Lore: I have found no relevant lore written by Tolkien or any people who study his work.
Overhead plan:
I have made two versions of the town, hopefully they feel more like a town rather than a village, when doing this I wanted to keep a few things constant:
Keep the low class houses more spread out than middle class houses
Give the middle class houses a reason to increase land value
Due to the presence of the river, the townās main industry would be agriculture and fishing
Blacksmith and tannery are placed outside the walls because they smell
The first plan has 17 low class houses and 6 middle class houses for a total of 23 houses. The second plan has 22 low class houses and 8 middle class houses for a total of 30 houses, the class of the house indicates how ruined the house is.
Iāll be using the second plan, Iāve just put the first plan in there for completeness.
In each of the plans above, the legend is as follows:
Brown = Low class house
Orange = Middle class house
Red = Walls, bridges, entrances, guardhouses
Blue = Main square/Merchantās square
Yellow = Farmland (brown circles indicate flour mills)
Grey = Roads
This looks well thought out. My only concern is why youāve marked roads and field outlines - do you plan to build these, or are they just there as a reference?
For the roads and fields, the only thing that will mark out that there used to be a road or field there are the small cobbled fences that are used throughout the server as I believe they are the only thing that would survive 2000 odd years, however in addition to the cobbled fences the fields will have the remaining stone foundations of the flour mills.
As for the town/village situation, iām happy to add more housing, iāll just add more connected houses along the riverside and roads. Though I donāt want to add too many more houses along the southern side of the town as if we think of this logically, an attacker could use the houses as a shield to get close to the settlement walls, whereas on the northern side the river protects the town from this. I would also want the guards on the wall to be able to have vision over the roads and supervise road traffic.
Also, beat reminded me that the plan doesnāt have any towers on the walls, be assured, they will have towers
Looks like a really complete application, particularly like the second reference image. Just from the point of realism, why would you say this down was destroyed? I would argue it was most likely destroyed in battle due to itās proximity to the weathered hills, which were a constant war zone. When it comes to when it was abandoned & wrecked, maybe around the time when āIn the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil [ā¦] the kings of Arthedain again claimed the lordship of all Arnor [but] was resisted by Rhudaur.ā Not sure the dates for that though. Donāt know if there is a way to reflect this sorta stuff in the ruining; maybe holes in the wall, poor houses particularly severely ruined. If you disagree with me, feel free to propose an alternative, but just wanted to bring it up. Great app tho!
Thatās a very interesting point Natan, I was so focused on how the settlement would defend itself I completely forgot about how/if it would be attacked.
First off, without looking into lore, I would say that Witch-King led his forces through the break in the river up north towards fort2, as having a large army crossing a small bridge is both impractical and would take quite a long time. So, if the settlement was to be attacked, it would be by a small force or the larger force would swing around and attack the settlement from the west, though that would expose this flank to forces from the Weather Hills, so Iād say a small force is much more practical to attack this kind of settlement.
If we take a view of the lore, during the reign of Malvegil (around TA 1300), Orcs began populating the Ettenmoors and attacking Cardolan and Rhudaur. Many years later Argeleb son of Malvegil (as you said) not only controlled Arthedain, but also Cardolan, hence the construction of the forts on the Weather Hills, this held off the Witch-King for many years.
In TA 1409, Angmar attacked again, this time capturing and torching Cardolan (and the Weather Hills), this is the time Iām assuming the town fell.
If you want to make some ruins in the town, Iāve taken the approach of sections and opened up sections 1 & 2. Map below indicates the extent of each open section.
Right, Iāve taken a look at your ingame plans and the locations of houses etc and I have a few points, and suggestions.
i) No bridges would exist beyond rocks in the river. They would have long collapsed, so I donāt know why youāve marked those out.
ii) The houses closest to the river would have been flooded numerous times due to the fact it looks like theyāre on a flood plain. Furthermore, their proximity to the river would make their foundations even weaker. Therefore, there would be hardly anything left of these houses beyond a few rocks and mounds.
iii) Remember that this town has been abandoned for at least 1600 years. Unless completely excavated (which it would not be) there would be no obvious evidence of whether a house would be upper, middle or lower class, or even what the house was used for. Iām not entirely sure why you have indicated this.
iv) The main square in the centre of the town would be nothing but what it is now, if Iām honest. After 1600 of no use the centre would cease to exist beyond a flat area. Grass would have spread over it.
v) If you were thinking the canoe shed would be made out of wood, it would not exist at all. We wouldnāt even know it even existed there if it was unexcavated. If stone, refer to the points above.
vi) As Forn mentioned before, field walls wouldnāt exist and, due to the age of the ruins and how abandoned they are, it is very unlikely roads would be seen either. They would most likely be the same as the main square.
vii) It is unlikely flour mills would still exist beyond small mounds of grassy stones, if the base was as such. Itās even more likely they wouldnāt exist if they were entirely wood.
viii) The farm houses you have put out would be very similar to the houses in the village, perhaps even more ruined. If you look at farm houses even today that have been abandoned for 60 years there are crumbling ruins overrun by plant life. These farms would be nearly gone and essentially engulfed by vegetation.
ix) Your planned lightly forested area would nearly engulf the small ruins you propose. If Iām honest, I doubt anyone would really know if ruins even were there theyād be so obstructed. At most it would be oddly shaped mounds and stone piles with interestingly shaped rocks.
x) If your āspecialā catagorised landmarks are the likes of fountains etc, know they would barely exist.
xi) Be very careful about the walls and the towers around the central town. If they are thin, naught but a raised, rocky area of land would be left. The towers would likely be the only obvious thing, but their ruins would be a moundy area of ground.
Thatās all I can come up with at present from having a little explore. I hope this helps you! Just really remember how old these ruins are, what their location is, and what they are made out of.
Thanks for the feedback Sarged, but iām not sure whether youāve read the above posts as it goes through many things that youāve brought up, such as the roads and fields, they are there purely for my own benefit and to make sure the town is correctly proportioned according to the overhead plan. But nevertheless iāll answer your suggestions systematically and apply them where I can.
The bridges are in the same category as the roads and fields, the only difference is iāll be adding slightly elevated topsoil where the foundations of the bridge would be.
Good point, there hasnāt been any work done on the houses around the river so itās easily reversible, iāll just add some signs to indicate which houses should be ruined, I might even add some partially flooded houses.
To my understanding the idea throughout the server is that as a houses class increases as does the material it was made from. To put this into better context, a low class house would be made from inferior materials such as timber and thatch and as such the 1600 odd years of erosion would have a greater impact than say a middle class house which would have been made from more superior materials such as stone, bricks and tiles, this trend would increase to upper class housing but I havenāt planned for any of them so I wonāt go into them.
Furthermore, just in case it comes up, professions, I know I have put professions down, and I know some are completely useless, but others such as blacksmith would have profession specific ruins such as ruined furnaces etc, Iāve just put them in there to provoke some creativity and dynamics throughout the ruins.
Iād also put this in the same category as roads, fields and bridges. Even if the town was still populated I doubt there would be much there aside from pavement and market stalls.
Stone foundations, treat as though it were lower class housing (just a grass mound basically, Iād probably flood it too).
Iāll quote myself here, [quote=āWhickery_Dickens, post:6, topic:933, full:trueā]
Fair enough, just flour mills then. Iāll still lay the roads out in wool though, just to get my bearings, but I wonāt add any cobbled fences.
[/quote]
Iāll quote myself here too, [quote=āWhickery_Dickens, post:4, topic:933ā]
will have the remaining stone foundations of the flour mills.
[/quote]
Good point, but I havenāt opened any sections that include farm houses outside the village so there is still plenty of time to plan for that. Also as an extra point, given 1600 years and the state of the rest of Arnor, the entire town should be engulfed by vegetation, e.g. grasses, flowers and the occasional small tree. This will be done when the town is completed because if I have to do any worldedit/voxel-ing it can get VERY messy VERY quickly with grass blocks on top of flowers which would have to be removed by hand.
If you look at dynmap, there is a clear line of trees that extends from the walls, over the river and beyond, (I have edited some of it out) I aim to reflect this in the town, hopefully it will add another level of dynamics to the build, because ruins get a little bit repetitive after a while. Also to note, Iāve put down a sign that indicates that I have not entirely decided whether or not to add this as Iām aware that trees have a tenancy to destroy the atmosphere around ruins.
I havenāt decided what they are yet.
Good point, but Iāve got to get my head around the bloody steep learning curve that is voxel.
Hopefully Iāve addressed all your concerns and understood your points correctly, if not post below. Thanks for your feedback.
Edit: I thought I might just add some additional information regarding flooding and how the floods would affect the town, Iāve taken the following information from a flood rescue book of mine.
Iāve narrowed the type of flooding down to either flash flooding or slow onset flooding (inland rivers)
Firstly, flash flooding, results from short-medium bursts of rain and is a major problem when drainage or quays, culverts etc are overwhelmed, also depends on terrain angle (floodplain? steep embankment?). Flash flooding will often come with fast flowing water which will easily undermine foundations given time.
Secondly, slow onset flooding. Occurs in vast flat areas (floodplains) and may last from 1 week to several months (rare but it happens believe it or not). Aftermath will entail extensive damage to towns and will often isolate town (an isolated town would indicate that the flooding has reached far beyond normal, and in town4ās case you can expect the walls to be affected).
Iāll add some statistics to show how much force is put onto a swamped boat, and hopefully we can translate this information to buildings too (though the surface area would change).
Water speed 2km/hr, force on boat 76.2kg
Water speed 5.6km/hr, force on boat 686kg
Water speed 7.5km/hr, force on boat 1219kg
So, if we assume flash flooding at 7.5km/hr, your looking at over a tonne of force constantly pressing against the side of an object for potentially over a week. This is disregarding the effect of eddies.
I did read your upper comments, donāt worry. I was compiling everything together and just giving you an outline of whatās needed regardless of if you thought of it or not, just as extra help. Glad I was of assistance though!
If you need help in game, with checking builds etc, donāt hesitate to ask!
Another bit of feedback - it looks like youāve placed houses right next to the river on the floodplain. As Sarged said in his guide, those would be completely gone.
To be honest, Iāve compared the houses to one in Bree and adjusted them, although itās no problem if you want them bigger because Iāll admit I did compare them to a smaller house because I thought it suited ruins better. The original overhead plan did change because it was pointed out to me that the houses would be massive.
In regards to the floodplain, Iāve demolished some of the houses closest to the river, the only problem is that all the houses are within 3 y-axis levels of one another so wouldnāt they all be affected the same? Because if thatās correct it may be more realistic just to remove everything outside the walls.
In light of the houses are still tiny problem, Iāve made them bigger according to bigger houses in Bree (example house dimensions are 9x18, 19x28, 9x21), hopefully this solves the issue (some of the houses have been combined and some have been extended).
