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Worldbuilding infodump

Is it just me or aren’t elves and Fae totally different? Faeries, fairy’s, Fae are all mostly winged creatures with Fae as the top of the chain and humanoid, and lesser faeries that include smaller wil-o-the-wisp types, whereas the Elven race are humanoid but without wings and more learned.
 
Fae is almost a placeholder name for a race more powerful than the elves and dwarves. They don't necessarily look like traditional fae, they're just to elves what elves are to humans.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Is it just me or aren’t elves and Fae totally different? Faeries, fairy’s, Fae are all mostly winged creatures with Fae as the top of the chain and humanoid, and lesser faeries that include smaller wil-o-the-wisp types, whereas the Elven race are humanoid but without wings and more learned.

As things have evolved, Elves would seem to be in the larger catergory of Fae, but fae included more creatures than just elves. But...many have made distinctions between them. It would not be unheard of for elves and fae to be different creatures in a work. Personally, I would not use it that way. Elves would be in the category of Fae.
 

Queshire

Auror
I want to say that the case for fae Elves is a lot like having Centaurs or Nymphs associated with the fae? Something from another country/culture that got lumped in with them for being close enough. If you trace Elves back to Norse Mythology you don't really see them as being part of a larger group. Actually, I heard a theory that all sorts of various lesser spirits were attributed to Elves which would pretty much mean that they'd fulfill the role that Fae generally do.
 
I haven't really fleshed out the fae. They were just an ancient race that were more powerful than the elves, but got into the war with the dwarves and got wiped out afterwards be the elves. And if all of this happened long enough ago, even the elves might not clearly remember them.
 
So I'm thinking that if the city is on both sides of the river, which would maximize the use of the river and its banks, islands with bridges would be useful. The river is based on the Nile and is potentially 1000ft wide, I haven't decided exactly. Here are three ways to handle the islands. 1, a large island. 2, a few medium islands. 3, many small islands. Maybe more small islands than I've drawn with a whole spiderweb of bridges. I'm personally leaning towards 1, as this is basically copying from a Google Earth shot of the Nile.

I also need to consider where the elven city is placed since I don't want it under the riverbed, and I need to place the crystal mine.
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pmmg

Myth Weaver
If you have one island or many, what would that change in your story?
 
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If you have one island of many, what would that change in your story?
The city structure itself. Smaller islands could contain nothing, or smaller cafes at most. A larger island could be where the ruler(s) of the city lives among other ideas. It just helps determine the layout of the city. Then you have the logistics of maintaining several smaller bridges vs a couple larger ones. Smaller bridges have the idea of redundancy in that one could fail and not cripple transport but a larger bridge, while less likely to get damaged, is more important.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
You can have multiple bridges to the same island, and a ruler may choose to live on the island as the river is a natural moat.

I don't believe you need all this planned out to start a story. And, the story would inform you of what it needs to be. What events are coming in the story where the size and location of islands matter?
 
You can have multiple bridges to the same island, and a ruler may choose to live on the island as the river is a natural moat.

I don't believe you need all this planned out to start a story. And, the story would inform you of what it needs to be. What events are coming in the story where the size and location of islands matter?
I'm doing this world-first, not story-first. The worse serves as a setting for stories and also settings for paintings. But the writing is secondary to the building for me. Very nice point about the moat, too.
 
I agree with pmmg that it matters very little, and that it's easy enough to change as the story might demand.

One thing to consider is your technology level of your world and the size of the cities that go with it. From what you've written, this city is very much an outpost, which means that it's likely not very big. More a large town than a city by modern standards. 50.000 people would be a lot. In that case, how do the different scenario's use that?

Also, most historical cities on rivers mainly sit on one side. Especially with a 1.000 foot wide city, you would more likely have 2 cities, one on each side, than 1 single city. With islands, you could have no cities on the river banks, or the whole thing considered multiple cities. Again, also factor in the amount of people you're putting in the city.

Bridges are hard work to build and maintain. They would avoid building many of them if they could avoid doing so.
 
I just started the beginning of The Earthsea series in the wake of my writing being compared to Ursula Guin’s work on that app (my work isn’t comparable to hers) and her map is like she sneezed on the page. You go for whatever world you want to create!
 
I agree with pmmg that it matters very little, and that it's easy enough to change as the story might demand.

One thing to consider is your technology level of your world and the size of the cities that go with it. From what you've written, this city is very much an outpost, which means that it's likely not very big. More a large town than a city by modern standards. 50.000 people would be a lot. In that case, how do the different scenario's use that?

Also, most historical cities on rivers mainly sit on one side. Especially with a 1.000 foot wide city, you would more likely have 2 cities, one on each side, than 1 single city. With islands, you could have no cities on the river banks, or the whole thing considered multiple cities. Again, also factor in the amount of people you're putting in the city.

Bridges are hard work to build and maintain. They would avoid building many of them if they could avoid doing so.
After doing some further research, I've decided that about a 200 ft wide river and a city to one side only is the way to go, and without islands at all. Canals and underground pipes could provide water, especially with tech powered by the crystals.

But as for the size of the city, it's a major trade hub due to the crystal mine nearby, so it's a good size. Which is not to say that a trade city has to be huge. 50,000 sounds about right, but with constant fluctuation as people come and go. The core population wouldn't necessarily be that high. Then there is the fact that elves have an underground city nearby but they're elves so I can handwave a little as to how their city was made and is maintained. Underground springs and whatnot.
 
After doing some further research, I've decided that about a 200 ft wide river and a city to one side only is the way to go, and without islands at all. Canals and underground pipes could provide water, especially with tech powered by the crystals.

But as for the size of the city, it's a major trade hub due to the crystal mine nearby, so it's a good size. Which is not to say that a trade city has to be huge. 50,000 sounds about right, but with constant fluctuation as people come and go. The core population wouldn't necessarily be that high. Then there is the fact that elves have an underground city nearby but they're elves so I can handwave a little as to how their city was made and is maintained. Underground springs and whatnot.
Addition: The river could perhaps be underground and the city is built where it's accessible above ground. So the river is not visible from the view point of a traveler and the city is a sort of oasis. Past that, I think I could handwave it and move on to planning other cities.
 
But as for the size of the city, it's a major trade hub due to the crystal mine nearby, so it's a good size. Which is not to say that a trade city has to be huge. 50,000 sounds about right, but with constant fluctuation as people come and go.
Man, you really can find everything you need researched for you on the internet. Out of curiosity, I just googled "how large was the average medieval city", and I came across this wikipedia treasure throve: Historical urban community sizes - Wikipedia . Just pick your time period, look for a city you want to emulate, and find it in the table.

And as mentioned, 50k people would more likely be the upper limit of a trade city. Between 800 AD and 1200 AD London had somewhere between 10.000 and 30.000 people. Just for reference. That's not to say that larger cities didn't exits at that time of course. Rome had 1.000.000 inhabitants around 0 AD. More to point out that our modern idea of what makes a big and small city is very different from historical times.
 
Man, you really can find everything you need researched for you on the internet. Out of curiosity, I just googled "how large was the average medieval city", and I came across this wikipedia treasure throve: Historical urban community sizes - Wikipedia . Just pick your time period, look for a city you want to emulate, and find it in the table.

And as mentioned, 50k people would more likely be the upper limit of a trade city. Between 800 AD and 1200 AD London had somewhere between 10.000 and 30.000 people. Just for reference. That's not to say that larger cities didn't exits at that time of course. Rome had 1.000.000 inhabitants around 0 AD. More to point out that our modern idea of what makes a big and small city is very different from historical times.
That's a good point about population size. But for things like trying to make a large desert city work with steampunk-level engineering with magic crystals as a power source, it does get a little harder to google. It's also not quite medieval. In a lot of fantasy you could draw a rough equivalent in the world to some real historical period, usually medieval. But you know how with something like Star Wars for example you really can't? I'm going to that same feeling that doesn't fit how the real world developed.
 
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