Flouting Town

[ridly]

I have an idea for a halfling town that is on boats. When i say on boats i mean that each house or building is on its own boat, like a library boat and town hall boat. There economy is trading and fishing. They bring goods between countries, they're mostly nuetral, and have a hideout where they repair their ships. They're mostly a non-violent civilization but have trained police with a smaller bout of their own, like police cars.

I want to know what i can add or get rid of.

[vegetalss4]

sounds cool, and flavorfull go for it

[Shades of Gray]

Remember to have anchors and gangplanks so one can get around the town without having to take a canoe.

[sigurd]

You probably need a central island or some such. I'd figure out what the eventual anchor is for the town and work out from there.

Are you using the Shoal Halflings from Stormwrack? They're pretty cool


sigurd

[boomwolf]

Well, the concept is nice, but hard to judge without knowing the world around it.
Jest how safe (or unsafe) is the world around them?
Why did they choose to live that way from the firstplace? (boats are not a natural environment, they didn't evolve there, they WERE land-dwellers at the beginning.)
How big is the "town"? 20 boats? 50 boats? 500 boats?
Do they have comfetable means to go from one boat to another without needing to re-engineer the entire fleet every time one wants to visit some other boat?

You need, first and foremost, to think how would the life of a commoner there will be like, and what difficulties he will face on his daily schedule, and what means the gnomes took to minimize these difficulties or solve them.

[DracoDei]

I say skip the island as a geographic feature, and have a massive floating structure of about 100 full sized ships, linked by solid bridges, plus the police boats and other smaller vessels which might or might not be linked in 'soft' or 'hard' to the larger structure at any given time.

For a slight twist, have wooden structures open to the water be built on the BOTTOMS of some tho the ships, where allied merfolk and nixies live, most of whom are gaurds who protect against attack from below by Kuo-Toa and the like.

[Harperfan7]

When they aren't sailing or whatever, they could all form up into a voltron-ish boat village with the biggest boats in the middle for somewhat of a town shape. You might even have special defense boats around the outer edge kinda like a "wall." This would make it easier to get to the boat you wanted to, minimize risk of drowning or shark attacks, and (or so I would imagine) prevent capsizing or sinking. It would make a pretty nice target for aquatic threats though.

[Devils_Advocate]

Oh, you meant floating. I thought that was an odd title.

I like the idea. Why shouldn't some of the nomadic halflings travel by water rather than land? And this way they can have larger permanent (but mobile) structures than a land-bound caravan allows for.

[DanielLC]

I suggest adding farming. See hydroponics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics).

This reminds me of the Raft from Snow Crash.

Perhaps you should have some sort of specialized siege weapons for fighting sea monsters. Also, trained dolphins in order to find them. The weaponry would need to be dispersed throughout the whole village, as sea monsters could come up anywhere.

[DamnedIrishman]

I have an idea for a halfling town that is on boats.

May I draw your attention to the film Waterworld. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterworld)

Watch it. Be inspired.


Since there is no ground to bury the dead in, the dead are placed in a yellow brine pool, whereupon they are "recycled".

[DracoDei]

Waterworld had some MAJOR flaws... though... no solar distillation for one thing... and using yourself as bait? What in the world?!

Actually, never mind... both of those work perfectly for D&D...

[Zeful]

Waterworld had some MAJOR flaws... though... no solar distillation for one thing... and using yourself as bait? What in the world?!

Actually, never mind... both of those work perfectly for D&D...

I thought that he was using himself as bait because he didn't have anything he could kill it with from outside it with anything resembling accuracy.

Besides, they hadn't eaten anything in days, they didn't have anything else for bait.

[ridly]

Perhaps you should have some sort of specialized siege weapons for fighting sea monsters. Also, trained dolphins in order to find them. The weaponry would need to be dispersed throughout the whole village, as sea monsters could come up anywhere.


The dolphin idea but did you mean riding them or not?


They would have siege weapons like catapults, or Bastille.

[Mercenary Pen]

The dolphin idea but did you mean riding them or not?


They would have siege weapons like catapults, or Bastille.

I think you mean ballistae not Bastille.

Something to think about though, would the ships making up this city- when lashed together- need to make up different formations to account for differing conditions at sea?

[Zeta Kai]

Oh, you meant floating. I thought that was an odd title.

Yeah, it's easier to ignore the bad spelling in a thread if at least the thread's title is spelled correctly. :smallamused:

[sigurd]

The problem with not having an absolute anchor of some kind is drift and resisting currents.


Anchor could be anything, but if there's water between the anchor and the town it will rise and fall stressing the ropes or moorings.

Has anyone read any Terry Pratchet? In one book he has vehicles that fly over the water powered by psychics\wizards that are deathly afraid of water? :) They keep the craft in the air by abject fear :P.


Sigurd

[DamnedIrishman]

I think you mean ballistae not Bastille.

Nope, it's a castle-prison-boat for enemies of the state.



Has anyone read any Terry Pratchet? In one book he has vehicles that fly over the water powered by psychics\wizards that are deathly afraid of water? :) They keep the craft in the air by abject fear :P.


Actually, the (slightly misnamed) Hydrophobes levitate their platforms over water due to their deep and unstoppable loathing of water.

Hydrophobes all die young. They just can't live with themselves.

[mr.fizzypop]

First off, you need to learn how to spell better. It's getting confusing.

Also, would this be in the ocean, or on lakes and rivers? On the ocean they could cover more ground, but on an lake or river, there would be more cities and trading ports. Also traveling on a river would get rid of the threat of ocean storms, and pirates.

Another idea is to have permanently anchored, inn ships that stay stationary in populous areas. It could be a rest stop for sailors, and also travelers who need to switch between two ships.