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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lalato" data-source="post: 748508" data-attributes="member: 9171">E-mail from ButtercupGrey Dwarf, the map is excellent!   I wanted to respond to your questions about why the city was created.  Historically, medieval communities only grew to be larger than market towns if there were multiple reasons for them to be attractive places to put down roots.  Just using some of the suggestions I've seen, and a few things off the top of my head, here are the reasons for this city to be large and thriving that we have so far: 1. Source of high quality raw material for an essential product. (clay)2. Nexus of two major trade routes.3. Nearby mining community, which needs access to those trade routes.4. Ready access to some sort of spell component that is not grown (mined, fished, built?) anywhere else.5. Security.  I.E. the city patrols the surrounding area, making it safe for trade.  Of course, in exchange for this they tax all trade going through the city by land and by water, and perhaps levy an additional fee for cargo that transfers from one mode to the other.6. We need a ready source of calories to support the populace.  No problem if we have a fishing industry, ample nearby arable land, and perhaps orchards and hunting up in the mountains. Here's a rough draft history of our city, that I just pulled out of my, um, posterior.  I'm not attached to it, so feel free to rip it apart. :-D The dwarves discovered rich deposits of ore in the X mountains, far from the settled lands to the north, or the strange sand-barbarians of the south.  Fortunately, a trickle of trade between these far distant cultures was beginning, and the common route passed less than a day's hike from the new dwarven mines.  Not long after, some settlers discovered beds of clay of unusual purity and color on the banks of the Y River, and set up a small manufacturing hamlet where the river intersected this trade route.  The dwarves soon introduced themselves, and with their usual dwarven interest in all things manufactured, suggested the use of some mineral byproducts (which they had previously thought of as waste) as glazes for the fine clay wares being produced.  The  results were unusually beautiful and durable, and were readily sold to the traders who were passing through with increasing frequency. Sadly, as is the way of the frontier, these lands were not empty.  Bands of marauding As, Bs and even a few Cs harried the fledgling town, and nearly destroyed it more than once.  The dwarves, who had begun to see the community as essential to their continued economic health, hired some mercenaries, and helped to build a palisade.  Ok, I'm out of gas.  Would someone else like to run with this, or trash it completely and start over? Buttercup</blockquote>

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