Ellri

Romance writing

We've had several stories fall on #2 and #3, so we can certainly agree there. The rest seems like common sense, so we'd agree there too. The ones built around other goals tend to work, but where the "goal" was to get two characters to sleep with each other, the story segments rarely moved beyond that point, always falling on it because of the lack of a proper goal. When romance becomes plot rather than subplot, its very easy for the story to break.

Some such can be fun to write, but in the end, most such end up being fairly pathetic.

We have no truly great romance subplots we'd like to bring forward, but its still an interesting topic. Not in the least because a proper romance subplot is a very powerful storyteller tool if wielded right. Make or break for the story, really.

Outlaws of Varisia (Pathfinder)

The PM we sent has gone unanswered.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

If we've got basically standard earth atmosphere, those mountaintop residences should not exceed 5090 m (16700 feet) in height above sea level. Thats the Earth limit for where higher up there is no possibility for growing/raising food. Even then, its hard.

Just curious about that kingdom... What made them establish a trade emporium? Wouldn't such make more sense in a society near rivers or major roads?

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

we're working on leveling out walls and such a bit, but right now, its not that flat. Even artificial leveling is generally not perfect. The closest that will make sense given the rest of the topography is to have several plateaus inside of different elevation. There's just too many polygons to manage to make it completely a single level. To do that, we'd basically have to reshape the whole city, with the inner city alone being well over 1.5 km². The Whole city is estimated to cover around 16,000,000 m². That last number is including all sloped surfaces. Not the flattened ground area, which is only around 6 km².

We estimate height difference in inner city to be about 300m from lowest point to highest on current mesh. Given that there's no steep inclines, its not logical to flatten it completely, not unless you have tools to move amounts around 0.25 cubic kilometers. Probably more if you don't want vertical cliffs in excess of several hundred meters tall on the sides. If you're moving that much granite, you're talking about around 635 million metric tons. And thats just the smallest estimate of mass you'd need to move to make a flat plane the size of the inner city on a simple hill like this. If you want it in those silly imperial units, you're speaking of at least 1.3 trillion pounds. Topography is a hell to mess with on a large scale.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

That makes sense. Even when things are built up against walls, those things tend to easily burn when needed to.

We personally don't like sticking anything close to walls, simply because its not reliable that it can be removed in time for the unexpected invasion. Mind you, burning it down can be fun at times.

looking at that image, where would you place the gates, sparks?

I need advice on how to make this kind of RP.

The biggest problem with episodic RPs is to ensure that there's no sections in between each episode that rely on everyone to reply before the others can go on. Same goes for any part of it really. Sometimes people are busy in RL, have misplaced their muse or whatever and can't post. As a GM, you should try to be aware of such and have plans in place to keep RP moving whenever those situations pop up.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

We rather like visual aids, so we decided to make up a simplified sketch of Amaryth. Just the walls so far. We tried mostly sticking to your numbers and specifications, but the topography did not fully agree.

some specs:
Outer city wall:
10m tall.
12m thick (ish).
No gates yet (adding those later)
One tower.

Inner city wall:
Mostly 15.240m tall (some places needed taller to make sense. Yes, that is equal to your fifty feet)
10m thick.
No gates yet (adding those later)
Eight Towers.

Fortress wall:
Varying height. over 100m some places, a bit over 57m in the lowest place.
10m Old Kingdom Foundations.
Thickness is 30m.
Again, no gates yet.
7 Towers.

Topography:
Height of tallest terrain point inside fortress is 710m above lake level. But that is 2545m from the shore.
Yes, that can seem pretty tall, but we kept the slope pretty low. For a height increase of about 60m in the outer city, you'll have to go 250m inward.

Anyways, here it is:

Full Size image

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

Thanks for the answers, Sparks. Nice one on the tunnel stuff.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

If we'd been going on advanced level, we'd have asked a lot more. Like technical details on the fortifications, thickness of this or that, materials, age of repair, etc. There are always more questions one can ask, but it is generally not necessary to know most of that. We might actually make a quick sketch of an imagined (but simplified) appearance of the city if we get those answers.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

Ahh... That sounds fairly plausible too. And it certainly makes defense of the inner city fairly easy to plan. How many gates to the inner city? How tall walls? Any overhanging battlements, moat or anything like that?

By the way, roughly how large is the population of the city? How large portion in Fortress/inner city/outer city?
Are there any secret tunnels leading from the fortress or inner city outside (either all the way outside or to the outer city)?

We presume the inner city walls are well-maintained? Might at least some part of the fortress hail back to the days of the old kingdom? Its not unusual for fortresses to be built in the same places many times, especially if there are (for example) strong foundations remaining.

What sort of terrain does the city lie in? is it all flat, or are there hills or even cliffs?