> So what sort of motifs characterize Mostali or Heortland
> architecture?
Mostali are master engineers, use concrete and wonderous (magical!) combinations of metals and other materials, and are paranoid to boot, so in one sense they are fortress-builders-supreme. However, they are also short, squat, pedantic, literalist, unimaginitive, and have an aversion to heights. The ideal mostali structure is short, squat and underground, except where prohibited by Higher Machine Purpose(tm). So any mostali fortress built for humans is going to be an *interesting* comprise, superbly functional, full of devilishly clever traps that quickly break down unless maintained by mostali, with lots of ingenuous, often incomprehensible widgets and multi-purpose rooms. It is however, IMO, rather unlikely to have soaring towers, and there'll be places where you have to duck your head before entering a room. Think of a fallout shelter built by an idiot-savant misanthrope.
I'd imagine the human overseers of king Sartar's joint mostali building works would volunteer for scout duty in Snakepipe before having to do *another* project with them, but then I hate the cruddy little beggars (does it show? :)), and I leave it to their admirers on the list to provide another view.
(Old) Pavis has lots of mostali-influenced architecture, so I guess it is possible to work with the blighters. But then how functional *is* the mostali-human Pavis cult? Not very.)
Heortland has connections with the West, and so its architecture is more likely to be more conventionally 'medieval'.
I hasten to add I'm only passing-familiar with these areas, and that there are experts on the list who I'm sure can provide much more detail, if not as much anti-mostali bile. :)
> I had also noticed the references to re-use of old ruins, and it got
> me wondering how they (the ruins) differ. For example, a Sartarite
> would know they had entered EWF ruins, I presume, but how would they
> know? (Speaking in terms of the architecture only.) Noticeable
> dragonewt influences? (And what the heck does -that- look like?)
The draconicly influenced architecture of the Youf is instantly recognisable. Its soaring, intricate and seeming non-euclidean - think of touring a vertically-enhanced Mayan ruin while on brown acid (don't try this at home kiddies). A feature I always emphasise is soaring towers with symbolic (we hope) gravity-defying 'nests' way up high.
Some Sartarites will have glimpsed dragonewt structures, they're a bit like the above only worse, being both organic and having little that is recogniseable as roads, halls, doorways etc.
In my Far Place campaign, Youf ruins were invariably taboo, both for their unsettling nature and their dragonkill-related surprises, ghosts and lingering draconic whatsits. This of course, makes them PC-magnets.
Youf architecture. If its half-melted glass, then it was built before the Dragonkill (i.e. Glasswall). Alda Chur has some surviving Youf architecture, as well as some melted glass walls, so a moderately travelled Sartarite will have seen some examples fairly intact. There's old Pavis as well.
> Your ideas about palisade forts match mine - that's pretty much what
> a motte & bailey is...
Yip, silly me. It a question of scale mostly. Hill fonts can usually shelter a whole tribe...
Love a duck....
John
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