[help]Fantasy shipyard ? How does it looks ?

[Aloïsius]

I will set an Forgotten Realms adventure in the great shipyard of Bezantur, the biggest Thayan port. I want my PC to be hounded throughout such an "exotic" environnement. My problem is : I don't have the least idea how does it looks like. I would like it to have a lot unstable platforms, scales, tightropes, hiding places, wrecking cranes, hiding places... But I can't figure the whole thing, and don't know where to start from. Could someone help me please ?

 

[The_Universe]

Have it built on a cliffside, with two levels of docks. Ships come in on the lower docks, and Thayan slaves attach great chains to each of the ships.

Cranes and cranks pushed and pulled by great beasts of some sort or another raise ships to a higher drydock (skydock?) that is at the same level as the top of the cliffs. If captains and crews don't want to pay the toll to be raised, there are smaller fees for raising smaller platforms full of goods to the city above.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I would start by researching ship construction from late medieval and renaissance times. However, I would bet that it will still require a lot of creative input from you since historical shipyards didn't have the possibility of magic, monsters and modern ideas like FR does.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Do the reseach also think how many ships are put out a each year, this means you will have docks for a number of ships.

Also think of the shear amount of lumber to be used, you would have tons of it, how does it get there? Where is it stored? If by river, shipped from up-river, you will have to have lumber mills, saws, and such - this gives thought to power and while water power was common, in a fantasy world you would have golems, contructions, undead, doing some of the work.

 

[Block]

I would make the shipyard as part of a great harbor. Part of the harbor is dedicated to shipbuilding. At these dry and wet docks, there will be piles of lumber, crates of rigging and sailcloth, large coils of rope, and all kinds of handheld woodworking tools. There will also be work crews who may or may not like a character wandering around the area. The work crews should include some wizards as well as the craftsmen building the ships.

Another part of the harbor would be for merchant ships. This are of the harbor would have boxes and crates of all different sizes. There would be teamsters loading and unloading the holds of ships using platforms and cranes. There would also be taverns, brothels, inns, and all kinds of merchant stalls near the harbor. These are wonderful places for thieves, beggars, and street urchins to hassle a character.

A third part of the harbor would be for the fishing boats. Here we would have the fish market and even perhaps some of the homes of the fishermen. And finally, part of the harbor could be for the local navy ships. The war ships could be guarding the entrance to the harbor. And trying to keep order in all of the chaos would be the harbormaster and his guards and dock masters.

The harbor should be full of activity during the day, and any character walking around the harbor could have encounters with many different NPCs.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Have you read about Bezantur in Unapproachable East? Not to much detail but the text there and the map should give you a fair starting place. The rest, just use your imagination. Think the occasional Golem & Levitation magic instead of shipping cranes and a metropolis of factioning temples, guilds, and red wizards either vying for dock territory or sneaking stuffs in for greater profit.

 

[Aloïsius]

Have you read about Bezantur in Unapproachable East? Not to much detail but the text there and the map should give you a fair starting place.

Yes, I do... Not much detail, effectively, and I think the map is somewhat wrong for 136 000 inhabitants...

Thank you everybody for your help

*takes notes*

 

[Piratecat]

Crates everywhere, and huge piles of exotic lumber. Rich foreigners planning on commissioning a boat. A series of tubs of ever-bubbling tar. Half-built ships whose skeletons rise up like the spines of dead dragons. Golems who haul and carry, along with tamed or dominated giants. Exotic accents. Areas of levitation where half-built boats are floated, and where 3-d combat could take place.

Don't get too attached to it, though; you know they're going to burn it all down to the ground, anyways.

 

[Aloïsius]

Don't get too attached to it, though; you know they're going to burn it all down to the ground, anyways.

They are first level... In fact, I want a rich environment to give them a chance to escape. I want give them a lot of stuf to interact with... A tube of ever-bubling tar (another thing I did not thought to, thank you a lo Pirecat) may be used creativly by clever low level characters