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Looking at my Inner Sea region map, I realized that the Shrike river runs from Restov to the Tusk water. I noticed on Page 55 of the #33 the Stolen Lands, that “the Shrike river would make an excellent trade rout between Brevoy and the southern lands were it not for two 30’ high waterfalls, …..that make save river travel impossible between the two points. “
I was wondering how feasible it would be to, while growing the “stolen Lands” kingdom, to build a canal and lock system around these two waterfalls, and thus make the Shrike river navigable between Restov, the Tuskwater, and points south?
What do you think?
Looking at my Inner Sea region map, I realized that the Shrike river runs from Restov to the Tusk water. I noticed on Page 55 of the #33 the Stolen Lands, that “the Shrike river would make an excellent trade rout between Brevoy and the southern lands were it not for two 30’ high waterfalls, …..that make save river travel impossible between the two points. “
I was wondering how feasible it would be to, while growing the “stolen Lands” kingdom, to build a canal and lock system around these two waterfalls, and thus make the Shrike river navigable between Restov, the Tuskwater, and points south?
What do you think?
Pound locks and flash locks were certainly medieval technology, and the mitre-gate lock was Renaissance technology, to be sure. A 40 foot vertical difference is about the limit for a flash lock, and mitre locks could allow even more ambitious projects. So, the technology checks out.
The issue is then getting the engineering know-how, and paying for it to happen. A rough gut estimate makes me suggest about 10-15 BP investment per waterfall thwarted, though the actual cost and benefits should probably be left to the GM.
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Thank you, Davoit.
The only Locks that I have seen close up are the locks on the C&0 canal near Washington DC. I have no idea what kind of locks they are, but from what I saw, with a channel of mortared stone and heavy wooden gates at either end of the lock, It just seemed something that could have been built in earlier times.
Im sure the 10-15 BP per water fall would be an excellent investment that would pay over time, providing a shorter river trade rout between Restov and Mivon.
Im not sure how happy the Issien faction to the north of Brevoy and in New Steven would react to the Rostlanders in southern Brevoy now having shorter river passage from Restov to Mivon via the Shrike river, instead of the East Sellen river passage between Stevtan and Mivon.
Put then Politics always did have economic underpinnings.
Thanks
I was going to put this in the book of the river nation's open space development. Ultimately, I decided against it because the road/river bonus rules don't care if he rivers connect, only that there are rivers. Making the rivers connect seemed like to much book keeping. So if there is no penalty for disconnected rivers, I could hardly pose a penalty for a waterfall (which one could argue are merely 2 disconnected rivers). So there was no need for a lock system. So I dcided to ignore that detail mechanically and just make it flavor.
For my game, I've added an Economy bonus for 'trade routes'. Connect your Barony to another nation via roads, there's a bonus...connect to two nations that can trade via your nation, a bigger bonus...in the case of the Shrike river, if they manage to make it navigable all the way down, then I plan on adding a significant bonus on top of that.
As far as mechanics goes, by the time that the kingdom is actively colonizing those areas, it's reasonably likely that some fairy serious magic can be brought into play (Lesser Planar Binding, Rock to Mud, possibly even Move Earth, Disintegrate, Wall of Stone)
If you're not too worried about the local environment in the short term, Rock to Mud alone could likely be used to terraform the waterfalls away.
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For my game, I've added an Economy bonus for 'trade routes'. Connect your Barony to another nation via roads, there's a bonus...connect to two nations that can trade via your nation, a bigger bonus...in the case of the Shrike river, if they manage to make it navigable all the way down, then I plan on adding a significant bonus on top of that.
As far as mechanics goes, by the time that the kingdom is actively colonizing those areas, it's reasonably likely that some fairy serious magic can be brought into play (Lesser Planar Binding, Rock to Mud, possibly even Move Earth, Disintegrate, Wall of Stone)
If you're not too worried about the local environment in the short term, Rock to Mud alone could likely be used to terraform the waterfalls away.
What kind of significant bonuses are you talking about? It seems trade should be fairly significant especially with the connection of 3 kingdoms (the pc's, Brevoy{Rostland}, and Mivon and actually Uringen also so 4.
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What kind of significant bonuses are you talking about? It seems trade should be fairly significant especially with the connection of 3 kingdoms (the pc's, Brevoy{Rostland}, and Mivon and actually Uringen also so 4.For my game, I've added an Economy bonus for 'trade routes'. Connect your Barony to another nation via roads, there's a bonus...connect to two nations that can trade via your nation, a bigger bonus...in the case of the Shrike river, if they manage to make it navigable all the way down, then I plan on adding a significant bonus on top of that.
As far as mechanics goes, by the time that the kingdom is actively colonizing those areas, it's reasonably likely that some fairy serious magic can be brought into play (Lesser Planar Binding, Rock to Mud, possibly even Move Earth, Disintegrate, Wall of Stone)
If you're not too worried about the local environment in the short term, Rock to Mud alone could likely be used to terraform the waterfalls away.
I agree magic would make this much cheaper and quicker endeavor.
What kind of significant bonuses are you talking about? It seems trade should be fairly significant especially with the connection of 3 kingdoms (the pc's, Brevoy{Rostland}, and Mivon and actually Uringen also so 4.For my game, I've added an Economy bonus for 'trade routes'. Connect your Barony to another nation via roads, there's a bonus...connect to two nations that can trade via your nation, a bigger bonus...in the case of the Shrike river, if they manage to make it navigable all the way down, then I plan on adding a significant bonus on top of that.
As far as mechanics goes, by the time that the kingdom is actively colonizing those areas, it's reasonably likely that some fairy serious magic can be brought into play (Lesser Planar Binding, Rock to Mud, possibly even Move Earth, Disintegrate, Wall of Stone)
If you're not too worried about the local environment in the short term, Rock to Mud alone could likely be used to terraform the waterfalls away.
Currently, they have roads and claimed territory up to Rostland, so I'm giving them an additional +2 to Economy. Connecting Mivon by Road will be an additional +3 (the +1 is from being a pass-through nation). Should they go to the effort of making the Shrike River Navigable, I'll call it +4 on top of that, as a 'special circumstance' of the regional trade geography (in a different setting it might not be worth as much, IMO)
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You might consider investigating the Patowmack Canal (the precursor of the C&O canal) that George Washington started a few years before his presidency as to how the Shrike River Canal Company might turn out ...
Using 18th century technology the Patowmack Canal took 17 years to construct. I don't have any concrete information, but it sounds like about 1700 man-years' work to me (620,925 man-days' work).
A lyre of building in the hands of a well-educated engineer able to play it properly - i.e., Knowledge (engineering), Profession (engineer) and Perform (string instruments) - provided 300 man-days' labor every half hour. You need 2,069.75 half-hours of lyre time to construct the equivalent of the Patowmack Canal.
Since you can only use it in this fashion once a week you can reasonably produce 16 half-hours' labor a week. If you push it and are generously provided by others lesser restorations to combat fatigue, you can *really* push it up to let us say 24 half-hours' labor per week.
One "properly qualified player" would take either 130 weeks (or 87 weeks pushing it every week) to construct the 'Shrike Canal'.
This does not account for the time required to plan and engineer the canal. Da Vinci's locks served as the inspiration for the Patowmack and its successor C&O Canals.
I would estimate the materials that would have to be provided to supplement the lyre-provided labor would cost about 5 BP per lock for a total of 25 BP for the project.
The really impressive part of the Patowmack Canal and its successor was the intent to connect the Ohio River to the Potomac River via the canal. Rail developed faster than the canal could be constructed ... to its eventual demise.
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You might consider investigating the Patowmack Canal (the precursor of the C&O canal) that George Washington started a few years before his presidency as to how the Shrike River Canal Company might turn out ...
Using 18th century technology the Patowmack Canal took 17 years to construct. I don't have any concrete information, but it sounds like about 1700 man-years' work to me (620,925 man-days' work).
A lyre of building in the hands of a well-educated engineer able to play it properly - i.e., Knowledge (engineering), Profession (engineer) and Perform (string instruments) - provided 300 man-days' labor every half hour. You need 2,069.75 half-hours of lyre time to construct the equivalent of the Patowmack Canal.
Since you can only use it in this fashion once a week you can reasonably produce 16 half-hours' labor a week. If you push it and are generously provided by others lesser restorations to combat fatigue, you can *really* push it up to let us say 24 half-hours' labor per week.
One "properly qualified player" would take either 130 weeks (or 87 weeks pushing it every week) to construct the 'Shrike Canal'.
This does not account for the time required to plan and engineer the canal. Da Vinci's locks served as the inspiration for the Patowmack and its successor C&O Canals.
I would estimate the materials that would have to be provided to supplement the lyre-provided labor would cost about 5 BP per lock for a total of 25 BP for the project.
The really impressive part of the Patowmack Canal and its successor was the intent to connect the Ohio River to the Potomac River via the canal. Rail developed faster than the canal could be constructed ... to its eventual demise.
Good stuff maestro! So with a bard using the lyre and mage, cleric and druid casting spells they should get it done in a month. :-)