# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Building/Structure Mapping >  Indoor "Outhouses"

## RPMiller

Since this particular forum doesn't get much love I thought I would bring up a topic that seems to be very prevalent on fantasy maps and yet has very little historical backing, as far as I'm aware. (Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong with some links to the contrary).

I have noticed recently as I keep happening upon fantasy maps when looking for Old West stuff, that many people insist on putting the privy inside the building. Based on my research of the Old West this would have been one of the worst things that could have been done for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to - bugs, odor, explosive methane, and cleaning.

There is a reason the outhouse was outside and a fair distance from the building.

Based on my limited knowledge of the Middle Ages, I thought most people used chamber pots and dumped them outside where the waste would be washed away or absorbed into the ground. The exception to this, as best I could tell was a castle. A castle would often have a privy inside and located on a higher floor. The waste would then fall down a type of chute and end up in a dung heap either outside the castle or within, but where it could be dealt with.

Does anyone have any clarifications that they can offer on this rather "unclean" topic?

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## ravells

The holes which were privvies in castles were called 'Guarderobes' from which we get the word 'wardrobe'.  In medieval times, in cities, there would be a '**** collector' who would collect the waste of more fortunate people - it would either be dumped at the local midden or cess pit. The less fortunate just went in the street. 

The Romans had communal loos, with running water.

And that's about the extent of my knowledge on this scatalogical subject!

Ravs

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## RPMiller

So why do so many people insist on putting them inside their buildings?

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## deanatglobe

I think it has to do with familiarity.  That is how modern people think of floorplans.  Really a similar thing can be said about hallways.   In most buildings there were no hallways, just adjoining rooms.  Where there were hallways they were primarily a way for servants to get from place to place without being seen.

Back to privies, with indoor plumbing it is easier to forget about that aspect "real life".  Chamber pots just bring up all sorts of "realities" that my players usually did not want to have to deal with.

That being said, I usually leave them out of anything but castles or cultures that have indoor plumbing.

I often get a little extravagant with my windows too, medeival structures usually had very few, very small windows, for heating, defense and cost reasons.


Well theres a bit more than my 5 cents on the topic

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## pyrandon

In some recent investigations into medieval cities, I can corroborate the idea that the streets were the "going place"--or, if a chamber pot was used, the "throwing place."  Accounts from the Middle Ages describe streets as often disgusting places--and let's just say that canals, motes, etc. were not "clean" either.  In fact, I read one account of a French King ordering a stream dredged due to build-up of just such fecal matters!  

PS:  Good comment about the hallways, deanatglobe--I had not thought of that, but you are surely right!

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## Midgardsormr

I don't know much about the topic, either, except that the '**** collector' referred to earlier was called gong farmer in England.  

And the reason that garderobe became wardrobe is because people would store clothing in the garderobe because the odor repelled moths. 

I didn't take the time to read it yet, but Google turned up an article might be of interest:
http://www.sewerhistory.org/articles...1/article1.pdf

"Sewerage in Ancient and Mediaeval Times"

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## RPMiller

I definitely think I would rather not see any loos in anymore buildings from that time period and up through the invention of indoor plumbing. It isn't that we even bother roleplaying the needs for that particular function, but when such a room is in a map it calls attention to it and it tends to somehow creep into the plot.

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## jaerdaph

LOL - I was just thinking of how many fantasy inn maps I've seen with indoor privies, and how many space ship deck plans I've seen without.  :Smile: 

The chamber pot was the closest thing to indoor bathrooms they had, be it a medieval city or frontier town. Some nights it was just to cold to make the hike out to the outhouse. And pity the late night reveler who just happened to be passing under the window of someone in the process of emptying the chamber pot!

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## NeonKnight

You will notice that in almost every one of my more recent city/town maps, I have almost all city blocks designed with 'central' courtyards. The function of the courtyard was to locate privies/loos that would serve the surrounding buildings.

Also, I have seen a great many fantasy floor plans with indoor latrines, and some of these maps were even in published materials. Always....bizzarre, and I can only imagin the smell.

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## ravells

Although, all this said, we are talking about Fantasy RPGs rather than real life medieval. Fantasy settings are basically a sanitised and idealised take on medieval / renaissance life. Disease, lack of sanitation, the sheer smelliness, the presence of fleas on virtually everyone and general lack of personal hygiene, the utterly back-breaking, hard life that rural peasants led, the almost universal lack of literacy and numeracy, the fact that it was not uncommon to step over the dead bodies of children in city streets in 18th Century London....the list goes on and on.

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## Shessar

He's a link to a condensed history of outhouses and privys. Rather interesing reading I suppose.

http://www.bottlebooks.com/privyto.htm

But I tend to agree with ravells, especially for the fantasy genre of games. It is fantasy, not necessarily medieval. My campaign is set in a world of high magic, and has one rich merchant's house that has the garderobes going to a non-dimentional space (sort of like a bag of holding does) and a permanant control temperatue so that the only fireplaces are those used for relaxation. However, the poorer inhabitants of the land use the traditional chamber pot and street.

If I were running a historical game, I'm sure I'd research things a bit more.

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## RobA

> LOL - I was just thinking of how many fantasy inn maps I've seen with indoor privies, and how many space ship deck plans I've seen without.


Thats because in the future, people don't have to go to the loo anymore...

After-all if all your meals are little pills and your environment is tailored to ideals, your body will not produce any waste  :Smile:  100% efficiency!

-Rob A>

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## pyrandon

> Thats because in the future, people don't have to go to the loo anymore...
> 
> After-all if all your meals are little pills and your environment is tailored to ideals, your body will not produce any waste  100% efficiency!
> 
> -Rob A>


Where the *&%*&)) will men read the paper, then??   :Wink:

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## jaerdaph

After watching several episodes of Cities of the Underworld on The History Channel, I learned that the Romans apparently had indoor toilets. It's a shame that technology was lost in the Dark Ages.

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## NeonKnight

Roman indoor toilets were not 'common' place in every house. They were common in the bathhouses though, as the bath houses had water transported to them. The idoor toilets functioned by have many 'latrines' positioned over a channel of flowing water into which ones waste was dropped. They even had 'backside' scrubbers that made use of the water to cleanse oneself after the deed.

Here are some images of the roman latrines:

http://www.englishheritageprints.com...112_440440.jpg

http://www.sewerhistory.org/images/wm/wmj/wmj10.jpg

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## pyrandon

I found an interesting vignette about indoor plumbing in "Life in a Medieval City" by Joseph & Frances Gies:

"A woman who keeps a lodging house is summonsed for creating a 'vile nuisance.'  She has had a wooden pipe built from the privy chamber of her house to the gutter, rendering it evil-smelling and sometimes blocking it up.  The neighbors bring her into court, where she is fined six deniers and ordered to remove the pipe within forty days."  (p. 204)

So evidently plumbing crimes were not unheard of, so great was the desire for indoor plumbing in France c. 1250 AD.   :Smile:

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## RPMiller

You know that could have worked if only she had water to pour down the tube after "the business" was down.

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## Gamerprinter

Unlike the movie "Gladiator", the Roman Emperor Commudus was not killed in the arena, rather his imperial guards threw him down the "guarderobe" of the imperial palace.

This is where we get the word "commode" for toilet.

So I guess the romans had something like a guarderobe in certain large buildings.

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## Midgardsormr

A popular tale, but not one that is true.  Commodus was strangled in the bath (or possibly his bed, sources differ) by a man named Narcissus (not to be confused with the Narcissus of Greek mythology), after a plot to poison him failed.

Cassius Dio: LXXIII, paragraph 22:5.

Herodian's History of the Roman Empire Since the Death of Marcus Aurelius, 1.17

The two words are related, though:

commodus -a -um [to measure , in full, complete]; hence [proper, fit, appropriate]; of persons, character, etc., [friendly, obliging, pleasant]. N. as subst. commodum -i, [suitable time, opportunity, convenience; use, advantage, interest; remuneration; loan]. N. acc. as adv. commodum, [at the right time, opportunely; just then]. Adv. commode, [rightly, properly, fitly; pleasantly, comfortably, kindly].  http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/l...mmod&ending=us

Commodus' name indicates that he is a proper man--the right man for the time (an obvious misnomer if ever there was one).  As the word commode came to English through French, it retained its meaning of something being convenient, or properly placed.  Compare our words commodious and accommodate.

/linguistics lesson

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## Joshua_101

> Fantasy settings are basically a sanitised and idealised take on medieval / renaissance life. Disease, lack of sanitation, the sheer smelliness, the presence of fleas on virtually everyone and general lack of personal hygiene, the utterly back-breaking, hard life that rural peasants led


In the campaign I'm running right now one of my kingdoms is based heavily on ancient Roman history. I've tried to include as much historical detail as possible from the layout of Roman houses to running water latrines (they used communal sponges to wipe!) and public bathhouses. 

http://www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/pub_bath/pubbath1.htm

I find it amazing that the Romans had such an advanced and technological society and that the Dark & Middle Ages was consumed by such regression. It seems that when the Roman legions left England and France,  sanitation went with them.

Jack Whyte often writes about Roman sanitation in his A Dream of Eagles Series (called The Camulod Chronicles in USA). Fort at Mediobogdum (or Hardknott Pass) was located at the top of a cliff so the chute from the latrine just went out the side of the precipice. Good thing the valley below was uninhabited!

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## Beowulf

> Although, all this said, we are talking about Fantasy RPGs rather than real life medieval. Fantasy settings are basically a sanitised and idealised take on medieval / renaissance life. Disease, lack of sanitation, the sheer smelliness, the presence of fleas on virtually everyone and general lack of personal hygiene, the utterly back-breaking, hard life that rural peasants led, the almost universal lack of literacy and numeracy, the fact that it was not uncommon to step over the dead bodies of children in city streets in 18th Century London....the list goes on and on.



Years ago I pondered the same issue, vacillating on whether dungeons & buildings should have bathrooms/indoor outhouses.  Ultimated I reached the same conclusion as Ravells- it's a game of fantasy, not a treatise on plumbing!  It's like the Renaissance Festivals so popular now, an overly romanticised view of the times (hey, I love the Ren Fest, but was everyone back then really a Lord or Lady, and did they all have bad English accents? :Wink: ).

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## ravells

I would LOVE to go to a Ren fest. Must book a trip to America soon....we don't really have them here. ...oh and 'back then' (pre 1900s) received pronunciation (aka BBC English aka 'the posh accent') hadn't been invented. In fact the American accent is closer to how people spoke in the 1500s than RP is....and as an added bonus you still use words which are obsolete here, like 'gotten'.

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## pyrandon

Ravs--you can come stay at my house anytime, buddy.  There's a ren fest in Detroit close by--and I can sure introduce you to some "interesting" people there.  IN fact, I'll bet we can find some McFacts about European history you've never "gotten" in your own schooling...  :Wink:

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## RPMiller

We say "gotten"? I don't think that is even in my vocabulary. It is in the dictionary though. It just doesn't sound right to me. I wonder where he could have gotten that from?  :Wink:

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## ravells

Loads of Americans I've met say 'gotten'! Trust me to find the only two who don't here!

Don, we could dress up as fifteenth century cartographers (I don't know why but I've always imagined fantasy Cartographers to dress like 16th Century Florentines), and run a ye olde mappe shoppe!

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## pyrandon

Hahaha.  Sure--although I get to be the assistant, Igor.  (Pron:  Eye - gore)

"What hump?"
           --Marty Feldman

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## Naryt

> Hahaha.  Sure--although I get to be the assistant, Igor.  (Pron:  Eye - gore)
> 
> "What hump?"
>            --Marty Feldman


"You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump."

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## ravells

> Hahaha.  Sure--although I get to be the assistant, Igor.  (Pron:  Eye - gore)
> 
> "What hump?"
>            --Marty Feldman


We'll need a Madam Blushtika as well!

(sound of horses neighing).

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## pyrandon

> We'll need a Madam Blushtika as well!
> 
> (sound of horses neighing).


Hahaha--you know what's really funny?  When my wife calls out to our horses they neigh like that--so I've called her Frau B for along while now   :Wink:

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## RPMiller

> We'll need a Madam Blushtika as well!
> 
> (sound of horses neighing).


Er... That is Frau Blucher.  :Wink: 

And before anyone mentions it, Blucher is not German for Glue. There are 3 different words for glue and none of them sound like blucher. The most common is Klebemittel.

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## ravells

Heh I was going off memory and the last time I saw Young Frankenstein was about 25 years ago!

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## RPMiller

You know its out on DVD? As soon as I saw it I went out and snatched one up. A definite classic to have in the old movie library.

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## Valarian

> Although, all this said, we are talking about Fantasy RPGs rather than real life medieval. Fantasy settings are basically a sanitised and idealised take on medieval / renaissance life. Disease, lack of sanitation, the sheer smelliness, the presence of fleas on virtually everyone and general lack of personal hygiene, the utterly back-breaking, hard life that rural peasants led, the almost universal lack of literacy and numeracy, the fact that it was not uncommon to step over the dead bodies of children in city streets in 18th Century London....the list goes on and on.


While this is true of the mundane world, the high magical element of most Fantasy settings could alleviate many of the sanitation issues common in the medieval environment. Thus, not only using the technologies used by the Romans you can also have more modern appliances run using magical means.

The toilet could flush (Create Water) the contents of your toilet down the waste (Dimension Door) to the city midden. Once a month, the content of the midden is disposed of (Disintegrate). Of course, this would be expensive and only prosperous cities could afford such luxuries. Smaller settlements would have to opt for more manual means of waste disposal.

Dishwashers: a cupboard where you place your dirty crockery and conjured water elementals clean the dishes for you.

The magical element would also alleviate disease. If Clerics are common, then even the most poor settlements would have access to magical cures (Cure Wounds, Remove Disease). If magic is more rare, then the supply and demand means that only richer patrons get magical assistance. Response units of clerics travel to famine stricken regions to supply Create Food and Water spells to aid the populace. Get arcane mages involved too and you can have a rapid response unit (Clairvoyance and Teleport). Even disabilities such as blindness and deafness can be cured through magic if the person can afford the services. Some states could have high taxes, but the equivalent of a national health service (using Clerics).

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## ravells

I don't know. It would be a brave fantasy author who would use mages as glorified Dyna-rod staff. Kind of kills the image of magic being something arcane and wonderful. 

The juxtaposition of faeces and magic is just...well doesn't work for me!

Ravs

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## Naryt

> I don't know. It would be a brave fantasy author who would use mages as glorified Dyna-rod staff. Kind of kills the image of magic being something arcane and wonderful. 
> 
> The juxtaposition of faeces and magic is just...well doesn't work for me!
> 
> Ravs


Apprentices/students need some form of useful work.   :Evil: 

Besides, I would see these "conveniences" as enchanted items.  There may be some ignominy in enchanting a self-cleaning chamber pot but it's still enchantment work and those students have to practice on something.  As far as cleaning the castle cesspit, enchant the entire cistern so it does the hard labor but require it to need a magician's touch to power it.  Detention anyone?

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## RPMiller

And he did say a "high magic" setting.  :Wink:

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## ravells

I just have visions of the apprentice wizard extending his telescopic staff and plunging down a pipe to clear the blockage. 

In my adventures these calls of nature are just 'assumed and never get mentioned'. Gosh this thread really has, er.... run and run.

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## RPMiller

That is the way it is most of the time in mine as well. However, you miss some great opportunities when a member has to step away for a moment and is separated from the party. One such instance happened in a CoC game, where a demon was killing party members and stealing their skin and rejoining the party. The PC would step away, and the GM would take them to the other room and "kill them" and give them instructions on how they were to not work for the GM. Big fun! Unfortunately he made the mistake of taking the allied prisoners instead of the Japanese and German officers who were holding the guns.  :Wink:

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## Lwaxana

There are games where going potty isn't mentioned? Really?  :Surprised: ) Never saw one of those. One of my players has a character who owns a magical chamberpot even (which actually dumbs it's contents on whoever last insulted him). 

In our current world, plumbing (and other "modern" stuff) is available but limited, and lots of it is done with magic. but we usually have the potty outside unless it is in castles, large inns or the wizard academy.

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## RPMiller

Hehehe, plumbed from the depths, this thread was.

Thanks Lwaxana, it is good to know that their are others in the RPG world that take this idea into account.

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## Redrobes

I have dug out some pics from some castle tours that I have done in the past. Here is a picture of an indoor latrine. Now I am no historian so I do not know if the wood is a mock up or whether it is old. The second is one of these Guarderobes which was added to this castle in its latter years so it might be that in mid of the medieval times they did not build these kinds of things. Anyways - I know that some of you are a long way from old castles and you don't get these pics in many brochures !

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## Publius

Ah, the necessary room.

I have noticed their absence in many deckplans as well, deckplans are actually my speciality. My biggest problem as a planner is that I often include too many bathrooms, even on ships. Or at least what feels like too many to my sensibilities. The funny thing is when I ask women for input they say 'not enough' and when I ask men they say 'too many', which says a lot really when you think about it. I figure as long as they are both unsatisfied, I'm probably in the right 'ballpark' if you will forgive me.

One thing a lot of people miss when they do include bathrooms is that the bathrooms and other places of running water tend to be stacked upon one another. This is not always carved in stone, but it is so much easier to run the pipes that way you might want to consider it just from a designer perspective.

As to bathrooms in the pre-modern eras, it is my understanding that there were often places for public urination because of the use for the material itself (multiple agricultural uses, wool dying and even gunpowder in the later periods; lets not get into the teeth-whitening) rather than just using the streets. In fact there are times when the cry has gone out for urine collection in the aid of defense of the city, as in a bit of Confederate doggrel: "When a lady lifts her shift/She shoots a bloody Yankee...”  

For mapping purposes however, the use of a restroom in some settings might not be that horrific a faux pas. I was doing a map for an Amber Diceless game once (Castle Amber herself) and suggested that tthere was a place for the restroom. The hue and cry went out, but given that Amber rests in the center of many different dimensions and has active trade with them, I think that a running water system would be one of the first things installed into the Castle. There might not be any gunpowder in Amber (before Corwin 'thoughtfully' brought it back) but the basic functions of fluid dynamics should work and at that oint its primarily a "would they have thought about that" sort of issue.

As for High Magic, I dunno. If they have lots of magic spread about like automatic quills and such, it probably isn't entirely out of whack. In that sort of setting, magic will be used in the important/viable places whenever possible, and having an indoor toilet is much better than a thundermug or a long ass trip in the cold and snowy season to the outhouse. It would get my vote before ever-inked quills.

_The upshot is:_ I don't think it is something to *always* or *necessarily* be avoided in a pre-modern/fantasy style setting, but make darned certain that you have other examples of running water and the materials technology that is used in that process (tech for production and maintenance of the pipes themselves for example) present for that know-it-all that tells you it "wasn't possible". For myself however, I have grown tired of the complex explanations. Sometimes even though you did plan it out it is just something that is expected *not* to be there and no matter how reasonable some will simply not accept it. Nowadays I simply put the outhouse outside. I have done the same for some Post-Apocalyptic maps as well given that they understand the process, but the first time the systems break down they are probably not going to be able to fix it even if they know how. Unless of course they have plenty of parts and other equipment. Actually running water was the sign of prosperity in one of my Post-Apoc settings. They knew about indoor plumbing, many NPCs vocally lusted after it for the feeling of "normalcy" it gave, but it just wasn't always possible.

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## Arkkeeper

Despite common belief, nobody threw their stuff out the window. quite the opposite in fact it is known that most major cities had a law against it and almost all village/ town/ etc. wouldn't allow it.

Toilets most commonly came in Three Forms:
Public Bathhouse: For the Lower and most of the middle class, A Public Bathhouse was one of the centralized plumbing fixtures, now yes people did have chamber pots which was commonly mixed with the closest thing to trash then (apple cores, rotten leather, etc.) and then they took to the Bathhouse to empty. Those for the middle class were in much better conditions.

Bathrooms: Yes a LOT of people actually had bathrooms, in richer districts the people would have essentially brick seats with holes in them, the hole would lead to a lead or clay pipe which connected to the municipal plumbing system like the romans.

Composting Outhouse: almost all rural folk had composting Outhouse's, which could be emptied and the Humanure used as fertalizer.

And theres your scatological history lesson for today.

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## jfrazierjr

I hate to continue this subject, but I tend to agree with Arkkeeper.   Given that Ageans, Indus, Sumerrians, Minoans,etc had many homes with some type of indoor facilities 3000+ years ago, it is not inconceivable that in many locales that some way would be fashioned.   I would say that other than solid rock (in which case there many still be a way) or marshland, the soil could be dug down enough for many if not all homes to have a sewer system installed and properly maintained.  

Not even counting the overtly magical solutions of magic items or magical sewer keepers, there are also ecological solutions possible for some of the larger towns, namely creatures such as gelatinous cubes or the like which may be in a chamber built underneath the main city.

Joe

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## Torq

Man, I cant believe this thread has been ressurected again. There has been more time devoted to this topic than almost any other. Who knew  :Wink: . Anyway I believe the points are all well made.

This seems to be the topic that just refuses to flush.

Torq

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## ravells

I think it's time to rename this topic 'The floater'.....eeewwww!!

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## Arkkeeper

Well I just thought I should put in my expertise.

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## RPMiller

Personally I'm glad this thread is still active. I gives folks something to consider as they look for making maps more realistic and by extension their games. Not that I would want to roleplay the use of said facilities, but they could be an important plot point or similar.

In fact, we used a "chute" to enter a border fort in a game once. I won't go into detail, but it was quite memorable and the lengths we went through to keep from getting "soiled" were quite humorous.

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## RPMiller

> Well I just thought I should put in my expertise.


What would that expertise be in?  :Smile:

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## Arkkeeper

the pooper. lol. no I just meant what I knew about the subject thats all.

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## SeerBlue

and it opens up a whole new skillset, nightsoil specialist, you only work in the wee hours of the morning, no one pays you much mind, in fact they avoid you like, well, poo,  perfect cover for a sneak thief. SeerBlue

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## Arkkeeper

*shakes head, sighs*

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## RPMiller

> and it opens up a whole new skillset, nightsoil specialist, you only work in the wee hours of the morning, no one pays you much mind, in fact they avoid you like, well, poo,  perfect cover for a sneak thief. SeerBlue


See, now you have to write up all the Feats this class would have as well as skills.  :Shocked:   :Wink:   :Laughing:

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## Arkkeeper

OR he could use a different Roleplaying System than D&D, Like _real_ D&D, which would be AD&D.

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## RPMiller

Or instead of different he could use a "better" system like Hero, GURPS, Action, or even Savage Worlds.  :Wink:   :Very Happy:

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## SeerBlue

AHHH, that would be well beyond my scatological knowledge, for one thing, and as I have not actually gamed since I left Japan, like 10 years ago,  I have forgotten more than I ever really knew. As I was the token expendable healer... player convo seemed to follow this line...

 ''Any one injured"..

 "No, why?"

 ''Me thinks there is something beyond that door, something vile"


''OH, so we are sending the Priest in first then...."

 I'm a great Monty Python fan, so my clerics seemed to be slightly eccentric, frizzy haired bumblers, with a penchant for Port.

 The guys and gals I played with were hardcore role and roll players, depending on the night, if it was Georgia coffee from the machine in the street, lots of puzzling subplots, or if the tipple was Asahi BIG  beers it made for hack and slash side ventures :Smile: ....They even OWNED their own dice!! :Surprised: 

 I was the shift supervisor, so I got invited to join in an established party and play, mostly, to ensure we closed down the F-16 engine shop at a decent hour Friday nights. I played more soon to be deceased characters than I can remember.
SeerBlue

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