How will you show the remnants of the people who lived in the city after Arnor/Gondor abandoned it, given that they lived there less than 100 years ago?
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Okay so I tried to do some research in the matter since it could end up being useful for Gondor as well.
RIVER HARBORS
This is what remains of the river harbor of Aquileia, one of the most important roman cities in the North of Italy. The river that once flew thru the city has almost disappeared, but back in the day it was very shallow with a slow water flow. This allowed them to tie up and unload the ships directly on the riverside, without any kind of protected harbor.
Something I find interesting is the presence of these little lateral channels that allowed them to take the smaller ships directly into the warehouses built along the bank.
RIVER DRYDOCK
This is what remains of a roman harbor + drydock near Narni, a city in the centre of Italy many km away from the sea built along a very narrow river. What they did here is quite impressive: in order to obtain a suitable slot for the drydock, they litterally cut an artificial canal on the mountainside, 280 m long, 16 m wide and 6 m deep. Then they used the rock walls on the two sides as the actual walls of the facility and simply covered a piece of the canal with a roof. What you see on the picture is the lower end of the canal, showing the water level control system.
IMPLEMENTATION
I think we can try to combine the 2 examples. Since the Gwathlo in this area is quite wide and shallow due to the ford, originally the docks could have been built in the same way of those in Aquileia (so with the warehouses directly on the riverbank and the little side-canals leading into them) and could easily show a similar state of decay. But for the drydocks they would need an artificial canal where the water could be more easily controlled. Down here is a suggestion of how I would implement it, but that’s just a matter of personal taste and you can organize it as you like.
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Thank you, this is great
Quick citation coming from the Greyflood/Gwathlo Fort and Town Ruins :
devastating floods associated with the thaw from the Fell Winter of 2912 swept away Tharbad and its satellite towns
Tharbad’s harbor is probably still visible in some way but I would make it even more destroyed than the rest of the infrastructures.
I am making a planning for CTown4 at the moment and I won’t even bother with its harbor except for some warehouses.
When you quote things it’s important to quote the source. That doesn’t sound like something Tolkien wrote to me. Did you get it from a wiki?
There were certainly floods in 2912 but the phrasing “swept away” is very extreme.
Those are Darthenigma’s words but I don’t know his sources, that is true.
The best quote we have for the state of Tharbad is this:
" When Boromir made his great journey from Gondor to Rivendell - the courage and hardihood required is not fully recognized in the narrative - the North-South Road no longer existed except for the crumbling remains of the causeways, by which a hazardous approach to Tharbad might be achieved, only to find ruins on dwindling mounds, and a dangerous ford formed by the ruins of the bridge, impassable if the river had not there been slow and shallow - but wide."
– Unfinished Tales
I have another little imput to give layout-wise. Most of the roman cities built along rivers seem to have developed almost entirely on one of the two sides and when they did develop on both of them, one of the two was clearly much bigger. Here are some examples, of Rome in the II century, London, Aquileia and Verona.
Atm Tharbad seems to be developing on both sides almost at the same extent. I think that making the north-west side (the Cardolan one) slightly bigger than the other one could be interesting. This would be the side with the forum, the cardus and decumanus and most of the city itself, while the other one, having developed later, could host what usually was built outside the city walls, such as the theater, the amphitheater, some more docks, the poorer districts, ecc…
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This would make more sense if it was completely based on Roman stuff but, in my limited knowledge, I seem to recall Osgiliath being developed on both sides equally (or at least there’s no indication of it being otherwise).
This would probably be a closer indication of how Tharbad would be, no?
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It could be like that for sure, I think there’s a lot of freedom about this.
My personal feeling is that a little disproportion would feel a lot more realistic and natural looking than a city split in half by the river. It suggests the idea of a city founded on one of the two sides that would have expanded on the other one as a result of the construction of the bridge.
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The Arnorian side is noticeably larger. However I feel the fact that each side was owned by a different state would even things out a bit.
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Wait so the eastern and western banks of Tharbad actually had two separate governments?
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Correct, yeah.
Uh well that changes things then. Ignore my last argument
Dumping some reference material here.
Forum of Tharbad with adjacent theatre
Warehouses on the east bank of Tharbad
I will be using Banana’s example on the western shore.
I’m looking for a co-lead on this project, or someone who’s willing to help me with laying out one of the forts. I’ll be doing the western river bank first.
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Yannig has expressed interest in co-leading this.
He also came up with this cool idea for the Numenorean fort:
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Project approved and planning pasted on to the main map!
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Have you thought about making any buildings show signs of subsidence? Considering Tharbad is in such a waterlogged wetland area you’d expect lots of this, especially in the heavier, taller buildings like the forts and castles and the areas closer to the river / Swanfleet.
Could add a unique and interesting aspect to Tharbad that could look really impressive if done right.
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I’ve noticed that the building process in Tharbad consists of 3 different moments where you have to wait for approval, which in my opinion is very cumbersome and demotivating.
I think builders and apprentices will be less likely to claim a plot if they know it will take at least a week to complete one, partly due to the fact that the project leads aren’t the most active builders.
In other ruined towns we’ve seen that we can finish them relatively quickly because it is not much work per plot.
Of course we need to make sure we keep the quality, but I don’t think 3 different ‘waiting approval’ moments is the way to achieve that. I think it’s better to say that Builders or Builder + only need 1 waiting approval moment as with other projects, and maybe for apprentices 2 or 3 of those moments. And maybe also giving apprentices who’ve proven themselves the permission to continue without waiting for approval.
We should prevent Tharbad from becoming another one of those projects that is going extremely slowly.
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