The earth embankments and woodworks that formed the defensive curtain to the city seemed to blend with the forest that lay to all sides.
To live in such woodland squalor was the height of depravity. Even the conscripted street children of The Imperial City formerly lived like nobility by comparison.
“The nobles live in the woodland too. To say living in a woodland is depraved... Is quite insulting and uncalled for.”
Oh be serious. It’s meant to show the derision Allomere holds for woodlands and jungles, the kind he’s had to deal with in Madina and now with Barca trekking through 2 days of forest, and therein regardless of how offensive you may perceive it to be it is Allomere’s perception, not yours, which matters. If my character thinks its depraved then he thinks it is, it’s a private thought. Even if it was a public comment he spoke, OOC you still have no business contesting it under objections to “rudeness” and “offense”. That’s sort of the point of roleplay, displaying things you can’t say out loud to give angles and dimensions to characters and events. You really can't be OOC offended about an indirect IC event.
“But to truly see it in some of the ways as described, as his character truly does, that is just wrong in my opinion.”
Nice, but he’s a snob. That’s his view, so as far as IC is concerned it can’t be “wrong".
Actually yes, I did use the wiki page when consulting the layout of the city, hence I said it was tiered as it shown to be. But Rettleville was only conquered a short time before Aurvandil and I know the fortifications were only level two when I first saw them so I assume they were rebuilt from nothing. Unless you’re saying the walls fell down and were rebuilt identically as the picture it’s a moot point since what is shown is technically a former fortification. Semblance seems more convincing than absolutes, it's meant to convey the idea of the city than say "Forever this is what it shall be!"
"Earth and wood was a by gone age... This is a game mirroring the time of the Middle Ages. Earth and wood as a fortress would not have lasted long. No doubt they have wooden buildings, but I doubt a fortress, as described by the game, would be wood and earth. Also, they can always import stone."
Incorrect, seriously incorrect. Wood and Earth a by-gone in the Medieval times? BM has to be between the years 1000-1300, early and mid medieval. Plenty of wooden castles, extensive wooden castles as well. Some of the South Downs Hill Forts in Southern England are 2500 years old and they were made from banked earth and wood. By-gone? Not by a long shot. They last. Castles are not just identical stone monoliths. Even more to the point this is a walled city, and the vast vast vast majority of cities with defences had wooden walls during this period, or outer wooden palisades with stoneworks inside. The idea you could just erect 50foot high stone block walls around every settlement is entirely unrealistic, it didn’t happen. Neither the resources nor the wealth do to it.
History and fact aside, the definition of walls and fortifications really are a transient matter. Did at any point I actually say the walls themselves were made of wood? I said to the effect that there was a wood palisade curtain around the city at the forest’s edge and earthworks, either remnants of old former fortifications or exactly the kind of defences which surrounded even walled castles when in forests. I don’t know if any of you have ever visited a real actual castle or know much about various examples or the evidence we have of those that were, but you don’t just have a forest, then a bit of open ground, then castle walls. Palisades ring plenty of castles as livestock buffers, cheap outer defences, and just as a general cordon to define where the woodland is to be held back from the castle. Then you have the proper walls afterwards.
Peckforton Castle, Beeston Castle, Raby Castle, Nottingham Castle, I could keep naming examples.
So yes, if you were entering a castle compound within a wooden enclosure the palisade if it existed, would be all around you and enclosing the castle as an outer barrier. Rettleville may or may not be like that. Historical accuracy suggests it would be and nothing actually in the description nor the wiki says otherwise. Maybe Allomere was only imagining it or mistook the treeline to be palisade defenses. It really doesn’t matter either way. You might note I tried very little to describe the innards of the city since to that extent I can only be generic and speculate so I made a point of leaving it grey. The fact I said it was on a rocky outcrop as shown pretty much guarantees it has stone walls when it comes to the actual city boundary.
I took the liberty of assuming the Senate had marble steps which considering Barca’s Carthaginian-esque culture seems very likely. I can only prostrate myself for forgiveness if they are actually granite.
And it’s a Level 4 Stronghold, and for a city that can mean annnyyything. If a Fortress is all stone then a Stronghold is somewhere between a mostly wood Fort and a Fortress. Otherwise Citadel’s must simply be mountains of fantasy-style Minas Tirith’s.
“Amusingly, the people are also described as displaying "some trappings of civilization but also a tinge of savage passion for the environment as one would expect from those who not only live within nature but are at one with the spirits of the woods."”
Yes thank you for that, that’s why I tried to hint at a bit of ruralism and had Allomere respond with the kind of snobbishness he did. As I said, he didn’t know if the peasants wore leaves or simply covered themselves in mud. He didn’t care to look at them to see either way he just made a judgement. Civilisation is something you observe and judge for yourself, and it is making clear that Aurvandil has a sort of xenophobic contempt for almost any other culture. Every Barcan peasant could be laced in gold and Allomere could go Inca and say "Gold? How worthless. They might as well wear mud" Nothing would be good enough.
As usual the pedantic will have their way anyway. I dare not roleplay entering through a gate next time, else the lord might confront me and say “We don’t have gates! We have Arches!” "Our peasants aren't free to line the streets, they're all in cages!" If you play that game no one wins. Probably why BM has no roleplay. You enjoy your bland and sensitive roleplays, if you even do them, and I’ll continue to embellish mine as reasonably as I can for the point of doing them ; flavour and entertainment.
