Question about Allanak

[Street guy]

Starving beggars, midden heaps, a pile of corpses.. and probably lots of pre-plumping style sewage.  These disgusting tid-bits help make up the down-trodden, technology-lacking world that exists for Allanaki commoners.  

My question - would an emoted roadside cooking fire be out of place in this waste-stewn wreck of a city?  The Gaj has a communal pit for people to use, but I imagine the 40-400thousand ( I don't remember) people living in the city can't all fit there.  Opinions?

[Larrath]

The Gaj isn't the only tavern in Allanak that has a cooking pit.  Virtually, there are probably at least a dozen others.

As for cooking on small fires by the sides of the road...I personally don't imagine Allanak looking like that, but I guess some people might occasionally burn some garbage to make room for other trash.

[Bestatte]

I used to cook travel cakes on a virtual stone slab at a junction near the Bard's Barrel. It just seemed a reasonable place for one...and on a hot day, those flat slabs of stone can probably cook some flour and water as easily as a car hood can fry an egg.

[WarriorPoet]

There are virtual buildings and the like lining major thoroughfares, no? Mebbe if you emoted making a fire at the mouth of that narrow, filthy alley between two virtual buildings, and then changed ldesc to reflect it?

Just a thought. I buy my food.

-WP

[wizturbo]

All depends exactly where you are, who you are, and who is watching.  A common citizen passing by, probably wouldn't give a damn or even notice.  A militiaman might see it as an opportunity to decide you've broken the law and give you a nice shakedown, depending on who your character is precisely.  A Tempar might decide that your polluting his or her stroll down the road and decide you should be whipped for the offense, or they might not care.

In Allanak, ANYTHING you do can receive negative attention if your a commoner, depending on who's watching.  With that said...naw, doesn't seem too unreasonable to cook on the side of a major street, but its definitely not the best place to do something like that, a kank could trample your makeshift grill, or an elf run past and steal your meal, or any number of unpleasant stuff

[SpyGuy]

I'd say to do that sort of stuff mainly in the commoner's quarter.  Try to avoid main thoroughfares with kank and wagons and all that stuff that could ruin your good meal.  The commoner's quarter of both cities is likely a much more crowded place than most PCs think of when walking through them.  And since people don't all have firepits in their hovels a few probably do it right outside theirs walls.  In a crowded city with OMG DEATH CRITTERS right outside the gates I'd say that a good portion of the paved roads in the districts would be considered "living space" for roadside shops, porches, craftsmen, cooking pits, etc.  And you can use the crowded environment as an RP tool, asking a Vnpc to use their fire or RP trying to scare off beggings elven children.  Might be a cool way to do the crafting RP.

[Qetesh]

Though I can't see it as wrong, I don't see it as smart. As others said, if you really need to cook out on the street, I would do it in a less high traffic area. The main drag coming in from the gates or anywhere with high foot traffic isn't appropriate.  A small side street filled with the noises of common folks walking about sparsely seems a much better fit. Otherwise you'll end up with a mouth full of dust, Kank crap and wherever else people "dump" on the streets all stuck up in your food.

Gross.

[Sokotra]

Of course, some inhabitants may even roll that kank dung in the dust and fry up little dung-patties for a nutritious snack.  

Personally, I see 'Nak as being much more gritty and 'in-your-face' than some might... Even Caravan road is probably wide enough to allow people to stand along the sides and cook, sleep, argue, dance... etc.  

You'd be amazed at what people would do, and probably get away with, where poverty is commonplace.[/quote]

[Qetesh]

I would honestly let the room description let you know what the VNPC's in that room are doing. If it says something like people are conversing, dancing, cooking and telling stories here, then I say go for it. You would blend in. But on a high traffic road, where all you see are people carring bags of stuff, wagons passing and people on kank-back trotting up and down, it might seem a bit of an odd choice for a BBQ.

Doesn't mean you couldn't do it, but I wouldn't  do it.

[Twilight]

Since we are talking Allanak, I think the only thing I would say that is as long as you have an actual source of fuel for that fire, or a "virtual" source that you have actually spent time going out and getting, then go for it.  I think the main problem a person would have would actually be getting the fuel.  Unless you are stealing from the fields, potted plants or are lucky, how would a normal commoner in the city come to get fuel?  Buy it, sure.  Or find something to burn.  I don't imagine most of the garbage lying around would actually be something that would burn.

[moab]

dried kank dung would burn, i bet.

i think in any of the abandonded houses, coded alleys or back streets ('rinth) would be perfect for this.

[Maybe42or54]

Personally, I don't think the templar's would want a fire burning anywhere near the houses made of wood. Wasn't there a big fire in Allanak once?

[Delirium]

Personally, I don't think the templar's would want a fire burning anywhere near the houses made of wood. Wasn't there a big fire in Allanak once?

What houses made of wood? Mudbrick, adobe..

Anyway, good luck keeping people from building cookfires in their own homes.

[Maybe42or54]

In the room descriptions, there are a lot of wooden housing.

[mansa]

In the room descriptions, there are a lot of wooden housing.

If you -do- see some 'wooden houses' in allanak, you might want to 'typo' it.

Wood is -extremily- expensive, in allanak.  The only places that should have it would be places owned by the extremely rich.  If it's a wooden shanty, than that's wrong and should be changed.

[Angela Christine]

What if it was a really, really old wooden building?  (Or partially wooden building.)  In an arid climate wood can last for a long time.  It isn't going to rot, it is unlikely to be buried or worn away by the sand from inside the city walls, so your only real worries are termites and human scavengers.  After a few centuries of having dust and sand blasted into the wood it might not even look much like wood anymore, from a distance an old wooden building and an old clay building might look much the same.


Presumably durring the occupation wood was cheaper, since they coulld screw northern workers out of decent pay.  Allanak also had a fairly nearby source of lumber after they killed captured the Xytrix-Za valley in 1471.  

More importantly, there is some evidence that the Known World is going through the process of desertification (a real word, not one I just made up) and that even the south was considerably more lush a few centuries ago.  Nobody in their right mind would try to found a city in a location like Allanak the way it is today, so it was probably a nicer neighbourhood before the 'Nakkies moved in.  Chances are that the original walls around the city were probably wooden, and likely enclosed a smaller area, because it would have taken many years to build the current enormous stone walls (unless they were built by magick).  The burgeoning population quickly stripped the surrounding countryside of everything that couldn't fight back including the vegitation, and without that vegitation the storms grew worse, the land became drier and it became harder to grow anything at all.  The early settlers likely also over-grazed the land, at least until there was no land near the city where grazing was possible any more.  At the same time Tek's minions secured whatever springs or oasis formed the natural water supply of the region, likely diverting any nearby water sources to feed into the city, again making the surrounding land drier and more barren.  Basically the screwed the land until it takes a massive effort to keep the dry, pathetic farmland around Allanak producing anything at all.  The sorcerers get blamed for ruining the land, but the poor land management practices of ordinary humans probably contributed.

Buildings that are partially wood seem plausible to me, because although wood is expensive (and probably always was) constructing a building with more than one story entirely out of clay or stone would be very difficult, and probably also very expensive.  Making the entire first floor and possibly all the outside walls of stone works, but making floors and ceilings of stone with nothing supporting them would be tricky.  Wood is expensive, but if you can reasonably expect that the wooden portion of a building will last several centuries then it may be worth it as a long term investment.


Angela Christine

PS.  More about desertification without sorcery:
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Science/desertification.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/deserts/desertification/
http://www.citet.nat.tn/english/biodiversity/causes_d.html
http://www.lehigh.edu/~kaf3/books/reporting/desert.html

[Maybe42or54]

With just the one story, the Descriptions of the room show that the mud brick is augmented with hides and other crap like that.

[Newwwbie]

Bone actually makes an incredible source of fuel with fires... But I don't think that it'd be very feasible seeing as all of the other uses for bone.  Tatters and rags that are always discarded on the street would make a good fuel.