Yeah yeah, I know it's a little early for this, but with the troubles in Buffalo the other weekend it came up in conversation and I've been thinking about the effects of heavy snowfalls on communities, historically. We've all seen those paintings of country cottages with a thick puffy load of snow on the roof and a curl of smoke rising from the chimney, but what happens when it gets really heavy?
I know that in some areas the snow load on a roof can cause it to collapse. Most places where this was/is a big concern had/have more steeply pitched roofs to prevent such accumulation. In the US, we have plenty of folks who climb up othe roof to shovel snow in the event of an unusually heavy fall (sometimes resulting in injury or death as the shoveler takes a ride down with the snow). One winter while I was in Prague, we had a warm spell after some lengthy accumulation and the places that hadn't been shoveled became real hazards (being 5 or 6 stories tall), doing a fair amount of damage to both people and property when it dumped into the street below. I don't imagine that these are new concerns.
Heat, whether from within the home, or without, is the primary factor. Most homes would be heated by a fire. Different materials were burned for this purpose (wood, coal, charcoal, peat, animal wastes), depending on what was locally available and cheap. However, fireplaces do create drafts, and tend to only heat the area immediately surrounding the flames. This is why people had those little footwarmers for church, special bed-warmers (no, I don't mean their lovers), and so on. Still today in the Czech Republic, especially in the little cottages, you find that the wood-fired stoves are in the middle of the kitchen/dining room and lined with ceramic tiles, the better to radiate heat into the house instead of losing it up the chimney. You'll find similar, though on a larger scale and just intended for heat, in large public buildings. These large heaters used brightly colored and highly decorated tiles to distribute the heat about the room. Unfortunately, most of the heat would still be lost out the windows, even if they did use double sets of glass.
A contributing factor to the presence of snow on a roof is insulation. These days you can tell the poorly insulated homes when it snows, by the barren spots on their roofs. While they certainly didn't use as much insulation back in the day, there also wasn't central heating (well, not the timeperiods I employ). Naturally, the areas around the chimney stack would be melted clear by the warmed stone/brick, but what about the rest of it? Part of the issue may be whether the top level in a specific home was living space, or just used for storage. A storage space, thoroughly jammed with odds and ends might just protect the floors below. I'm thinking any building with a hay loft would stay toastier for this same reason. If the heat goes straightthrough the roof, it'd be bad for keeping warm, but might decrease the snow load in wintertime.
For all of the research I do here on the Internet, I'm just not sure how to go about finding this information. Maybe I just need to do more reading on Russia, or Scandinavian countries, to find out about their realities. Was it a simple case of building for the climate? I suppose that back in the day, you spent more time in the house, come winter, so you could hear the roof creaking before it collapsed on you... Maybe one of my faithful readers has some suggestions or a direction to point me in. Maybe folks just got out and shoveled the damn roof. resultant injuries were just a part of life. Usually I can sus out the right questions to ask, but I'm a little baffled on this one. The answers aren't satisfying me quite yet. Thank goodness most of my stories have taken place in the summer so far.
Heating Prague Castle - https://www.flickr.com/photos/17999863@N00/4704439970/
Comfort heating - http://www.achrnews.com/articles/87035-an-early-history-of-comfort-heating
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Mapping
Maps are beasties notoriously difficult to get right. Before even thinking about the tools of measuring and recording the information to depict, we are generally talking about depicting a 3D world in a 2D format. Then, of course, our world is a spheroid, so if we're doing a world map, we need to take the contours of the planet into consideration (yes, there is a West Wing episode that discusses this and more). Yes, I'm going to blame China Mieville for making me think about all of this again since I started reading The City & The City.
I find it oddly enjoyable to go back over old maps and globe that I encounter and see how many countries don't exist anymore (ok, it makes me feel a little old too). Even more fascinating is to study maps that were created well before modern cartographic methods. Really, people made treaties based on these things? I guess, if you had nothing better...
Before we all get too smug about how sad and simple our ancestors were, I suggest you have a go at drawing a small map, to scale. Try your back yard and see how well you do. I had to do one in college as part of a Geology class, in an open field with clearly identifiable landmarks, using Brunton compasses, but only our strides to measure distances. Give is a try. Go ahead, I can wait.
(Whistles)
Now, for the moment, I'm going to ignore seafaring charts and rudders (thank you for all that info, Shogun) to keep this conversation with myself relatively simple.
Creating a map is a simple concept that gets dicier the bigger you get. If you can see all of the things on your map simultaneously in real life, then it's relatively easy to freehand the map pretty close to accurate (so long as you take a turn standing on each of the cardinal points in the real world while looking at the finished product to make sure there is no distortion over distance). It probably won't be very accurate compared to today's detailed mapping, but a damn slice better than what de Gama had to work with. The hard part comes when the mapmaker can't see from one edge of his subject to the other. Then (if you're not just going to motherfuck it) you have to rely on measurements and triangulation. Triangulation (for the uninitiated) is the process of identifying a point in space relative to three fixed points. Sounds simple enough, but guess again.
One of the essential difficulties in triangulation is the measurement of distance. We can ignore the "what is a foot?" question for the moment as long as we are not comparing two different maps. The difficulty comes in the form of topography. If I am on a level field, it is relatively easy to step off the distances. Rolling hills increase the degree of difficulty. No, the difficulty is not from getting tired. The distance we are trying to measure is the horizontal displacement (yes, we are on a curved planet. No one said this was easy, or at least I didn't). When you include vertical displacement you create error (the lines triangulating your fixed point will cross, instead of meeting prettily). This why surveyors use the system with the "dummy stick."
The other big issue I'll cover today is, "what constitutes a fixed point?" A corner of a building is useful. A tree will probably be there for a while, but where is the point that a mountain begins? Where is the edge of the forest? How many points do you need to measure the bends of a stream or river? If we're drawing a map that is divided by a mountain chain, how do we line up those two sides? How do you triangualte a coastline? It feels like we refer to traditional cartography as an "art" for a pretty good reason.
"Here there be dragons," is part of the lore of cartography, but there were plenty of unknowns and inaccuracies within a map's boundaries as well. Some of this improved as the compass came into general circulation and you could take bearings on fixed points (essentially using the angles, as well as sides of the triangle) instead of just measuring distances. However, inaccuracies persisted. This can't be surprising, if you've ever tried to get driving directions from your computer. There weren't gangs of surveyors out constantly making sure the mountains were in the right places or that the rivers bent just so. Old maps were copied and old mistakes calcified. Later mapmakers created "trap streets" and even faked towns in an effort to combat plagiarism (these were intentional mistakes by the mapmaker that would clearly mark another's work as a copy). Yup, really.
You might be asking yourself, "what the fuck does this have to do with Fantasy writing?" Well, I'll tell you. One of my favorite bits of early Fantasy reading was from the minds of Weiss and Hickman, using an old map to lead a party of adventurers to a sea that no longer existed. It's an easy way to get lost, to mistime an army's pincer movement, to unintentionally cross a boarder, and so on. Bad maps (and heroes with a bad sense of direction) are a simple plot device that can be put to any number of uses. Why don't you have some fun with your today?
West Wing clip - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qZNeUkwB3nM
Surveying Supplies - http://www.engineersupply.com/surveying-equipment.aspx
Map Traps - http://www.gislounge.com/map-traps-intentional-mapping-errors-combat-plagiarism/
Surveying Wiki - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying
I find it oddly enjoyable to go back over old maps and globe that I encounter and see how many countries don't exist anymore (ok, it makes me feel a little old too). Even more fascinating is to study maps that were created well before modern cartographic methods. Really, people made treaties based on these things? I guess, if you had nothing better...
Before we all get too smug about how sad and simple our ancestors were, I suggest you have a go at drawing a small map, to scale. Try your back yard and see how well you do. I had to do one in college as part of a Geology class, in an open field with clearly identifiable landmarks, using Brunton compasses, but only our strides to measure distances. Give is a try. Go ahead, I can wait.
(Whistles)
Now, for the moment, I'm going to ignore seafaring charts and rudders (thank you for all that info, Shogun) to keep this conversation with myself relatively simple.
Creating a map is a simple concept that gets dicier the bigger you get. If you can see all of the things on your map simultaneously in real life, then it's relatively easy to freehand the map pretty close to accurate (so long as you take a turn standing on each of the cardinal points in the real world while looking at the finished product to make sure there is no distortion over distance). It probably won't be very accurate compared to today's detailed mapping, but a damn slice better than what de Gama had to work with. The hard part comes when the mapmaker can't see from one edge of his subject to the other. Then (if you're not just going to motherfuck it) you have to rely on measurements and triangulation. Triangulation (for the uninitiated) is the process of identifying a point in space relative to three fixed points. Sounds simple enough, but guess again.
One of the essential difficulties in triangulation is the measurement of distance. We can ignore the "what is a foot?" question for the moment as long as we are not comparing two different maps. The difficulty comes in the form of topography. If I am on a level field, it is relatively easy to step off the distances. Rolling hills increase the degree of difficulty. No, the difficulty is not from getting tired. The distance we are trying to measure is the horizontal displacement (yes, we are on a curved planet. No one said this was easy, or at least I didn't). When you include vertical displacement you create error (the lines triangulating your fixed point will cross, instead of meeting prettily). This why surveyors use the system with the "dummy stick."
The other big issue I'll cover today is, "what constitutes a fixed point?" A corner of a building is useful. A tree will probably be there for a while, but where is the point that a mountain begins? Where is the edge of the forest? How many points do you need to measure the bends of a stream or river? If we're drawing a map that is divided by a mountain chain, how do we line up those two sides? How do you triangualte a coastline? It feels like we refer to traditional cartography as an "art" for a pretty good reason.
"Here there be dragons," is part of the lore of cartography, but there were plenty of unknowns and inaccuracies within a map's boundaries as well. Some of this improved as the compass came into general circulation and you could take bearings on fixed points (essentially using the angles, as well as sides of the triangle) instead of just measuring distances. However, inaccuracies persisted. This can't be surprising, if you've ever tried to get driving directions from your computer. There weren't gangs of surveyors out constantly making sure the mountains were in the right places or that the rivers bent just so. Old maps were copied and old mistakes calcified. Later mapmakers created "trap streets" and even faked towns in an effort to combat plagiarism (these were intentional mistakes by the mapmaker that would clearly mark another's work as a copy). Yup, really.
You might be asking yourself, "what the fuck does this have to do with Fantasy writing?" Well, I'll tell you. One of my favorite bits of early Fantasy reading was from the minds of Weiss and Hickman, using an old map to lead a party of adventurers to a sea that no longer existed. It's an easy way to get lost, to mistime an army's pincer movement, to unintentionally cross a boarder, and so on. Bad maps (and heroes with a bad sense of direction) are a simple plot device that can be put to any number of uses. Why don't you have some fun with your today?
West Wing clip - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qZNeUkwB3nM
Surveying Supplies - http://www.engineersupply.com/surveying-equipment.aspx
Map Traps - http://www.gislounge.com/map-traps-intentional-mapping-errors-combat-plagiarism/
Surveying Wiki - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying
Friday, November 21, 2014
Injuries and Illnesses (preliminary)
Growing up with a pediatrician in the house (thanks Dad) minimized the effects of illness and injury about as much as possible. I remember a specific evening where we went to his office so he could sew up my knee and there were numerous occasions when I was dosed with the appropriate samples of medications brought home from the office after a call from mom (who was a nurse). I wasn't exactly injure prone (never broke a bone of any significance), but there was rarely any real concern about my physical well-being or the best ways to take care of my health. This makes my childhood significantly different from kids I grew up around, much less those who grew up 500 years ago (who I like to write about).
We know that childhood today is significantly different than in days of yore (college added Growing Up in Medieval London, by Barbara Hanawalt, to my collection) and that medicine has made certain advances, but relatively few of our Fantasy characters seem to reflect those differences. Again, here GRRM is an exception, though he has helpfully provided the crippled boy with a gentle giant to portage him about. When I think about the numbers of my friends who have suffered broken arms or legs during the course of their lives, I start to think there should be a fair number more limpers about.
Scars have become more common on our heroes, especially if you like Joe Abercrombie's brand of story, but it's still mostly the "bad guys" who get disfigured. I had a regular at my old restaurant who was missing the fingertips (what do you call the finger segments again?) on his right hand, probably from a workplace accident, but it didn't seem polite to ask. Workplace accidents are hardly uncommon, especially in the trades. Medieval style worlds may not have those factory death-traps that Steampunk worlds should, but do you think farms don't have their hazards? Kids through the ages have always had to learn their limits the hard way.
Professional warriors will bear more than scars as evidence of their trade. In recent reading I came across an article about cauliflower ear and its causes. I knew a bit about this, having been friends with some wrestlers, but when I read the ESPN bit about it (see the notes below) yesterday, it struck me that these are a bit more than cosmetic concerns. In the article, the MMA fighter mentions that she had been removing syringes worth of fluid from the ears, regularly, prior to hers exploding in the fight (there are pictures, so be warned). It seems reasonable to assume that this condition would not be uncommon in professional soldiers and townspeople who enjoy their share of rough-housing.
Illnesses also leave their marks upon the afflicted. Lung infections may permanently decrease someone's endurance. Poxes will leave their scars (for those who survive them). Childhood diseases may affect development. Boils wouldn't be uncommon. Lots of fun diseases leave physical reminders you can inflict upon your characters.
As we've mentioned before, sometimes the intended cures will leave worse marks than the illnesses. Mercury as a cure, really? Poultices were potential sources of infection, depending on what you used (some were actually effective). People still put butter on burns. Some of the syphalis cures are fun to read about as well. You think they'd be deterrent enough.
I've droned on long enough. It's a good start on a lengthy topic. I don't mean to sound gleeful about the suffering of others, but writing for me (as difficult as it can be) is always play. Children are not more careful today than they were 500 years ago, we just have better medicine. Their lives were not safer. You can argue that more of them died as a result, but plenty made it through. Injuries are part of life and caring for them was part of the common lore (even if some was fallacious), leaving us with scars and lost limbs instead of fatalities. I personally have a nice little scar on my arm from brushing against a hot skillet. Give you characters a scar or two. Give your characters a history.
Cauliflower Ear - http://io9.com/what-is-a-cauliflower-ear-1659097505
Graphic info regarding CE - http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/11906630/how-ufc-leslie-smith-recovering-exploded-cauliflower-ear
We know that childhood today is significantly different than in days of yore (college added Growing Up in Medieval London, by Barbara Hanawalt, to my collection) and that medicine has made certain advances, but relatively few of our Fantasy characters seem to reflect those differences. Again, here GRRM is an exception, though he has helpfully provided the crippled boy with a gentle giant to portage him about. When I think about the numbers of my friends who have suffered broken arms or legs during the course of their lives, I start to think there should be a fair number more limpers about.
Scars have become more common on our heroes, especially if you like Joe Abercrombie's brand of story, but it's still mostly the "bad guys" who get disfigured. I had a regular at my old restaurant who was missing the fingertips (what do you call the finger segments again?) on his right hand, probably from a workplace accident, but it didn't seem polite to ask. Workplace accidents are hardly uncommon, especially in the trades. Medieval style worlds may not have those factory death-traps that Steampunk worlds should, but do you think farms don't have their hazards? Kids through the ages have always had to learn their limits the hard way.
Professional warriors will bear more than scars as evidence of their trade. In recent reading I came across an article about cauliflower ear and its causes. I knew a bit about this, having been friends with some wrestlers, but when I read the ESPN bit about it (see the notes below) yesterday, it struck me that these are a bit more than cosmetic concerns. In the article, the MMA fighter mentions that she had been removing syringes worth of fluid from the ears, regularly, prior to hers exploding in the fight (there are pictures, so be warned). It seems reasonable to assume that this condition would not be uncommon in professional soldiers and townspeople who enjoy their share of rough-housing.
Illnesses also leave their marks upon the afflicted. Lung infections may permanently decrease someone's endurance. Poxes will leave their scars (for those who survive them). Childhood diseases may affect development. Boils wouldn't be uncommon. Lots of fun diseases leave physical reminders you can inflict upon your characters.
As we've mentioned before, sometimes the intended cures will leave worse marks than the illnesses. Mercury as a cure, really? Poultices were potential sources of infection, depending on what you used (some were actually effective). People still put butter on burns. Some of the syphalis cures are fun to read about as well. You think they'd be deterrent enough.
I've droned on long enough. It's a good start on a lengthy topic. I don't mean to sound gleeful about the suffering of others, but writing for me (as difficult as it can be) is always play. Children are not more careful today than they were 500 years ago, we just have better medicine. Their lives were not safer. You can argue that more of them died as a result, but plenty made it through. Injuries are part of life and caring for them was part of the common lore (even if some was fallacious), leaving us with scars and lost limbs instead of fatalities. I personally have a nice little scar on my arm from brushing against a hot skillet. Give you characters a scar or two. Give your characters a history.
Cauliflower Ear - http://io9.com/what-is-a-cauliflower-ear-1659097505
Graphic info regarding CE - http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/11906630/how-ufc-leslie-smith-recovering-exploded-cauliflower-ear
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Train stations
Yes, I know it sounds like an odd post for an aspiring Fantasy author, but hear me out.
A long time ago I took a trip around Europe. For three weeks I traversed England, France, and Germany (taking a step or three into Scotland and Switzerland), mostly by train. Yes, I only had a backpack. No, I didn't spend much time in my tent, but I was happy to have it on a couple of occasions. To get back on point, in that time, I noticed that there seemed to be an almost national character about each country's rail system. It's quite possible that memory has played tricks, or that I layered my preconceived notions onto my observations, but whenever you have a national system (In your world), the character of that nation can be implied by the physical manifestation of that system.
The English rail system seemed picturesque. The buildings seemed to be constructed out of storybooks, with flower filled window-boxes and rustic touches. One of my trains was followed by a helicopter, aparently shooting a documentary about scenic train trips (at least i think that was a camera mount). Everything seemd very carefully controlled, even if the trains didn't always run on schedule. What really seemed to tell though, was the layers of paint visible on the metalwork. The joint between the beams and the rivets was hidden under generations of upkeep. It was like the country as a whole was consciously and collectively trying to hold on to some ideal history and the paint might be the only thing holding it together.
France was a very different story. It seemed to be more about faded glory. Stone and plaster were crumbling. The paint was chipped and fading. Steel showed trails of rust. The stations were open and airy, with the sense that they used to be somehow more full, of people and life. Maybe they had sold some of the old furnishings. There was little to keep you from wandering across the tracks, the ones with the flowering weeds sprouted between the ties. Trains ran... Unless the workers were on strike.
Germany served as a clear contrast to the others. Germany's railways were clean and modern, all glass and steel. Clear signage pointed you where you needed to go and the trains always seemed to run on time. Like in the US, trains are a means to an end, not a symbol of the past. The past isn't important anyway, right?
More recently I spent a few years living in the Czech Republic. While Prague has some nice stations, most of the outlying towns and cities are not so lucky. Most of the trains have paint faded in the sun, from being in service for so long. Stations tend to be concrete boxes, with some severe wooden benches where you can sit while you hope your train will some day arrive. Some of these stations did have pretty great Soviet style murals on the interiors, or old metal symbols on the exterior. When I worked in Kladno, I'd frequently walk the tracks for a half mile or so into the station as a shortcut. The Czechs seem to generally support your freedom to get yourself killed.
Brazil didn't have much of a train system that I saw. There was a subway, of sorts, in Brasilia and one in Rio, but they didn't go very far. Busses were the main way I got around in Brasil. They tell me that there was a schedule. They posted departure time at Rodoviario Plano Pilota and the Rodoviario in Sudoeste (though Sudoeste's were printed on paper and taped to the pillar by the appropriate bus position), but these were suggestions at best. Bus shelters were usually just a curl of concrete or a cinder block wall with a tin roof to protect you from the rain. They didn't even tell you the bus line servicing the shelters, much less when you could expect the next one, though people in Brasilia tended to leave old books in the shelters, so at least you wouldn't be bored while you waited, even if the maps in them were 20 years out of date.
All of these are simple examples of detail which differentiate one country from another. I could go on for pages about the peculiarities of these institutions. Other examples are things like the postal service, or healthcare. How they impact your characters, like in Kafka's The Castle, will speak to the national psyche. The presence, or lack, or these institutions may also be telling. It is these kinds of touches that can help give depth to your world without requiring a ten page info dump.
A long time ago I took a trip around Europe. For three weeks I traversed England, France, and Germany (taking a step or three into Scotland and Switzerland), mostly by train. Yes, I only had a backpack. No, I didn't spend much time in my tent, but I was happy to have it on a couple of occasions. To get back on point, in that time, I noticed that there seemed to be an almost national character about each country's rail system. It's quite possible that memory has played tricks, or that I layered my preconceived notions onto my observations, but whenever you have a national system (In your world), the character of that nation can be implied by the physical manifestation of that system.
The English rail system seemed picturesque. The buildings seemed to be constructed out of storybooks, with flower filled window-boxes and rustic touches. One of my trains was followed by a helicopter, aparently shooting a documentary about scenic train trips (at least i think that was a camera mount). Everything seemd very carefully controlled, even if the trains didn't always run on schedule. What really seemed to tell though, was the layers of paint visible on the metalwork. The joint between the beams and the rivets was hidden under generations of upkeep. It was like the country as a whole was consciously and collectively trying to hold on to some ideal history and the paint might be the only thing holding it together.
France was a very different story. It seemed to be more about faded glory. Stone and plaster were crumbling. The paint was chipped and fading. Steel showed trails of rust. The stations were open and airy, with the sense that they used to be somehow more full, of people and life. Maybe they had sold some of the old furnishings. There was little to keep you from wandering across the tracks, the ones with the flowering weeds sprouted between the ties. Trains ran... Unless the workers were on strike.
Germany served as a clear contrast to the others. Germany's railways were clean and modern, all glass and steel. Clear signage pointed you where you needed to go and the trains always seemed to run on time. Like in the US, trains are a means to an end, not a symbol of the past. The past isn't important anyway, right?
More recently I spent a few years living in the Czech Republic. While Prague has some nice stations, most of the outlying towns and cities are not so lucky. Most of the trains have paint faded in the sun, from being in service for so long. Stations tend to be concrete boxes, with some severe wooden benches where you can sit while you hope your train will some day arrive. Some of these stations did have pretty great Soviet style murals on the interiors, or old metal symbols on the exterior. When I worked in Kladno, I'd frequently walk the tracks for a half mile or so into the station as a shortcut. The Czechs seem to generally support your freedom to get yourself killed.
Brazil didn't have much of a train system that I saw. There was a subway, of sorts, in Brasilia and one in Rio, but they didn't go very far. Busses were the main way I got around in Brasil. They tell me that there was a schedule. They posted departure time at Rodoviario Plano Pilota and the Rodoviario in Sudoeste (though Sudoeste's were printed on paper and taped to the pillar by the appropriate bus position), but these were suggestions at best. Bus shelters were usually just a curl of concrete or a cinder block wall with a tin roof to protect you from the rain. They didn't even tell you the bus line servicing the shelters, much less when you could expect the next one, though people in Brasilia tended to leave old books in the shelters, so at least you wouldn't be bored while you waited, even if the maps in them were 20 years out of date.
All of these are simple examples of detail which differentiate one country from another. I could go on for pages about the peculiarities of these institutions. Other examples are things like the postal service, or healthcare. How they impact your characters, like in Kafka's The Castle, will speak to the national psyche. The presence, or lack, or these institutions may also be telling. It is these kinds of touches that can help give depth to your world without requiring a ten page info dump.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Urban Planning
Yes, I'm talking about designing your world based on historical templates. The concept of urban planning may seem laughable to many of us when we have visited the narrow twisty streets of old European cities, but not all cities evolved in the same manner. The traditional image that many of us have is of a village that evolved into a city over hundreds of years of evolution and accretion. These burgeoning population centers may have started with muddy byways and slowly grown outwards over the surrounding countryside, which little thought to commerce or sanitation, but not all of them did. Just as nations, cities arose in various ways.
Military encampments of the Roman Legion formed a strict grid structure at the heart of many cities thought Europe. Granted, once you get beyond the original boundaries of the Roman camp the purity of the grid tends to break down, but the root structure is there around what generally becomes the center of government. Grid structures were popular in most cities that were built by intention, rather than happenstance, for obvious reasons. These cities are easier to navigate. They make it easier to transport goods, especially with broad diagonal boulevards cutting the grid. It's also easier to quantify and regulate a population in a space that is carefully managed.
Cities designed around governmental or religious buildings may have a radial pattern splaying outward from this central hub. These outer layers serve both as support structures and protection for these central buildings. Successive layers of ring walls may be built as the population expands. Radial patterns are likely to form only part of the city's structure, as they require significantly more precision than the simple grid pattern. Washington DC implemented a radial pattern with a series of circles as a part of a defensive plan for the city.
Topography will often be the defining factor in how a city is laid out (especially if you don't have the technology or manpower to alter it). Hills may encourage a radial pattern. Homes built along a river might give a sinuous curve to their access road. Defensive fortifications will often get the high ground while the commoners fill up the lowlands surrounding. Markets develop along the riverside both because it's easier to transport goods there and because there may be season flooding along the banks. Ground that is too highly sloped or a little rockier might just become the graveyard.
Very few cities have been entirely planned from the outset (though DC and Brasilia are two), so they end up being a mixture of elements. Have you gone to Manhatten and visited The Village after being so sure of yourself in Midtown? Most planned cities grow beyond their original borders in a rather haphazard way. Then again, many old cities have had cataclysmic events (The Great Fire, in London) that made it easy to redraw their maps in a more efficient manner, without evicting massive number of people from their homes and businesses (though not every nation has been averse to that). The simple layout of your city can be a colorful touch which allows you to discuss the history of your world and add significant layers to its character.
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/manual/history.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/619445/urban-planning
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning
http://munsonscity.com/tag/radial-grid/
Military encampments of the Roman Legion formed a strict grid structure at the heart of many cities thought Europe. Granted, once you get beyond the original boundaries of the Roman camp the purity of the grid tends to break down, but the root structure is there around what generally becomes the center of government. Grid structures were popular in most cities that were built by intention, rather than happenstance, for obvious reasons. These cities are easier to navigate. They make it easier to transport goods, especially with broad diagonal boulevards cutting the grid. It's also easier to quantify and regulate a population in a space that is carefully managed.
Cities designed around governmental or religious buildings may have a radial pattern splaying outward from this central hub. These outer layers serve both as support structures and protection for these central buildings. Successive layers of ring walls may be built as the population expands. Radial patterns are likely to form only part of the city's structure, as they require significantly more precision than the simple grid pattern. Washington DC implemented a radial pattern with a series of circles as a part of a defensive plan for the city.
Topography will often be the defining factor in how a city is laid out (especially if you don't have the technology or manpower to alter it). Hills may encourage a radial pattern. Homes built along a river might give a sinuous curve to their access road. Defensive fortifications will often get the high ground while the commoners fill up the lowlands surrounding. Markets develop along the riverside both because it's easier to transport goods there and because there may be season flooding along the banks. Ground that is too highly sloped or a little rockier might just become the graveyard.
Very few cities have been entirely planned from the outset (though DC and Brasilia are two), so they end up being a mixture of elements. Have you gone to Manhatten and visited The Village after being so sure of yourself in Midtown? Most planned cities grow beyond their original borders in a rather haphazard way. Then again, many old cities have had cataclysmic events (The Great Fire, in London) that made it easy to redraw their maps in a more efficient manner, without evicting massive number of people from their homes and businesses (though not every nation has been averse to that). The simple layout of your city can be a colorful touch which allows you to discuss the history of your world and add significant layers to its character.
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/manual/history.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/619445/urban-planning
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning
http://munsonscity.com/tag/radial-grid/
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Headgear
| http://archive.peruthisweek.com/blogs/travel/476 |
Hats have been employed by almost every culture where people have heads. We use em to keep off the sun and the rain as well. They keep us from getting too cold and serve as handy status symbols (both social and military). Some are used in religious rituals and others provide simple protection from getting thumped. Materials range from straw, to fur, to felt, and beyond. Granted, not every material is suited to every style of hat, but you work with what you've got.Yes, yes, hooded cloaks are very dramatic, but there is so much more to the world of head coverings than that. No, I'm not talking about helmets, though more fantasy characters should be wearing those too (this ain't the movies kids, we can imagine your characters' faces just fine). What I'm talking about is a good old fashioned hat.
Head coverings can provide a shorthand for society and story writer. You know a British police officer when you see his helmet bobbing above the crowd. A man in a tam probably connects himself to a certain history. Similarly, a kepi or a shako has a distinct martial flare. Big furry caps, coming down over the ears, provide an entirely different image. Didn't they used to make college freshmen wear beanies? You get what I'm saying here.
Maybe I'm biased, since I grew up loving hats and wearing them (my grandpop used to work in the Stetson factory and always wore em, so i stole his), but they really should more prevalent in Fantasy. They can be entirely utilitarian or they can grant a touch of flare. Nothing wrong with giving your character an ostentatious plume, but don't neglect to adorn others in your stories with more subdued head coverings. Ladies can get in on this too, even if they're just headscarves or those pointy princess hats. I want to bring em back people. Hats for everyone.
Wiki (pics of various traditional and ethnic styles) - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Water Clocks
Again, still working underground, the question is, "How do you tell time?" If you're living close to the surface, it could be a simple system of relays to note sunrise, sunset, noon and so on. Mister Salvatore invented a massive pillar lit once per day by a master wizard character, which told the time for all who could see it. In essence, time of day doesn't matter much to those who live underground. It's always feeding time in the dark. However, to make a more advanced society work, you probably need some mutually agreed upon method to measure time so that work shifts can be measured and you can all arrive for meetings more or less simultaneously. Obviously the sundial won't work, so we move on to the water clock.
There are two basic forms of water clock: inflow and outflow. Both depend upon a consistent flow of water. An outflow clock is filled with water, which escapes at a uniform rate, with markings along the side which can be read to tell the passage of time. An inflow clock has a second container (with the markings) that collects that water. A second version of the inflow clock has the inflow bowl floating in water, so that the sinking of the inflow vessel would mark the time. These two simple concepts were a good start, but generally not very accurate (difficult to maintain a constant water pressure) or precise (difficult to make perfect graduations to mark time).
The Greeks and Romans advanced water clock design with mechanical components. Through the use of gearing and escapement mechanisms (when a vessel fills to a certain point it tips, activating a pulley, empties and resets). These were connected to bells, gongs and even automated figures (think cuckoo clocks). These clocks were designed even more elaborately in the Arabian world, involving astronomical/astrological elements (though these are obviously not very interesting for those who live underground). The Chinese, as well, built some incredibly complex mechanisms. It wasn't until the 17th Century that the more accurate pendulum clocks replaced water clocks in Europe.
The implications for a subterranean people are simple. As long as you have a steady supply of water, you can have a water clock. You might not be reading off the gradations on said clock, but you could set up a vertical series of buckets to count the hours of the day. It's possible to set up a more complex mechanization to turn a waterwheel whose rotations mark off the hours. You can design all kinds of bells and whistles to sound in response to the passage of time as well. With a little ingenuity you don't need eyesight to tell time. The real beauty is that you don't even need to worry about seasonality or being in time with the outside world, as long as you are internally consistent.
General - http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0855491.html
Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock
The Basics - http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/ancient-invention-water-clock-001818
klepsydra - http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Water_clocks.html
 |
| http://romantech.wikispaces.com/A+-+Water+Clock |
There are two basic forms of water clock: inflow and outflow. Both depend upon a consistent flow of water. An outflow clock is filled with water, which escapes at a uniform rate, with markings along the side which can be read to tell the passage of time. An inflow clock has a second container (with the markings) that collects that water. A second version of the inflow clock has the inflow bowl floating in water, so that the sinking of the inflow vessel would mark the time. These two simple concepts were a good start, but generally not very accurate (difficult to maintain a constant water pressure) or precise (difficult to make perfect graduations to mark time).
The Greeks and Romans advanced water clock design with mechanical components. Through the use of gearing and escapement mechanisms (when a vessel fills to a certain point it tips, activating a pulley, empties and resets). These were connected to bells, gongs and even automated figures (think cuckoo clocks). These clocks were designed even more elaborately in the Arabian world, involving astronomical/astrological elements (though these are obviously not very interesting for those who live underground). The Chinese, as well, built some incredibly complex mechanisms. It wasn't until the 17th Century that the more accurate pendulum clocks replaced water clocks in Europe.
The implications for a subterranean people are simple. As long as you have a steady supply of water, you can have a water clock. You might not be reading off the gradations on said clock, but you could set up a vertical series of buckets to count the hours of the day. It's possible to set up a more complex mechanization to turn a waterwheel whose rotations mark off the hours. You can design all kinds of bells and whistles to sound in response to the passage of time as well. With a little ingenuity you don't need eyesight to tell time. The real beauty is that you don't even need to worry about seasonality or being in time with the outside world, as long as you are internally consistent.
General - http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0855491.html
Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock
The Basics - http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/ancient-invention-water-clock-001818
klepsydra - http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Water_clocks.html
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