Diggin Time

[Kenneth Gauck]

Perhaps those persky earthquakes which plague Kiergard since the Gorgon's
capture of the place would ruin the canal.

[Olesens]

I was recently looking at a map of Cerilia, specifically how long a trip
it was from Muden to Avanil or, with a more sinsiter purpose, how far
from the Gorgon's Crown to the IC by sea. But the Chimeron is bordered
by a river that penetrates nearly half the way to the Krankenaurich from
the Gulf of Coernays. A rich regent could dig a cannal across those
80-90 miles of fairly open and for the most part level terrain. But that
rich regent would have to be on great terms with Kiergard to be able to
do this. Maybe, the Gorgon? I know many people feel that the Gorgon's
goal in attacking Anuire is to reach the IC. Sailing around Rjurik
would give those Anuireans too much warning. But if the ships were
first spotted by the regents of Rohrmarch then Osorde, those pesky
Anuireans would have much less reaction time. So my question to you is:
how much gold and time would it take to dig a 85 mile cannal deep enough
to support Caravels through rolling hills with slave labor? I suppose
they'd need to make locks, as I forsee a diffrence in sea levels. Oh,
don't forget to factor in the Gorgon's Wizardly power (ie Dig, Move
Earth, Transmute Rock to Mud, Boulder to Pebble, etc.)

But for those who prefer to play the more civilized humans, here's an
idea for a wealthy regent of Wierch. Work with the Khurin-Azure dwarves
to dig a 50 mile long cannal from the Rhuide River to Aulbrunn. Then
tax the hell out of the merchants who want to use that waterway. Give
some gold to the dwarves, of course. And some to any wizard you can get
to dig or move earth for you.

- -Andrew

[Lee]

What a cool idea! I really do not recommend trying to dig a channel
through the mountains, it will require entirely too many locks. Unless, of
course, the dwarves dig it under the mountains, to stay at roughly sea level.
That assumes they want people coming through, but they could make the tolls
shockingly high. But it would be a LOT safer than the passage north of the
Highlands. Too bad the upper Ruide River is more or less controlled by the
Big G himself.
For the Gorgon to dig across Kiergard to the Khurinlach, however, that is
more doable. Plenty of (slave) labor available, and more can be imported,
given the size of his armies. The ground seems fairly flat. I just don't
know why he would want to, unless he is also constructing a fleet on the
Krakennauricht. It might be easier to build on the Fhaillalach, and fight
one's way down the Ruide.
A guesstimate on the cost: check out the Castle Guide. There, a
10'x10'x5' moat/channel section takes 6 man-days and 30gp, modified for
workforce, terrain, and so forth. If we dig it 10' deep and 30' wide (to
allow caravels, cogs, longships and such, cf. Of Ships and the Sea), that's 36
man-days and 180 gp for 10' of length. That's roughly 10GB per mile,
unmodified for terrain and so forth, plus labor costs, locks, turn-arounds,
bypasses and docks. And he'll need to control the last two provinces, in
Rohrmarch and/or Baruk-Azhik. Really darn expensive. The dwarven tunnel
might be cheaper, given their skill. Magic and monsters could help a lot.
[Math disclaimer: I am doing the multiplication quickly, late at night.
Accuracy not guaranteed. Given time and encouragement, I could work out some
more.]
Mighty cool, but mighty pricey.

Lee,
"I'm not a dwarf, but I play one in AD&D."

[Gary V. Foss]

Olesens wrote:

> I was recently looking at a map of Cerilia, specifically how long a trip
> it was from Muden to Avanil or, with a more sinsiter purpose, how far
> from the Gorgon's Crown to the IC by sea. But the Chimeron is bordered
> by a river that penetrates nearly half the way to the Krankenaurich from
> the Gulf of Coernays. A rich regent could dig a cannal across those
> 80-90 miles of fairly open and for the most part level terrain. But that
> rich regent would have to be on great terms with Kiergard to be able to
> do this. Maybe, the Gorgon? I know many people feel that the Gorgon's
> goal in attacking Anuire is to reach the IC. Sailing around Rjurik
> would give those Anuireans too much warning. But if the ships were
> first spotted by the regents of Rohrmarch then Osorde, those pesky
> Anuireans would have much less reaction time. So my question to you is:
> how much gold and time would it take to dig a 85 mile cannal deep enough
> to support Caravels through rolling hills with slave labor? I suppose
> they'd need to make locks, as I forsee a diffrence in sea levels. Oh,
> don't forget to factor in the Gorgon's Wizardly power (ie Dig, Move
> Earth, Transmute Rock to Mud, Boulder to Pebble, etc.)

Wow. I don't know if I'd even remotely let that happen if I was running a
campaign. I mean, it looks more like 120-140 miles to me first of all. By way
of comparison the Panama Canal is a smidgen over 50 miles and the Suez about
100 miles. Aside from that you are talking about a major engineering feat the
likes of which Roman aqueducts pale in comparison. There is a "valley" of
sorts between the Iron Hills and where the Vicissitude Mts. start on that
Kiergard/Rohrmarch border, but even those two provinces (Coullibaird and Oden)
are hilly terrain which might mean a couple of miles of elevation. (I'm pretty
far from being either a cartographer or a geologist, so I don't know exactly
how much elevation is represented by either of these terrain factors) and I
think that alone would preclude the possibility of a channel. Again by way of
comparison, the five locks of the Panama Canal lift/lower ships a grand total
of about 125 feet.

If you were going to allow this sort of thing at all (which I wouldn't) I'd go
to the Netbook and look up the Build: Monument action. I think such an
endeavor would require as a minimum a "monument" of the largest possible size
in every province that it was to be constructed in and two (one for the
channel, one for the locks) in each of the provinces with hilly terrain. Such
a series of locks would also have to be manned by thousands of people and have
a massive maintenance cost. Ships are pulled through locks usually, which
would mean hundreds of horses/mules/whatever doing the tugging.

All in all, I'd say it would probably be cheaper for the Gorgon to construct
flying ships rather than a channel linking the Krakkennauricht to the
Kurinlach.

> But for those who prefer to play the more civilized humans, here's an
> idea for a wealthy regent of Wierch. Work with the Khurin-Azure dwarves
> to dig a 50 mile long cannal from the Rhuide River to Aulbrunn. Then
> tax the hell out of the merchants who want to use that waterway. Give
> some gold to the dwarves, of course. And some to any wizard you can get
> to dig or move earth for you.

Oooh. Ouch. There you got mountains. That could be miles and miles of
vertical travel, which I would think would have to be prohibitive. If the
Panama canal is any example of the kind of engineering this would take you
would probably need at around 50 locks in order lift or lower a boat 1,000'.
(I have no numbers on this, but I think the hills in the provinces in
Kiergard/Rohrmarch are probably higher in elevation than that.) The thing that
makes this so impractical isn't just the number of locks, its the amount of
time it takes to travel through them. It used to take two days to travel
through the Suez Canal, for instance, and that canal has NO locks! If you had
to stop and go 50 times it could take a good week. I'm not too up on my BR
seamanship stuff, but I think you can sail around the long way in that amount
of time.

Gary