Abandoned [OLD] Project Application: The Tor

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
[OLD FORUM REPOST - 3/13/18]

Note that only the most important comments were preserved.

dspa1r said:
Hello folks,

this is my app for the tor, seat of house jordayne.

I'd love to get some feedback, especially on the academy thing.

Here we go:



I can also add a map of the surrounding area if necessary. Even though I don't think that there will be a lot of stuff going on. Maybe a caravansery, but I am always open for any ideas.

Just posting this now, because I have to work on a paper for universtiy during the week, so there's plenty of time for discussion.

ThamusKnoward said:
I am not sure about an oasis especially at the position the Warp for The Tor currently is. The mountainous terrain however makes for an excellent loaction for mines and quarries! And after doing some more research perhaps a couple of Wadis can make sense too.

As for how they obtain their water there are several things I can think of, which I'd like you to get a second opinion on though:
Supply Caravan coming through in regular intervals, Tapping the periodical Wadi and/or rain water in underground Cisterns, and finally Stepwells or artificial Artesian Wells established in the Age of Heroes.

I think that this is a somewhat logical geological principle: During the day the heat causes ocean water to evaporate. A humid layer of air will deposit over the bay. Since Sands and Rock have a lower heat capacity they heat up much faster than the ocean water. Hence the air above the land will heat up more in the same time than the air over the ocean and will rise up, causing a low pressure field above The Tor and surrounding lands. The resulting differences in pressure will "suck" in the steam laden air from the ocean onto the land. At night, sands and rocks cool out much quicker, causing the humidity in the air to precipitate as rain. The fact that The Tor is pretty much encircled by a mountain range contributes to regular rainfall, due to orographic precipitation.

Another interesting feature for The Tor may be large salt pans (if my co-mods think the canon/geographic position would allow that, since up until now only Saltpans is assumed to have salt pans) OR given my previous reasoning for precepitation, large plantations for w/e plant makes sense! I was originally gonna suggest papyrus given the words of the house, yet im not sure it was ever grown in entirely cultivated conditions but it rather grew naturally in the wetlands of the Nile. Well, take it as a suggestion and elaborate the reasoning if you wish.

As far as your plans are concerned, I stronly dislike seeing a crow stepped gable in Dorne. I'd rather have bulbous onion domes instead or any inspiration from this fine resource. But I dont know much of Dornish architecture so I'm sure though that Nick can tell you whats most appropriate.

Another thing, I did notice was the use of gravel mixed into the streets of your village. I think its a too jarring contrast to stay. As a word of advice: Try to limit each small structure to two (max. three) complementing sandstone-blocks and one accent block, everything else ends up looking like a lost game of tetris. Gradients generally only work on large surfaces, its almost impossible to make them work on huts or houses.

Cheers
Thamus

dspa1r said:
Thanks Thamus.

I really like that idea of having underground cisterns / artesian wells.

As for the other thing I higly favor the Papyrus option (or maybe hamp / linum?), since this is closer to my original idea.

A mine would prefectly fit into that picture since I think that binding books also goes along with using some materials (e.g. gold) that have to be mined. Since books are kind of a precious thing.

Also a quarry is always cool - they need to build with something.

Thanks a lot. I never have such ideas. Maybe because I am busy with my paper or maybe because I am just motivated to build. I am bad when it comes to planning.

IwanDeLarch said:
Thamus, you can't suggest Wadis and humidity and whatnot and at the same time state an oasis would be unlikely. There is no rule that oasis's don't form in mountainous areas, quite the opposite probably.

What about a Wadi which holds water at several spots? Might be possible to grow papyrus there? How would paper be made anyway?

ThamusKnoward said:
Hey Iwan, I'm sure I said that I wasn't sure about having an Oasis there, mainly because to me there are more exiting reasons for The Tor to be situated where it is situated. Of course, Wadis due to periodical rainfall don't exclude an Oasis, however they don't mean there has to be one either.
An aquifier is a body of water within the sedimented rock, that cannot drain due to an impermeable layer of rock below. Now an oasis is an area of vegetation that has sprung up around a spot in the desert where such an aquifier is exposed to the surface (or upper subsurface layers of soil) by either a spring or an artesian aquifier. A spring is an exit of soil water to surface water that is unpressured, i.e. ground water reaches the surface by just following gravity. The feeding body of water lies above the exit point and just flows through the soil to it. An artesian well describes a closed body of groundwater with high enough pressure, that when its tapped it spurts out to the surface. The tapping can happen naturally by fissures in the rock. However, for this to work water needs to collect underground, which is usually the case in a depression in the terrain, and in the Tor scenario, i.e. with the ocean being close I ruled that out because I assumed any underground water would flow into the ocean as that is where the lowest depression is.

If we assume the top layer of the soil to be impermeable then rainwater doesnt collect in an underground aquifier but instead forms a Wadi, that dries up due to evaporation during a hot day and seepage in sandier downstream areas.

BUT depending on our assumptions we can have an Oasis or Wadis or both.

Iwan said:
What about a Wadi which holds water at several spots
Could work, but that would mean that evaporation and seepage are in a perfect equilibrium with water influx from precipetation.

dspa1r said:
Also about the paper production I have found a lot of different information.

There is a number of materials that was used before the industrialisation. Cotton, Linum, Hamp, Palm leafs. Parchment and Papyrus. We have to see what makes sense.

Something from wikipedia about paper making in the islamic world:

The laborious process of paper making was refined and machinery was designed for bulk manufacturing of paper. Production began in Baghdad, where a method was invented to make a thicker sheet of paper, which helped transform papermaking from an art into a major industry.[17] The use of water-powered pulp mills for preparing the pulp material used in papermaking, dates back to Samarkand in the 8th century,[18] though this should not be confused with paper mills (see Paper mills section below). The Muslims also introduced the use of trip hammers (human- or animal-powered) in the production of paper, replacing the traditional Chinese mortar and pestle method. In turn, the trip hammer method was later employed by the Chinese.[19]

By the 9th century, Arabs were using paper regularly, although for important works like copies of the revered Qur'an, vellum was still preferred.[20] Advances in book production and bookbinding were introduced.[21][unreliable source] The Arabs made books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather-covered paste boards; they had a flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed. By the 12th century in Marrakech in Morocco a street was named "Kutubiyyin" or book sellers which contained more than 100 bookshops.[22]

Also about the paper production with cotton / linum what they did before industrialisation was this:

The materials where placed in a basement with high humidity, taken out when they could be easily torn and then put into an big tub where they were stomped. (with some water) The mixture was often there for days (they often used water wheel powered mechanisms) until some kind of pulp arose. After that they used some kind of filter for the fibres. The water-"paper" ratio was crucial for the thickness of the paper.

Source (German): http://www.kalligraphie.com/422-0-Papier.html

About papyrus:

Only the core of the plant was taken, it was put into water and then battered with a hammer. It went under this process several times and then the papyrusstripes where laid out on an area as big as the paper should be. Then they added another layer of papyrus over that and battered it again with an hammer, so that both layers where glued together - the liquid that came out of the papyrus was here used as glue.
The paper needed to dry afterwards, before it was smoothed with a piece of wood / a stone / seashell so that you were able to write on it.

Source (German): http://www.selket.de/hieroglyphen/papyrus/

About the palm leafs:

They were simply dried and after that they used a paste on them. They weren't really durable so the text had to be copied on a new one from time to time.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-leaf_manuscript


So for the production of books I don't think that papyrus or palm leafs are an option.
 
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Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
[PART 2]

dspa1r said:
About the map of the surroundings. Paint OP. Castle on the one side, town on the other one. The 2 red dots are just the guardtowers for the harbor. The brown areas are the docks. Small ones for the castle and a bigger ones for the town.

The Green area will be fields / farms and stuff. Not sure what will grow there,this depends on what we decide here.

The blue area just shows potential places for a mine and a quarry.
The yellow one is a possible place for a caravansery or an outpost, since I think the road would go that way. To godsgrace or ghosthill and finally sunspear.

There could be another one closer to the town depending on if there is a road from drinkwater / vaith coming that way. As I don't know which roads are planned I cannot decide that.

Strong drawing

IwanDeLarch said:
This is just a matter of phrasing I think. There shouldn't and there won't be any academies, universities or schools but the citadel, but we also know that many septons are more or less educated men, some can even read and write. There must have been a place where septons were educated in the ways of the faith of the seven and probably also in reading, writing and copying books (after all, monasteries were pretty much the sole place where books were manufactured in the middle ages). I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be a septry at the Tor where septons were educated and where they would also store and copy records (however this should definitely not be in an industrial scale at all - a library, some writing desks, that'd be it I think).

In King's Landing it's kind of the same. The Great Sept of Baelor is one of the, if not the biggest places of pilgrimage for the faith of the seven, but I doubt they'd educate septons there. We're planning to have a number of septries in the city, though, where it would make total sense to educate, debate and probably even copy books.

dspa1r said:
Woah. Thanks for all the great posts guys. That kind of discussion was what I was hoping for.
Thanks for pointing it out again, Emil. I also wrote that in my app. Have read like half of that series, too. Not finding any time to finish the books though, hehe

As Iwan said - you can call it whatever u like. I was going for academy, because the original idea came from the house of wisdom in Bagdad (House of Wisdom)

I was anticipating that an university that has educational purpose wouldn't find any supporters here, since we already have Oldtown.
Still I think there should be places where books are at least copied and maybe illustrated. Of course not in an industrialised way.

I don't mind if it's done be septons or people that are going to be septons and are also trained there. Or if it's done by just people that do it as their job.

I always was and I still am the opinion that the name of the location as well as the words of the house should have a big impact on your build.

I don't want to build a project that has a town with... a few houses, a marketplace, maybe an inn, a butcher and a baker, just to exaggerate a bit. I like the Idea of having something that a town evolves around some building or profession. Just something to make the build unique and worth visiting. Maybe I missed that part in history lessons, but I don't know why everything has to be centralised and in one of the big towns. I like the idea of having a e.g. stonemansons guild in a town of one of the projects, not only in KL. That's the kind of diversity I miss a bit. (always did)

Thanks again for the great discussion guys.

ThamusKnoward said:
@5605402 said:
I like the idea of having a e.g. stonemansons guild in a town of one of the projects, not only in KL. That's the kind of diversity I miss a bit. (always did)

Well first of all you have to keep in mind that in this hypothetical medieval world services and products are usually bound to one place exclusively and even though it may sometimes be suggested otherwise it is actually not that easy to ship goods across the world. Secondly most of our hamlets and towns have to be self-sustraining. That means they cant exclusively result on their masonry. So while they may have some expert knowledge in working stone, they also have to cater for the basic human needs: Food, shelter, clothing. A guild only makes sense in a closed economy, as thats pretty much what a guild is: A closed society of people with the same profession agreeing on common standards/ prices. It just doesn't make sense to put this in a village with a population of about 3 fishers, 2 farmers, and only one successful mason family.

I hope that kinda made sense! :) I just had the presentation of my masters thesis and im just braindead mostly.

dspa1r said:
Update / Summary:

About the upper keep, there is a full layout on my plot. As I have talked with dutch I am aware that it won't be ported like that. I will wait for the terraform to be done and then just adjust the keep to the outcome.
The only thing i'd like to have tp'd is the main hall with the big dome and it's 3 towers. (2 front and the big one). The rest of the palace is open for changes.

Here are some pictures

Also i talked to Nick about the roads and he said that there probably would be one to ghosthill along the coast and one to godsgrace and finally to sunspear from there on. So one road would probably go from the castle along the coastline to ghost hill, the other one leads to the desert. That means that the outpost would remain, maybe I'd move it more to the mountainrange. (yellow thing)

Academy:

I would like to go with the house where septons are "trained" and work on some books, that sounds pretty nice and it's not off too much.

Economy:

The town will include the usual stuff that is needed to cover the basic human needs. A big point in the economy would be trade, i'll focus on that as well.
A bigger focus will be on paper production, since the paper would be used for books papyrus or palm leafs are no real option, so I would go along with cotton or / and linum. Feedback on that please.
Therefore the build will also include a paper mill, maybe some book binders and stuff - nothing that creates content though. The town will only have professions that take part in the production of paper or book binding and everything that goes along with that.

The water would come from artesian wells / cisters / wadi or natural rainfall through orographic precipitation Tham brought that stuff up and I (and he also) want to hear a second opinion on that.

Other:
There will be a caravansery, most likely somewhere along the cliffs, a bit outside of the town.

I like the idea of having an oasis, maybe we can combine that with the outpost in the mountains and just add 3,4 houses to it? We can also situate the caravansery there.

Since Ser Balon Swann is delayed at the tor with games and stuff there could be the possibility of having a small area for jousting and maybe a ring or something close to the castle along the road to ghosthill.

Since the tor is near ghaston grey it would be quite cool to have a ship that transports prisoners to it anchored at the tor.




That's it. Thanks for reading and all the great feedback