Introduction

This document is intended as a couple of pointers on things that are good to think of when planning a settlement on a medieval themed MUCK. The idea came up after seeing a couple of rather horrid examples on the Redwall MUCK (thereby not implying that everything, or even a majority on said MUCK is horrid - far from it) although hopefully the guidelines should be applicable elsewhere too.

The steps laid out do not aspire to be completely exhaustive, nor exactly correct, as the author is by no means an expert. Still, hopefully this will still be useful reading, if only to serve as inspiration.

Planning

Planning is by far the most important activity. As anyone will tell you, having a good plan means having 80% of the job done. Better still, if your plans are comprehensive and contain enough detail, you can leave the actual building to someone else, safe in the knowledge that if they only follow your plans, the result will be to your liking, or at least acceptable.

The amount of planning done is of course scaleable, depending on factors like how large the project is, how many will be working on it, etc. etc. A few good things to plan out include the following.

Location

A settlement doesn't just appear anyplace, at least not in real life. I've seen villages and towns in the middle of nowhere on the MUCK, but they seldom have much of a population and there never seems to be any activity in them. To be attractive for roleplaying in, a town must be believable, and for that, it needs to be in a location that makes sense.

On a travel route

Typically, towns appeared on or near major travel routes. These include roads and rivers. Especially good locations are ones where two routes intersect, which is where towns that survive on trade usually wind up. More about sustenance later.

On a resource

Other locations include at or near some natural resource, a mining town for example, or a fishing village. They usually still have some sort of road leading up to them, though. Again, I have seen villages isolated out in the middle of nowhere on the MUCK, but then these usually belong to the idle and deserted category of towns. After all, if there is no way to reach a town, noone can come there.

Other locations

Towns may also appear for strategic or political reasons, but this implies a strong centralised government of a type that is not present in the Redwall MUCK environment. They may also appear around an industrial site, but that requires an industrial site, which reqires industrialism, which requires a later era than that in the Redwall MUCK.

History

Again, if we're not building one of those popped-up-like-a-mushroom-in-the-middle-of-nowhere towns that nobody will visit, the place is likely to have a history. The history of a village starts quite a bit before the village is actually a village, really. It starts when someone discovers that there is gold in them thar hills, or when enough travellers realise that this nice hill along the road is really good for setting up camp for an extended time, and other travellers catch on.

The history of the town answers many questions, such as why the town is there, what the people there live of, etc. The history of the town is indispensable for answering every question you can think of, and all the questions you can't think of but that the characters and/or their players that visit your town will think of.

A well written history is a great opportunity to add local colour to your settlement. It might explain how come the inn is built in such a peculiar way because a prankster altered the plans so the top and bottom stories were switched, for example. Or why the well was redug and the old one was made into a memorial after the mayor's little daughter fell in and drowned.

Layout

The layout of the town is largely decided by the location and the history of the town. In the example of the roadside campground, the town probably lies along a road, and on the hill mentioned. And the center of town is probably that inn that the entrepeneuring person built to take advantage of all the travellers stopping there (and the other inn across the street that his sister built) and that caused the entire town to be built there in the first place.

Grid layouts belong in the pre-planned town section. They are a relatively modern device, and you'll most likely not find many medieval towns with said layout. I don't say there wasn't any, I'm saying every town wasn't built in grids, with avenues on one axis, and streets perpendicular to them. In fact, most probably weren't. They have a place in a town whose location and layout were artificial political constructs and most likely are placed in colonies. Compare to the straight lined and squared corners of the borders of many nations in Africa that were formed that very way.

A common example of a town layout is the one focused around a large central building, such as an inn, or a church, or a castle of some sort. Usually there is a square in the middle of town, from which streets then radiate out, with alleys joining the streets together. Further out streets start joining the streets together, and new squares form from which other streets radiate out. You get the picture... Or if you don't, download one from the Internet. A look at a map or satellite image of a small German or French rural town or village will give you a good idea. Or English for that matter. Or most other nation in the area, it's not like there's a lack of countries in Europe.

Once you have the layout, it's not hard to form a map. This is essential. Don't skip it.

Population and What They Do

If you have a location and a history, it's not hard to imagine what people live there. In a fishing village, you'll most likely find *drumroll* fishers. This will give you an idea of what facilities are there. Fishers need boats, so they'll need someone to build and repair them. On a smaller scale, they all do that themselves, but part of the idea of a town is that people can specialise. So in a fishing village there might be one or more boatbuilders.

Boatbuilders need materials. Again, they could go and get them themselves, but why not rely on a woodcutter, a sawmiller, a blacksmith, and a tarmaker? And someone needs to make ropes, and they're going to need someone to grow them hemp. (Yes, hemp can be put to practical, and not only recreational use.) The fishers need someplace to relax, so there's going to be a pub, which is supplied by a brewer, who needs farmers to grow him barley and stuff. Farmers can also grow potatoes, so the fishers can have fish and chips. Other good things to farm are corn for bread, and cabbage for punishing children that have been naughty.

An inland town will of course not have such a thriving fishing industry, but then again there might be a lot more farms instead. Who knows, maybe they can even trade wheat and corn for fish from that fishing village, and they will all have the basis of a balanced and varied diet? The possibilities are endless.

Just remember that everything needs to make sense. I once saw a very large, very opulent weapons shop in the middle of nowhere. I remember I compared it to finding a huge Mercedes dealership on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

Some other things to think of

Consistency

It's important that everything remains consistent. The various areas of the village must look and feel as if they are part of the same village. If the roads in the village are all red from the highly ferrous quality of the gravel from the stone pit the ballast for the roads came from, then it's important that all the roads in the village really are red. If the skies in the village are perpetually overcast by clouds due to an ancient and terrible curse then it doesn't make sense to have an area of the town bathed in sunlight.

There's also the case of geographical consistency. If the inn is north of the pub, then the pub is south of the inn. It may seem obvious, but trust me, it needs to be mentioned. Also, if you are walking along a road lined with houses on both sides, step off the road, and suddenly find yourself in a field of tall grass with a forest, and some woods nearby, you get the feeling you are in the Twilight Zone. (And it also makes you wonder about the difference between the woods and the forest.)

There's also a point worth noting in the case of the actual descriptions of the areas. It's nice to have a common layout of them all, such as for example starting with a general description of the area, moving to more and more detail. Again, however you choose to do it, do it consistently in the entire settlement.

Spelling and grammar

I shouldn't have to say this. I really shouldn't. But please, mind the spelling.

That's all

Well, perhaps not all, but now you should have a good idea of some of the things you need to think of when you build a town. Happy building.