The very talented Paolo Greco (of Adventure Fantasy Game fame - if you haven't checked it out, you owe it to yourself to get a copy - it's worth it for the reams of original spells alone, but it also features a wonderfully simple and effective combat-slash-skill system) is putting together a new issue of Burgs and Bailiffs, and I'm going to have an article in it!
It's going to be about calculating the costs of building your dream castle based on historical records. You'll be able to find out how much stone, wood, nails, sand, etc. it's going to take, how long it's going to take to build it, and how many guys you're going to need toiling a way (spoiler alert - it's a LOT).
Probably one of my favourite parts of D&D from when I was a kid was fantasizing about building castles - I must have spent hours poring over the castle cost charts in the old Basic/Expert/Companion books. I've been meaning for some time to do some research into what kind of resources it would really take to make the castles I've dreamed of, and I have to thank Paolo for getting my butt in gear and checking over my facts and figures.
So, look for the next installment of Burgs and Bailiffs soon, and if you haven't, check out the first Burgs and Bailiffs, and Adventure Fantasy Game:
http://tsojcanth.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/free-pdf-burgs-bailiffs/
http://tsojcanth.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/burgs-and-bailiffs-warfare-call-for-articles/
http://www.adventurefantasygame.com/
Sounds fascinating! I too spent many childhood hours building imaginary castle (I think I still have a stack of old maps somewhere), and since I started to play D&D, establishing a stronghold has always been high on my characters' lists of priorities.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to it!