Didn't see a thread about this so either I missed it or I'm the only person confused.
Is the living space within the core towers or on the ground between the "Core Towers" and hanging off them? This has never been super clear to me and the myriad map variations fail to clear it up for me.
From ERftLW Chapter 6: Sharn: City of Towers -
"When you live on the inside low, you never see the sun. People hear ‘towers’, they think of graceful little spires, the sort of thing you see poking up in the corner of your lord’s keep. We’ve got those, and lots of ‘em. But the foundation of the city is the core towers. The walls of these towers are so thick, you could fit your lord’s entire castle in one.
You’ve got your outside districts where you get the open air, built on the bridges and platforms that connect the core towers together. You’ve got the little turrets, built on the core tower walls and the bridges between. You’ve got the folk in the middle, who live and work in the walls themselves. And then you’ve got those of us on the inside, our districts entirely contained in the hollow well of a great tower. You look up in Callestan, you see twinkling lights, to be sure. But those aren’t stars, and that isn’t the sky. You’re looking up through a mile of bridges and platforms crossing the well, looking up at the districts above you.
You live up high, you can touch the sky. In the middle you can still see the sun. Down on the inside low, all we have is gloom and the constant drip, water and worse flowing from down from the streets above us."
This blurb does little to clear things up for me so lets break it down.
"The walls of these towers are so thick, you could fit your lord’s entire castle in one." - Seems to indicate the interior of the "Core Towers" are fairly monolithic with little to no living space within the structure itself other than what you see on maps leading into parts of the structure. That doesn't seem like a lot of space for the section of the city that likely contains the largest portion of the population even assuming multiple tiers of turrets hanging off the towers. Do you really have to walk all the way around the outside of the tower to get to the other side or are there pathways through the core tower?
"You’ve got the little turrets, built on the core tower walls and the bridges between. You’ve got the folk in the middle, who live and work in the walls themselves." an argument for both turrets and living spaces within the "Core Towers" themselves. Right? Or is that talking about Districts in Middle and Upper Sharn?
"And then you’ve got those of us on the inside, our districts entirely contained in the hollow well of a great tower. You look up in Callestan, you see twinkling lights, to be sure. But those aren’t stars, and that isn’t the sky." - Then this makes it sound like they live WITHIN the "Core Towers."
"You’re looking up through a mile of bridges and platforms crossing the well, looking up at the districts above you." - then THIS makes it seem like things are mainly between the towers again cause how do you look up at districts above you if you're WITHIN the "Core Towers"?!
I think if I could have some clarification on what "the hollow well of a great tower" is then that would clear things up entirely but google searching the phrase revealed nothing.
Thoughts on this will help me design things my players are going to be doing while in Sharn. Thanks everyone!
So, to make sure I understand, you've always envisioned the "hashed lines" as the area between the towers? The "ground floor" as it were.
And the "Core Towers" of the lower city are, aside from the thick outer walls, largely hollow with structures hanging from the inner walls with bridges crisscrossing the interior space? This would be the proverbial "Hollow well of a great tower" mentioned in the blurb. I like the cobwebs analogy. This is essentially how I pictured it in my head as well though for the sake of mapmaking I'll likely design them more like multiple discrete "levels" within each of the core towers.
Totally agree on the haphazard approach to the structures within the tower well and I'll likely keep that flavor/aesthetic while also defining some discrete layers.
My pleasure of course. Thank you for your input! I'd share the progress I've made editing Callestan but for reasons I totally understand DDB doesn't allow me to upload a pic directly to a forum post it seems.
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Didn't see a thread about this so either I missed it or I'm the only person confused.
Is the living space within the core towers or on the ground between the "Core Towers" and hanging off them? This has never been super clear to me and the myriad map variations fail to clear it up for me.
From ERftLW Chapter 6: Sharn: City of Towers -
"When you live on the inside low, you never see the sun. People hear ‘towers’, they think of graceful little spires, the sort of thing you see poking up in the corner of your lord’s keep. We’ve got those, and lots of ‘em. But the foundation of the city is the core towers. The walls of these towers are so thick, you could fit your lord’s entire castle in one.
You’ve got your outside districts where you get the open air, built on the bridges and platforms that connect the core towers together. You’ve got the little turrets, built on the core tower walls and the bridges between. You’ve got the folk in the middle, who live and work in the walls themselves. And then you’ve got those of us on the inside, our districts entirely contained in the hollow well of a great tower. You look up in Callestan, you see twinkling lights, to be sure. But those aren’t stars, and that isn’t the sky. You’re looking up through a mile of bridges and platforms crossing the well, looking up at the districts above you.
You live up high, you can touch the sky. In the middle you can still see the sun. Down on the inside low, all we have is gloom and the constant drip, water and worse flowing from down from the streets above us."
This blurb does little to clear things up for me so lets break it down.
"The walls of these towers are so thick, you could fit your lord’s entire castle in one." - Seems to indicate the interior of the "Core Towers" are fairly monolithic with little to no living space within the structure itself other than what you see on maps leading into parts of the structure. That doesn't seem like a lot of space for the section of the city that likely contains the largest portion of the population even assuming multiple tiers of turrets hanging off the towers. Do you really have to walk all the way around the outside of the tower to get to the other side or are there pathways through the core tower?
"You’ve got the little turrets, built on the core tower walls and the bridges between. You’ve got the folk in the middle, who live and work in the walls themselves." an argument for both turrets and living spaces within the "Core Towers" themselves. Right? Or is that talking about Districts in Middle and Upper Sharn?
"And then you’ve got those of us on the inside, our districts entirely contained in the hollow well of a great tower. You look up in Callestan, you see twinkling lights, to be sure. But those aren’t stars, and that isn’t the sky." - Then this makes it sound like they live WITHIN the "Core Towers."
"You’re looking up through a mile of bridges and platforms crossing the well, looking up at the districts above you." - then THIS makes it seem like things are mainly between the towers again cause how do you look up at districts above you if you're WITHIN the "Core Towers"?!
I think if I could have some clarification on what "the hollow well of a great tower" is then that would clear things up entirely but google searching the phrase revealed nothing.
Thoughts on this will help me design things my players are going to be doing while in Sharn. Thanks everyone!
So, to make sure I understand, you've always envisioned the "hashed lines" as the area between the towers? The "ground floor" as it were.
And the "Core Towers" of the lower city are, aside from the thick outer walls, largely hollow with structures hanging from the inner walls with bridges crisscrossing the interior space? This would be the proverbial "Hollow well of a great tower" mentioned in the blurb. I like the cobwebs analogy. This is essentially how I pictured it in my head as well though for the sake of mapmaking I'll likely design them more like multiple discrete "levels" within each of the core towers.
Totally agree on the haphazard approach to the structures within the tower well and I'll likely keep that flavor/aesthetic while also defining some discrete layers.
These are the best Sharn maps I've found so far: https://imgur.com/gallery/ki6m6j9
My pleasure of course. Thank you for your input! I'd share the progress I've made editing Callestan but for reasons I totally understand DDB doesn't allow me to upload a pic directly to a forum post it seems.