Trenchville
A century ago the necromancer Braka took power in a coup'd'etat and launched a war that would involve the whole continent.What was worse was that the war bogged down and would last for several years, much of it spent in the horrors of trench warfare. When it finally came to an end, rather then destroy the trenches again, Trenchtown was born.
What was a mass of trenches, forts and deep dugouts has become a city. The giant crossbows and other weapons of death have long since been removed except for one great sling that is used to fire humans that have been sentenced to capital punishment, a sentence which in practise is not often carried out.But the metal spikes and barbed wire remains except at the city gates, to keep out thieves and beggars. The city guards are the only ones allowed to carry weapons inside the city and newcomers must hand in their weapons at the gates, which will be returned to them when they leave.
The trenches that were once so muddy and damp have been given floors of wood or stone,and the walls have been covered with ornate blue tiles. The shallow dugouts have been occupied by either the homes of the inhabitants or by market stalls. In the deep cold dugouts, meat that would otherwise go rotten within hours can be kept fresh and free from pests for up to five days at a time. Others are used as prisons for those awaiting trial, although the crime rate is lower then in many other cities because of the efforts of the city guards.
As for the forts and the former military headquarters, they have become the 'des res'housing for the richer inhabitants of the city, or they house the best and most expensive inns and shops.
Outside the crops grow well, ferterlized as they are from the bones in the soil of the tens of thousands who fell in
the war, so there is no danger of starvation even when trade is going badly. In the winter or when there are thunderstorms, awnings are pulled over the trenches to prevent flooding.
What was once a dreadful place of death has become a thriving city full of life.
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? Responses (6)
A question...
Trench warfare was largely the product of modern weapons such as the machine gun, which made old tactics of massed combat irrelevant with their killing speed. Why would a medieval world have trench warfare? Armed close-quarters combat is fast and decisive, trenches would not occur.
Perhaps there was a siege going on-trenches were used in sieges as early as the 16th century.Also magic and siege engines could to some extent have stood in for machine guns and artilery.
Trenching and seige warfare came about because of gunpowder and cannons. Magic, not needing stationary pieces, would not promote trenchs (smoke to obscure vision maybe). Siege weapons do not have a rate of fire great enough to warrant static immediate defenses, unless the defender has nothing but ranged weapons.
The postings needs a good spell check (now a feature) and needs to be cleaned up in terms of sectioning. There seems to be missing pieces when I read this, so perhaps you should move it to your working space... fix it up... then trot it back out.
vote to be changed after update.
I can work with the trenches. All you need is a single idea to make them make sense.
Perhaps Trenchville was created in a funneled plain with some huge forest on either side that made traveling through it pretty much impossible for wagons and siege engines. Perhaps the king thought to try and stop the army from even ariving at the city as best he could. He was a wise king and instead of building walls, he devised a plan to build trenches instead.
Perhaps the attacking army was mostly archers in this case. Scouts found early that there were very few actual military and many others were cavalry. The defenders were pretty much in the same boat with mostly archers. So they decided to choose their battlefield and dig trenches with small wooden barricades on the top to block arrows and somewhat hidden by foilage. So when the armies met, the attackers let a volley, defenders hid and returned fire to the mostly in the open attackers. The cavalry was somewhat inneffective because they had to dodge trenches all the while being pegged off by the archers.
Probably more reasons you can think of. I like the idea of the town, just needs to make more sense.
In South America (I think) they have entire multistory buildings dug into the ground iinto sandstone. Just carved right out of the earth. Who needs a cliff when you are walking on building material.
Heck, even if the trench army got overrun and destroyed, the trenches would still be there and could still be used. Could be a failed experiment.
I agree with moonhunter on what brings about trenches.
Now, what could bring them about would be some type of magical constructs which were analogs to Artilley/Machineguns, such as Lightning Spires (Similar to what existed in Red Alert). In this case, we are creating a situation where defence is more powerful then offense, and so stalemate ensues.
A nation with powerful magic users created a network of lightning shooting spires on their border with another kingdom. Since any who tried crossing over land to attack were fried, their enemies built trenches to get closer to the towers, with the intent to eventually tunnel underneath them to collapse the towers and create a breach. Perhaps both nations constructed similar spires and created a no-mans land between. The spires would of course be built far enough apart not to be able to strike each other (otherwise it would be rather difficult to build them.)
The spires would have to outrange all other forms of magical attack for this to work, and would be a very high magic world.
This status quo would exist until spires are destroyed (subterfuge, etc), or a mobile, lightning resistent attack form is developed (ceramic golems, anyone? :) )