary sewer and more as a public-works style "drain the swamp" project. But if we go back, back to the very earliest sewers, they belong to the now-abandoned city of Knossos on Crete. It's hard to tell just how big the city was when the very first sewers were laid, but when it was abandoned about 1500 BC after a series of earthquakes and invasions, it had a perimeter of about 3.5 miles (the same as a circle 1.1 miles in diameter). That implies a population of between 50,000 and 100,000. Now from the encyclopedia, the sewers "could provide service for a city twice the size of Orussus". I'd say that implies that the pre-human city of minotaurs that forms the ruins beneath Orussus would be about the size of ancient Knossos, especially if there are "hundreds" of secret entrances. "Twice the size of Orussus" could mean twice the population, twice the area, or twice the diameter (2x as big a "spot" on the map). Twice the population would imply that Orussus occupies about half the area of the old city, which would be a circle about 3/4 of a mile in diameter. Twice the diameter would mean Orussus has 1/4 the population of the old city, and that would be a circle about 2900 feet in diameter. So, depending on population density, my estimate of the population of Orussus would range from 12,500 (for a city half the diameter of one that once held 50,000) to 50,000 (for one that had half the population of one that crammed 100,000 in a 1.1 mile circle). Even 12,500 would be an ambitious mapping project if we took it down to the level of every shop, house, warehouse and shed. But maybe a simplified streetmap wouldn't be too bad, showing the principal places of interest. [/QUOTE]
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