Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 1942458" data-attributes="member: 6929">Or perhaps the creatures just shifted in there, or evolved to fit a niche. Most worlds are flooded with Ancient Civilisations Dead These Many Centuries, and so the city has probably been around a lot longer than our world (although I hasten to point out that irrigation and aquaportation have been around on a massive scale for thousands of years, as mentioned in the aqueducts above). The city, therefore, becomes a valid ecological location for creatures to evolve into and inhabit. Kinda like grass - people might import it, but it'll spring up on its own anyway, perhaps not as pretty as self-applied grass, perhaps with some nasty stuff growing in its midst, but it'll spring up anyway. (That's a metaphor that works on many levels.)Also consider the possibility of elemental blood; there are a few rock monsters out there, and  things that live in mineral-high environments are likely evolved populations with resistance to the more subtle threats of the region.Dragons, of course, can eat anything and find it nourishing, it seems; the draconis fundamentum, or whatever their specialised breath/digestion organ may be, is capable of breaking down just about anything short of artifact-level adamantite, so they can survive just eating sand for hundreds of years. Their biology, of course, is probably pretty strange because of this; I suspect there might be some fission and fusion involved, so they make their own water. They don't like it, of course, and would much rather eat something that can scream. And the same probably goes for a great number of other things; why should dragons be the only creatures with such an efficient digestive system? The remorhaz, for example, is clearly doing something it shouldn't.There are insects and the like that can enter suspended animation states in the real world. It's possible that a more sophisticated lifeform could have the ability to go dormant and wake up when it smells prey nearby.Back on the original question: Aqueducts, wells, and intelligent waste venting systems ("pour it in downstream, lads"). Plus a healthy dose of "eh, water's supposed to be brown, and I hear the plague's back in town" - Europeans are theorised to have developed excellent immune systems because of questionable living habits (mostly related to farm animals, I hear, but this could be another factor). Heck, 150 years ago any major metropolitan area (New York, London, Paris) could be counted on to stink of horse manure lying about in the streets, because horses were the only form of transport and the animals didn't use indoor plumbing... so my answer to "Where do cities find safe drinking water?" is "Partially they got it from sources other than the river, partially they didn't care".</blockquote>

Verification