[Region 1][Map 07][Location 01] Fentor Cross Area

[Redrobes]

what is the per pixel scale of the image of Fentor Cross, above...

The scale bar is black and white squares. The first two are 10ft each, the next two are 20ft each and then one 40ft. So that makes the whole scale bar 100ft.

On post #30 there is the smaller regional map of the area so you don't need to use big red dots to align them. Also, do you want a big high res, non JPG version of the town ? I'll email you one over.

Did you see my Fentor Cross Church map I put in last night in the challenges section ? Do you think that the church should be inside the town or just out of town. I thought that it would be better just outside of the town walls. Theres lots of examples like that in old towns over here.

[waldronate]

Did you see my Fentor Cross Church map I put in last night in the challenges section ? Do you think that the church should be inside the town or just out of town. I thought that it would be better just outside of the town walls. Theres lots of examples like that in old towns over here.

If the town came first (think Roman or native settlement followed by church takeover) then I would expect the church outside the city walls. If the town is post church-takover then it would be part of the nucleus of the town like the civic authority area and marketplace.

Your town has a nice square marketplace indicating likely preplanning by external authority but the church isn't in there so the church must be a relatively late thing, right?

[Redrobes]

...so the church must be a relatively late thing, right?

Well I don't really know. The basic premise was that the Fentor hills stretch across the map and so the dip in the middle would be the best route across so I would think that this would be a main thoroughfare and because of the geography a good place for ambush so I would think that protection in the manner of a fort, palisaded town etc would spring up and charge for the protection.

Having said that there are plenty of similar places like that over here where there is also ruined churches and some really unusual stuff where all on its own in the middle of nowhere you get this chapel and no town at all.

I don't know whether the modern Thrublanders build the church or whether the place was ruined at the point when the palisade was erected. My personal opinion is that it would be better outside of town but I am open to comment. I can shuffle a bit of room in the town if I need to.

I always assumed that the churches were out of town because they usually had the graveyards around them and nobody wants them in town. I come from a smallish town where it is known that the place started as a ford / bridge across the joining of two substantial rivers and yet there is a big church there in the middle of the town. This town also has a completely ruined abbey (which I think predates the church) where barely anything is left of it and a roman villa. Such a mashup of history. I reckon that the key is where it is fortified as that usually does not have a full church inside but often with castles you have some tiny (private) chapel.

Saying that I can think of the cities of Bath and Wells close by here which both have old fortified walls and the Abbeys are both inside. Wells is well known to be a religious administrative center but if Bath had anything around the original spa, it was definitely build up by Romans and the Abbey is much later than that and it sits right in the middle also.

Its confusing.

[SeerBlue]

In England, ages ago, landowners would give land to have a church/abbey built, in lieu of having to pay a yearly donation to the Church once it was built (Speaking from what my ancestors did in Eye, Suffolk). They seldom gave their prime agricultural land or parcels that would have economic value beyond what the donation would cost them over years, as they were generous and faithful but not so foolish.
The Church did place a higher value on land that had access to water, and good "buildability", as well as some potential for croppage. Either by the Church itself or tenant farmers.

So if it is outside of town, near water, with a bit of open fields, it has self sufficiency to a small degree and a potential for income, both from crops and burials.. "He may have died for nothing, but it cost a good goat to bury him"...Tillehn Cope TOB.

SeerBlue

[Redrobes]

Now that makes a lot of sense and does explain a lot.

[jfrazierjr]

If the town came first (think Roman or native settlement followed by church takeover) then I would expect the church outside the city walls. If the town is post church-takover then it would be part of the nucleus of the town like the civic authority area and marketplace.

Your town has a nice square marketplace indicating likely preplanning by external authority but the church isn't in there so the church must be a relatively late thing, right?

I have to agree with Waldronte, though more in a different vein. One of the things that kind of struck me when I looked at the last example was town layout. I would wonder if the town was planned or not or if it just grew. If the former, then everything is probably ok. But if the town grew, then things might be a bit out of whack. For example, if a naturally grown town (especially if the palisades were added after the fact) would have the core buildings along the main road and other things radiating out from there. Things like the smithy, farrier, well (which would be in center of the original town), miller?, and perhaps an Inn would be along the main street and newer buildings would have been built out around that. If the water catcher was one of the original structures, then it to would be fairly centrally located.

If on the otherhand, this was built as a fortified town from the start, then a question is was it originally build this large or have the fortifications been expanded beyond the original borders. If the later case, then the same type of thought process would be needed except the main buildings would be clustered around a central location and new buildings which are not required by a town would sprout up around that as the new walls built.

Of course, this all assumes that this is not a planned settlement where most of the people came in around the same time.

My art skills leave a lot to be desired, but am fairly good at city layout, so I think about these types of things (probably all those teenage years spent playing SimCity.) When I design a city I think about how and why each building is where it is. Likewise, when creating an underground lair/dungeon, I think about each creature I want to put in and design the whole thing to make sense. I had a DM one time that had a 100+ room (3 levels if I recall correctly) dungeon with a Beholder, Drow, an Ogre Mage, undead, and a Mind Flayer. It drove me crazy because those creatures would never be able to live in harmony in that small an area (well except the undead, who would just try to kill anyone that was not their controller). That campaign gave me a lot to think about in terms of what should and what should not be where both in town and dungeon design.

Joe









If on the other

[Redrobes]

I will explain my thinking - not a justification as I didn't think all that hard about it.

The town is mainly a merchants passing so I put in a square because I thought that there would almost certainly have a market place. Around the square would be shops and merchanting utilities - like the "Bars and Keys Bank" marked up but not clear on my last map.

The place would have a garrison on rotation between the forts with a pretty large barracks if only partially manned at any time. So the Wyvern Tower would be there too and the tower would probably be on the edge as it has a platform for archers. The smithy and possibly cartwrights would likely be next to the garrison and military bit.

Tolls, guard houses and the "satch shops" (see wiki) would be near to the exits. I have a lodgings house right next to the northern Thrubview exit with stables.

On the right I have reserved space for general housing and on the left I have more merchant and upmarket housing.

After that I pretty much filled it in as best as I could pack it. So I think I went at it with a mentality of building the town as though it were a new fresh plot.

It gives me an idea that maybe I should have some ruined houses and completely dilapidated houses around the church area not far from this one which could have been the old town before it was moved and militarized. Perhaps the church was substantial enough not to have been attacked and destoryed and that it was too big a job to move it. In D&D there are many deities so I would not imagine that there was one "the church" to have to pay taxes to. I would not imagine that any particular religion would send people out into these lands to collect it or that these places would agree to pay it.

[jfrazierjr]

Tolls, guard houses and the "satch shops" (see wiki) would be near to the exits.

Hmmm.. could not find a definition for "satch shops"....

It gives me an idea that maybe I should have some ruined houses and completely dilapidated houses around the church area not far from this one which could have been the old town before it was moved and militarized. Perhaps the church was substantial enough not to have been attacked and destoryed and that it was too big a job to move it.

Thinking.... Thatch + torches = destroyed village.

[Redrobes]

Hmmm.. could not find a definition for "satch shops"....

A Satch is a pasty which is usually carried about in a satchel. Its in the Wiki under the Thrubmorton Pasty.

Thinking.... Thatch + torches = destroyed village.

Yeah, I thought that was a great idea so I thought that there would not be much left of it now, just some left over rubble after the larger blocks of stone had been taken away to use for the new town. Its grown over a bit now and the road has detoured around the old town.