EN World City Project: Geography

[Conaill]

Ok. Do you think we should still have the second ferry? Anyone opposed to scrapping it?

I put a series of low hills between the swamp and the river (geologically, there needs to be some sort of rise there, otherwise the swamp will simply drain into the river). Those hills would form a good outlook post over the swamps to the South.

I would recommend placing the new Enoria Keep a little further inland as well, so it can surveil more territory. At the same time, we also need a small watchtower on the Big Island, to overlook the streams coming out of the swamp and guard against an attack by river.

Here's a little blow-up of the immediate neighborhood around Mor's End. Do you like where I put Swamp Keep, or do you think it should be deeper into the swamp, away from the causeway? Where I put it, it's close enough for traders to seek cover if they run into trouble, but just far enough away they might get lost or attacked trying tro get there.

 

[jdavis]

I can edit Enoria Keep to put it on the big island. The ferry can go with no problems, it was written to fit a old map I'll just edit the discription to fit the new map.

Swamp Keep is fine where it is, it's quite possibly haunted and most people avoid it (except for the Rangers), I have a idea for making the flooded out tunnels under it a adventure site, but above ground it is just a old ruin.

The spot where you had Enoria Keep would be a good place for a tower, there will be a small hamlet on the lake side close to there where they load and unload barges (I've been calling it ferry landing but it needa a real name.) And there will most likely be at least one tower directly south of the town on one of the overlooking hills, heck there are probably several of these small watch towers in the countryside around the city on both sides of the river, many on the north would be unmanned but they would still be there. Small three story towers with a large fire pit on top for signalling the city in time of trouble. Most of these would need no write up at all, just point out they are out there and leave it at that, I was trying to do some example towers witht he ones I did to show how one would be set up.

 

[Conaill]

Sounds good.

Re: signalling towers... How far apart can we put signaling towers that use some sort of semaphore system (flag waving, etc)? How far apart if we rely on signal fires? Are there any cheap magical items that could be used for communication at a distance? I definitely want to have some sort of communication in place between Traders Roost and Mor's End...

 

[Lalato]

I would think you would have to be pretty close for flags... Different colored flares could be used for different situations.

--sam

 

[jdavis]

Flags would generally mean line of sight, a signal fire could be seen for several miles if it was big enough and at night. It would be hard to have any communication besides a danger signal with a fire though. Flares would tend to be gunpowder which is pretty advanced or magic which is relatively expensive, but would be simular to the giant bonfires except it would be very short and very visable where the bonfires would not be as visible but could burn at a high level for days. A kind of flare makes sense in the swamp as it would be hard to find a lot of good dry wood to build a bonfire and also it would be hard to find a place to build a fire that was both dry and above the treeline.

 

[Conaill]

Hah! Through the miracles of Google: There's a famous chain of semaphore towers between London and Portsmouth, spanning a total of 108 km with 15 towers. That works out to about 4-5 miles per tower. Other sources claim about 20 miles between towers, a network covering 4800 km with 556 stations (5.6 miles/tower), 25 km apart (15.5 miles), or 5-10 miles apart.

The longer distances are made possible by the use of telescopes. Let's say a maximum of 5 miles without the use of a spyglass. That means that I would need at least 2-3 signal towers between Traders Roost and Mor's End (16 miles). That sounds like a bit much. Maybe I should invest in two MW spyglasses and skip the intervening towers...

On the other hand, a signal fire at Traders Roost could probably be seen from Mor's End at night. We might even be able to send messages by covering the light from the fire with some sort of shutter / wooden board etc.

Anyone know of any existing magical items that would provide some form of communication at these sort of medium-length distances?

 

[Conaill]

I figured out what to do for my caravan escorting service. The idea is to have two caravan serais east of Mor's End (Traders Roost and one as yet unspecified further east). Caravans coming from the East would spend the night at the farthest serai. At a specified time during the night, the serai owner sends up a colored flare, signaling Traders Roost to send an escort. A party of 5 or 10 guards leaves from Traders Roost ~3 hours before dawn (on horse), meets up with the caravan at dawn, escorts them back to Traders Roost, and the next day to Mor's End. Similar signals flow from Mor's End to Traders Roost and the far serai to signal that a caravn will be arriving the next day.

There's a watch post at Mor's End (manned by the City Guard under an arrangement with the Castellan), one at Traders Roost, and one at the far serai. Each has 3 different colored flares. One color means "send escort", the second "danger - enemy sighted" and the third "under attack and / or sending this flare under duress". Each night, the colors are assigned differently, under a schedule only known to the owner of the serai.

That will take care of commercial communication, plus alarms during the night. For daytime alarms, Traders Roost could have a signal fire emitting black smoke (the fire itself would be hard to see during the day). Other watchtowers in the area could use a similar system.

 

[GladiusNP]

Just as a general note, the very organized and well set-up system being discussed does seem a little too civilized for the swamp. I was under the impression that the ferry was the smart man's way, and only the brave and desperate approached the swamp. That said, I don't think the caravan serai should regularly send guards to help merchants out. I think maybe a waved flag and the words "this is as far as we go" is more appropriate. Just my thoughts - take them as you will.

 

[jdavis]

The southern route would definatly be different than the Northern route, there are not that many towers and the caravan route is pretty dangerous, in the north you could have a chain of towers but they would probably not all be armed towers, in the south the towers are all early warning devices and would worry very little about the trade route or sending messages.

 

[Conaill]

The caravan serais are all on the East-West caravan route, which I think carries the heaviest trade. That road doesn't go through the swamp at any point, but it is still fairly dangerous up to about one or two days travel east from Mor's End.

Someone came up with the bright idea that caravans passing through would gladly pay for some extra guards to accompany them on that stretch, and built a reinforced serai one days (16 miles) east of Mor's End. He now has pretty much a monopoly on protecting caravans going across that stretch of road. The whole operation only employs 20 or so guards, typically working in teams of 10. [As I mentioned in the Craft&Trade thread, the largest caravans originating from Mor's End itself (carrying up to 10,000 gp of goods according to A&EG) would already have a standard contingent of ~20 guards traveling with them. 10 more guards should be enough to scare off most trouble.] The signaling system means that no caravan will have to wait for more than a day (typically only overnight) to secure an escort.

I'll put a writeup in Crafts&Trade when I have some time. The guy in charge would be fairly high up in the Merchant's Guild and/or the Guards Guild, and may even be from one of the noble houses. Traders Roost would be a smaller affair than some of the noble estates you guys have been proposing, but well reinforced and with a large courtyard for wagons and stables.

Traders Roost is very functional, and well defended. Pirates Rest to the West of Mor's End is owned by someone else and focuses much more on luxury (probably charging 10-50% more for certain goods and services than you would pay in Mor's End itself).