D&D 5E Why do cities in Faerun have fortified walls?

[Weiley31]

Casually Nude Fridays are a lot less embarrassing when it’s only your neighbors watching

I hear them Shadar-Kai parties are the only thing that rivals that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

We've talked about this before, but with the more than 10,000 years of history in Faerun and full knowledge of magic up through the power of 9th level spells that entire time... the Forgotten Realms should be way more magitechnologically advanced than what it is.

I mean look at where we are in the real world after 8000 or so years of established historical record, and we didn't even have things like steam-power or electricity most of that time. We have grown by leaps and bounds even with our incremental advancement having to build upon each new discovery. And yet Faerun has had Wish spells from the very beginning, but yet they've never been able to mass produce that magic over those 10,000 years? And they've been stuck in this quasi-medieval society this entire time? Yeaaaaaaaaahhhh... nope, not buying it. That's not how I think this really would have gone.

Of course everyone is absolutely right in that it's a fantasy game for fantasy stories and not a treatise on anthropological and sociological advancement and culture... but still... I think we can admit to ourselves that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[nevin]

I've been flipping though Forgotten Realms maps and reading through the 3.5 and 5 lore...and I can't figure out why most of cities have fortified walls, especially those on the Sword Coast.

There don't seem to be many (any?) large standing armies capable of the sieges that would make classical (European) fortification walls useful. Palisades, sure, but big resource and time consuming stone walls? The primary enemies of city-structured civilization in Faerun are bandits, beasts, civil wars (usually contained within a single city) and the occasional BBEG that has abilities that make walls extravagant or useless.

Who is sieging these cities in Faerun, and where can I find this info?

the sword coast is famous for pirates, orcs, goblins and other large groups of non humans that raid all along it, via Sea and land. Add in the numerous large things that roam the sword coast like trolls and ogres and you can see why you need walls.

 

[nevin]

We've talked about this before, but with the more than 10,000 years of history in Faerun and full knowledge of magic up through the power of 9th level spells that entire time... the Forgotten Realms should be way more magitechnologically advanced than what it is.

I mean look at where we are in the real world after 8000 or so years of established historical record, and we didn't even have things like steam-power or electricity most of that time. We have grown by leaps and bounds even with our incremental advancement having to build upon each new discovery. And yet Faerun has had Wish spells from the very beginning, but yet they've never been able to mass produce that magic over those 10,000 years? And they've been stuck in this quasi-medieval society this entire time? Yeaaaaaaaaahhhh... nope, not buying it. That's not how I think this really would have gone.

Of course everyone is absolutely right in that it's a fantasy game for fantasy stories and not a treatise on anthropological and sociological advancement and culture... but still... I think we can admit to ourselves that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

there are areas of Faerun that are that magitch high. But the history of faerun is all about races getting there and them being destroyed by the "barbarians" around them. The battle of the Bone waste, the hall of 3 dwarves. I've forgotten the name but the northern empire that was stupidly magically powerful before the desert swallowed it, The Collapse of Myth Draenor those were all places that were legendary kingdoms that no one talks about now. forgotten realms 1st thru 3rd edition is kind've like jack vance's dieing sun trilogy. It's all about the the leftovers living in the shadow of what was.

 

[Oofta]

We've talked about this before, but with the more than 10,000 years of history in Faerun and full knowledge of magic up through the power of 9th level spells that entire time... the Forgotten Realms should be way more magitechnologically advanced than what it is.

I mean look at where we are in the real world after 8000 or so years of established historical record, and we didn't even have things like steam-power or electricity most of that time. We have grown by leaps and bounds even with our incremental advancement having to build upon each new discovery. And yet Faerun has had Wish spells from the very beginning, but yet they've never been able to mass produce that magic over those 10,000 years? And they've been stuck in this quasi-medieval society this entire time? Yeaaaaaaaaahhhh... nope, not buying it. That's not how I think this really would have gone.

Of course everyone is absolutely right in that it's a fantasy game for fantasy stories and not a treatise on anthropological and sociological advancement and culture... but still... I think we can admit to ourselves that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The whole "for 10,000 years" thing is one of those tropes that just make me facepalm. It's not just FR either, for some reason if writers really want to impress you with their lore it's "There has been a soldier guarding this spot for 10,000 years because ____" or some other silliness. Nothing is that static for that long. Well, except maybe the line at the DMV.

 

[S'mon]

And yet Faerun has had Wish spells from the very beginning, but yet they've never been able to mass produce that magic over those 10,000 years?

I expect Netheril tried ...and look what happened.

 

[S'mon]

The whole "for 10,000 years" thing is one of those tropes that just make me facepalm. It's not just FR either, for some reason if writers really want to impress you with their lore it's "There has been a soldier guarding this spot for 10,000 years because ____" or some other silliness. Nothing is that static for that long. Well, except maybe the line at the DMV.

10,000 years ago was around the Elven Crown Wars... in 1e lifespans that's about 1,000 years in Elf-time.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The whole "for 10,000 years" thing is one of those tropes that just make me facepalm. It's not just FR either, for some reason if writers really want to impress you with their lore it's "There has been a soldier guarding this spot for 10,000 years because ____" or some other silliness. Nothing is that static for that long. Well, except maybe the line at the DMV.

I mean when you have races like elves and dragons, 10000 years isn't unreasonable. Human nations in the FR only arose a few thousand years ago, which is comparable to our historic time frame.

 

[squibbles]

We've talked about this before, but with the more than 10,000 years of history in Faerun and full knowledge of magic up through the power of 9th level spells that entire time... the Forgotten Realms should be way more magitechnologically advanced than what it is.

I mean look at where we are in the real world after 8000 or so years of established historical record, and we didn't even have things like steam-power or electricity most of that time. We have grown by leaps and bounds even with our incremental advancement having to build upon each new discovery. And yet Faerun has had Wish spells from the very beginning, but yet they've never been able to mass produce that magic over those 10,000 years? And they've been stuck in this quasi-medieval society this entire time? Yeaaaaaaaaahhhh... nope, not buying it. That's not how I think this really would have gone.

Of course everyone is absolutely right in that it's a fantasy game for fantasy stories and not a treatise on anthropological and sociological advancement and culture... but still... I think we can admit to ourselves that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The 10,000 years of history thing is indeed a tired fantasy trope (you can blame JRRT for that).

But I also think our fixation on progress can overlook just how static pre-modern societies can be. Ancient Egypt had a history of about 3000 years, during which time they remained so culturally consistent that they used the same standardized proportions in all their figural art.

For us, 3000 years ago predates the earliest written history and oldest works of literature. For Egyptians living in 400 BCE, 3000 years ago was about the same and the pyramids were already ancient.

Magic presumably changes all that, but maybe not. If the Netherese had the same 9th level spells as Elminster, maybe progress in the realms isn't really a thing.

 

[Oofta]

I confess I know little to nothing about FR. A civilization of elves lasting 10,000 years? Maybe. So take the longest contiguous empires for humans and multiply by 10 and you're looking at the Roman empire and a few others (kind of depends on what you consider contiguous). Even then there are a lot of things outside of the control of the elves that would likely disrupt it.

But the trope gets applied to a lot of human civilizations as well which is what I was thinking of.

On the other hand, it's hard to know what kind of impact magic would have on society. FR seems to have a cataclysm on every other odd year, it seems like that would set things back significantly. I kind of did it to my own campaign world because I wanted to shake things up. What would society look like if the equivalent of a limited nuclear war happens even every few centuries? Not to mention, are the gods (or other higher powers) meddling to suppress new ideas or at least redirect ideas.

That, and most of our technology is cumulative. Technologies build on older technologies which lead to other new, yet to be discovered technology. There's no reason to believe it would work that way with magic. Maybe 9th level spells are the pinnacle of what magic can be harnessed by humans. But that's a separate topic.