Sharn is a virtual ghost town!

[kigmatzomat]

there are two points where I'll say that my mental picture of Sharn differs from that which you paint. First, nowhere in the book have I seen any reference to any substantial farming within the city.

It is a lot of supposition. If you have massive depopulation, you don't have the forces to defend large swaths of farmland from raiders and it makes sense to move it inside.

If you don't like the farming, say that there are huge granaries and storage facilities stockpiling foodstuffs against a seige. Given the size of the city and that many sieges lasted multiple years, you'd need almost as much volume for storage as you would for farming.

The other thing is about the average building height and the supposition that the vast majority of the buildings are not all that tall.
.....
I'm not claiming to be "right" about this. But when I did my earlier calculations I was making the assumption that there really is no such thing as a short building in Sharn, just variations of tall.

Before you write off what I said as too short to be "tall", the typical tower size of 1250 feet is the same height as the Empire State building! You'd have about a half dozen looming twice as tall and a few (2-3) that loom far above the rest.

Imagine a city consisting of 490 Empire State Buildings, seven mondo towers looming a half-mile tall and three Dark City MegaTowers that are just shy of 1 mile high (Gasp, wheeze, need oxygen.....)

It would take 1 full round (6 seconds) to hit the ground leaping from the "short" buildings (at which point you hit terminal velocity in a nice double pun), 13 seconds (2 rounds) from the "tall" buildings and 4 rounds (26 seconds) from the tall buildings. (assuming I remember my physics and human terminal velocity right)

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

I wish I read these threads before I purchased the book.

Looks like inadequate thought went into the writing and/or design of this book. Not impressive.

Exact, even realistic population numbers fall under the umbrella of "stuff people on the internet obsess/bicker over, but hardly anyone cares about when the dice are being thrown."

There's a lot of stuff under that umbrella.

Patrick Y.

 

[Rel]

Before you write off what I said as too short to be "tall", the typical tower size of 1250 feet is the same height as the Empire State building! You'd have about a half dozen looming twice as tall and a few (2-3) that loom far above the rest.

Imagine a city consisting of 490 Empire State Buildings, seven mondo towers looming a half-mile tall and three Dark City MegaTowers that are just shy of 1 mile high (Gasp, wheeze, need oxygen.....)

I get your point that these "small" towers are still totally huge but having only a couple handfulls of towers above the baseline clashes with my interpretation (and, from what I can infer, with the authors interpretation based on some of the illustrations) of the city layout. For there to be substantial middle and upper wards, that implies that there are multiple towers in each such ward that stretch to these heights and that they are, in various way, interconnected.

And just for the record, I'm in total agreement with Arcane Runes Press that none of this does or should much matter in relation to the enjoyment of the book or a campaign based upon it. I really don't usually care at all about such things and if the players in my last campaign had asked me how many people lived in the capital city then I'd have probably said, "Um...a lot."

But in this case I was given a particular population figure and the more I read about the vastness of these towers and the scope of the city in general, the more that number seemed a bit lean.

 

[Turjan]

Well, the premise of the thread is correct. Sharn's population is unrealistically small.

Medieval London or Edo (Tokyo) had populations of a million people. Heck, even Waterdeep has a million people!

At the end of the middle ages, London had a population of roughly 50,000 people; some other sources estimate it at just below 100,000. The whole British population was around 5 million people. The explosion in London's population numbers started in the early modern era (1550-1700).

Of course, this has nothing to do with Sharn, which has no medieval traits .

 

[Dragonblade]

Thats what you get when you type in a hurry. You are right about London's population. Edo's population was over a million in the 1700's. At that time, Japan's level of technology was still medieval despite the date.

 

[Vanye]

Hmmm...possibilities, possibilities

Read The Garrett Files, by Glen Cook. The city that 90% of the books take place in is the capital city of one of two powerful kingdoms that are fighting, and have been for 100 years or more...and all their troops were human. There are a lot of non-humans moving into the city, and have been for years. Good reading for a Sharn campaign, I believe.

 

[Gez]

Looks like inadequate thought went into the writing and/or design of this book. Not impressive.

I've just started reading Sharn (got it yesterday), but while it is ridden with errors (see the Ask Hellcow threads at the WotC Eberron forum), notably erroneously keyed maps (always a pain!), it is very well designed.

It could have used a bit more proofreading, but the writing quality is good, and the design, very good. For example, you are provided with several key NPCs in boxed texts, and each NPC description features its initial attitude toward PCs, modifiers for the Diplomacy check to impress him/her favorably, and his/her behavior toward the PCs for all attitude category (from most hostile to most friendly). That was one of the aspects from the book I liked the most.
There are attention to details like what happens when characters are regulars of a tavern (they get circumstance bonus to Gather Information and Diplomacy checks in said tavern and with the other regulars), the cost of living, etc. You are even provided with tidbits that are useful to know when you use optional rules, like which skills can be trained at the Morgrave university.

This is a very sound citybook, full of good ideas. I don't see any flaws in the design, only in the proofreading -- kinda minor, overall.

And it's shipped with a theme music CD. How cool is that? I'd like WotC to continue with that experiment. I can see Monster Manuals with combat musics and theme music for various iconic creatures (dragons, beholders, mind-flayers, giths, unicorns), environment books (themed music and ambiant sounds), and so on. It would be incredibly cool.

The only thing that really annoys me in the Sharn book (and also in MM3, and in Eberron) is those

"Business Reply Mail" that are inserted inside the book's content. I hate those, hate hate hate. The biggest reason I spend my few and far between pennies to buy books rather than just fire up some P2P client to download pirate copy is to have the comfort of printed paper. And those ugly thing, more rigid and smaller than the book's page, ruin it by hampering page flipping. Even if you remove them, there's still a bit of cardboard inserted between two pages, sticking out like a sore thumb. And no way to remove them entirely without ruining the book's binding.

Please, WotC, just stop using these instruments of the devil. Do not bind those accursed things in the book. Or at least put them back to the very very end of the book, like you did for the 3e DMG.

 

[Storminator]

I get your point that these "small" towers are still totally huge but having only a couple handfulls of towers above the baseline clashes with my interpretation (and, from what I can infer, with the authors interpretation based on some of the illustrations) of the city layout. For there to be substantial middle and upper wards, that implies that there are multiple towers in each such ward that stretch to these heights and that they are, in various way, interconnected.

The Bazaar claims to have a large open air market. Yet there is an Upper Ward above it. In my Sharn, there's a huge vaulting arch over the Bazaar, and there are towers built off that arch that reach the upper levels. A few towers reach from ground to skyline, but most don't (at least in that ward).

PS

 

[Rel]

Read The Garrett Files, by Glen Cook. The city that 90% of the books take place in is the capital city of one of two powerful kingdoms that are fighting, and have been for 100 years or more...and all their troops were human. There are a lot of non-humans moving into the city, and have been for years. Good reading for a Sharn campaign, I believe.

I've read a pile of these and enjoyed them. Good and pulpy and, I agree, great inspiration for Eberron and Sharn in particular. In case you missed the other thread about it, I also think the Jhereg books by Steven Brust fit the bill.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am off to officially begin the various Christmas gatherings with my family and friends over the next couple days. I eagerly await your further responses when I get back and I wish you all a very happy holiday!

Be good! Santa's comin'!

 

[ssampier]

Well, the premise of the thread is correct. Sharn's population is unrealistically small.

Medieval London or Edo (Tokyo) had populations of a million people. Heck, even Waterdeep has a million people!

Sharn's population is far too small for such a big metropolis.

I don't have this book, but I'm interested in the subject (finally a math subject I can follow!). What is Waterdeep's "current" population and what is roughly the population density? Everyone seems to be comparing fantasy to real world, I prefer fantasy to fantasy.

I'd do the calculations myself, but I don't have any current Forgotten Realms products.