Your Game World - Bricks? Carved Stone? Mud?

[Sigurd]

I'm just considering adding a brick work to one of my game cities. Its not something people generally consider.

What are the buildings in your game world made of?

Bricks?
Wattle and Daub?
Carved Stone?
Not care\Glossed over?


How influential do you think building improvements would be. If a culture can make bricks can they set up fortifications easier?



Sigurd.

 

[Haltherrion]

If you include mud bricks, bricks go way back. Fired bricks go back to at least Roman times. Both were used in fortifications although naturally with mud bricks, one had to use a stone foundation and an appropriate top surface if you wanted it to last any time.

As for enabling fortifications, mud-brick fortifications when maintained were pretty effective. Fired brick would be faster than cutting stone (I'd guess) so it could help. Both seem more suceptible to siege-craft than cut stone. There are ancient depictions of miners using picks against mudbrick walls and fired bricks with mortar might not be that much hardier. But fortifications have always been a trade-off of cost versus effectiveness so you could imagine brick being of use in your campaign setting.

As to what my buildings are made of? It depends on the location. In towns, I usually go with stone, same for a manor in many cases. But some places might use wood long houses like the germans or norse, or stone and sod, or wattle and daub. it's fun to mix it up although I'm personally partial to stone. I just like the aesthetic

 

[Crothian]

We have masonry and bricks in my games but it is not cheap. Well carved stone and brick are a good to indicate wealth.

 

[Stormonu]

Varies in mine. Most rural communities use wood (& thatch), with mortared stone for important/richer buildings - often for the foundation with the upper part made of wood. More urban areas in my game world tend to use mortared river rock or quarried stone (progressive cities have been known to outlaw the use of wood for exterior constructions) and most cities use brick with plaster overcoats. In my eastern/arabic realms mud/adobe buildings are common. In one country with a strong druidic tradition, mud/sticks or sod houses are common.

I'm not familiar with wattle and daub, I'll have to look that up.

 

[Wik]

If you include mud bricks, bricks go way back. Fired bricks go back to at least Roman times. Both were used in fortifications although naturally with mud bricks, one had to use a stone foundation and an appropriate top surface if you wanted it to last any time.

Much further than that, actually. The Mesopotamians were using bricks fired from a combination of mud and clay earlier than 3,000 B.C.E.

***

In my own campaign, most of the human townships are made of wood, and are generally wooden cabins. The Tieflings (who were once "roman") used very Roman-like building supplies, while the dwarves make everything out of granite. The orcs in the northern islands use leather tents and yurts. The halflings live in catamarans that can be converted into wagons with a lot of work, and they are made out of lightweight materials and teak. The Eladrin city (where my campaign is currently set) is a combination of wood and stonework - though much of both has been severely battered.

 

[Snoweel]

It's generally much easier to build with timber so any area near a forest (or downriver from one) will mostly have timber structures.

Stone and brick are usually used out of necessity (ie. there is no timber available), however wealthier owners might pay extra to have stone/brick structures built because they are stronger, fire resistant, and remain stable in vertical construction (tall walls and multi-storey buildings) plus they result in more symmetrical (and therefore potentially more attractive) buildings.

 

[haakon1]

What are the buildings in your game world made of?

I generally describe wattle-and-dub, log cabin, sawed wood planking, or stone architecture. I'm thinking medieval European for my setting.

Brick would be somewhere between sawed wood and stone in cost, and somewhere between log cabin and stone in durability. It wouldn't be my first choice for fortifications -- I'd go with earthworks and log palisades for cheap fortifications, and stone for expensive/important stuff.

When I think of brick fortifications, I think of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, South Carolina . . . seems 19th century to me.

I do have one civilization that uses a lot of brick though . . . it's "Eastern" in culture -- Greek/Arabic/Asian.

 

[S'mon]

Mostly wattle & daub; wood in heavily forested areas, mud brick in the desert. Stone is usually the building material of the wealthy, used for castles, temples, mansions and such. Fired brick feels post-medieval to me; though IRL Henry VIII's early-16th-century Richmond palace is not far from where I live, tail end of the English middle ages and it's made of brick.

 

[Gilladian]

Like most here, wood is what I describe most often; it is usually either sawn plank from logs, or logs. Some is half-timbered, and the cheap peasant stuff is wattle and daub.

Stone is reserved for castles, forts, temples, civic buildings, wealthy businesses and a few cities in the mountains that have good stone quarries nearby. I hadn't considered brick, but it would be a good alternative to stone in many areas. Roofing is where I have a hard time making up my mind.

Some regions use thatch, some use (wooden) shingles, and others use slate, tile, etc... I like describing architecture, and try to give different regions cultural variances...

 

[Pig Champion]

My game world's tend to be heavily South Pacific in influence and so I tend to use a lot of lime stone and timber with basic and sweeping gabled rooftops (depending on the building).

For some more earthy cultures, i'll use clay or rammed earth with flat roofs or tree cities or floating bamboo cities.

For temples I like to use marble with different coloured gemstones (the colour of the particular deity) as decoration.

Apart from that, I usually describe the ornate materials like puka shell, pounamu, gold, animal bone and pearl.

I try to keep every city that's not in a forest or floating or in a desert, with a beachy feel.