Re: The City of Wonders: an Investigation

From: Stewart <stu_stansfield_at_DH0v0jOLWnPCB_bTEVYDBFNlL2nC22o5UeJUq3-TbTppkLpKlQF1tdkwB0BW7>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:59:51 -0000


Joerg:
> I had some of my most embarrassing moments of Gloranthan RQing
> fighting ducks (that was before King of Sartar called them durulz)
> in one of their lakeside houses, entering and leaving through such
> a bottom opening.
 

> Perhaps the gloriously inaccurate reconstruction of the Bodensee
> stilt houses could be used for durulz architecture.
 

> There is also a type of slavic lake settlement on artificial
> islands that could serve as a model for fortified durulz
> settlements.

Interesting! I had a gander at those. By way of comparison, here's what I was working out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30468985_at_N04/6856753784/

These are the preliminary pencils to a fairly 'dry' duck fort. Sadly, I've coloured all the bottom bits in, so I don't have room to edit. But you could quite easily imagine some hidden egress at the base, and maybe a tunnel that went under the water-table.

It's a slight problem with designing things as an artist - you can tend to go for cool-looking first, sensible and realistic after.

[By the way: did you know that they sell Clearwine in Seshnela? That's right! A canny Seshnegi merchant saw the chance to export this frisky little vintage - suitably chilled and preserved by its passage through the Shadow Lands on the river journey south - and took the opportunity.

He did wonder how to market it though. He didn't think the great and good would take to a wine made by smelly barbarians; As everybody knows the name and design on the label is more important than its quality! He was at a loss, when he spied through the Colymar mists one of those quaint little egg-shaped wereduck forts, lying along the Stream valley.

And thus was Châteauœuf born!]

I've been thinking on more elaborate forms of duckish architecture, too. I really do like the idea of a fairly sloppy form of the Great Mosque at Djenné, for example. I love that form. But William Church used that aesthetic for his depiction of the Dragon's Eye, sadly, so I think that's out, or will at least need a bit of work.

Stew.            

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