Worldbuilding 5g: Docks, Quays & Storehouses

I understand that it seems I'm splitting hairs, but D&D is a game of descriptions and players interacting with stuff ... as such I feel that details matter.  Whatever a thing might be, there are always iterations of that thing that describe a progressive development: hovels are distinct from square houses, long houses, hall houses and merchant houses.  These in turn are distinct from manors, mansions and palaces.  Understanding that not every house is the same expands the DM's repetoire for discussing the layout of a property, a street and a section of town.  The same is true for any facility we might discuss.

For example, I included a "boat dock" as a facility appearing in a type-7 hex with one hammer, but I didn't discuss it because the map I'm working from lacks navigable rivers, lakes or seas.  What exactly is a "dock" ... as opposed to a "quay"?  What does one provide that the other doesn't?  If the players were to build the former, how much would it cost as compared to the latter?  The answers explain why one is available with 1 hammer and the other requires 2.

Excuse me a moment, but I must talk about the word "quay.".  It's an unfortunate word in the English language, as it looks like "kway" but it's pronounced like "key."  Turns out, the spelling quay begins in the 1690s, post my game word ... prior to that, it was spelled "key" or "keye," as it's pronounced.  This word originates from the French word quai, for sand bank, which is why islands in the Caribbean were called keys, because for two hundred years these were used to load and unload ships in  part of the world where no proper port was available.  Hwearf in Old English and werf in German were used similarly in the Baltic and North Seas to describe the Frisian and Danish isles, among others, which were banks where ships could tie up.  In America today, "wharf" is used rather than "quay," but originally the word described more than a place to tie up ... it also meant a shipyard as well as a dockyard.  I could use "dock yard" as a replacement for quay, but this would confuse it with dock; I could spell quay, "keye," but this is sure to confuse players, so I'll continue to use the anachronistic "quay."

So.  No matter what I call what, confusion will reign if definitions are not imposed.  As such, going forward with ship services, I will use the following designations:

A dock is a wooden platform built on wooden pilings that extends outwards from a piece of land.  Due to the limitations on how deep the pilings can be dug in a pre-industrial world, a dock is limited in width to 12 ft.  A dock will service ships with a draft up to 10 ft.  A wider dock needs to incorporate stone in it's construction, whereupon it becomes ...

A quay is a predominantly stone platform that extends outwards from the shore, sometimes incorporating some wood framing or ledges, but not necessarily.  The water beside a quay is deep enough to enable ships with a draft of up to 20 feet to "park" adjacent to the structure.  Quays usually include a storehouse.  If multiple quays are strung together, the whole is called ...

A wharf, which extends along a shoreline, forming a harbour, which describes the enclosed water surface and not the wharf's servicing area — though this distinction is usually overlooked.  A "port" describes the combined harbour and wharf together.  Wharfs can also be described as the "docks," but this is a misnomer.  Wharfs generally include warehouses as well as storehouses.

Wharves occur with 3 hammers, which isn't on our facilities table yet but it's convenient to touch on them now and expand later with another post.  

Please understand that I recognise this isn't "correct" ... but equally I'd argue there is no such thing.  The designations are merely for game convenience, not because I give a damn what a dock can be or is or any other such thing.  The same issue applies when I make a distinction between "storehouses" and "warehouses."

Docks.  We might freely assume that the number of hammers AND the type of hex (7 through 5) indicates how many docks a hex includes.  One hammer and a type-7 dock equals a thorp and therefore has one dock.  Add another hammer to a type-7 hex, which can only occur with a settlement, and we have two docks.  The type-6 hex gets a bonus dock over the type-7, two docks with 1 hammer and three docks with 2 hammers, and the type-5 gets an additional +1 dock in the same fashion.  This may seem unnecessarily finicky, but the presence of multiple docks, and how many, would be something that mattered to the players ... and it would give them some idea of the size and importance of the backwater they're approaching from the water.

Docks can provide services to players, though clearly I need to write rules for how many boats occur per hex and presence of hammers.  A nominal fee of 1-2 c.p. would be charged for tying up, with an understanding that at certain times of the day non-ownership of a dock might mean casting off because the dock is needed for transshipment of other vessels.  Not sure how that would work also, but it would mean that a compliment necessary to untie and put off from the dock would be a day-and-night necessity, else the local laws may enable the boat to be impounded, i.e., taken over by other sailors and held until a penury fine was paid.

I can't say for sure, but building a dock would probably be simple enough, with the coast determining it's length (and possibly local ordinances as well) and therefore it's cost and time to build.  I daresay a 2nd level party could easily afford it.   I think the length of the dock would be limited to a water depth of oh, say, 15 feet?  Needs research.  Incidentally, a "dock post" is a single piling pounded deep in the sand; it's sufficient to hold a boat, but it would require another boat for unloading and loading of goods and passengers.  It would also put the boat at risk during a storm, since the piling is necessarily close to the shore, provides none of the protection a dock would and might swing the boat into the shore, sinking it.

Overall, docks can stand up to most storms, short of a strong gale or a storm.  Wrecked docks retain their pilings, so that only the upper part need rebuilding. 

A shack can be built on top of a dock (remember, 12 ft. wide surface of indeterminate length).  Someone could build this of stone or brick but that would seriously compromise the dock's ability to stand up in a storm.  In general, a shack couldn't practically consist of much weight in its construction, nor in how much storage it provided.  How much, again, would probably require some research ... which doesn't seem necessary until the day a player asks me.

Quay.  This is an oblong extension of stone blocks, broken stone pieces, filling, sand, wooden framing, paving stone and mortar reaching out far enough that a really big ship can pull up to its side.  The support for such an edifice requires a village-sized habitat, thus its appearance with a base type-4 hex.  Because of its construction, a quay will stand up to a hurricane.  A quay can be built so as to shelter a ship, but this is rare because the business of manuevering a big ship behind a quay in a busy port is impractically onerous.  Usually, in a storm, ships put out to sea rather than remaining tied up ... there are many harbours that will provide excellent protection to ships on the water, so that escaping to open sea is unnecessary.

A type-4 village has one quay.  Type-6 and type-5 settlements with 3 hammers have quays (not shown on chart yet), but again, only one.  A type-4 with 3 hammers has 2 quays, or effectively a small "wharf," and those with 4 hammers (settlements) will have 3 quays.  Better type hexes obviously have larger wharfs with shipyards and other support buildings.

Quays can provide other services for players, namely storage which we'll discuss later and the opportunity to register at the port, provided they have the necessary sage abilities and ship type.  Once again, they can't leave a ship at a quay with the expectations that other ships will want to load and unload.  A quay has a large flat area where hundreds of tons of goods can be temporarily stored as it comes off a ship or is put on ... and these goods can be sold on the quay, removing the need for the players to drag it into an actual market.  Buying on the quay usually requires guild membership and the permission to buy specific goods as they roll into port.  In the meantime, the quay has guards that can be hired to protect goods that can be left in place for a day or two before it's moved off the quay into town, or onto a ship ... and these guards are bonded, so that loss of the goods would fall to the bondsman and not the owner.  Again, this is a benefit for those who have guild standing.

Quays are public features, so individuals cannot build structures upon them.  However, quays do include storehouses, and these are also for hire.

Storehouse.  Again, we must make a distinction between "stores" and "wares," and which kind of house is build to preserve them.  For the record, stores can be stored in warehouses, and wares can be stored in storehouses, but this doesn't make wares stores nor stores wares.  I want to be clear.  "Stores" are quanties or supplies of things that are kept for the day when they are needed — either for maintenance or during a crisis.  Empty water barrels are stored so they can be filled and rolled aboard ship when needed.  Ropes, nets, masts, planks, mortar, canvas, shot, tools and so on are kept for when these things are needed in repair.  Sand is kept in case of fire.  Food can be stored in a storehouse, but usually this is kept in "garners" or "granaries," which we earlier designated as places to store foods.  Storehouses tend to contain non-edible dry goods.

"Wares," on the other hand, are items that are specifically stowed away until they're sold.  That is, any sort of manufacture or valuable commodity, things that don't accumulate sufficiently until a hex accumulates 3 hammers.  Thus, not appearing on our list yet.

Storehouses tend to be smallish and narrow, about 12 by 20 ft., and 8 ft. high ... with multiple storehouses standing in a line on larger wharves.  Incidentally, this is the length of a standard modern shipping container and about 45% wider.  If there are multiple storehouses, each will house specific collections of items.  Storehouses tend to be half-timbered, with a six-foot high 6 in. deep mortared wall with a wooden framed rafters and roof.  A little pitch saturated as much as possible with sand can be spread atop a roof and won't burn easily, but some places will use green wood for the roofs, replacing them seasonally; still, the stuff inside a storehouse is potentially quite flammable.  On the whole, storehouses aren't locked (locks actually being quite rare even as late as the 17th century, and non-existent as late as the 15th) or even guarded ... but quays are often in some kind of service day and night, so there are plenty of torches and lanterns burning, not to mention local dockworkers and gangers (supervisors) around to notice a door being opened.  Plus there's not much inside to steal, as it's either heavy, takes time to find amidst the tangle or is quite cheap to buy.

Warehouses, on the other hand, include guards both inside and outside, have two floors, have no windows (which seems to confuse players who want a way to break in) and are often packed in such a way that even if a group were to get inside and kill the guards, it would take half an hour to find the "key stone" box before the goods can be wedged out of place and shifted out the door.  And, once again, people constantly moving about the docks.  Warehouses are typically twenty ft. square, 16 ft. high, and built in blocks of two — with "streets" between them and plenty of stored water in case of fire.  Warehouses are often separated from the water by 40 to 60 ft., which although makes it a longer distance to carry, helps serve as a firebreak in case either the ships or the warehouses catch fire.  Warehouses with copper fireproof roofs may appear in type-1 hexes; those are the ones to steal from, if a party gets ambitious.

Seems enough for now.