[OSR] Real places to use in RPG [2]: Cats' Alley

Real places in RPG [2]: Cats' Alley

One thing that is really often forgotten in fantasy gaming, is how compact medieval towns were. Streets were narrow (sometimes, like in this case, not even wide enough for a carriage to get through) and stone houses were very rare.

This is a picture of one of the few remaining very narrow streets in my home town of Troyes, Champagne Region, France. It is called "La ruelle aux chats", meaning cats' alley.

As you can see, the street is very narrow, the houses were not really stable, hence the beams connecting the buildings, to make sure they don't lean completely on each other (and don't crumble into the street either).

Since this is France, there is also a rumor saying the beams were used by lovers to get to each other stealthily...

Fantasy architecture

Broad streets and luminous housing is not a typical concept in a medieval town. Space was scarce (at least if you wanted to live securely protected by the towns fortifications) and wattle & daub was the most used building material (at least in my home region). What is that ? It is a method for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips is daubed with a sticky material,  like wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw.

I guess some spells could help create or cut stones and make them affordable, but isn't magic expensive anyway? (I must say, a stonemason-wizard would look stylish, though)

Problem

Wattle & daub was quite cheap but had a tremendous disadvantage... It is quite flammable. The straw in the building material means that in a case of fire, a lot of buildings would burn down (this happened a few times in Troyes). The blaze will ignite other building quite quickly and fire spread easily and quickly.

Consequences on Fantasy

Well it means that uncontrolled open fire is to be banned, as much as possible.

If I were the burgomaster of a town, I would immediately ban all fire magic and either exile any petty offender, or just hang them high.

Imagine how many houses a fireball would set on fire! Remember, magical fire does not have to be a tamed resource, always in control of the caster and solely burning opponents.

Fire is non judgmental... Fire just burns everything it can: clothing, hair, buildings, cattle & mules, e-ve-ry-thing.

So next time your players are ambushed by assassins in a narrow street, jumping down on them from the house-stabilization beams, and defend themselves with a fireball or burning hands, don't forget to make them accountable for the destruction of at least a house block by the ensuing blaze. 

Just in case you were running out of troubles to throw at your PCs.

Alchemist fire

That is something that would be absolutely banned from any urban area in a medieval setting. This alchemy arson weapon is MADE to be difficult to extinguish!

Guards would search persons for this kind of dangerous weapon and confiscate it at the town's gates!

You might even want to ban its components (probably a combination of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, and/or niter).

Wouldn't that be a wonderful opportunity for smugglers?

Fire fighters

The ability to magically control fire (like the 5E cantrip "Control Flames") would be a must for a fire-fighting force in a city that can afford such a unit (most towns relied of massively levy the population in such cases). Having a sorcerer that can cast it would be nice, but having a wizard that would teach a unit of specialized guards this cantrip would be even better.

Not having a retired wizard adventurer on the roll could be a disastrous decision for a town.

If your party's wizard behaves badly or just plainly uses magic all the time, the town might want to have him sequestrated until he taught "Control Flames" to a bunch of illiterate town guards.

If you want your fire-fighters to be clerics or druids, the spell "Create Or Destroy Water" in its create rain version could be usefull and only is a lvl 1 spell. Still 10 gallons / 37 liters are not a lot of water to extinguish the blaze of an urban conflagration...

If you know of better ways to fight fire in a fantasy setting, please tell me so in the comments !

Real places in RPG post series

1. Living tree root bridges
   
2. you are here
3. Harihar Fort - endless staircases, fortifications & magic
4. Eternal Flame Falls
   
5. Fingal's Cave
   
6. Die Rakotzbrücke or the Rakotz / Devil's bridge
   
7. Izadkhast Caravanserai
8. Majlis al-Jinn Cave

[OSR] Real places to use in RPG [1]: Living root bridges

Real places to use in RPG [1]: Living root bridges

On Facebook, I recently joined a group named "RPG Worldbuilders Visual Inspiration and Prompts". What I've seen there triggered a lust for writing.

So i'll start a new series of posts, based on real places or things in our world, and how that would mean something or plainly exist in an OSR dungeonverse.

Living Root Bridges from India

A living root bridge is a type of suspension bridge formed of living plant roots by tree shaping. It means that people weave the aerial roots of rubber fig trees to form a bridge.

Relevance in Fantasy

These images have a "magical" feeling to me.

Sure it probably took a long time of weaving ang letting the roots grow to obtain a suspended tree like this. 

But now imagine a ritual that would grow this kind of bridge within hours!

Would it not be the kind of magical feat you would expect from a druid?

Sure, "entangle" and "grow plants" are not rituals (in 5e), and getting this effect with these spells would need acceptance from the DM. But how could a DM not accept this kind of creative use of magic? Would refusing this kind of usage not lead to a disenchantment of the world for the player?

Place of druids in a fantasy army

Medieval armies (and greek/roman armies before them) always maintained at least one engineer on the payroll, to create siege weapons, siege engines, and in some cases: bridges!

Those weapons and bridges took a lot of time to saw and build before they could be used.

I don't think a fantasy army would spare the cost of an engineer, but a druid should be a must.

1. Druids can help "grow food" to nourrish the army
2. Druids can "grow trees" to acquire building material
3. With the right seeds in their pocket, druids can "grow bridges" within a night to take a shortcut to surprise the enemy, ambush, or flank them. 

Remember that wide river (something like the Mississipi, the Nile, or the Ganges) where the enemy is holding all the bridges? Well, that does not really impedes you long to create a bridge. If your druid is a good swimmer or you can build a raft, 2 druids could work in concert from each side of the river to create a sturdy bridge overnight.

Remember that deep, impassable Canyon between your duchy and the realm of Karham, the Undead's King? Maybe you should have this area patrolled on a regular basis, just in case he gets his hands on a wicked druid (for example a druid of the Circle of Spores?)...

Fantasy warfare

As you see, medieval warfare techniques, as fun as it is to use them in a high fantasy game, are deeply impacted by this ability to grow tree. And this is not even an offensive spell like fireball. This is grow plant, a 3rd level spell that seems more flavor than useful.

We need to rethink our approach of magical warfare, as it cannot (at least not in a high fantasy setting) be compared with our own medieval tactics.

In conclusion

I hope you liked how a simple root bridge from India could have strong repercussions on your fantasy gaming.

I hope you'll see the evil lurking in every druid, now *grin*

Feel free to leave a comment !

Real places in RPG post series

1. you are here
2. Cats' alley - Medieval cities & fire
3. Harihar Fort - endless staircases, fortifications & magic
4. Eternal Flame Falls
   
5. Fingal's Cave
   
6. Die Rakotzbrücke or the Rakotz / Devil's bridge
   
7. Izadkhast Caravanserai
8. Majlis al-Jinn Cave

So what happened during the pandemic? And what's next?

Blog Pause

As some of you may have seen, i have not updated this blog for a while and the COVID19 pandemic is only one of the reasons...

First I want to say sorry to all those still awaiting the recap of the "Alchemy" month of the carnival of blog. I will do it, I promise!

Actual play

I've used the lock-down time to try out to work on new things, new media.

I've started to play Ironsworn for an audience and streamed 4 episodes of theatrical solo role-play. Trying new media means that i sucked at it and the 3 first episodes were either not usable sound wise or just simply not recorded (yeah I had to learn TWICE the lesson "you have to click on record if you want a recording of your session"). So I made a re-play of the 3 first episodes (but without the rolling of dice and thinking of what might happen), because how would anyone starting later on follow the story line is the beginning is missing?

The videos

So if you're interested, here are the first episodes, each ~one hour long. 

The re-play of the start of the saga:

and the only (to this day) live performance i have (episode 4):

(the beard got even longer since)

What's next

I will continue this streaming project. But i need an intrigue to send my character at, with a sect of bad cultists trying to wake up something eldritch in the village my character is staying right now.

The next videos should be:

- one video creating the cartography of the village

- playing out the intrigue

Stellar Fiefdoms

I'll be honest, i haven't written a lot. To be fair i only have written stuff in french for illustration purposes (I've recruited someone very talented, but his english is not that good).

But there are a few illustrations that look GREAT that i will show you soon

D.R.E.A.D.

Design happened in my head, but nothing is yet written. But the developments i thought of are making this setting much more interesting and playable.

With the stuff from the carnival of blogs, i will create an alchemy system. It's been maturating in my head for a while now and I think i'll soon be able to bring it to paper.

OSR stuff

On Facebook, i joined a group named "RPG Worldbuilders Visual Inspiration and Prompts", and participated a lot in the last week there.

What I've seen there triggered the Lust for writing.

So i'll start a new series of post, based on real places or things in our world, and how that would mean something or plainly exist in an OSR dungeonverse.

That's probably what's coming next on here.