Help with Ecological/Political Catastrophe

[Catullus64]

The next part of my setting that I plan to work in-depth with is a large city (at least, large by the population standards of the setting, which is meant to evoke the ancient near east). For the purposes of the setting present, the city is defined by its recovery and response to a major natural disaster. I'm not an ecologist, city planner, a sociologist, or expert in any of the relevant fields. Thus, I would welcome critique of how I've gamed out the scenario to work, whether it fits with how these kinds of events play out in real life.

Background
The city of Claywalls is situated in the middle of a major river delta, a couple miles from the open sea. Before it was settled, said delta was largely forested swamplands. The area was first settled by colonists from another city-state in the south, who cleared and drained large tracts of the swamp.

In the middle of the delta, a curious discovery provided an ideal site for a city: a rock formation, perhaps a mile-and-a-half in diameter, protruding several meters above the soil, and going very deep beneath it. The main walls of the town were built upon this rock, and how it came to rest in the middle of this low-lying delta is the subject of religious mystery. The setting present is some three or four generations hence from the founding of Claywalls, which is now a powerful trading hub, situated as it is at the mouth of a great river near the sea. The town has grown beyond its original confines atop the rock; a second set of walls now touches the two river branches on either side of the town.

The Disaster
Due to disputed causes (the city's luxury offends the gods, the king commits a sacrilege, political exiles turn to sorcery to gain vengeance) a storm of titanic proportions sweeps in from the sea. For nine consecutive days, Claywalls and its surrounding countryside are blasted with savage gales and heavy rains. The rivers flood their banks; much of the outer town is swept away entire. Whole villages are drowned. When the storms cease, further disaster occurs: with so much of the swamp-forest cleared, the soil of the riverbanks is unstable. Huge quantities of mud are dragged out to sea with the receding floodwaters, leaving great muddy canyons where there were once riverbanks. The erosion is so extensive that the citadel rock, once only a few meters above ground level, is now upon a high and precarious plateau.

The Collapse
In the aftermath of this catastrophe, the city's infrastructure is shot. The roads and bridges are completely destroyed, as are virtually all of the boats, and the land around the city is a treacherous muddy wasteland. All farming production is dead. And to top it all, the king has not been heard from since the storms. Various groups within the town begin consolidating food and weapons:

• The king's wife still controls the citadel rock, and claims to still be ruling in her husband's name. Due to the clifftop position of the citadel, her faction is well-fortified, but isolated and immoblie.
• The king's son, claiming that his father is dead, declares himself king, and sets up a power base around the wreckage of the docks. His aim is to rebuild shipping infrastructure and to use that to bring in foreign aid to back his claim; but he cannot rebuild without beating off the other factions.
• The priests of Gwithra, the eldest of the local deities, decide that the storms were divine visitations, punishment for the worship of other gods. They violently drive all the other priesthoods from their temples, and now control the entire temple district.
• The Honorable Brotherhood of Millers and Brewers controls the most food resources, and is therefore able to essentially vassalize most of the city's poorer residents into armed gangs. They now control the geographically largest section of the city.
• Many of the city's pre-existing criminal element were consolidated under the leadership of an opportunistic poet to resist the control of the Brotherhood. The Rhymer's Curs control a smaller territory than the Brotherhood, but have a higher proportion of seasoned fighters, as well as the advantage of being led by a poet (poetry in this setting is intrinsically magical.)

For the present, then, Claywalls is essentially a warzone, with the five major groups conducting raids and skirmishes, prodding for weaknesses and waiting to see who dares to make the first major move.

[jjordan]

As a major trade center the city would likely have had small colonies of foreign merchants (where colony=a large building serving as housing, warehouse, and possibly shops for 10-100 people). They are probably siding with the King's son but demanding trade concessions in return for their assistance. They're probably also talking to other people about moving the port altogether AND keeping lines of communication open with the Queen.

If the delta has been lowered by more than five feet (and it sounds like it has) then the delta sounds like it's gone and the city is now a rocky outcropping in the sea. If this is the case then new docks will have to be built on the mainland and the King's son might abandon the city altogether, particularly if he can get some naval forces to enforce control of the local sea.

The people that have food are going to be wooed or attacked by the people that don't. Unless there's a strong, pre-existing republican sentiment amongst the lower class the millers/brewers are going to be trying to figure out which faction to ally with rather than running their own show.

And where's the rest of the nobility? What happened to their delta estates?

[sandmote]

I can't help for realism or expertise on the relevant fields, but it might be easier if you've got a political situation to build out from. All I can really point out is that despite historic cities relegating about 1/3 their area to food production, the fields outside the city were needed to feed everyone inside. Historically, the rural food producers were most of the population. Although most fishermen likely had a boat and survived, as did farmers with a vessel to travel into the city on their own. So what's likely to happen is that everyone is rebuilding outside as the powers fight over what's left of the city. That's likely relevant for the greater area.

That said, powers will often band together for mutual support when they don't conflict. As described right now, for instance, the king's wife can declare state religion of Gwithra and special legal status to the two guilds and sweep the rest of the city with their combined forces. If there's any reason this wouldn't be a happy arrangement for those three factions, it isn't listed.

There's a video by Mathew Colville that goes over this really well, but I can't for the life of me find it again. Usually this is done with a pantheon of gods, but it works equally well for conflicting powers.

Basically, you want the factions to hold some particular principles (to attract forces beneath them, at the least) so that any force trying to take control automatically results in multiple factions banding together against it. Each side then brings in allies via proxy issues until everyone is involved. The faction that tried to break the status quo should be outmatched here (with one ally to three enemies) until the fighting drag's its power back into line with everyone else. later another faction tries something to gain control of the city and everyone reassembles in a different arrangement again to repeat everything.

To go over what's listed:

• It looks like the faction on the rock and the one controlling the docks both claim to have inherited rule of the city. They might be goaded into trying to uphold the family's name together, but "I speak for the king/I'm king" will be the main point of disagreement.
• At the same time, the priests and the king's son disagree on allowing foreign influence into the city. So the other priests have likely gone to bolster the prince's claim to the throne, making which gods get worshipped a point of contention between them.
• And the Brotherhood and Rhymer's Curs are at war for reasons not listed.

Spoiler: diagram of the above, if it'll show properly

Show

The king's son is directly opposite the king's wife and the priests, and the position of the others relative to each other is arbitrary.

I'd start with integrating the brotherhood and Rhymer's Curs into the conflict. If the Rhymer's curs and Brotherhood are on par with the other three, they need some reason they haven't partnered with anyone to gain joint control of the city. So one needs a reason to have a problem with the king's wife, and the other needs a problem with exclusive worship of Gwithra. Doesn't matter which, but as it stands they need a reason. You can use however you set that up to provide a reason the poet gets enough support opposing the brotherhood that he's carved out political power.

If you don't like my previous description on how the king's son doesn't get along with the priests of Gwithra, then you can swap to the priests directly opposing two other factions, and need a second faction for the king's son to directly oppose. Similarly, the story/campaign could focus on the poet's conflict with the Brotherhood, with the greater conflict introduced after one is defeated. The victor raises to prominence and some other (unlisted) faction fills the role of a 5th balancing force.

[Squire Doodad]

There could be pettier issues than just power, too, which have since been internalized and made into reasons for the two factions to abhor each other.

Say, the Brotherhood sees the Poet as just a bunch of layabouts who don't plan on doing anything if they have power, while the Poets in turn are furious with the disdain the Brotherhood has towards them.

Meanwhile the Poets are also pushing for a society without the clergy being a key part of the power structure, and under the king's rule the Millers were given shoddy taxes and the like - a trait the Queen wants to keep in place.

[Catullus64]

Responding to people's questions and suggestions in roughly the order they were brought up.

jjordan

It's a tricky situation with the elevation of the land. I hadn't imagined the whole city being in the middle of the sea, but definitely in the middle of a hazardous, brackish swampland that makes large-scale trade infeasible. Mostly I like the image of part of the city on the rock raised up high above the rest, and that I suppose logically requires more extensive flooding and erosion than would still leave anything else dry.

As for the nobility, I hadn't envisioned landed nobles as part of this city's political structure. The territory and population is small enough that centralized, autocratic rule by one king is possible. The closest thing to nobles are the king's personal, professional soldiers (most of whom have sided with one of the two royal factions) and the city-dwelling class of scribes and poets.

sandmote:

I found your graphic and the corresponding logic about the power dynamics very helpful. I very much like the implicit tension between the Gwithrans' desire to expel foreign influence, and the prince's reliance on foreign influence to secure his claim. I'll definitely entrench and deepen that ideological divide.

I've also decided, at your urging, to come up with two additional sources of tension, one between the Gwithrans vs. Honorable Brotherhood, and one between the Rhymer's Curs vs. the Queen's Men.

For the Gwithrans vs. Honorable brotherhood, there's an ethnic dimension. The Brotherhood is a fairly new organization, and very few of its members can trace their family lineage back to the founding of the city, which very much clashes with the nativist sentiments of the priests.

For the Rhymer's Curs vs. the Queen's Men, I've decided on a more radical approach: the poet who leads the Rhymer's Curs is the king himself in disguise. During the storms, he narrowly survived an assassination attempt, and evidence pointed him towards his wife being behind it. He decided to play a long game, and used the chaos caused by the storms to disappear. After using his powers to consolidate thieves and bandits into the Rhymer's Curs, his main objective is ultimately to retake the citadel; hence most of his raids have the objective of finding weaknesses in her defenses. He is also interested in testing his son's loyalty, and figuring out whether said son will be an ally or an enemy when he reveals himself. Clearly he's something of a morally grey figure, being willing to further the chaos in his disaster-stricken city to draw out a threat to his power.

This latter plot twist of course helps address Squire Doodad's questions about the Rhymer's Curs' motives.

[Yanagi]

The next part of my setting that I plan to work in-depth with is a large city (at least, large by the population standards of the setting, which is meant to evoke the ancient near east). For the purposes of the setting present, the city is defined by its recovery and response to a major natural disaster. I'm not an ecologist, city planner, a sociologist, or expert in any of the relevant fields. Thus, I would welcome critique of how I've gamed out the scenario to work, whether it fits with how these kinds of events play out in real life.

Background
The city of Claywalls is situated in the middle of a major river delta, a couple miles from the open sea. Before it was settled, said delta was largely forested swamplands. The area was first settled by colonists from another city-state in the south, who cleared and drained large tracts of the swamp.

In the middle of the delta, a curious discovery provided an ideal site for a city: a rock formation, perhaps a mile-and-a-half in diameter, protruding several meters above the soil, and going very deep beneath it. The main walls of the town were built upon this rock, and how it came to rest in the middle of this low-lying delta is the subject of religious mystery. The setting present is some three or four generations hence from the founding of Claywalls, which is now a powerful trading hub, situated as it is at the mouth of a great river near the sea. The town has grown beyond its original confines atop the rock; a second set of walls now touches the two river branches on either side of the town.

The Disaster
Due to disputed causes (the city's luxury offends the gods, the king commits a sacrilege, political exiles turn to sorcery to gain vengeance) a storm of titanic proportions sweeps in from the sea. For nine consecutive days, Claywalls and its surrounding countryside are blasted with savage gales and heavy rains. The rivers flood their banks; much of the outer town is swept away entire. Whole villages are drowned. When the storms cease, further disaster occurs: with so much of the swamp-forest cleared, the soil of the riverbanks is unstable. Huge quantities of mud are dragged out to sea with the receding floodwaters, leaving great muddy canyons where there were once riverbanks. The erosion is so extensive that the citadel rock, once only a few meters above ground level, is now upon a high and precarious plateau.

The Collapse
In the aftermath of this catastrophe, the city's infrastructure is shot. The roads and bridges are completely destroyed, as are virtually all of the boats, and the land around the city is a treacherous muddy wasteland. All farming production is dead. And to top it all, the king has not been heard from since the storms. Various groups within the town begin consolidating food and weapons:

• The king's wife still controls the citadel rock, and claims to still be ruling in her husband's name. Due to the clifftop position of the citadel, her faction is well-fortified, but isolated and immoblie.
• The king's son, claiming that his father is dead, declares himself king, and sets up a power base around the wreckage of the docks. His aim is to rebuild shipping infrastructure and to use that to bring in foreign aid to back his claim; but he cannot rebuild without beating off the other factions.
• The priests of Gwithra, the eldest of the local deities, decide that the storms were divine visitations, punishment for the worship of other gods. They violently drive all the other priesthoods from their temples, and now control the entire temple district.
• The Honorable Brotherhood of Millers and Brewers controls the most food resources, and is therefore able to essentially vassalize most of the city's poorer residents into armed gangs. They now control the geographically largest section of the city.
• Many of the city's pre-existing criminal element were consolidated under the leadership of an opportunistic poet to resist the control of the Brotherhood. The Rhymer's Curs control a smaller territory than the Brotherhood, but have a higher proportion of seasoned fighters, as well as the advantage of being led by a poet (poetry in this setting is intrinsically magical.)

For the present, then, Claywalls is essentially a warzone, with the five major groups conducting raids and skirmishes, prodding for weaknesses and waiting to see who dares to make the first major move.

In terms of physical stuff: in addition to the other stuff such a storm would do, there would likely be a storm surge that would pose a direct threat to people in the city, as well as potentially destroyed buildings, well before the point where the erosion would just completely rip up the city. Furthermore, in the immediate aftermath of the storm there'd likely be a water supply issue because the river would be churned to muck and wells/cisterns would be contaminated with flood water (that would be both brackish and dirty, as well as carrying whatever it swept up). People wouldn't necessary by dying of thirst, but they would be getting sick off the water they had available.

[Mechalich]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned so far is the issue of mass exodus. In the face of a massive disaster like this, the natural response from most people is to simply leave. In this case, with the city being in a river delta, there is likely an extensive set of settlements further upriver so people will go that way. Alternatively anyone who can cobble together a boat/raft might try migrating down the coast. This sort of mass retreat is especially likely in the face of widespread violence. People who have already lost the majority of their material possessions in the disaster have nothing left but their lives and every incentive to run away rather than fight. This is particularly likely given the devastation of the surrounding land. In a pre-industrial agricultural economy land is the primary source and store of wealth. This disaster reduces Claywalls' wealth by a massive percentage, perhaps 90% or more. The only people with any incentive to remain are those who have wealth bound up in durable goods.

If the city contained ~100,000 people (this would fit the large city of the ancient near east concept) I'd expect a population crash down to ~10,000 within a matter of months from a combination of exodus, starvation among those unable to leave (the elderly, the crippled, etc.), and illness.

[Catullus64]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned so far is the issue of mass exodus. In the face of a massive disaster like this, the natural response from most people is to simply leave. In this case, with the city being in a river delta, there is likely an extensive set of settlements further upriver so people will go that way. Alternatively anyone who can cobble together a boat/raft might try migrating down the coast. This sort of mass retreat is especially likely in the face of widespread violence. People who have already lost the majority of their material possessions in the disaster have nothing left but their lives and every incentive to run away rather than fight. This is particularly likely given the devastation of the surrounding land. In a pre-industrial agricultural economy land is the primary source and store of wealth. This disaster reduces Claywalls' wealth by a massive percentage, perhaps 90% or more. The only people with any incentive to remain are those who have wealth bound up in durable goods.

If the city contained ~100,000 people (this would fit the large city of the ancient near east concept) I'd expect a population crash down to ~10,000 within a matter of months from a combination of exodus, starvation among those unable to leave (the elderly, the crippled, etc.), and illness.

Yeah, I think that I had better come up with reasons why a mass exodus isn't really feasible in this circumstance. You're reasoning about how and why one would happen seems plausible, but for dramatic purposes I would prefer to avoid the question of why people don't just resettle. The other city-states upriver are less than friendly, so that avenue is probably mostly closed off, although the need for viable land might drive whoever comes out on top of Claywalls to instigate a war with some of those folks. Food for future thought.

[sandmote]

Spoiler: Updated Power Dynamics

Show

Okay, I think this is the basic stuff all down. Some of my own wording could be improved; I think the faction at the docks would likely have some subgroups friendly with the Rhymer's Curs if both include some smugglers. Whereas the faction on the Rock could probably be law and order types with harsh penalties against committing crime (and could have some neat story implications with the king). That would explain why one would mobilize against the Rhymer's Curs immediately, but the other could be goaded into an alliance to oppose the King's Wife.

Additional, unnecessary nonsense for preventing permanent alliances.
The Crime Lord/King/Poet testing his son's loyalty is a clever idea, but you technically haven't stated why the other groups adjacent on the diagram wouldn't become permanent allies.

I would suggest is having all four other factions containing displaced clergy from the temple district. Gwithra's clergy have a philosophical problem with the factions opposing them, so this could neatly explain why there needs to be a threat to get the priests to join forces adjacent to them in the diagram.

Whereas established nobles are going to take umbrage with merchants gaining political power, so that might cover the conflict between the Brotherhood and its adjacent factions.

Yeah, I think that I had better come up with reasons why a mass exodus isn't really feasible in this circumstance.

If there is semi-regular (but much less severe) flooding, it might be justifiable that plenty of people survived, especially anyone who was already living on the river. Similarly, if everyone's used to have the docks need to be at differnet heights around the year, it might be easier to justify some of the docks surviving or being quickly rebuilt at the new water level. On the other hand, the initial exodus could be into the city, which would heighten tensions even if a lot of the urban populace didn't survive the calamity.

Off the top of my head:

• The Docks can import food for the emergency.
• The Rock's food stores were likely the least damaged by percentage, no matter how much they started with.
• The Brotherhood probably had the most to start with stores compared to everyone else, even if a smaller percentage survived.
• If Gwithra's priests have a way to purify and and create food, they can likely make their existing stores last.

That leaves the Curs. Maybe the king has revealed a weakness in the Rock's defenses and they're using it to sneak out food?

[brian 333]

Others have discussed the internal situation so I don't have much to add there except two points:

1) Any boats or ships in restricted waterways in an horriffic storm are destroyed. Those at sea may have survived or sunk, but those which were in port will, at the least, need major work at a shipyard before they are serviceable. Most will be little better than makeshift shelter or firewood.

See Forrest Gump or post-Hurricane Camille photos for examples.

B) Opportunisim. Humans are cruel and greedy, and they will be at their worst after a storm. They will exploit starvation to induce people to sell themselves into slavery. They will 'recruit' children who lost their parents to join their gangs. They will take advantage of the lack of law enforcement to cheat and steal. The misery index will be high, and the rich may discover that wealth makes them targets.

Ysilla had cried her last tear, but the pain was no less than before. The Resurection Man was coming. Her precious son lay on soiled satin, the cleanest bedding she could find in the filthy city. The Resurection Man would take care of him. She clutched what remained of her jewelry after the robbers had taken what they could find, what they wanted. No matter. The Resurrection Man would bring back her boy where the healers, the charletains, had failed and at great cost only hastened his death. Jewelry held no power to heal her heart, broken in the dying ruins of her former home. The Resurrection Man could have it.

The step on the porch, the grinding of the broken door scraping the floor. The Resurrection Man was here.

Hope animated her face as the black-cowled stranger entered the shattered parlor where she knealt beside the small body.

She expected him to be taller, noble-looking. He was short. And pudgy. He held out an empty cloth purse that might once have been white.

"Can you heal him?"

"No," he answered in a voice that might have belonged to a grocer. Her disappointment must have showed. "But he will never be hungry or sick again."

She shoved the two fistfulls of jewelry into his purse. He drew the strings shut and tucked it into his robe, and without further ceremony he began to prepare his spell. Within moments he was chanting and she could feel the tingle of magic.

"Rise," he commanded.

An inarticulate squeal escaped her throat as she saw the lifeless body of her son move, and then Trejia stood.

"Obey your mother," the Resurrection Man said.

He stood aside then, and Ysilla hesitantly called to her son.

"Trejia, come here."

The boy took three clumsy steps in her direction and she howled her grief, hugging her son to her and weeping as she held him.

She did not hear the steps going away, nor the door scrape closed.

And the Resurrection Man would be long gone by the time she realized that he was the cruelest of all the thieves and rapists in the city of dispair.

[brian 333]

The external situation also bears scrutiny.

Who are the river traders who were instrumental in creating the trade the city enjoyed? Might they now wish to conduct trade directly with the overseas buyers and sellers, bypassing the middle-man?

River deltas can be very broad or very narrow, so the rock may guard the only navigable channel, or there may be other channels that can be used for trade. The storm may have closed old channels as well. Former smugglers who used the back-bayous to do their thing may now have an opportunity to get rich by going legit and siphon trade away from the city in so doing.

What are pirates doing now that a former trade power has ceased to defend the sea lanes around their port?

[Squire Doodad]

What are pirates doing now that a former trade power has ceased to defend the sea lanes around their port?

Probably either exploiting the son's attempt at consolidating power via the docks to make some money, or staying away because the son has been pretty capable at warding them off.

Or, the first wave or two was warded off, but within a few weeks/months of the start of the party's arrival, a particularly nasty batch of raiders will try to come in. They'll probably devastate the town even further, leading one faction to either have to have united the town prior, or to make them unite themselves in face of the raiders. The son and the poets band together to stop the invaders; the queen strikes a deal with the millers to net them better prices in exchange for lending them power enough to stop the pirates. Stuff like that.

[thefantodayhtml]

Basically, you want the factions to hold some particular principles (to attract forces beneath them, at the least) so that any force trying to take control automatically results in multiple factions banding together against it. Each side then brings in allies via proxy issues until everyone is involved. The faction that tried to break the status quo should be outmatched here (with one ally to three enemies) until the fighting drag's its power back into line with everyone else. later another faction tries something to gain control of the city and everyone reassembles in a different arrangement again to repeat everything.

In addition, I'd like to note there's a sixth "faction" here: starvation. All the factions have reasons that they'd prefer that other factions not end up in charge of the city, but they also have fairly obvious reasons that they'd prefer there still be a city to be in charge of, and they'll likely be willing to cooperate to that end. This doesn't mean that the situation is by any means stable (if anything, it would be even more volatile as each faction could be wiped out if they make the wrong move, and all sites would consistently looking for an opportunity to gain an advantage over the others), but factions would probably want to focus on shepherding their own resources instead of raiding if at all possible, and would prefer gunboat diplomacy over outright bloodshed.

[SandyAndy]

Famine is always a good ecological problem if you want a gritty, realistic feel. And having one bad year is a disaster. Everyone has to tighten their belts to make the grain reserves last. A second bad year in a row means that there is no more food. That's a catastrophe.

You could also go with flooding from the storms. The flood wash out the fields which means a less serious famine. This could lead to political fallout from people demanding massive irrigation and flood prevention projects. Even foreign traders would pressure the king to move that direction by threatening to close up shop and leave. Then there would be commoners demanding some kind of food assistance and the freemen/nobility saying it's unfair to take from them since they're suffering too.. Whatever religious organizations you have could have their own interests causing them to pressure the king as well. If you had 4 or 5 factions each pressuring the crown then you have plenty of fodder for single missions and long-arc stories.

EDIT: My bad. I basically outlined exactly what you've already done. This is what I get for eating dinner before writing a reply.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

On the subject of resources, the prince is going to be somewhat dependent on existing supplies of seasoned wood. You really don't want to build ships or docks out of green wood if you have the choice, because then they'll rot in a handful years. Probably some construction will have to be done that way, but first seizing and then protecting the city's supply of seasoned wood is going to be a priority for the prince's faction if they want to remain afloat long-term. That makes an excellent lever for the other factions to pull in negotiations or war, either offering access to their own warehouses or threatening the prince's.

Similarly, the factions will want to monopolize any traders that do make it to the city; even if they don't need what the trader is selling, one or more of their rivals certainly does. Any time such a trader shows up will cause a degree of chaos in the political landscape. (This mostly applies to bulk good traders, not like a single guy with a peddler's cart).

[Sapphire Guard]

What happens in the hinterland? The farmland is destroyed, the roads are destroyed, and there is a civil war and travel is too difficult. So what happens to the people outside the city itself? Do they hunker down, try to migrate into a civil war, or flee?