Project Planning - Ankh Morpork Breakdown and Information

Research and Development for the Pseudopolis Yard Watch House

 Research sources and their abbreviations in below notes

1. LSpace Wiki (LSW)

1. The Compleat Ankh Morpork (CAM)

1. The New Discworld Companion (NDC)

And various Discworld novels as listed below

• Jingo (J)

• Guards! Guards! (GG)

• Night Watch (NW)

Begin notes.


Ankh Morpork:

General information:

• About 1.6km wide
• Two cities (affluent Ankh and poorer Morpork) divided by the river Ankh
• Pratchett notes that you'd be able to create his view of Ankh Morpork if you could splice the city of Tallinn with large parts of central Prague.
• Built on loam and past incarnations of the city
• Generally accepted that it began with the Tower of art, University sprung up around this and the city around that.
• City sits on the river Ankh, very polluted river and solid enough to walk on. Where Sto Plains (western europe) meet Circle Sea (based on Mediterranean. Trade city.
• Assassin's Guild - oft seen more as a top-class grammar school where people are sent whether assassinhood is intended or not.

Governance:

• 300 Guilds
• These guilds/pressure groups make a fuss about things and this gives Vetinari space to do things his way. NDC

Geography and cultural details

• Morpork is downtown city, where trading, taverns, etc happen. Industry, commerce, shipping, work, mostly done here rather than in Ankh. Unseen University (old power) and Patrician's Palace (current power) both reside here as well as most of the ruling guilds, so while aristocrats and guild leaders live in Ankh, power happens in Morpork.
• Isle of Gods - a mound
• City rises towards the Tump
• Small factories and workshops in Phedre Road and Cable Street areas, and more traditionally along Street of Cunning Artificers
• Guilds - Many guilds, temples, etc and government buildings centered around patrician's palace and across from Isle of Gods (CAM)
• Brass Bridge - 8 Hippos line it facing out to sea. Relates to one of the legends of city's founding that talks about two orphaned brothers who founded city and were suckled by a hippo. Similar to Rome's she-wolf. Seattle has a slug.
• The Barbican - "The Barbican had been the fortified gateway in the days when Ankh-Morpork didn't regard an attacking army as a marvelous commercial opportunity. Some parts were still in use, but the bulk of it was six or seven stories of ruin without stairs that any sensible man would trust. For years it had been used as an unofficial source of masonry [can we replace with another building material] for the rest of the city. Bits of it fell off on windy nights. Even gargoyles avoided it.
• The Shades - the darkest bit of Morpork. Place in a pit or depression? 'Go down into the shades'
• Opera House - Largest indoor space in the city (CAM)

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Images sourced from Lspace Wiki

Further reference:

• Prague's Old Town Square high resolution panorama image
• Prague's Astronomical Clock

The Watch

• Commander Vimes, Captain Carrot
• Headquarters in Pseudopolis Yard
• Section Houses in Dolly Sisters, Long Wall and Chitterling Street. Smaller non-permanently-manned stations at most main city gates., also River Patrol office and slipway behind Mended Drum. Chitterling Street has the Shades and docks in its section. (NDC)
• Cheery Littlebottom - Forensics
• Colon and Nobbs - patrollers. Assigned to Traffic Division based at P Yard at end of Jingo (NDC)
• Training School at Lemonade Factory (cont?)

Watch Equipment

• "Official issue is not as follows
• One Shirt, Mail, Chain
• One Helmet, Iron and Copper,
• One Breastplate, Iron
• Breeches, Knee, Leather
• Cape, Rain, Leather
• Sandals, Leather
• Boots, Leather
• One Sword, short (or one axe for dwarves, club for trolls, adapted paper knife for gnomes)
• One Truncheon, Oak,
• One Crossbow (or Siege Crossbow for Troll Officers)
• One Hourglass
• One Bell, Hand, Brass and Wood,
• One Sewing Kit (zombie officers only)
• One Pot, Ceramic Cement (golem officesr only)
• One Badge, Office, Of, Watchman's, Copper

Specialist Equipment issued as standard to officers on patrol from Chitterling and River Gate and as required by other officers with business in Shades

• One Blanket, Wool, Blue (for existential confusion of bogeymen)
• One Religious Symbol of Watchman's Choice (for discouragement of vampires)
• One Discourse of Pure Reason (Vampires for the Discouragement of, Freethinker's option)

New badge designs commissioned by Vetinari as Watch grew more prominent.

• Old badge motto "Make my Day, the Moments Pass Quickly' (Fabricati Diem, Pvncti Agvnt Celeriter)
• New badge Motto 'The Streets are Always Safe for Honest Folk (Viae Sunt Semper Tutus Pro Hominibus Probis)
• Vimes is only bearer of old-style Watch badge

Pseudopolis Yard

Area surrounding Opera House in Ankh. Isle of dogs - a semi-island on the Ankh. A mound (LSW). Watch house is turnwise of Opera House, bordered by Lower Broadway and Butts Treat, backed party by Knuckle Passage.

Sybil Ramkin's Childhood home (GG, NW). Similarities to London's original Scotland Yard, which had the public entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard and was originally a private house.

Relevant Maps and Illustrations by Stephen Briggs

Trolls - skin flexible as leather but much tougher and longer lasting NDC - stone?

End notes

My Thoughts on Research Process

How much detail to go into with my research? Perhaps use the Jingo breakdown as a guide for things to look at initially, create a more directed focus. So the areas of Ankh Morpork where events take place, etc.
how vital is the exact version of Discworld to show? Ankh Morpork has advanced quite a bit as has the Watch - will including information seen only in later books damage the product? Perhaps only show things explicitly mentioned in Jingo and earlier. Need an earlier copy of NDC then.

Copies of The Discworld Companion - 2nd edition is BEFORE Jingo, 3rd edition (New DC) is a couple of Watch books AFTER Jingo. Could be better to get the second edition one and then add any unmentioned developments from Jingo novel itself.

HOWEVER given the scale of the problem of ensuring complete accuracy with the exact point in time that Jingo occurs as well as the short time period in which this project needs to get underway (as well as the lack of serious consequences if I don't get it all completely accurate), I must give myself license to let the 'historical accuracy' of the project be imperfect.

How legitimate is the LSpace Wiki? Looked at this compilation of Pratchett interview answers - no answers there. Does he ever mention having support for the wiki?

Aim today was to get some general information about the city and a clearer picture of it. What's happened is a consolidation of info, clarification of some preconceptions I had from the novels including the knowledge that now improves my lackluster mental images of locations such as the Barbican)





Insert photo of map on wall