doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
This one is really important in a high magic world, IMO.
D&D 5E Why do cities in Faerun have fortified walls?
Hussar
Legend
That's one thing that I do with D&D would lean into - the more.. what's the right word here... natural? type magic. Ley lines and that sort of thing. We have walls around the city because that marks the route of the ley line around the city and that in turn protects the city. Pilgrimages around the city, marked out by traditional paths, invoke spirits that in turn protect the city from outside forces.
2e had a system where you could get lots of faithful together and cast very powerful rituals. Scarred Lands also dipped into this idea in 3e.
I think that this would make a very good addition to a fantasy setting. Doesn't really impact PC's all that much since it's more long term than something that really concerns PC's, but, it would add a lot of flavor to a setting.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
This sort of thing is very important in the game I’m building. You’re never going to be as powerful as you could be in the right place, with the right knowledge, at the right time, with a bunch of people United in purpose with you.
Hussar
Legend
A good 3e book was AEG's Secrets. They had a pretty decent system for ley lines. I should dig that book back out.
Demetrios1453
Hero
I did say that they were a few centuries old. But, your point is well made.
On the flip side though, that brings up other issues. If Waterdeep is only about 500 years old, then how did it get so big so fast? Of course, that also depends on which edition we want to talk about. The population estimates of Waterdeep have been all over the place. Talk about dropping a zero.
The North has a real "boom/bust" cycle. Clear out those pesky barbarian hordes, and there's plenty of land to farm and loads of natural resources, both above and below ground. That draws in a lot of people fast, and they reproduce fast once you get the agriculture going. Things have been relatively stable over the last 500 years, with human barbarians in the region being just small bands of roaming nomads well to the north and the orc population confined to the Spine of the World and north. But there's always the threat of one or the other organizing into a rampaging horde again (although Obould Many-Arrows managed to keep this in check by basically forming an orc nation-state, which effectively kept the pot off the boil)
I've run a lot of FR, and I've seen several small scale attacks on fortifications (like the farm siege in POTA). The typical situation is a large Orc (etc) horde outside the walls, and inside the walls a smaller force with more magic. The walls act as an enormous force multiplier for the higher-magic defenders; their magic can wreak havoc on the attackers while keeping them safe from reprisals.
Oofta
Legend
Coincidentally, Acoup is doing a series about fortifications. Its not fantasy, but a very good explanation of historic fortifications, their structure and use, so you don't need to rely on just Hollywood knowledge about them
This is probably the most relevant part of the series: Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling
This is probably the most relevant part of the series: Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling
Oofta
Legend
Still reading through this, but I like how they put how much was invested in defenses:
...concluding that because no fortification can be built to withstand every assault, that fortification itself is useless; but withstanding every assault is not the goal. The goal is not to absolutely prohibit every attack but merely to raise the cost of an attack above either a potential enemy’s willingness to invest (so they don’t bother) or above their ability to afford (so the attack is attempted and fails)...
Which makes sense. You may not be able to defend against dragons with walls, but you'll be able to slow down that marauding horde.Similar Threads
