Thyrnau

[PorkStewJoe]

Hey everyone! I just happened upon this forum, and it is really nice to see so many people share my passion for cartography! And here I thought I was a freak

Anyway, I am currently designing a city for the DnD camaign I am DMing for. I think the way I designed it is reasonably feasible - though I would love to hear your imput, especially on a few specific things. The text on the map are in Dutch, so the names of the districts will probably be unreadable for you, je me regrette (though I could translate, if desired). Or you could just image it being a strange and exotic fantasy language

A short overview of the city
Thyrnau is the capital of a huge magocratic empire. The government and upper class districts are mostly in the southern part of the city, and grew organically. The northern half is more planned out, as it was decided Thyrnau would become the capital of a new empire due to the arrival of the god Thyr's avatar (the huge sphere hovering above the harbor and "Wijze Meester's Heuvel" (Wise Master's Hill). To the west of Thyrnau is an ocean, to the east a sea bordering many imperial provinces and some foreign nations. To the north and south are more provinces of the empire.



Things I am unsure about at the moment
I am unsure about the city's moat. It is to my understanding that any medieval city worth its salt had a moat. I am unsure whether it would be problematic to connect a moat directly to the sea, because the tides would then directly influence the water level in the moat. Perhaps a series of sluices would mitigate this problem? But then these might be a prime spot for a besieging army to sabotage. Perhaps I should make it a dry moat? Thoughts? Any moat experts around...?

Also, how many people would live in a city this size? 30 thousand? 60? 100? As you can see I really do not have a clue

Lastly: any weirdness or awkwardness you can spot, please point it out! I would love to hear the things I did wrong, hahaha.

Thanks in advance!

[J.Edward]

Hey PSJoe, the map looks good. Oh, welcome to the Guild.
All the points you made about the moat seem true.
I'm not sure a city of that size would have a moat. I think land topography would possibly determine whether a moat was likely or not.
Aside from that, your street layouts look good.
To determine the population there are some things you would have to determine.
How wealthy is the city, it's residence?
If reasonably wealthy, a percentage of those buildings will be shops and other non-residential places, more than there would be if the population were poorer.

[Chick]

Hello PorkStewJoe, welcome to the Guild!! Nice map for a first post, I'm looking forward to seeing more!

[PorkStewJoe]

To determine the population there are some things you would have to determine.
How wealthy is the city, it's residence?
If reasonably wealthy, a percentage of those buildings will be shops and other non-residential places, more than there would be if the population were poorer.

The city is reasonably wealthy: it is an important center of trade, linking the southern and northern provinces by land, and the western and eastern ones by sea. Many influential aristocrats and other important persons also reside in the city. Additionally, it is an important religious center, with the head of the imperial church and many religious institutions inside the city.

And thank you J.Edward and Chick for your replies and kind words!

[J.Edward]

Okay, this is for a really rough estimate on population.
If it is wealthy, then assume a quarter to a third of those buildings are not residential.
Now, in fairness, I'm not going to count all of your buildings.
Assume, roughly, that in each building reside 10 or more people.
A lot is determined by things we can't see - how many floors, how large, how crowded, how many rooms, etc.
But you could say... 10 people in a small building, 20 in a medium building, and 30+ in a larger building.
This is all rough because so much is determined by actual building info but here's somewhere for you to start.
Then you can count up your buildings based on size and do the rough math to get your city's population.
Hope that helps you Joe.

I would assume you'd have a pretty high population there.
After figuring all the buildings, you'd have even more for military/guards and such stationed throughout the city in towers and such.

[PorkStewJoe]

It sure helps! Using your rough guidelines I did a very rough counting (roughness all around) and apparently I have about 46.440 people living and working in the city and neighboring villages. It sounds like a reasonable figure, so that's what I'll be going with. Thanks!

[PorkStewJoe]

I am reviving this old thread because I was hoping someone could advise me on making an interactive map. The idea is that users can click on icons of locations to read short summaries of those places. The method I currently us is placing notes in a pdf document in Acrobat, but this is far from ideal. It looks like this:


The problem is that it becomes cluttered really quickly, and I can't really add my own custom symbols. Does anybody has any tips on how to go about this?