Running Water

[Fragmented]

I was musing today, and I started to wonder about running water. Allanak has a sewer system, and since it doesn't rain, the sewers are obviously not in place to channel rainfall for purification and whatnot. So what are the sewers for? To me, they imply the existance of toilets, rather then simple chamber pots, and toilets are actually fairly complicated devices. I'm wondering what you the players think about this.

I'm also wondering about fountains. How can these fountains work without some sort of pump mechanism to build pressure to keep a fountain flowing. What would these pumps be made of without metal? What are the pipes made of to channel fluids and waste through the sewers.. things like that. Thoughts, opinions?

[Hymwen]

The sewers are for.. human waste.

[Yokunama]

So what are the sewers for?

They can be used for a lot of things.
:arrow: Housing
:arrow: Hideout
:arrow: Place for waste
:arrow: Other things you'd have to find out on your own.  :wink:

[Maybe42or54]

The sewers are where Allanak gets all of the white robe water.

[Intrepid]

Actually, toilets are just open/close valves that operate through suction
and ambient pressure.  As long as it's not stopped up, you pour more
water in while opening the valve by pushing the lever and it moves
whatever was in there out.  Pretty simple stuff really, and even a place
as low in development as Allanak could justify having them.

The fact that true toilets were developed so late in western history is
just chance, imo.

[Armaddict]

Rome had fully functional plumbing, I believe.  It's a matter of a place being developed versus undeveloped, not that the technology is unavailable, in my opinion.  Or from what I can tell, rather.

[LauraMars]

OH MY GOD, THE SEWERS.

[Maybe42or54]

Interesting Reads.

http://www.theplumber.com/eng.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question33.htm
http://www.plumbingworld.com/toilethistoryindia.html

[Fragmented]

Okay, I guess my true question wasn't properly delivered.

I know the sewers are for waste. How do they move the waste through them? If it was a matter of people just taking a shit in a hole that leads to the sewers, within a few years, said sewers would fill up. I mean, 500k people produce -alot- of shit.

This would involve plumbing, as would toilets, as would fountains. Plumbing uses pipes. What do they make the pipes from. And as for fountains, there has to be a pumping mechanism to keep a fountain constantly spraying water that's automated. That's a machine. From what I understand of the game, there's no such thing as machines, however crude, yet, with the -possible- exception of gate closing/opening mechanisms that are gear driven. But then that makes me wonder what they're building gears out of. Certainly not stone. Certainly not bone.

[Delirium]

Magick makes everything possible.

[Armaddict]

In a playful retort that says I really don't know...

Fuck machines.  We have magick.

[Delirium]

OMG ARMADDICT'S A MINDBENDER KILL HIM

[Armaddict]

*eats Deliriums brainz*

[Delirium]

Sorry, I couldn't resist goofing off.  Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Xygax]

There are lots of ways to move feces that don't involve water or magick.  Zalanthas is, for example, populated by very, very large insects.  As everyone knows, insects dig on shit (sorry about the technical jargon here).  This is just one possible hypothesis, of course.

-- X

[Sakra]

What do you think House Jal does all day?

[Yokunama]

What do you think House Jal does all day?

Sit around and snort salt crystals up their nose?

[Angela Christine]

Pipes:  I believe the large underground tunnels are stone, much like large sewer tunnels have been in most Earth sewers.  The pipes leading to the surface appear to be ceramic.

It looks like the pipes are not connected to most homes, at least not in the commoner's quarter, where they are spaced periodically in public places.  (Large merchant and noble estates and compounds probably have at least one pipe access point.)  I'm just speculating, but I think most people do probably use chamber pots or buckets, and the buckets are then emptied into the pipe access points.  You have to empty the buckets somewhere, right?  Dumping them in the street is an option (it worked for medieval Europe) but having a slightly more sophisticated waste disposal method isn't out of the question.  Other waste fluids (from washing, industrial processes, perhaps the slaughterhouse district) would help keep things moving.

Building a sewer system in Allanak now would be a huge undertaking, and probably not worth the trouble.  But it wasn't built now, or even recently.  It was probably put in many centuries ago.  Likely it was started around the same time as the permanent stone walls, or perhaps just after the city walls were finished since a large group of stone mason types would have been part of the city labour force during the construction of the walls, and their experience could easily translate to building stone-lined tunnels.

c.290
The powerful chieftain Quintus Tektolnes conquers and unites the tribes at Vrun Driath into a small kingdom. The tribes called Doombringer, Tan-Muark, and Shadow are among the conquered.
308
Fourth Age ends.
c.312
Quintus' son, aged 22, treacherously slays his father and assumes control of the kingdom, now called Allanak.
c.320
Work begins on the walls of the city-state of Allanak at Vrun Driath.

We are now in the 1500s, so most of the sewer system was likely built (or at least well underway) a thousand years ago.  This is significant because all indications are that the south (and the known world in general) were much more hospitable in the past, even a few centuries in the past.  A thousand years ago it might have been as nice as the grasslands near Tuluk.  Back then Allanak was probably a more prosperous place in general.  More people could afford to use water for cleaning, and then discard it down the pipes.   Even if the total amount of water comes from natural sources and is a fixed amount, the population was probably lower then, so water would have been cheaper.  The current sewer system isn't completely practical for modern Allanak, but it probably made sense when it was planned.  (For example, if I was planning a sewer system for modern Allanak I'd look for a way to have it lead to or near the surface in the sands outside the city.  That way the material could be reclaimed, composted, and used to maintain and expand the precious fertile area of farmland.)

Now days it probably doesn't get enough fluids to keep things flowing smoothly, unless the rich produce quite a bit of waste fluid.  But in a thousand years there has been more than enough time for insects and other simple life forms to develop, evolve, or adapt to the nutrient rich environment underground.  Life forms may even have been engineered to assist in keeping things moving.  The fabled Sewer Horrors must have gotten there somehow, right?



Pumps:  Pumps are possible with Zalanthan technology.  Remember, they aren't really stone age people, they are more advanced people that were nuked back to the stone age (Defiled back to the stone age, whatever).  It is possible that Allanak's (and Tuluk's) water supply is magickally created, but it is far more likely that the city was founded in a place with a natural spring or access to an underground aquifer.  While commoners are expected to hoof it to a temple to buy their water, chances are that the all the water for the Noble's and Templar's quarter is not carried by hand from that temple.  The main access to the water supply is probably somewhere in the Templar's quarter, and is pumped out to the temple and other important locations from there.  If I were in charge, I would want the water supply protected in the most secure part of the city, away from terrorists, poisoners, raiders, and the like.  Control of the water supply would have been a huge factor in controlling the population of the city, especially in the early days when Tektolnes wasn't as magickally powerful . . . it must take time to become a sorcerous King with the power of a god and the ability to channel that power through Templars.  The pipes themselves are likely ceramic, like the sewage pipes.  The pumps are probably metal.

Metal is rare, not non-existent.  Note the gigantic steel dragon statue at the main gate.  With a limited amount of metal it might make sense to use it on reliable pumps for your precious water supply rather than weapons, armor or jewelry.  Pumps made from bone, leather and gut are probably possible, but would be much less durable.  The pumps could be powered by slave labour.

Or Tek's Tower may be the secret of water distribution.  Water is drawn to cisterns in the top of that very tall tower, either magickally or through a powerful system of very valuable pumps.  Or, if it is an entirely magickal water supply, there might be something like a Gate to the Elemental Plane of Water, through which a continuous stream of water gushes.  Or perhaps a really big Decanter of Endless Water.      It flows down from the tower building up enough water pressure to send it throughout the city and into fountains, much like the Roman fountains.  http://science.howstuffworks.com/water.htm


ICly it is probably believed to be a miraculous manifestation of the Highlord's power and generosity.



Angela Christine

[Aldiel]

Instead of aqueducts, the Sorcerer Kings have created magick water pumps!

[Twilight]

Lots of things, like how it works, how much water must be in there with other things, etc., can be inferred though IC means.

[JRB]

Actually a highly motivated water elemental, mud elemental would do the trick to keep the sewers flowing.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

AC, why do you not volunteer to write certian helpfiles and othersuch for the site and in-game that are not currently descriptive enough?

You are a wealth of potential knowledge and baseless yet logically valid facts.

[spawnloser]

You are a wealth of potential knowledge and baseless yet logically valid facts.

I'd say that she was the leader of a hord, a plethora even, of trivia and obscure facts.

Jefe, what is a plethora?

[Kiri]

I'd like to add, that there is plenty of clay/ceramic on Zalanthas. Pipes are made of those in other cultures.

[Angela Christine]

Actually a highly motivated water elemental, mud elemental would do the trick to keep the sewers flowing.

Good point.  Jal could even keep a few Vivaduans on retainer to water down sluggish areas.  Maybe even a couple Krathis to burn through tough clogs.  

All those NPC elementalists have to work somewhere, right?  They can't all work for Oash.

AC, why do you not volunteer to write certain helpfiles and othersuch for the site and in-game that are not currently descriptive enough?

Because then it would have to be right.  As long as it is just a wild ass guess based on scanty information it is fun to do.  I'm all about the speculation.  But if it has to be correct, well, where's the fun in that?  I might as well be answering essay questions in school.    Taking a handful of observations and spinning them into story, that's fun for me.  I should have been one of those armchair scientist types in the late 1800s - early 1900s.


Also, I think some of the undocumented areas are undocumented on purpose, not just because no one has gotten around to writing about them yet.  If the players know for sure how something like water and sewer distribution works, then as sure as a scrab shits in the sand some characters will start to know it too, and hardly any PCs should really know how it works.  Even most templars and non-Jal nobles wouldn't know exactly how it works.  


Angela Christine