City Design and Water Supply for Inhabitants

[koreth]

Looking at the more previous thread on "Banedon's Magical Showers", it got me thinking about water sources in towns and cities.

Certainly wash/waste/sewage water would get dumped into the streets unless there is a formal septic system like what Barakeesh has.

But what about simple drinking water? Would there be a bunch of stone water wells in the town/city, or one central water well that everyone would go once a day?

Or if the town/city were near a lake/Kaltersee/river, would the populace go to the water source and drink that? The Kaltersee, I'm assuming is salty.

Your thoughts on this matter are appretiated.

Regareds,

Koreth

[Black Cat]

Of course, the people of Middle Age never played Sim City,so I doubt that they know about effective water systems. However, knowing that the Romans made a lot of aqueduct, I would not be surprised that people in Magnamund also had some type of man-made waterways to bring fresh water to a city.

[Doomy]

I'm not sure Sim City led to the invention of modern water supplies...

[Samildanach]

Oct 13, 2008 1:41:19 GMT -5 Doomy said:

I'm not sure Sim City led to the invention of modern water supplies...

[dharn]

Hm.... as for what I have written about life in Holmgard, i just assume the stone well theory...

[Swiftstrike]

I would have thought that most cities including Holmgard would take their water from the rivers that run into/by the city if you look at the maps in front of most books the cities seem to be all based around rivers

[koreth]

Right...ok, so let's say we had Sim City - Medieval City Edition. It sounds like the following would hold true:

WELL DESIGNED MEDIEVAL CITY/town:
* Fresh water transported automatically to city/town by design of the urban environment. Eg - inhabitants build houses by freshwater river/lake for easy access. Essentially all the inhabitants have relatively easy access to renewable fresh water sources.

* Fresh water by one or many stone water wells supplied by underground water table. Water wells are in a central location accessible by all, or several wells are located at various points in the community.

MODERATELY WELL DESIGNED CITY/town:
* River or lake built nearby, but may be more brackish. Weather conditions may affect quality of water.
* Water well(s) are more accessible by the well-to-do families or nobility.

POORLY DESIGNED CITY/Town:
* Have to travel considerable distance to get fresh water.
* Have to hoard fresh water.
* Can't find fresh water and have to just deal with what little crappy water you can find.
* Water sources are lorded over by bandits, robbers, or officials that demand "taxes" for access to water.

KAI MONASTERY:
* Bottled water from the icy peaks of Kalte are shipped in from Cloudmaker mountain via Ljuk. ;D
* Actually - Water well(s) at various points in the monastery.

How does this sound ?
Koreth

[eviltb]

It makes me wonder what the water systema in the Darklands are like, considering the actual lack of rivers near most of the Darklands major citadels....

[koreth]

I'd assume there are occasional brackish watering holes here and there. There would have to be some sort of watering holes/wells to count on to sustain a darkland village. It would be pretty bad water though.

[Doomy]

One thing that simplifies water and sewerage is that nobody in Magnamund ever needs the toilet.

[Bewildered Badger]

Oct 14, 2008 3:14:51 GMT -5 Doomy said:

One thing that simplifies water and sewerage is that nobody in Magnamund ever needs the toilet.

No, that's only Kai Lords. The eleventh Discipline, 'Retention', is one of the orders best kept secrets.

[Maerin]

Maerin chuckles.

Not to irritate the people who might be squeamish here, but keep in mind that, if one wanted "fresh water" at all, one did not live in a medieval city. There is virtually no such thing to be found, and the conditions that would be required would be singular (and therefore rare). One of the most significant reasons alcohol was so prevelant in medieval cultures (and not just European) was that people observed that either drinking that, or mixing water with that, resulted in less illness (though it would be centuries before anyone really understood why exactly/scientifically that was the case). There IS a reason you do not see Lone Wolf drinking water in the various town taverns he visits, and it's not that he likes his booze...

Even those towns and cities that had freshwater rivers flowing near or through them would have almost as many health problems related to that water as those that did not. After all, most all such towns and cities are bound to be downstream from sources of contamination and disease, such as farms and other towns/settlements (or even cities; the description of even the much-flaunted Barrakesh sewer system does talk about the unpleasant conditions it creates for the outlying Vassagonian towns when the "output" happens to flow that way). Most of the contaminants, bacteria and the like we are talking about are quite capable of flowing great distances downstream without settling out. Even with modern-day health and sanitary standards in many countries today, it is still not a good idea to drink water out of a stream unpurified because "you don't know where that water has been". As for lakes and the like, those were more typically repositories. However, that just meant such contaminants, and the diseases associated with them, were more likely to settle in and "breed". Even most wells are going to have problems, because most such wells are too shallow to permit adequate "filtering" of the groundwater seepage. Barrakesh is described as have a huge, underground, "deep water" source...but that is also rightly described as being quite rare (certainly in Vassagonia, and realistically in the wider world as well).

Ocean water is virtually impossible to drink at the technology levels we are talking about. Even modern-day purification systems are not terribly efficient.

I realize that some people nowadays might see the sciences and technology of water purification through evaportation, boiling, and/or chemical means as very straightforward (and that consequent condescending misconception that drives the idea that all this stuff must have really existed because "people back then could not have been that stupid"). But that is only due to us taking such insights for granted. The world would have been a very different place had such insights actually existed in medieval times.

The cleanest water in any town or city is going to come from rainwater cisterns and similar (certainly the only water that might approach "clean" by our modern standards, and even that is a stretch). These are going to be expensive and they are going to be uncommon as a consequence. So, for the most part, people make do (mainly by avoiding drinking "clean water" at all).

Remember that most every medieval city did not have a stable population (balanced birth/death rates). For centuries, the populations of cities were sustained by the constant influx of people moving to those cities for the the "better life". Urbanization as a stable living environment is very modern indeed.

Now, that is a matter of comparing to our own medieval world. In contrast, there are various factors that might change the picture specific to Magnamund. Medical science, particularly herb-driven, does appear to be more advanced than comparable science in our own world in the same, basic timeframes. Magic may play a part in that, though the prevelance of herbs with not only healing, but anti-toxin and anti-disease properties, would be quite enough to support a significant improvement in quality of life relatively insulated (if not truely free) of conventional plagues and the like. We are also given the impression (though that likely is nothing more than a storyteller's device) that both villages and cities are cleaner. Certainly, both the degree and scope of "urbanization" in Magnamund is more generally common than in most parts of our own world in similar timeframes (with the exception of medieval China).

As for the Darklands, we probably have to look to a certain degree of biological adaptation (possibly with the deliberate contribution of the Darklords) to assist that explanation. It is possible for humans to adapt to certain forms and concentrations of contamination, such as certain heavy metals, over time and exposure, though such "adaptation" does come at a price. Since Drakkarim are the only human race/ethnicity that seem to spend much of any time in the Darklands, we might infer that they have at least partially adapted to doing so. Certainly the atmosphere does not seem to bother them overmuch, and that seems very significant to me. Consider: virtually the only humans we see wearing a breath mask or some other form of protection from the air while explicitly outdoors/exposed are non-Drakkarim humans (the Vassagonians meeting with Kraaganskull make a problematic exception, though it is possible and plausible that they might have some sort of protection from the indoor conditions that clearly were still comfortable for Kraaganskull).

That said, that does not mean existence is comfortable for human races, and it may be relatively significant to note Lone Wolf did not, so far as I remember, encounter any Drakkarim in Helgedad itself.

Since virtually all the other races present in the Darklords are either creations or modifications of existing living beings "engineered" by the Darklords, it may be assumed with at least some surity that such engineering included an adaptation to the existing air, food, water, and environmental conditions present.

[koreth]

WOW ! Now that's a reply.


Thanks!

Koreth

[Samildanach]

Oct 14, 2008 9:05:56 GMT -5 Bewildered Badger said:

Oct 14, 2008 3:14:51 GMT -5 Doomy said:

One thing that simplifies water and sewerage is that nobody in Magnamund ever needs the toilet.

No, that's only Kai Lords. The eleventh Discipline, 'Retention', is one of the orders best kept secrets.

Grand Retentionmastery? No bodily fluids are released at all? ;D