> Remember Dorasor, the cities founder, was heavily influenced by
> Sartar.
Dorasor was influenced by the (magical) city of Boldhome, which is by no means typical for a Heortling city.
> Its a question of
> removing elements that are born from local climate, lack of wood for
> a building material, the presence of the rubble and the
> resultant 'dungeoneering' feel to get at the underlying elements
> that MIGHT be common to Sartarite towns (and to some extent
> Heortland towns as that's where he came from).
The presence of the Rubble, the rubble ruins and their architecture, and the sizeable number of Rubble and Oasis citizens who joined the building of the city will have minimized the Sartarite influence. What's typical Sartarite about New Pavis is the city wall of New Pavis - a wall type which can be found in numerous Sartarite cities, towns and keeps. The presence of the Flintnail cult may have enabled Dorasor to have remained truer to Sartar's (dwarf-aided) designs than Saronil and his descendants.
> Towns, influenced by the Heortlander Sartar, are, IMO, different
> from the tribal and clan hill forts and villages, not simply just an
> expansion of them, but something influenced by outside forces.
Dominated by outside forces, but influenced by the local people who adapted to city life.
>> Inside I'd expect to see longhouses, grouped by bloodline and
>> clan, with the addition of homes of the crafters and other such >> city people.
IMO this is the situation shortly after the cities were founded. As the tides of power and wealth shift, so does the structure of the city, so that of the original urban steads only a few kernels will remain in many places. (The admittedly atypical) Boldhome has the tribal manors, effectively thanes' steads maintained by the tribes (the tribal kings, certain clans, or who?). The smaller cities will have a similar (lesser) clan presence.
> Some hill forts are probably dominated by the clan in whose
> territory they lie, with a mixing of others who are drawn to
> urban environments to pursue a religion or trade.
That's organic Heortling towns like Clearwine or Runegate, which are different from the planned cities of Sartar.
> I'm not so sure about towns, though. Ingo's material on Jonstown
> has a similar supposition that one clan, owned the hill fort around
> which the settlement grew, and they gained privileges when the fort
> expanded to a town and was opened to others.
In the case of Ingo's history of Jonstown, the Arsgol clan effectively traded its hill fort and tula in exchange for a parity share with the tribal factions in the city. It takes an Issaries-dominated clan to do this...
Wilmskirk probably was built on land disputed after the wars, displacing no resident population but allowing in both factions which had fought for the land. (In case anybody wonders, my current Sartar Herowars game is set in Balmyr lands, and I'm shamelessly exploiting excellent material I discussed earlier with Doug Seay, Otto Leppä and others...)
>> I wouldn't like to think that they are just another bunch of >> pseudo-medieval towns. High stone walls, and squalid houses >> packed close together within.
> Complete agreement, but rememeber those medieval towns evolved from
> the Dark Ages ones, its just a slighty greater unwinding of the
> stack of history. Those are what the Sartarite towns may evolve
> towards...
Viking Jorvik (at least the part you can visit below that shopping mall) is very much a Dark Age settlement - high Roman stone walls around squalid urban steads. I don't know about archaeological evidence for stone buildings, or absence thereof, but as a former Roman city, some may well have been present. Which is the difference to the Sartarite cities - none of Sartar's cities is built around ruins, and probably neither on evident EWF sites.
Sartarite towns like Clearwine or Runegate may be different in this regard.
Boldhome is an entirely different story, with its dwarfen-architecture pockets (which still give me a mixture of Minoan Palace/Skara Brae houses feel) and a slightly more normal urban area in the valley.
>>There are majestetic temples and such one doesn't much see in the >>viking settlements.
> Though I'm not sure that they are like 'churches' or 'cathedrals'.
It would take a full-sized temple to rival a mediaeval church, or a great temple to rival a cathedral. Apart from Elmal temples which actually might, only the Ernalda and Lhankor Mhy temples come close, IMO. They would be old Esrolian design. Chalana Arroy hospitals might as well. Issaries and Orlanth require open spaces, Humakti seek function, and few other cults can afford full-sized temples.
> Orlanth temples will still be on hills and open to the air etc. Form
> follows function.
While this is true, I do think that the Silver Age knew artificial mountains as Orlanth (or Kero Fin) temples.
>> I have a feeling that the orlanthi wind magic could actually help >> keep the smell down.
> Not so sure. Towns and forts would probably be full of pigs, outside
> thunderboxes in the gardens, much more crowded than people are used
> to,
You can't get more crowded than a longhouse in winter, with the warm flatulence of the cows as the best available heating.
> and those Orlanthi don't bathe.
I suppose that living in a longhouse is a strong incentive to build steambaths and cook soap. If you want to identify a barbarian people, look for their cleaning method. Civilized cultures use oils and perfumes, steppe barbarians might use sand, but farming warriors in (barely) temperate climate come up with soap.
> The wind might help but...
> Besides I like the idea of foppish Heortlanders clutching a perfumed
> hankerchief to their nose as they dodge the piles of pig shit on
> their route through town.
Definitely a Westernish fad. Angazbism in a lesser form...
Few Heortlings would let their pigs run around loosely in the city, though. While pig raiding has little to offer in terms of honourable fights and boasting, I can see this as a main activity of city gangs if pigs were running around.
Pigs can be kept in one's enclosed area, fed with leftovers from food preparation (like outer leaves of vegetables - I doubt that there would be much actual leftover food in urban Sartar). Pigs grazing the neighbours herb garden could be the start of generations of feuds...
Another common urban beast of agricultural use would be geese, with their very own distinct droppings. A city with open streams or ponds might even see youths herding small flocks from the enclosed home areas to the water.
I don't think that anyone would bother to shovel pig shit onto the streets, when the pigsty is handy. Much will be used for gardening. Emptying nightpots out on the streets requires upper floor windows to do it with style, so this might happen in those crafters' quarters which resemble mediaeval towns most closely.
Another major source of dirt in the streets is missing, too - there are few if any dogs in Heortling cities. This leaves horse and human droppings in the streets.
An all-important question is how the streets are covered. Are they mud trails, reasonably solid sand, or even paved or planked? If the latter, is there an open sewage/drainage canal in the street?
Sartar (as well as Heortland) has plenty of rain, keeping down the amount of dissolvable organic fabric (i.e. shit) in the streets. Of course, as a renewable resource, the problem might arise now and then...
However, given the well-known exposure to rain torrents, Sartarite cities will have drainage systems, starting with saddle roofs and ending in some sort of drainage canals (EWF-era housing might have favoured domes or barrel-roofs as more egg-shaped). Keeping in mind that few cities are built on flat ground, outright mires in a city's streets aren't that likely as long as someone keeps the drainage trenches free.
> Sartar and his kin also befriended the dwarfs and learned some of
> their skills. Perhaps there's a form of plumbing, or at least good
> open drains?
In the pockets of Boldhome, most likely yes. But that and the Prince's palace are about the only places in Old Sartar where I'd expect functional plumbing. There might be highly sophisticated wells with tunnels feeding them, but considering the climate, cisterns with an overflow option would be a more likely solution.
> Sorry to go on. Bit of a favourite topic of mine =)
Not yours alone. Urban Heortlings are a great white space in the map of Sartar, left open to explore by the recent publications. Along with animist Heortlings and other oddballs.
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