Fortifications


As a DM you can drive yourself crazy, spend a lot of money, or both when it comes to castles and fortified cities. I decided that unless it is magical, built by magical/divine beings (for example, Sauron's fortress), or built by nonhumans (Moria) that I'm not going that route. What I like to do is to use historical cities and fortresses for my campaigns. Below one of them; the 8th century Byzantinian city of Ankara. This is an image from my notes:
Some people cure cancer, I read about esoteric history. 

Ankara consisted of three parts; the inner part, the outer part, and the keep. 

The inner part: roughly 350 meters by 150 meters. The wall was 5 meters thick, towers 8-12 meters apart except the east side where they were 4-5 meters apart. The inner towers were the height of the wall, 6-8 meters wide, had two floors (first floor with archery slits, second with rectangular openings for ballista), with catapults on the roof. All were pentagon shaped towers. 

The outer part: wall was 3 meters thick, towers every 20-30 meters which were rectangular and 10 meters wide, also extended 8 meters from the wall. I'm using Ankara's plan as a city in an upcoming campaign. 

Here's another example that I used. I combined the cities of Nicaea and Amida (5th century Byzantine fortifications). Walls 9 meters tall and 4 meters wide. Towers every 60-70 meters which have a diameter of 15 meters and extend 12 meters beyond the wall. These are the primary dimensions of the walls and towers in the city that I'm using as the base of operations for my current campaign (the City of Greymane).

In the future I'll have Constantinople's walls as the walls for the capital of the evil empire. 

Why look to history? First, they did a better job than I could do. Second, it lets you get everything so that it is accurate and realistic (I know that's a strange phrase in a made up fantasy role playing game). Third, you'd be surprised how off we are with our fortress design compared to the real thing. For example, we'll draw up a castle with four corner towers and a tower on either side of the gate. Real castles might have a tower every 10 meters! You can also find a lot of floor plans with dimensions online, after all many of these locations are tourist destinations!

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