Build a city?

[Haphazzard]

I propose the following for the calendar:

12 Days Per Week
2 Weeks per Month
16 Months Per Year

There should also be 4 intercalary days, one for each of the Solstices/Equinoxes that occur. With that, each year would have a total of 388 days. I'd also suggest that the New Year begin on the Spring Equinox.

Anyways, that's what I was thinking.

Wow have I been out of the loop for too long.  I'm cool with that calender if you guys are (I like things being out of the ordinary).  Any reason you chose those numbers?  I'd ask about the new year being on Spring Equinox, but that makes way more sense than in the middle of the winter.

[Gamer Printshop]

OK, here's a quick map created in Xara Xtreme - took me about 20 minutes to create! This has a nice harbor "on the sea" good place for a port city. There's a river, so there's fresh water. I placed to rocky bluffs/mountains along the coast, and pretty much surrounded by forest.

Does this work, or do you want something else. There is no scale, yet, must be decided upon...

[Elemental_Elf]

Wow! Nice map Gamer Printshop! The map works for me.


 [spoiler=Various reasonings behind the Calendar that will bore most of you to tears]
12 days was chosen because (a) I have never played in/created a setting that had 12 day weeks and (b) I had a cool idea for a Calendar that looked like this:



The short two week Month made sense because the weeks were already rather long. Plus 24 day month is appealing (at least to me).
16 Months was chosen because, in contrast to our calendar, there are less days per month. Plus by having 16 months, we can easily break each year into 4 equal parts consisting of 4 Months each. To me, this makes our job as posters a tad easier because the correlation between month-season is much clearer than, say, our calendar is.

The extra 4 intercalary days seemed a nice way of differentiating the Season's cycle as well as providing an easy and obvious point for festivals or other special occurrences. The New Years day was chosen because, IMO, it makes a whole lot more sense than some arbitrary day in the middle of winter. Plus it helps to emphasize the '˜special-ness' of the Equinoxes/Solstices.

Finally, everything in the calendar is either divisible by 4 or can divide 4. This also provides an interesting point for posters to expand upon and helps spark interesting and fruitful ideas (hopefully, lol).
[/spoiler]

[Gamer Printshop]

That was just a preliminary map, I could do a hand-drawn version as well. Once geography is decided upon, I'll create close-up view of selected area for hamlet start and the map area could grow with the community's growth. Because the rest of the land is not exposed, I figure individual DMs can place this location anywhere appropriate in their world.

By the way, just call me GP - its less arduous on the keyboard. :)

[Neubert]

Wow, very nice! I like it a lot!

[LordVreeg]

I like the map, I like the Kalehndir.
Equitorial Area?  I'd like to do something with seasons.  Something a little northern, but maybe with a gulf-stream like effect.

(GP, tell me the best way to buy Xara Extreme, BTW)

[Haphazzard]

Beautiful map.  I'm good with that geography, being as it's basically what I invisioned in my mind.  The idea for a close up map for the hamlet is a great idea too.

As for everything in the calender being divisible by 4, I like very much.  Perhaps we could integrate that into the city.  Maybe it could affect the religion somehow.  Speaking of which, how does D&D religion work in small hamlets?

[Gamer Printshop]

(GP, tell me the best way to buy Xara Extreme, BTW)

As I PMed Neubert, Xara Xtreme is available as a 14 day trial download, but costs $79. This is a full DTP program and not just a map-maker, (more like CorelDraw than CC3, for example.)

Program exports PDF files too. There's a Pro version, more expensive, but allows you to create multipage PDFs as well as more Word Processing support, but not necessary for map-making.

The program is only $79, if you do think you'd purchase I am an affiliate reseller - so please, use this link for the free download, as well as purchase if you do that!

http://stats.xaraonline.com/ID.859297/redirectid.Xara/affiliate.html

[Wensleydale]

Maybe it could affect the religion somehow.  Speaking of which, how does D&D religion work in small hamlets?

DnD religion in small hamlets. Well, uhh.

...

Could we ditch the whole 'Gods-are-real' thing and go for a more 'belief is power' idea? Because, uhm, it seems to make more sense that they'd have their own little pantheon of gods (influenced by surrounding areas) that might later be usurped by international gods (such as Pelor or Ilmater). This doesn't mean we couldn't USE these gods, just that we could use others as well.

[Gamer Printshop]

Inspirations I see in my map.

No doubt the hamlet would have to be located at the river, probably on the north bank growing towards the harbor. I see a coastal road on the southside of the river, providing land defense using the river as a barrier. Crossing would be by ferry, or barges from one side to the other, some future time there would be one or more bridges here.

The coastal highlands provide some protection from the sea, whether storms, tsunami, or bombardment from ships beyond the harbor. The river valley beyond the coast would be ideal for growing crops. Don't be afraid of cutting down some forest to expand areas, afterall you need wood to construct buildings, at least until stone construction becomes commonplace down the road.

I can see a fishing village on the coast on the other side of the southern highlands, eventually becoming a suburb of the larger port city.

The Port City could eventually cover the entire harborfront. Oh and that small island in the shallows just off the northern point of the harbor mouth looks like a great place for a temple to a sea god/spirit someday.

A canal could be cut to supply fresh water to the northern shore of the harbor as the city grows.

I see fortresses on both sides of the harbor mouth one day providing defense from sea invasions.

Sorry to ramble - just my imagination running wild! :P

[LordVreeg]

Maybe it could affect the religion somehow.  Speaking of which, how does D&D religion work in small hamlets?

DnD religion in small hamlets. Well, uhh.

...

Could we ditch the whole 'Gods-are-real' thing and go for a more 'belief is power' idea? Because, uhm, it seems to make more sense that they'd have their own little pantheon of gods (influenced by surrounding areas) that might later be usurped by international gods (such as Pelor or Ilmater). This doesn't mean we couldn't USE these gods, just that we could use others as well.

Our hamlet, our gods, Dammit.

Let's give our thread a chance to survive.  Let's stay original.  Let's use both theories you mention, in that the Gods may be real, but none of them started as Gods.  They all start as spirits (river spirits, air spirits, earth spirits, fire spirits, tree spirits, animal spirits, etc, of which there are a VERY FINITE AMOUNT.  Belief feeds them.  The same thing can happen to demons ans such, but it they cannotr show up on earth without being summoned.  SO when we crash our settlers or whatever, they can be guided by the spirit of the bay, and it can go from there.   Just an idea, but this takes care of our spirit peopleamd our gods people.  Use it or not.

[Gamer Printshop]

Of course, then like the early Catholic missionaries, the missionaries of the international gods convert local holidays into their own (Samhain/Halloween and All Hallows Day, for example)

Perhaps the international Sea God missionaries try to convince their spirit is actually a local face of Sargos the Sea King and not their own spirit. If they can't break the local faith, then they make the local spirit an angel, or "saint", somehow a lesser avatar of the greater god. Such is the nature of religious conversion vs. "pagan" cults as the missionaries see it.

Or the city could be more cosmopolitan and allow worship of many gods from other locations in the world. If like a remote site as Vladivostok, away from the rest of civilization, the allowance of foreign temples to be erected, being more inviting to foreign merchants to invest in better trade relations.

Just ramblings...

[Neubert]

I love that you are already being creative :)

A single question about the "Kalehndir", just to make sure, the 4 days between winter month no. 4 and spring month no. 1 are "outside" of any of the months?

Is everyone fine with using the map and calendar?

Lastly, we need to decide upon a "beginning" and then we can start building our city. You can just "vote" on one of the following ideas or write one yourself.

1) A place where many travelers come through and someone decides to set up an inn or similar. (Mentioned by another poster: It's an easy spot to land when going to a large city further inland).

2) The city was "commissioned" by the ruler or a lord of a kingdom. (For instance: The area used to belong to barbarians or a kind of "nomads" (a group without big cities), the kingdom conquered them and are starting to build cities in the newly conquered area).

3) A valuable resource has been found in the vicinity (possibly in the mountainous area).

4) A combination of 2 & 3.

5) It was a thieves camp that turned into a small town when somebody built a tavern (or other building).


What do you think?

[LordVreeg]

I was thinking about a primmitive ship of lost souls, former devotees to the bronzeAbsolute, Spirit of Meldings, lost at sea and running from a storm.  Prayers to BronzeABsolute go unheard, but one of youngest devotees communes with a local spirit of the Water, the Avator of the Cove, who leads them out of the storm and into the safety of her domain.
Thankful, they turn to the Cove Spirit in worship, which is a surprise to her.  

[Haphazzard]

My vote goes to either numbers 1 or 5.  I think 3 should come after a while, basically and excuse for the hamlet to boom into a larger city.

Should we make a discussion thread for this once we start?  That way we can leave this as a chronicaling of what's happened and decide on what's going to happen on the discussion thread.