- Tiltyard: A yard, field, or enclosed space for tilts and tournaments; and preperation and training exercises. A tilt is a combat exercise or sport between two mounted knights.
- Time, building: Building is seasonal and usually excludes winter months. The time involved in the erection of a castle could vary from a few weeks for an earth and timber one to the same number of years for a masonry structure.
- Tournament: Aristocratic entertainment and display. Its principle feature is the mock battle.
- Tower: Similar to a keep, they were built into bailey walls for greater protection around Age 11, year c. 10. At first they were only put at corners, because this left the middle of the curtain wall vulnerable, wall towers were added. These wall-towers are usually D-Shaped. Thus presenting their curved wall to the attacker; Age 11, year 306. Some places presented the curved wall to the interior, found mostly on ruins, the reason is unknown.
- Town and castle: The earliest castles, motte-and-bailey, seem to have been placed to control neighboring towns, rather than protect them ( Grog; Age 10, c. year 40). Settlements grown up in the shadow of a castle where there was no town before, e.g. Fondfield and Dwarfbas.
- Town gates: Provision varies to whether a town was a thoroughfare on lines of communication or a cul-de-sac pathway. Some town’s gates are barbicans (qv) instead of gatehouses or simple gates.
- Town walls: Fortified towns, with palisades, is the first ‘castle’ type. The first use of stone walls is uncertain, but was common by Age 11. Some town walls have been constructed so as to form the outer bailey of a castle and its inner bailey.
- Trap: Any of a numerous mechanical or magical devices which may be triggered by adventurers, usually causing damage to one or more of them. Some traps only reroute a group of adventurers rather than damage them. e.g. pits, pits with spikes. poison needle taps on treasure chests, falling stone blocks, false doors, teleport rooms and chambours, identical rooms, elevator rooms, elevator rooms connected to ‘Gates’ (qv), etc.
- Trebuchet: A great and much improved siege-engine first used in Age 10 to assault the capitol of Liciera. The basic design, many variations exist, is a long arm pivoting on an axle at the summit of a high frame. The shorter end carried enormous containers of earth and rubble weighing many tons. Lead was sometimes used as a counterweight. The longer end, called the verge, is winched down to ground level against the counterweight’s pull by a large system of winches. This end carried the projectile in either a spoon or sling, which when triggered, hurled its charge in a high trajectory. The range is adjustable by moving a calibrated counterweight on the longer arm. The standard ammunition can be arched as far as 480 yards and a minimum range of 240 yards. Firing rate is once every four rounds with a well trained crew. A ballista (qv) can cover the trebuchet’s ‘dead range’ area.
- Trick: A device or machination which is more likely to be solved by wits rather than by force of arms.
- Turret: A small tower. Sometimes placed on top of a larger one to provide a lookout point and also to cover the stairhead leading to the keep.
- Turn: a unit of game time; equal to 10 game-minutes.
- Undead: A group of malevolent souless monsters which are not truly dead or alive. They include, but are not limited to, skeletons, vampires, ghosts, zombies, ghouls.
- Undead Hordes: An army of undead which destroyed Licieria. Large numbers of liches were involved.
- Village Enclosure: Sometimes an earthen embankment provided some protection. About Age 4 timber palisades came into use.
- Wall construction: Where possible foundations went down to bedrock quarried flat to receive footings. A rock and mortar outer course is laid down with the interior of the wall filled with rubble (qv).
- Wall towers: Towers placed along the curtain (qv) to give additional protection. They were square in the early Age 11; hexagonal towers were introduced about Age 11, year 200; and round towers came into usage in Age 11, year 302.
- Water gate: gave access to river or sea and thus to communications which were difficult to cut even during a siege. Most are designed to facilitate provisioning but they could admit reinforcements or provide a means of escape.
- Water supply: Water supply is usually inside the castle to prevent it being cut off from the castle folks or from being poisened. Many castles have a cistern system along with a well (qv).
- Well: An essential feature and there maybe more than one. Wells are covered with a well-house usually near the kitchen. Some dug wells reach depths of 150 feet.
- Wooden tower: The tower crowning earliest mottes was wooden and elevated on wooden stilts.
glossary: T, U, V, and W
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Author
Bill George
Categories
Crest of a Star, glossary