D&D General Need wheat. Too dangerous. (worldbuilding)

[Oofta]

Both the statements "Town means walled villiage" and "Town means a settlement of a certain size, depending on juristiction" are true, and rely on different modern English meanings of "mean". But disagreeing with one and saying "actually" the other is simply wrong; the use you disagreed with is perfectly colloquial English.

Your error was not understanding modern English. Words, including "mean", mean more than one thing.

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Anyhow, using Town vs Villiage for walled and unwalled in D&D would make a lot of sense.

In my headcannon, "suoerstitious" rites are performed - hedge magic - to secure dwellings and settlements and roads against monsters. Individual homes would be warded thus way.

Villiages would be clumps of such individual homes. Then a low grade stone wall with rudimentary warding would be added; as it progresses, the villiage would be upgraded to town.

Using catheral city for the definition of City also works along these lines; a cathedral would be a ritual anchor for the wards of a settlement. Its spire a magical antenna for ley lines, the services prayer wheels fueling the wards.

I agree, but cathedrals seem to be more specific to some cultures and not others. Maybe. Not really an expert on the relation of temples and religion. I tend to think of temples and cathedrals being associated to cities because the only time we hear about religious structures and their function in society is when they are grand and enduring structures.

How true has that held for polytheistic cultures that tends to dominate D&D's worlds is a different question, one I am by no means an expert on. When I've tried to find out more, it's always back to a handful of religions like ancient Greek because for the most part they built temples to specific gods and the gods lived there. That, and the temples are cool looking. Other than that, I plead ignorance, but it's also a topic for another thread.

The real question is, what is a hamlet? A group of buildings where they let ham ... umm ... pigs roam free? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Krachek]

I've been having a suspension of belief recently over a commodity that is buyable just about anywhere - bread.

Here's what got me stuck:

1. Bread is a cheap, freely available staple food.
2. You need huge fields outside the walls to make lots of bread.
3. Huge fields outside the walls will inevitably be attacked and overrun.
4. No more bread.

Assuming 1-3 to be true, how do you fix this problem while keeping bread generally cheap and plentiful?

Long distance trade from a fabled land of wheat where there are no monsters? Dwarven underdark wheat, grown in deep basements, if there is such a thing?
I'm just drawing a blank, since every town should be surrounded by acres and acres of wheat fields, and so many places in many different settings, that just isn't possible. 1 cup of flour would need maybe three square feet of wheat plants. That's an awful lot of land to protect.

ideas pls?

Your assumption 1-3 are pretty contradictory, and obviously are a DM decision.
If fields are overrun with regularity, then a community will shift to a hunter-gatherer-raider life style. That´s the real world solution.
DnD can provide magical solution. Spells like create food and water, or other magical mean or ritual can provide a large scale source of food even in the post apocalyptic world you describe. If food cannot be produce easily community will collapse.

 

[Ancalagon]

I just re-read the title of this thread, and back when I used to play a lot more Settlers of Catan v D&D, my first reaction to hearing the phrase "Need Wheat" would have been "I've got some sheep..."

I'm quite disappointed no one made the joke to be frank. I thought about it but I couldn't find a suitably amusing construct

 

[rmcoen]

In my last campaign, I leaned hard into the "last bastions of civilization" concept. The world was overrun by monsters, excepting 10 powerful city-states. Each city-state had a magical shield that protected the city AND ALL ENVIRONS WITHIN TWO DAYS' WALK. (Each city's shield was powered by something different; Godshome was powered by faith, Magisteria was powered by a siphon from the students and faculty at The Academy, Forgekeep tapped the local volcano, etc.) That provided each city with plenty of safe arable land for food. (The shields were "weakness-permeable", meaning the stronger the attacker, the stronger the shield; kobolds and goblins could get in, but giants and demons could not. Perfect fodder for militia or trainee adventurers.)

Out in the "wilderness", hidden villages still existed, but they were dependent on camouflage - or ongoing bribery - to survive. Some had a ranger or druid supporting them, providing spike growth or martial deterrents to the occasional foe; some of those villages had ties to The Verdant Order, a benevolent (?) druidic organization that felt civilization and nature had finally found an achievable balance, and thus supported both the cities and the hidden villages. (But opposed the creation of new cities, vehemently!)

 

[LordEntrails]

I happens every single time I talk to people on this forum. Glad to keep the trend up.

So you admit you have a problem. That's the first step. The second step is to stop when people try to disengage.

 

[David Howery]

The Plant Growth Spell lasts for an entire growing season. It covers a quarter of a square mile. You likely couldn't get the entire 4,000 sq miles, but give 100 days and a handful of people and you could cover a massive region, especially if the caster can cast it more than once per day.

magic combined with agriculture is an interesting idea. In the real medieval times, the vast majority of the people were involved in agriculture, something like 80% IIRC. A lot of it was just grunt work; pre-mechanization agriculture is really manpower intensive. Sowing, weeding, watering, harvesting, hauling it off to the mill, milling, hauling it off to the baker, baking, hauling it off to the markets, etc. You have to wonder just how much magic could speed up the process, and how common it would be...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

magic combined with agriculture is an interesting idea. In the real medieval times, the vast majority of the people were involved in agriculture, something like 80% IIRC. A lot of it was just grunt work; pre-mechanization agriculture is really manpower intensive. Sowing, weeding, watering, harvesting, hauling it off to the mill, milling, hauling it off to the baker, baking, hauling it off to the markets, etc. You have to wonder just how much magic could speed up the process, and how common it would be...

If magic could supress weeds, even that would be a huge boost to agricultural yields and a significant reduction in labour. The other are would pest and disease control. Another thing would be divining negative environmental issue by Contact Other Plane or Divination. Imagine what the effect would be, if the people of Mesopotamia knew about the effects of deforestation and loss of soil fertility by salination due to irrigation, from direct communication by the gods of agriculture and/or fertility.

 

[Umbran]

So you admit you have a problem. That's the first step.

Mod Note:
You are the third person today who has needed a reminder to not make things personal. Must be the new Moon in Scorpio, or something.

In any case - address the logic of the post, not the person of the poster, please. Do not attribute flaws in the logic to character flaws in the poster - that's called "being insulting" and isn't acceptable.[/COLOR]

 

[cbwjm]

Had to reread the 1st post to make sure what this thread was actually about, primarily it's about monsters destroying the fields. I don't think it is mentioned in 5e, but reading the section on dominions in the BECMI rules cyclopedia pretty much answers it by having three categories for lands, civilised, borderlands, and wilderness.

The central part of a well settled kingdom would be civilised, incidents of rampaging monsters are likely few and far between. Borderlands, those territories on the periphery of the kingdom might have a harder time of it, since they border the wilderness which is where the rampaging monsters all come in from. It would probably depend on what monsters are rampaging. A wyvern or manicure probably aren't going to do much damage to the fields, though livestock might be carried off. Orcs coming down to attack the town might burn the fields which would be a problem requiring the import of grain and the local baron or count might also have to send troops to stop the orc raiders. Meanwhile, the farmers in the central part of the kingdom might only have to deal with occasional bandits and pests but are otherwise largely left alone.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I agree, but cathedrals seem to be more specific to some cultures and not others. Maybe. Not really an expert on the relation of temples and religion. I tend to think of temples and cathedrals being associated to cities because the only time we hear about religious structures and their function in society is when they are grand and enduring structures.

How true has that held for polytheistic cultures that tends to dominate D&D's worlds is a different question, one I am by no means an expert on. When I've tried to find out more, it's always back to a handful of religions like ancient Greek because for the most part they built temples to specific gods and the gods lived there. That, and the temples are cool looking. Other than that, I plead ignorance, but it's also a topic for another thread.

The real question is, what is a hamlet? A group of buildings where they let ham ... umm ... pigs roam free? Inquiring minds want to know!

The fact that it is really hard sometimes to find works that use other terms for religious buildings has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine on occasion. I've tried to make a concerted effort to include different terms in my writing and it isn't easy. Especially with the added realization that any term I have to look up, I have to explain, and the moment I call something church, then that's all people are going to think about.