Well, I'm no expert, but I imagine it would be a straightforward affair. If possible, you'd start near a river, so you could send excess lumber down the waterway, and also to use hydraulic power to run sawmills, assuming that's an available technology (I think the Romans used sawmills, but IIRC the technology died out for a while during the Dark Ages).

Otherwise it's a simple matter of chopping down the trees, dragging them away with draft horses or wagons, probably building temporary housing for your workers, and selling the excess lumber to whoever wants it. You'd also have to manage regular supply routes as you get deeper into the forest, and also to deal with your large workforce. Only things I can't guess at is just how many men and horses you'd need. A lot, I imagine.

>>17587740

Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking five hundred to a thousand men, and half as many horses? Depends a bit on just how big this forest is, as well as how many men the king in question can afford to employ/supply.

Animals were heavily used to move timber, but that exhausts my knowledge on the subject. I'd be curious to learn about this as well, like the removal of the stump. Cutting down and removing a tree is a simple, if labor intensive, matter. The stump on the other hand...

This seems like a pretty good idea, can only imagine the logistical problems introduced by disturbing a forest full of potential goblin warrens, packs of trolls, druids and fae, deep-forest monstrosities and even dragons.

robin hobb wrote a depressing trilogy called the soldier's son trilogy. the premise of the second and third book was like yours op, a king trying to build a road through a forest riff with peril. might be worth a look if you can stomach the depression amd gloom of it all.

Hmm. would it be better for the players to be running the operation, or just be employed by it in this scenario?

This is an intriguing idea. while I can't help with knowledge of the subject, I can think of a few mundane problems the workers could encounter:

Bad weather: Fog or heavy rain prevents the workers from logging safely and efficiently. What will they do with their free time? Idle hands are the devil's playground.

Late Supplies: the latest supply train is behind schedule, but the King has given the chief of the logging camp permission to "requisition" food from the locals, which is just bound to go over well.

Surplus: You have too many felled trees, and not enough ways to get rid of them. What do you do?

Annoying Merchants: Lots of industries use wood in a primitive economy, and the chief logger is constantly having to deal with petitions from people who want the wood, but too many aren't willing to supply the manpower to move it.

Accidents: Logging is a dangerous business.

Locals looking for work: Accidents sometimes mean you need replacements, and there's plenty of poor peasants looking for a decent pay and supply of food. There's a small camp of them outside of yours, just waiting for an opportunity.

And, then, of course, as you get deeper into the forest, your problems become more otherwordly...

THE BEAVERMEN ARE ATTACKING!

>>17587992

Yeah, you're running a camp full of five hundred burly lumberjacks armed with axes. The Beavermen can go fuck themselves. With an axe.

Logging in about 1100 AD pretty much = axes. Many many axes. Water or animal driven grain mills were in use, not so sure about saw mills, I get the feeling splitting logs into planks was all done by hand at this point.

But on the basic operation, you have teams of two blokes with axes who chop two wedges out of two opposite sides of the tree, one higher than the other, with the lower one on the side which you want the tree to fall on. After that either axes or billhooks are used to remove the branches, which are bundled up to be carried out of the forest.

Then a two handed saw is intoduced to chop the wood either into specific lengths to be hauled out, or once the wood is in a position to be turned into lovely lovely planks.

If you're mass cutting wood, a sensible parrallell would be the building of a massive navy, as long as the wood is good hardwood such as oak. If a navy is being built then the wood being hauled out would be as entire trees not chopped logs and specific shapes, such as a forked trunk, would be highly prized.

Foremen/key official is secretly...

A WEREBEAVER!

>>17588077

In the case of carving a road through a forest, I would assume their main goal would be just to get the felled tree the hell out of there. They might use some of the lumber for building housing for the workers, but most I would guess they'd have to rely on other people to buy/take away, since splitting the workforce between logging and transportation would really slow their progress.

Also, what if it's a pine forest?

>>17588098
I'd hate to call pine inferior as a wood, but it's pretty much just housing and furniture. And you seriously think a king, a ruler of a nation presumably surrounded by other nations, is going to pass up the massive prestige/intimidation factor of an extra 10-20 warships? Even if those warships are never used, or are used as trade vessels, they lend far more credability and weight to the king's regime when compared to his neighbours. Given the value of some types of wood, it could actually be cheaper to haul in clay or mud bricks to build accommodation than use the timber from the forest. It depends on what type of tree the forest is made out of. Oak? Elm? Ash? Pine? Birch? Maybe some kind of rainforest tree? Depending on the type of wood depends on the disposal, and an absolute ruler such as a feudal king is not going to just leave a valulable resource just lying around waiting for the interest of some low born merchant.

>>17588153

OP here. I was originally imagining a mainly pine and fir forest, with some oak and other trees scattered in. The whole concept was based somewhat on the Hercynian Forest, and its surviving remnant, the Schwarzwald.

>>17588153

Hey, the king might think some new warships would be great, but if the logistics of getting the wood to a shipyard is too costly, or if it's not the right kind of wood, why would he bother? Even then, he could still make a few and be stuck with a ton of surplus lumber anyway.

I believe it will be important to have a general idea about the technologies available. But the essential point of the campaign as it looks to me is the solution to engineering problems. That means changing the technology to meet your needs.

Some basic factors could be decisive in that. For example metallurgy. What kind of ore is available? Copper is much easier to make and shape than iron, yet iron is much harder which makes it more effective and durable. Blades hold edges longer. If there's iron there might be steel, but only if a quasi industrial manufacture chain is available with blast furnaces, hydraulic rollers, and powered hammers. And then the capacities might be prioritized to build swords and armor, not axes and rails.

This could become very interesting if there is a little magic to boost technologies over boundaries. Like a furnace could become a blast furnace with a little air and fire magic. Steel could become more pure if the furnace is magically isolated from the air. Ball bearings could be introduced before precise steel molding with magic shaping of the material. And so on.

I think your main GM tool should be efficiency. The players will develop technologies from what you offer them and then you will have to explain how it works a little but not well enough. Just slap on a time it takes, how bad wear and tear is, and how much product is yielded, and tune those numbers for improvements in the process.

That way you can have strategic resources conquered during the campaign improve progress significantly for some overarching plot.

Some more technologies: Wood expands when made wet to split logs and rocks, basically it's bullet time explosives. Rock will become brittle when heated and doused. Soil becomes unworkable when wet, sand more than clay, and drainage is a big issue in landscaping.

>>17588283

OP here: I was planning a low magic setting (magic users aren't common and keep to themselves; the forest IS very magical, but the players will mostly have to find ways to deal with it using good ol' human ingenuity). As for metallurgy, the civilization is up to iron but not yet steel. This is a big project for the king, so he'd be liable to invest heavily in it, which means good iron axes and saws would possibly be widespread in the workforce.

Bump for showing those beavermen assholes who's boss.

rolled 2, 1 = 3

cool no idea but thanks bro

>>17587782
a popular method for stump removal was to hammer nails and chains into it and rip it out after it was dug up a bit and the roots hacked away.

another way is to build all your necessary campfires on top of the stumps and let that burn them down.

Also, the best roads built had salt and ash placed below the cobblestones to prevent new growth from destroying it.
Not food salt, mind you, dumping ocean saltwater and covering it with wood ash would suffice.

>>17588800

In a society where iron is rare and expensive, chains probably wouldn't be that common. Could you do the same thing with rope?

So, what sort of basic supernatural threats would slow them down? The trees regrowing overnight? Animals stealing their tools? An unusually high rate of accidents and inclement weather?

>>17588882
>basic supernatural
what does that even mean?

God help us. /tg/ is talking out of it's ass.

Here's the skinny. Water-powered sawmills were not invented until a hundred and fifty years later, and were not in general use for a hundred years after that. So, none of those.
Sawing was performed with a two-man saw, one man standing on top of the log, the other below it, in a deep pit.
However, most wood was still hewn into timbers through the use of an adze and broadaxe.

Also, wood was EXPENSIVE. Forests were enormous reserves of wealth for a landowner, stored in the form of its trees. They were trust funds meant to support countless generations (although they never do) Their "account managers" were foresters. One of their responsibilities was to encourage the growth of valuable trees, especially trees that could be coppiced (infinite wood out of one existing root system!), and to discourage junk trees. Pine, however, was not trash wood. It was very, very widely used, even for expensive articles of furniture. Sadly, pine does not whether the centuries well, so we have a disproportionately low representation of pine artifacts, except in Scandinavia.

Foresters and loggers were well paid. It was and is dangerous work, but it's far better than farming. Your players will be considered well-to-do, though not wealthy for their class. (unlike miners, who were rich for their class)

Architects -synonymous at times with engineers- who would have conducted such an endeavor were FANTASTICALLY well paid. Architects were like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs -*everybody* knew the good ones, who might even be immortalized in sculpture as the model for a saint. (true story, it happened, St. Peter in the Cathedral of Notre Dame was the architect) Even nobodies would be like the owners of major tech companies, complete with groupies.

>>17589060
A major endeavor like this could be accomplished with as few as something like 100 men. For any given size of operation, the number of actual foresters -loggers- would account for less (maybe much less) than thirty percent of the whole. Half would be support staff like blacksmiths, cooks, teamsters or coopers -possibly jagers or hunters also-, another ten percent general unskilled laborers, and the remainder administration (architect, paymasters, clerks, advising gentry, etc) This assumes the expedition does not include dedicated guards who are not also employed in other capacities.

Hmm... other things.
Chains were well known and often used. Very expensive, but worth it for jobs that would destroy rope -like pulling roots. However, where we would just use a long length of chain, they might use only enough to wrap up the root ball, and affix that to ropes -or even a block and tackle.

Oxen (did you know an ox is nothing more than a cow that's been trained to draft? I didn't.) were more commonly used for forestry work than horses. They're much stronger, hardier, and surer-footed on uneven ground. In a pinch, they can even be ridden like a horse, with the aid of a long switch or whip. (they're docile, and invariably cows or steers, so no visions of riding charging bulls into battle, please!)

I think I'm tapped out for the moment. Good luck, OP

>>17589068

Thanks for all the info! I could have sworn I read the Romans used some sort of sawmill, though.

Regardless, I'm debating who the players should be. I may leave it up to them, but I think they could be amongst the workers, the architects/engineers (assistants to the chief, most likely) or amongst the guards. Considering the forest's bad reputation, guards will be a must.

I do have the question of what they'd DO with all the wood. I mean, they're not building anything. What would be the practical solution for getting rid of all that lumber? The forest is incredibly big and dense. They're going to have to shift a LOT of very big, old trees.

>>17589212

Make your players figure it out.

>>17589017

Well, what I meant was that it seems the right way to do this sort of game would be to start small; first the players are dealing with mundane obstacles, like some of those detailed earlier. Logistics, troubles with the locals, accidents, etc. The supernatural stuff would start to seep in from the edges, unobtrusively, not becoming overt until the players were deep in the forest.

So, what I was getting at is supernatural stuff that could be mistaken for mundane stuff. Missing tools could be blamed on thieving locals, bad weather and accidents are just luck, etc etc. It's as it all builds up that the workers start to get paranoid and squirelly.

So Hell on wheels but IN FAAAAAANNNTTTASSSSYY?

>>17589299

Well, it depends a bit on where they end up, doesn't it? If they're just guards or workers, they don't really get a say, do they? And even the engineers have to answer to what the King is willing to pay for.

>>17589328

I haven't seen Hell on Wheels. Isn't that out in the middle of the prairie?

>I know we've got some history buffs on /tg/; could I convince any of you to show off?

Incoming shitstorm of fa/tg/uys thinking they are history buffs.

I have a degree in European history. The majority of people on /tg/ know nothing about history. They flaunt off their history channel and deadliest warrior knowledge thinking it is the stuff of real historians.

>>17589352

Would you be so kind as to lend assistance, then?

>>17589352
To be fair the overall standard on this board (though not in real life) is slowly improving, perhaps a case of people slowly becoming more open to the idea that what they 'know' about history is generally wrong. I dunno, perhaps it's just me that's finding it easier to sift out the good from the bullshit, if only by looking at what's logical and what's blatantly just dumb assumption.

So what WOULD be the most practical way of disposing of all that wood if you're not situated near a large body of water?

You forgot to tell us where the fuck this is taking place (or what real-life civilization your setting is based on.)
In 1100, half of Europe was a total shithole, the other half carried on as if Rome never fell.

>>17589380
NO! Don't do it - or else people will start thinking they know things about history. Remain silent, and help keep the people who know nothing about history separate from the people who know everything.

>>17589388
I think we can safely assume it's not due to anybody here learning anything.

>>17589068
>did you know an ox is nothing more than a cow that's been trained to draft? I didn't.

You still don't. Oxen are not cows, they're castrated steers.

>>17589405

It's a mix of cultures, really. There's a bit of early Byzantium, a bit of the Holy Roman Empire, I'm using Gothic words for names and places, etc. When I mentioned the 1100s it was only to establish the technology level, and is not meant to be too indicative of the setting beyond that.

>>17589459
the term "castrated steer" is redundant.

A steer is by definition castrated, it's what makes it a steer and not a bull. I would have let it slide if you weren't so asinine about your response to that anon.

You don't need to know shit about logging to make a road. See tree: is it in way? Cut down. Not in way? Ignore.

You need to know about making roads to make a road, it's fucking complicated engineering. And don't go on about using planed logs for a road bed, because that makes your road shitty and rotten and needing rebuilding every 5 years.

You need someone with a good knowledge of rocks, dirt, and water. And bridge building. Every road has a bridge eventually.

>>17589399
Find a few large settlements nearby.
Allow the villagers to transport logs to the destination and they'll use whatever means they have available, they'll gladly carry logs on their backs if need be.
Don't bother paying them, they'll naturally help themselves to all the wood they can use.
Maybe you'll have to feed them though, you can also allow them to poach and scavenge in your woods.

But you'll have to make a deal with their lord, since you can't just steal his labor force... Maybe you can wave the king's order under his nose, he might just be loyal enough to help. If not, this is where you need to pay up. A portion of the wood can be part of the payment.
Watch out so that none of his serfs run away or you'll have to pay him compensation.

You could also donate the wood to the Church or sell it to a city (if any is conveniently located nearby), they'll organize the disposal using similar means.

I dunno how historically-accurate all this advice is, but I think it has verisimilitude, which is probably more important. You're not writing a peer-reviewed paper on medieval logging techniques, you're trying to convince your players that they really are living in the Dark Ages.
Having something that's factually correct but clashes with their perception of medieval life and mentality can actually be detrimental, especially if you have to justify it with a history lesson.

>>17589399
ox and chain to get it to the landing

horse and cart to get it to town

That's how it was really done, anyway. Using water is ingenious but also only practical ~5% of the time. You have to have a very specific kind of river to pull it off. The other 95% of the time, you wrapped a chain around 3-4 logs and whipped Ox ass to get it down the mountain to the landing. At the landing it was milled into uniform(ish) timbers and loaded onto large wagons pulled by teams of horses off to whatever town you wanted.

Corduroy roads are used in muddy terrain, they are made from logs laid against each other side by side. That might take up a few thousand trees. Bridges over streams would take some more, although a sorcerer with wall of stone would be awesome for bridges. a fortified compound every 10 or 20 miles could use up even more. My favorite is to hire a druid's circle to get the trees to move over 20 feet. Less work and you don't have a bunch of angry tree-hugging lightning-throwing grizzly bear-summoning bastards killing off your workers while disguised as a squirrel.

>>17589669

That seems an impractical method for moving large quantities.

Pit saw.

where the phrases "top dog" and under dog came from - probably the name Sawyer as well
.
I don't have a date on those but it was common still common around the time of Dickens.
The Canadian t.v. show "reInventors" looks at this both human and water powered.

So is this going to be a dirt road or a badass gravel or cobble road? If it's dirt, alot of that wood would probably be used just to support the road. Also, how are they dealing with dips and hills in the terrain? Is there going to be any major landmoving operation, are they going to go around them or just straight over? Important shit in a region that sees hazardous winters or rainy seasons. If there's stone being used for the road, where's the quarry and how are they hauling it all? How wild is the forest, is the territory contested at all? Does the king need to build waypoints/forts along the road? And a huge question, why is the king building the road and where does it go to?

Pictures a skidway, used to stack/roll away logs.

history buffs
YES
medieval, not Rome, WW2 or Cold War era
awwww

How about the most 'duh' solution?

Forest Fire. It is the most blunt way to get rid of all that wood. If this is a Dark Age setting then blunt actions are great.

>>17589914

OP here. The way I was setting it up is that the setting is that up until recent memory, there was a region made up of lots of little city states and principalities; they were once unified by a larger empire, but eventually fractured. Even that empire, though, was never able to conquer the massive forest that bisects the region; instead it simply built roads around it. Very good roads, mind you (Roman quality), but still.

As of the setting of the campaign, a king has united the southern principalities, operating out of the seat of the old empire, and his goal in conquering the forest is to A) show everybody he's boss and can do even what the old emperors could not and B) establish a more direct road to the northern territories, through which he can expand his influence using trade and if necessary his army.

>I do have the question of what they'd DO with all the wood.

You don't have to know. *They* wouldn't "DO" anything with it. The wood ALL belongs to someone else.
If the road is passing through someone's duchy? The wood belongs to the Duke. If the road is passing through the King's forest, it belongs to the King. (Emperor? you did say 1100...) If the land is disputed, it belongs to whomever the hell your employer says it does.

Any such party would have a writ of authorization proving that they were allowed to conduct such business. When they received that, terms would have been arranged for the disposal of the wood. And being that wood -especially OLD wood- was often very, very valuable in quantity, it would have been disposed carefully.

For instance, a monarch might decide to build a road on the cheap, paying for the construction by simply allowing the crew to keep the trees they cut. But that could lead to a greedy crew making a snake of a road, so to get more money. Or they might be assigned for the construction of a major project.
In any case, the PCs will never have to make any decisions to that affect.


also...
>>17589459
First, you're a jackass, and you're dead wrong.
In a climate where cattle were incredibly valuable pieces of property, oxen were *often* breed-stock. They were bred in the early spring, used for draft in the spring and summer, and calfed in the winter. And it wasn't unusual to slaughter the calf, so there would be food in the lean months before winter crops ripened.

It was part of the cycle of medieval life that worked so well and so conveniently that it reinforced medieval man's conviction that the world had been designed according to a perfect divine plan.

>>17590017

I was going to have the explanation for them not doing that be because A) the King expressly forbade it, because he doesn't want to risk burning the whole forest down; it is HUGE, and is still economically important throughout the realm, and also serves as a natural barrier to enemies. The other idea was that if they tired, they'd find the forest wood to be unusually damp and resistant to catching fire, or an unlikely storm would blow in, etc. Like I said, the forest IS a magical place, and is capable of defending itself, sort of.

>>17590111
"Hey guys look! I found what seems to be post one all the way down here!"

Seriously. Details man, details! Well my plan is in the shitter. We need a map or a more detailed geographic description to make an assessment. Does the forest have a river running towards the south? Is it hilly or mountainous in parts? Do the 'magical beings' have known meeting points?

>>17590166
>low magic setting
>KNOWN magical meeting points

mfw.jpg

This is a horribly stupid idea, but I'll just dump it here and maybe someone will fix it.

Make like fucking model ditches or some shit, and give them a like popsicle sticks or whatver and they have to plan and build bridges. Maybe they do skill checks for the actual act of placing beams together and that determines how many tacks/how much glue or whatever they get.

>>17589861
It works like this:
A team of oxen are going to be able to pull 3-5 full size trees at a go. You're going downhill so gravity is working for you. You de-limb the trees once they're on the ground, roll them into a pile, and set a choke chain around the pile. When the oxen pull, it tightens the chain and away you go with your bundle.

It'll be 300-500 yards (If the head guy knows wtf he's doing) down to the landing, where the chain is released and the oxen head back up the hill for the next load. You have multiple ox teams, just like you have multiple fallers, choke setters, and limbers.

The idea is much like a factory production line (y'know, that highly efficient and practical thing that Henry made his Model T fortunes off of). One man chops the tree down and moves to the next. Another man de-limbs the fallen tree and moves to the next. Another man hauls the tree to the landing and goes back for more. Another man does the rough milling at the landing and moves on to the next. Another man loads the milled lumber onto the big ass wagon and heads off to the lumber yard. The logging company is paid by the ton, and that's the end of it for them.

Once the system is in place you simply scale it up for whatever size operation you want, and you have a constant stream of lumber moving to sale from dawn till dusk. The only way to make it more efficient is to introduce the internal combustion engine and all the fancy machinery it can power. Or magic, but this is a low-magic setting.

>>17590193
"Weird shit happens around those ruins, man..."

How dense do you have to be to know where magic is, without casting 30 detect magic spells in every direction.

If I see lightning hit the same hill thirty times in a row or a mutha fuckin beanstalk that goes beyond the clouds, I know not to go there.

>>17590219
lol! That's awesome.

Yeah, it's kinda stupid, but it's so novel and off the wall that I would totally be down for that.

It would make for a SWEET battlemap, too.

>>17590166

Well, the forest is so big and travel is so difficult inside that it's poorly mapped; the terrain is hilly, with maybe a small mountain range or two inside, but it's something that can only be guessed at. There's some small rivers, but none running by the logging camp, the location of which was specifically selected by the king/emperor as the most ideal place for his big road to come out. Of course, he's thinking about trade and military movements, not so much convenience for the loggers.

As for the magical beings within, well, the way I was planning to set it up is that the forest is sort of a nexus of overlapping otherworlds. That is, some creatures live in the forest itself, but if you wander and get lost in it, you may find yourself in Fairyland, or Giant Country, or who knows where else. That really only happens if you get DEEP into the forest, though. for the most part, it's denizens are mysterious that there's a bunch of murky legends about the place, but not a lot of hard facts. Some general superstitions are known, though, for warding off supernatural influence, and there's a few wise old hermits in the depths of the forest. There are even rumors of small populations of people living within it.

>>17590265

Expanding a little on this, the idea was that as the players go deeper into the forest they'd have a number of one shot adventures, overcoming various obstacles and solving various mysteries the forest throws at them. As they go, though, the magical beings and creatures become more and more common. They might discover a giant selling certain magical swords, or goblins willing to barter for magical knowledge, or various things that could offer them the opportunity to take their characters in different directions.

Eventually, though, they realize they're no longer in their world, and then the story become Fantasy Sliders, as they try to find their way home by building it. The catch? If they succeed, if they finally come out the other side of the forest and finish the road, the lengths they built into other realms are still part of it, meaning this road is capable of establishing trade with the otherworlds, which could potentially change the entire setting, going from low magic to high magic.

>>17590476
...

can...

can I play? ;_;

>>17590497
Kinda want to too now. Even though Im new to RPing in general.

>>17590476

More like now there's a little footpath for the giants to hike on for a midmorning snack consisting mostly of peasants. Does the terrain always stay the same in the parts where the planes overlap the most? Is it really overlap is it more like each plane shares this piece of ground. What are the rules for this planar travelly hoodoo.

>>17590539

It's not quite Planar travel the way you're thinking of, and the rules, while they are there, tend to shift. In the wild depths of the forest, it's more a matter of luck; if you're lost, if you're in a particular part of the forest (a part which may not actually have a fixed place), or if you're at an "in between" place (a threshold, a riverbank, etc) or if it's an "in between" time (noon, midnight, dusk, dawn, etc), you may stumble into an otherworld.

If you succeed in building the road it sort of "locks down" this random quality. the completed road would have several branches that extend deeper into the forest and terminate in certain gateways, which would now have their own unique rules.

Of course, that's a big "if."

>>17590583
Wait... why not have the players plan the road? If they're building a straight road with no forks or side pathways, have it so that travelers sometimes find them when passing. If they do make forks, have some of them inexplicably terminate in gates that the players did not build. That's the forest magic doing its randomity thingy, or it's the work of some Fey creatures whose world got crossed by the road. They figured, "Hey there's a road here where there's none before, why not use it?" and then they expanded it in their own world. Of course, this would lead to mysterious events happening more often on that road.

I do know that metal is a giant need for logging. Tools wear out, chains break, and saws lose teeth. The biggest thing would be keeping the operation supplied with men and metal.

>>17590648

The way I was going was they THINK they are building a straight road, but as they go they find themselves Somewhere Else. Eventually, they get out of there and keep going. Only when they reach the end will they find out that each time they entered another realm that in doing so they inadvertently built a fork in the road that led there. It's the result of the civilizing, orderly nature of the road clashing with the chaotic and primal forest, and the sort of warp each other into something new.

>>17590654

That'd actually be kinda interesting, if as they get deeper into the forest and start entering other worlds they lose touch with their supply lines, and have to get supplies from somewhere else.

Like, say, that unusually short and shifty looking peddler standing by the road. Why, he's got this tool box that never empties...

>>17590684
I think I love you, OP.

Fucking hell, I really REALLY want to play now.

>>17590684
Another thought is the road gets more use by Fey creatures due to this. So you'd get a mysterious merchant clad in black sometimes, or a goblin caravan that took the wrong turn, or a car with engine trouble and a very confused motorist.

>>17587656

No time to read thread or for a long answer, but idea sounds cool and I have to say something.

check out GURPS Low Tech
http://www.mediafire.com/?jf6kisgdy76j5ke
there may be something useful in there.

Also
>King
do you mean a king in the feudal sense?
He would have to be extremely powerful and secure to be able to deploy a massive workforce of what (I assume) are the peasants of his vassals, for an extended period of time.
May want to think about that, and the politics?
Maybe there is a conflict seed in there somewhere?

Why is this road so important that such effort is being committed to building it??

>>17590703

Well, I had some plans for the potential result of this road being built too. It reshapes people's awareness of the world; through trad and diplomacy with these other worlds they find they're sort of tiered, ala Nose myth. There's the human world, the faerie world, the giant world, a few others (I have some ideas for an underground dwarf world that is very different from most concepts of dwarfs), etc. Interaction between these worlds becoming more commonplace makes the human world a bit more magical, but there are some conflicts that come with it...

>>17590766
Why not make the road not just cross interplanar worlds, but also time and space? That way, instead of just a simple 'lol portal to other places' you'd have more of an unpredictable, wild nature of the forest.

You know, I just archived this thread at suptg and realized it is going to be so annoying when trying to go back and read it again due to all the spoiler boxes.

>>17590805

Because I think that takes the story in a different direction. I mean, these sorts of places do warp time a bit; enter fairyland for an hour and you may come out to find a hundred years have passed, or spend fifty years there and come back the exact second you left. For the most part, though, these realms are very closely bound together. I wouldn't even call them separate dimensions, at least not in the way the term is usually used. It's not the sort of setting where you' be launching off into other dimensions and planets, if that's what you mean. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you. It is late, and I am tired. In fact, it is time for sleep.

Glad you guys liked my ideas.

Building a few miles of road is a life's task in those days. It doesn't work at all without supply. Even without the wood removal you still need contact to the king who finances it all and regular replenishment of stocks, tools, and men.

There was a formula given earlier that about half the workforce would be working men, the rest support. I believe 20%-30% working men is ambitious. Most of the operation will be eaten up by supply and logistics.

Morale would be a central issue. Maybe the king can afford to pay every worker a fortune, I wouldn't bet on it. Instead build on loyalty, destiny, and pride to keep the workers motivated. Of course that takes a lot of motivate or rally checks. Good food helps too. You cannot exactly promise a forest battling army spoils of war. But maybe many workers were recruited from the irrelevant backwater country where the road starts into the forest and which will become a buzzing metropolis once the project is finished. Prisoners, poachers, and individuals in debt might be another source of labor.

You can sidestep the whole wood transporting issue by making it the king's problem. Your players just construct a huge drying shed every few hundred yards and leave the logs there for the king's men to pick them up later.

>>17590886
>You can sidestep the whole wood transporting issue by making it the king's problem. Your players just construct a huge drying shed every few hundred yards and leave the logs there for the king's men to pick them up later.

That is actually a really good idea.

>>17590886
>life's work
good god, no it's NOT.

During the French and Indian wars, colonial troops cut five miles of reinforced road a day. Now, given, there were several hundred of them, and they weren't dragging the timbers off to market. But so what? This is not the Manhattan Project!

>>17591047
That is technology 800 years beyond the given time frame. The Royal troops in the jungle had explosives, and that is key to leveling ground quickly. Also I doubt your number.

Normally roads follow natural contours, like a coast, a river, or a mountain range. That makes building so much easier. If you want to go more or less straight through a dense middle European 'Mischwald' you have to level the ground first. Cutting the trees is the first step, and laying down a road surface the last. The bulk of work will be in between those.

Roots were mentioned. Unlike in Asia the middle European aquifer tends to be a little deeper, with tree roots digging down accordingly. This favors hard woods and large trees, a road builder's nightmare. Now put it on a slope and it's a real hazard, to your workers and your timetable.

Of course if the ground is flat and dry, with some birches and conifers that the wind will level for you once you cut the main roots building a road can be easy going. But that is D&D landscape 1 encounter table A. To make it interesting in any way and give the world some depth in should shift from rocky cliffs to rolling hills to swampy valleys with an occasional rift, streams, maybe a volcano, just never even solid ground with a medium tree every 5 yards and a 5 inch wood chip layer like our artificial modern forests.

Thank the gods this cursed blackout is over. I started to hate that yellow tinge select all entails.

Basically I see the project as an army on the march without an enemy. Logistics alone should be a main issue, or be handled by a godlike NPC to keep the players free. An army marches on its stomach, so would a workforce.
Whenever there's a job for 1 man, count three because there will have to be cooks, tailors, blacksmiths, colliers, hunters, builders, wash women, beastmasters, ... it just never ends.

>>17591491
EVERY MAN DROPS

>>17591263
On the one hand, you're completely correct about how absurd that example is, but on the other hand, that other anon said 'a few miles of road', which is pretty much inconceivable.

For another example, though: Via Aemilia is 260km long, and was completed within 3 years. The Romans were far more experienced at road building, though, and had both water-powered sawmills and steel, so that's not a perfect example either, but basically I'd need to see some actual evidence before I'd believe that even a few *hundred* miles of road ever took a lifetime.

>>17591491
... and then the supplies start not showing up; going down forks in the road the party didn't even know were there. But they soldier on, gathering food from the forest, melting and reforging their broken copper blades, or welding the iron ones, only to reach the end and find that it's not even their destination.

Alright, let's collect some jobs.

PLANNING
Architect
Prospector
Map maker
Geologist (Foundation engineer?)
Driller (for ground samples)
Foremen

FORESTING
Topper (cuts tops off tall trees so they can fall safely)
Feller (cuts trees with axes and saws)
Limber (cuts off branches)
Rooter (prepares stumps by cutting and burning to be ripped out with oxen)
Chainer (prepares trees for transport)
Oxen Master (directs team of bests to haul)
Royal Tally (counts and estimates trunks before storage, applies royal mark to each trunk)
Shed team (construct roofs and store wood)

EARTH MOVERS
Driller (prepares solid rock for demolition)
Rock splitter (uses fire and wedges to make rock transportable)
Haulers (transport gravel and rock with carts)
Diggers (wield mighty shovels with grim determination)
Stompers (compact relocated soil)
Ditchers (dig drainage)

CONSTRUCTION
Paver (selects suitable available materials and directs construction of road foundation and surface)
Mason (constructs reinforcements where necessary)
Workmen (trained professionals who do all the labor)

...

yeah does anyone know good sources of information one can look for this shit in?

I find my games growing increasingly political.

>>17592170
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/history/ugrad/main/index/index.html

The information is not on the page itself, but it will get you there in 4-6 years.

>>17592170
Alright, for real now.

http://www.khanacademy.org/#history
Here's some good overviews about the French Revolution and Napoleon's time.

>>17592294
>>17592276
History classes are good for generalizations. If you have a good teacher, you get some nice trivia as well.

Mostly it's excess crap.

>>17592352
Except it's not. Everything is connected.
But fine.
Try some Wheel of Time Daes Dae'mar.
Or A Song of Ice and Fire.
Watch The Tudors.
That should give you plenty of inspiration to emulate court cabal in your game.

wheel of time? where everyone's running off of teenage angst and suedom? song of ice and fire where people throw hundreds of peasants to their death because everyone must be king and the peasants do so without hesitation? crap

I've not seen the Tudors.

I asked for books, you suggest fantasy (and not even Dread Empire), I'm clearly looking for info in the wrong place.

>>17592419
I believe the problem is more in how well you are capable of stating your query, and in your attitude.

Not one of the mentioned items is a movie btw. And the superficial quality is in regard to your aversion to actual history, which offers a lot more detail and greater complexity than novels and shows.

>>17592424
Editing doesn't help your case at all.

>>17591491

>>colliers

What, they set up coal mines wherever they go? I'm fairly sure that's not how fossilised carbon industry works, bro.

>>,Peterborough tortuga

It really isn't, captcha. It really really isn't.

>>17592455
A collier is anybody working with coal. In this context that would probably mean building kilns from wood and charring it so that the blacksmiths can run their furnaces.

>>17592483

>>In the middle of a forest with woodsmen by the hundreds around
>>Go to the enormous effort and cost of transporting coal overland to make charcoal

nope.jpg

>>17590583
Reminds me of Sandman. Specifically, the "soft places".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman:_Fables_%26_Reflections#.22Soft_Places.22

>>17592567
Wood doesn't burn hot enough to melt iron. And those charcoal kilns are makeshift affairs, basically piles of wood with a fire and a chimney at the center and some sort of isolation against the air on the outside, usually clay. They have to burn for a few days for the pyrolysis to take, other than that they are very mobile because you have to construct a new one each time anyway.

This is really fricken cool stuff. If Alaskan crab fishing had never been invented as a career. Logging would still be the deadliest job on Earth.

So, if given the choice, would you rather run this campaign as a worker, a guard, or an engineer?

What challenges do you think should be presented to each group, as players?

>>17595938

Engineers would have to handle the logistics/management of the whole thing. Finding ways to get rid of the wood, arraigning any earth-moving necessary for building the road, plotting the road's course around or over major obstacles, etc.

The guards would be all about keeping the peace. They'd be tasked with defending against thieves or bandits, keeping quarrels from breaking out amongst the workers, keeping hostilities with the locals to a minimum, and as the story progressed they'd be possibly tasked with defending against supernatural menaces as well.

The Workers are the only group I'm having a hard time thinking of stuff for. Their job is hard, but it's also monotonous. Players need fresh challenges, you can't just have them chopping down trees over and over.

>>17595977

Maybe have some kind of magic induced insanity stuff start happening to them. The forest is fighting back. They start to see fellow workers or guards as enemies, or are drawn to defend the forest against the incursion of the road, sabotaging the project.

>>17596017

Yeah, but as previously discussed, the magic stuff starts happening later; the campaign would start with some mundane obstacles, then progress to somewhat more mysterious ones, then outright magical ones.

Me, I'm thinking you just mix things up with changes in scenery, with a multipurpose workforce. So, you might be asked to chop down some trees and somebody has an accident, and you have to help them carry the injured guy back to camp. Or you might be tasked to cart some of the lumber back to town and deal with locals or possibly get waylaid by bandits, or something. Or there's a day with bad weather and you can't work, so you just have to find some way to amuse yourself around camp.

>>17596057

Would the labor force really be that versatile? From the early descriptions of "a moving army with no enemy" it sounded like the roles in the camp would actually be highly specialized.

>>17596402

They're laborers, not mindless automatons.

These are guys with families back home who they send most of their pay to, or down on their luck adventurers looking to score some extra cash, or kids trying like hell to get away from their boring life on a farm.

>>17596486

I'm not sure I follow your point. What I was getting at is if the camp chief hires you as a logger, and hires somebody else for building earthworks, he's not going to expect one to do the other, is he?

I guess what it comes down to is are these jobs any healthy and strong adult male can do, or do they require specialized skills? Would the camp just have a large pool of laborers it could assign to a variety of different jobs, or would it hire a set number of specialists who are expected to just do the job they're paid to do?

Okay, here's a basic question. What would these guys call out as a warning when a tree goes down? Shouting "timber!" was an invention of American lumberjacks, wasn't it?

bump for an interesting thread

>>17596911
"Lookout!" or "Tree!"?

>>17596649
Well, as a for instance: I am competent, journeyman-level blacksmith, a very good hand with an axe, a pretty good (at one time, excellent) horseman, a semi-skilled butcher (been paid to do it), a semi-skilled concrete worker (finisher).

I could hop between any of those jobs, but my day job is in management. How easily do you think it would have been for them to hop between a few jobs, too?
For instance, a topper might not be needed to top anything for days -weeks! depending on the species of trees they were moving through, so he undoubtedly does everything else related to forestry, too. A smith familiar with shoeing oxen could easily be a drover also -and probably preferred it, actually. It's quiet. The fellow in charge of marking timber for the landowner couldn't possibly do nothing but mark trees all day -so maybe he's the paymaster, in charge of accounts.

Get the picture?

>>17597156

Wulfgar: TREE!

Ulfric: What about the trees, Wulfgar? Do we need to chop down a tree? Do we need to move a tree? Is the tree dead? Is the tree an enchanted fucking elf?

>CRASH

Wulfgar: You alright?

>>17597305

So you're saying they'd make the big burly worker guys do whatever job needs doing.

>>17597413

I'm now imagining a pair of lumberjack NPCs who absolutely hate each other yet keep getting stuck together, Red Dwarf style, and the players keep bumping into them.

>>17598088
I'd say it has a lot of potential.

>>17598088
>>17598108

The worst part is when the players actually have to rely on them to DO something.

Actually, this is a good idea. Let's flesh out some personalities of NPCs working in the camp. I'm thinking we start with the cook, because the players will likely see him every day.

>>17598159
Chef is a horrible chef, but everyone eats it anyways since, hey, what else will they eat? Chef also withholds food from complainers.

Captcha: talizett want. Seems even Talizett want this, whoever that is.

>>17598254

Clearly, Talizett is the chef.

>>17598313
Would a Soup-Nazi expy be acceptable?

>>17598355
I'm thinking he's fairly genial most of the time, but insulting his cooking (very proud man and proud of the recipes) is rage inducing. Oh, and he holds grudges.

wow, big thread on this...

you know, there's some added intrigue you can add to this. in Darkmoon Vale, an area in Andoran in Golarion, the Pathfinder setting, the Darkmoon Wood is infesterd with lots of strange creatures, so the loggers are all either tough as shit or dead. the towns and lands nearby (and subsiquently, the families and merchants) are all owned by the logging Consortium, which is kind of a faceless evil organization, in that they don't give a shit about work safety, living conditions, or the poor-mans plight. they care only about turning a profit from the rare and expensive wood they can pull from the forest. in addition, the Vale has a problem with Kobolds, Werewolves, and ancient undead wraiths in Golarion equivalent ancient indian burial grounds. something could be taken from that, using the logging company itself as the badguy in a way...

also, an interesting note. Mules are excellent Draft Animals for manual logging, and are still used today in certain locales around america, particularly in the southeast. in fact, the term "yeehaw" is actually a conglomeration of the terms "yee" and "haw," which are the commands for "left" and "right" to the mule team. if the tree was cut properly, the bottom of the trunk will be shaped well for skidding across the ground rather than simply digging in, and a strong mule can pull upwards of a ton with favorable conditions.

Bumping a great thread.

You know, I can't help but think you'd need to reign in your players hard on the Monty Python jokes with this campaign.

Lumberjacks AND a medieval setting? That's just asking for trouble.

So, before this thread slips off into oblivion, I had a question.

I'm thinking of doing a /tg/ quest thread based on this concept, but I'm unsure of how to do the mechanics and stats. Any suggestions?

>>17602155

I think it might already be auto-saging, dude.

>>17602213
Doubt it.

>>17602884

So it's just that nobody's interested in posting anymore? A pity.

>>17602213
The thread is not even halfway to autosaged yet. I hope it starts up again.

I want to talk more about history.

How were roads constructed in the middle ages? I know what Roman roads looked like, graded, underlain, properly drained and smoothly paved (not cobbled!), since that was covered in one of my history classes.
But what did medieval roads look like?

>>17605567

Given what we know of this setting, the road being built probably wouldn't be Roman quality, though it would be aspiring to it.

So what would be the next best thing?

>>17608970
pretty much identical to roman roads. there was'nt much development in road tech between 100AD and 1750AD really.

usually cobbled with large flags, rather than smallish cobbles, if they were locally available. smaller cobbling as a "if nothing else" option.

generally fairly well graded and drained, and from city to city, urually pretty well dotted with inns/staging posts every 10-15miles (16-20km) or so.

>>17609453

I was under the impression that the Roman roads were a serious exception, and Medieval Roads were generally of poorer quality and sophistication.

building work...

>>17609496
they werent as high quality, but the general standard was much the same.
the big difference, AFIK, is that they werent maintained nearly as well.

>>17609580

I should think the most likely thing to get left out, if anything, would be the paving stones.

>>17609932
actually, they're pretty universal. what was left out more was crowning and grading to allow better drainage. which of course meant that they degraded faster.

>>17609958

In that case, it seems like the paving stones would be a HUGE liability for this whole enterprise. As they go through the forest and the supply lines get longer and longer, and they move further and further from any quarry, what would they do?

Obviously new stones could come with the supplies, but that would slow them down.

>>17610057

The real problem would be when they get into the deep parts of the forest, where they start stumbling into other realms, that the problem would occur. When they go into one of these realms and the supply trains stop coming, how do they keep building the road?

I suppose if they kept stumbling in and out of these otherworlds, there could be a dodge. That is, they go into one, think they spent a week or a month there, and then when they come out (without realizing it) only a few hours have passed, and the regular supply train finds them.

Or, alternatively, they could find new sources of stones in those otherworlds, which could get tricky.

When winter came around would also be a big problem. would they just stop working during winter?

>>17609580

Did they really build roads on a large scale int he Medieval era? I thought they just re-used the old Roman roads for the most part.

Once you've found a location along the road in which months pass inside, while only hours pass outside, you suddenly have the opportunity to take advantage of the difference in time flow for huge profit.

If you need any non-perishable goods to be made on site, for example, move the craftsmen into that location along with a whole load of supplies, wait outside for an hour or two, then reap the rewards of months of work.

>>17610608

I don't think it works quite like that. It's not something you realize as it's happening, only after the fact.

Like, you start working in part of the forest where all the trees are dead, and that seems kinda odd, but you keep going. Midnight comes, and things change. You don't realized it, you get up and go back to work, and as you progress you realize now it seems like the whole forest is full of dead trees, the stars overhead are different, and now there's a castle on a distant hilltop that wasn't there before. They try to find their way back, but can't, so they go on anyway.

>>17610310

That's a good point. would the camp break up during winter? Would it just hunker down and wait for spring?

Several documentaries of late have dealt with horses used in small logging operations.

Logs were turned into 'planks' and used as the road bed and to build bridges. Stumps will be a real problem without explosives.

As for the players, set them up as the boss's trouble shooters. That way you can get creative with the adventures.

>>17611307
>As for the players, set them up as the boss's trouble shooters. That way you can get creative with the adventures.

That's not a bad idea; it's versatile. Still, I think players appreciate a a degree of choice, and different players may be more interested in the mechanical problems this sort of story presents, while others might be interested in the character conflicts of dealing with all these people and threats.

This thread is lurching along like a dog with only two legs.

>The players are engineers.

Maybe they enjoy being the dumbass broad shouldered guard bullies for once...

>>17613145

Hence the point in giving them some choices.

>>17605567
Not sure if there are any Civil Engineeranons here, but when looking at the diagram of the roman road. How does the drainage ditch on the side work into the design? If you just dug a ditch beside the entire road the water in it would flow to a low point and form a small lake.

>>17614363

...it's just a ditch to drain water off the road itself. There's have to be some pretty substantial and sustained rainfall to form a permanent lake.

>>17614445
So the water flows off the top of the road, into the ditch and then slowly absorbs into the ground? Gotcha. This might work great in Rome, but the climate in Italy is a lot different than some ancient cold forest.

>>17615017
>>17615017

that's why in Canada we have ditches beside every road, roads are raised above so all the melting water runs off and pools in the ditches.

>>17615017
All you have to do is avoid pooling. Always provide a slight slope and a place for the water to go. If there are to be pools they must be a few yards from the road.

Water is a road's biggest foe. It creeps into cracks and then expands with frost to break the toughest rock. It also underwashes foundations which leads to collapse and potholes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM3pt23p3PQ

Here you go OP, its newer then what period you're talking about but it has much of the same stuff loggers back then would be dealing with.

btw, Iv seen this film in person and toured the logging museum, such a great time.

Maybe the wood is being used to build a new city back at the beggining of the road? I mean, a city there would grow very fast at first by housing workers and logistical hubs, to later become a metropolis by dominating the trade that goes through, probably being in charge of its tax (some sort of a land sound toll).

>>17615040
I visited Malaysia and Singapore once and they have some pretty crazy storm drains to deal with the monsoon. I remember walking down a sidewalk, just a plain regular city sidewalk. And it had this gaping chasm of a drain beside it. If you removed all of the support bracing you could cover it with something flat and still have enough room to ride a motorcycle through it. And even then they still overflow on occasion. Monsoon rainfall can be measured in bathtubs per square meter.

>>17615068
I remember watching a documentary on the History Channel about building the Colosseum. The drainage pipes leading away from the structure had to be set at a very specific angle. If the pipe didn't have at least 50% air in it, the water would get stuck and jam up the pipe, reducing the flow. Why is this a problem?

>>17615382
>If the pipe didn't have at least 50% air in it, the water would get stuck and jam up the pipe, reducing the flow. Why is this a problem?

I can only guess. But I assume that it is not just for water, but any kind of sewage and storm drainage. That means mud, garbage, feces, bits of wood and pottery, the occasional piece of fabric, all basic congestions that can foul up your flow. Those ceramic and brick 'pipes' have to be big enough to crawl into and muck out, or have to be taken apart, cleaned, and reconstructed for every congestion.

So to avoid congestion you want the stuff to move through quickly so it can't get stuck and pushes wedged material on. For that a remaining 'air overhed' is vital because air is compressible and equalizes pressure quickly. If the entire pipe is filled with liquid it is much more likely to have decreased flow from pressure building which in turn promotes physical obstructions finding a hold and biological contaminations taking root. And once you have moss or lichen covering your pipe walls it is only a question of time before it grows shut.

>>17615495
Ah I see. The pressure equalization is probably what the documentary was talking about.

One thing that hasn't been touched on before. Just how big were the trees? These days there are not many old growth forests left. I have a forest about 10 minutes walk away and its full of tree stump back from the days when logging still took place here. Humbling stuff, trees 8+ feet thick at the base.

I have no idea how you would even process or move a monster like that.

>>17617118

Hey, we did it all the time in the past. The Hercynian forest had trees dating back to the goddamn Ice Age, but the Romans brought it down eventually.

>>17618449
The logistics involved just boggle the mind. Felling a tree like that would probably cause a small earthquake. And once its on the ground, good luck moving it. Any further processing would have to be done on the spot.

Saw pits? Saw mills? Dems are smalltime.

That would be a pretty neat thing to introduce into your campaign. For instance, the players are building a road and making steady progress. But all of a sudden they round a hill and find that a tree has rotted out at the base and a storm knocked it over. 10 foot thick tree blocking your road, what do?

>>17621039

Hey, 500 brawny guys with axes and saws and nothing else to do can Get Shit Done.