Mapping out The City.

TheWatcher on 16/8/2001 at 11:49

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Originally posted by Grundbegriff:
With respect, Aaron made a bunch of that stuff up out of whole cloth; his details don't necessarily have an evidential basis in the gameworld itself.

Granted. But considering that this is an imaginary world, and the material concerned considerably pre-dates the time at which the games take place, and the amount of evidence available for the early history of the City is patchy at best, I think he has done a good job of coming up with some fairly good "filler" material. If we restricted ourselves to the information available in the game an nowhere else, there'd be no FMs, no fanfics..

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Who says the Eye (or any similar stone) was found in Cragscleft? The presence of zombies isn't automatically an index of Eye-influence.

The mines contain a number of hammer constructions in addition to pre-existing mine structures. The chapel on the top floor of the mines was obviously abandoned in a short space of time and apparently with some conflict (you don't get pews thrown around and altars knocked over in normal situations). Obviously the mines were not zombie-filled before the hammers arrived there, otherwise why even start building the chapel, but something happened after they had started to alter or reopen the mines which caused a hurried withdrawal, the apperance of a number of undead and a complete ban on hammers entering the mines. Necromancy does not seem to be a common Hammer practice, so someone or something created a number of zombies there. While there is no direct evidence to identify the eye as the culprit, it does offer a neat explanation. IMO. If you have another explanation for all these facts, please tell us what it is - debate is good!

Grundbegriff on 16/8/2001 at 11:53

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Originally posted by Agent Monkeysee:
Grund, I'm dying to hear your response to Randy's comment :)

My response is already evident in my earlier messages in this thread.

Randy said:

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There's a big friggin' river in the city. It runs N-S and splits the city in 2. It joins the ocean to the south.

Earlier, I wrote:

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The area shown on the Keepers' Table corresponds to the accessible area in Assassins..... Thus, the "river...flowing through the city" on that map is the small canal that Garrett encounters in Assassins. This canal theme is revisited in Ambush and Courier. Clearly, the City has canals....

It seems to me that this boat (in the Soulforge briefing) is clearly a small shrimping or fishing boat, not a "big, swaying ship". It's true, however, that Garrett is on a bridge that spans a broad waterway. The bridge appears to be high enough to allow medium-sized cargo or war ships to pass beneath, but not high enough to permit the large ones....

I would say that the river runs past Shalebridge in the northern part of the City (with Shalebridge southwest of the river), and that Shalebridge must be a common approach to New Market from the north. A river that can be forded in multiple places would increase southbound pedestrian and cart traffic to New Market.

I'm all for a north-south waterway and placed one on my map as soon as the location of the sea was properly deduced. The question here is how it runs through "the middle of the City" and why it would be considered a "big friggin'" river instead of the sad little trickle heading southbound into New Market on the Keepers' Grotto tablemap. At the moment, I have a N-S river running down the right, eastward side of the City.

If the LGS map shows the River as "big", then perhaps the trickle that seems more like a canal is that river, but reflects the drought conditions. That's not a bad way to harmonize the evidence. On the other hand, if the canals we encounter in Assassins were to carry the water of a large river, they'd overflow and flood New Market!

It's rather difficult to figure out where the River should run. It should obviously be near the canals, but not redundant with them. Canals run throughout New Market, through part of the Old Quarter, and through the Ambush section of the New Quarter, southwest of Shalebridge. Possibly they run elsewhere.

On the assumption that the rivulet shown on the Keepers' Grotto map is supposed to be the drought-stricken river, my map should be revised to label it a river instead of a canal, to broaden it a bit, and to show it continuing southbound through the South Quarter and Dayport.

On the assumption that the water entering New Market isn't the River, it would have to run N-S to the east of the Assassins map, traversing the Old Quarter, DownTowne, the South Quarter, and perhaps Dayport or Eastport.

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Grundbegriff ]

Grundbegriff on 16/8/2001 at 12:06

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Originally posted by TheWatcher:
I think he has done a good job of coming up with some fairly good "filler" material.

Yes, he has invented many interesting bits of fiction. My only point is that it's helpful to distinguish between speculation that follows deductively or with high probability from in-game evidence on the one hand, and speculation that follows imaginative in-filling and avoids contradiction on the other.

There's a difference between being logically compatible (avoiding contradiction) and being a logical consequence (actually following from stated premises).

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If we restricted ourselves to the information available in the game an nowhere else, there'd be no FMs, no fanfics...

I'm not recommending that we "restrict ourselves" in general. I'm merely pointing out that given restricted interpretation on the one hand (call it "canonical") and unrestricted interpretation on the other (call it "fan-mission style"), my readings tend toward the former and Aaron's clearly tend toward the latter. That's all.

I also think a fan mission that offered deep connections to in-game evidence would be a fun addition to the heap, even though it would be pointless to require that degree of rigor for all fan missions.

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The mines contain a number of hammer constructions.... Obviously the mines were not zombie-filled before the hammers arrived there.... Necromancy does not seem to be a common Hammer practice, so someone or something created a number of zombies there.... While there is no direct evidence to identify the eye as the culprit, it does offer a neat explanation.

The Eye offers a convoluted and improbable explanation, for such an account would have the fully crafted Eye bouncing from Karath-Din to careless northbound farmers(?!) to Cragscleft to the Pagans to the Cathedral. (Don't forget that the Pagans used this "ancient evil" against the Hammerites first; that's what gave the brash young Hammerites the idea of using it back at them.) Or else it posits strange earthquakes that selectively transport sentient gemstones.

Yeah, right.

My notion is simpler: The Eye was crafted and mounted in Karath-Din. It caused some trouble there. It was carried from there when the Lost City fell, and ended up in the hands of the Pagans who used it against the Hammerites. The Hammerites prevailed and took possession of the Eye. They later sought to use it against the Pagans and the effort backfired. The Keepers locked it away in the Cathedral.

Meanwhile, the oddities in Cragscleft represent unsuccessful Hammerite efforts to occupy an already necromantically charged mine. The undeath problem there is caused by another source of necromantic power.

There's no reason to pin every case of necromancy on the Eye. We know for example that necromancy in Dayport is a result of Azaran's tinkering with the Book of Ash, and that necromancy in Eastport is a result of Karras's tinkering with masks. Zombies pop up in the graveyard in (on my map) the New Quarter, and there's also the matter of Truart's basement. Did I mention the holding cells at Shoalsgate? I posit that several Precursor artifacts and bits of lore remain, and that several seem linked to necromancy. I also reckon that Precursor artifacts are not the only source of necromantic effects.

Rather than creating a slave class, the Precursors were (in my view) seeking immortality and seeking to revive their ancestors, whom they obviously honored with complex burial practices.

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Grundbegriff ]

Oliver Gregory on 16/8/2001 at 13:48

It seems to me that undeath may be a natural event in the Thief Universe. In the graveyard in Courier, there is a zombie for example, and there are haunts in the catacombs beneath the Mechanist seminary. I don't see how these events could be due to the eye, especially as the zombie in courier has been buried recently, long aftter Thief: TDP.
If undeath is natural, then maybe the zombies in Cragscleft were once miners, killed in an accident (eg. tunnel collapse), who were not taken out and buried. They were then eventually disturbed or escaped on their own, and caused the Hammerites to flee the mines.

Richard on 16/8/2001 at 15:04

If undeath where a natural occurance, then I imagine The City would be overrun by its past generations. Perhaps it is a rare occurance, or certain individuals who were involved with/effected by/practiced necromancy are the ones Garret meets occasionally in graveyards etc.

A map will definately be very beneficial, especially as I am working on a Thief RPG (based on either the D20 or D6 die systems) and such a resource would be very useful in planning and executing adventures.

Another question - how far away are the forests? I haven't played T1, just T2, and it occurs to me that unless the Mechanists organised a lengthly and costly expedition into the forests to hunt pagans, they must not be a HUGE distance - unless their hate of them was so great they were willing to go to such lengths.

Grundbegriff on 16/8/2001 at 15:05

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Originally posted by Oliver Gregory:
It seems to me that undeath may be a natural event in the Thief Universe.

Yes, it seems likely that undeath is occurrent but rare, and that necromancy accelerates or manipulates undeath rather than causing it outright. A question of degree rather than of kind.

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maybe the zombies in Cragscleft were once miners, killed in an accident (eg. tunnel collapse), who were not taken out and buried.

This is a much better explanation, IMO, since we know from Murus that the value of a proper burial is not merely symbolic but also metaphysical.

Richard on 17/8/2001 at 12:24

What if there was a dam or some other sort of system that controlled the flow of the river's water at the northern entrance to The City? That would mean that the river could flow through the canals without flooding, wouldn't it?

Grundbegriff on 17/8/2001 at 15:52

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Originally posted by Silencer:
What if there was a dam or some other sort of system that controlled the flow of the river's water at the northern entrance to The City? That would mean that the river could flow through the canals without flooding, wouldn't it?

That's not a bad idea, provided we're willing to have a lake or reservoir in the northern districts. However, Randy referred to a "big friggin' river" running through the middle of the City.

Perhaps they hadn't quite figured out (or decided to invest their attention in) matters of scale when Assassins was made. Still, we work with what's there, no? A dam is possible, but I'd worry about the issues of hygiene and sanitation involved in having watersheds that close to the Old Quarter. ;)

Richard on 17/8/2001 at 19:34

Hygiene and sanitation? In a medevial setting? :eek:

Actually, the water in Ambush! and Courier does look pretty clean, but usually in historical terms, comon practice was to bathe, wash and drink the same stuff. <IMG SRC="eww.gif" border="0">

Perhaps there are water purification systems. More advanced tech I know, I but since water arrows are often found in bathtubs and the like, its possible that the elemental crystal is used to cleanse water in the same way fire crystals appear to be used for lighting fires (lazy - what ever happened to rubbing sticks together?)

[ August 17, 2001: Message edited by: Silencer ]

Richard on 17/8/2001 at 19:41

Ok, here's another theory, though I admit its pretty far fetched. If the canals are only off-shoots of the river, perhaps parts of it have been built over - large constructs over them on which sections of The City rest.

_________________
___|~~~~~~~~|____

Still a bit of a problem discovering where exactly it flows, and I don't think this is really possible for the Old Quarter - assuming they had the ability to do this later on, I doubt the architects of the Old Quarter would have possessed the resources to do this