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Boldhome Map Preview I

Posted on May 7, 2021

This is a work in progress for the Sartar box, but Matt Ryan and I are working on a street map of Boldhome. Combined with Olivier Sanfilippo amazing Boldhome map, this will make Boldhome a fully playable urban setting for your campaigns. It also shows how AMAZING Boldhome is (and should pretty much explain immediately why the Sartarites are far more urbane than presented in the old Hero Wars material). Think Petra plus Mesa Verde plus Markarth (Skyrim) plus Yosemite Valley.

I know that thanks to the dwarfs, Boldhome has running water, and access to hot springs. It is probably the least stinky large human city in Glorantha!

And as it is the political, religious, and commercial centre of the kingdom, a large percentage of the population has been there. The other cities try to copy its style, which in turn gets copied by some of the tribal settlements.

Sartar has a population of about 170,000. 10,000 of those people live in Boldhome. Another 15,000 live in the other urban areas. That’s plenty urbanised.

The Sartarites do make a difference between City and Town, and I suspect the word city and town are not interchangeable.

TOWNS

Towns are substantial settlements with populations greater than villages or hill forts but smaller than cities. Some were originally hill forts that have grown into market and religious centers. The population of a town is between 300-1500 people, most of whom farm, but also includes skilled crafters and other specialists, professional warriors, and other retainers.Towns are surrounded by walls, usually made of stone. Clearwine Fort, is a town built within the cyclopean stone walls of an ancient hill fort. Buildings within the towns are usually of stone, mud brick (adobe), wood, or a combination of these materials.A town includes major temples to Orlanth and Ernalda, and sometimes a minor temple to another tribal deity or Lightbringer. Towns have several shrines to other gods or spirits.Towns have a weekly market where the local peddlers get together to sell to customers and to buy from merchants from the cities.

THE CITIES OF SARTAR

In 1476 Sartar made the first of his more subtle changes on the land when he settled a war wherein the southern Kultain and Locaem tribes were driving out the Balmyr and Sambarri tribes from their ancient lands. Out of such destruction Sartar forged the foundation of the first of his five cities, and began changing the peoples to make a great nation. Each city is the “shared space” of a union of tribes, and serves as a primary market and religious center. Other groups or tribes may also have a share in the city but have less say over how the city is operated. Although Orlanth and Ernalda have temples in each city, minor deities and even foreign deities have temples and shrines.

The place where the stream goes underground and comes back up is a stormwater conduit. Again, nice having your infrastructure built by dwarfs.

Any premodern society that is 20% urban is very urban.

Jeff Richard

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1476 ST, Balmyr (Sartar tribe), Boldhome (large city), Kultain (Sartar tribe), Locaem (Sartar tribe), Map, Matt Ryan, Population demographics, Sambarri (Sartar tribe), Sartar (King), Sartar Book (preview)

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