Thinking Medieval: Where do Scarterrans Poop?

Scarterran sanitation is a little bit more advanced than preindustrial sanitation was on real world Earth, but not by much.   Scarterran humanoids have the same problem that Earth humans have that as the children's author Tarō Gomi famously stated, "everyone poops", and that presents a sanitation challenge.  

Poop as a resource

  Scarterran society (like most preindustrial real world human societies) is big on avoiding letting things go to waste. This includes not letting waste go to waste. Gong farmers poop porters can make a decent living collecting "fertilizer".   Because fecal matter can serve as fertilizer which accelerates plant grown and urine is acidic which kills or weakens plants, Scarterrans on all level of society usually try to urinate and defecate in different places.   Humanoid urine can be used in tanning and certain alchemical processes but it is generally not nearly as valuable a commodity as fertilizer. This is well-documented history, medieval Earth people did use urine in industrial capacities, (I'm weirded out too).  

Rural and Wild Areas

  Scarterran farmers out in the wilderness generally dig a hole, poop in said hole, then cover up said hole. Scarterrans in rural areas frequently do the same. If convenient, Scarterran farmers will often try to poop in the same place, a large pooping hole commonly called a "cesspit". Cesspits make collecting fertilizer easier.   Ideally, cesspits should be close enough to the farmer's house that it's not too inconvenient but far enough away that the smell doesn't waft towards the house. Usually, an outhouse or at least a crude fence is erected for a modicum of privacy and shelter around the toilet hole. Hence why they are often called "the privy".  

Privy chambers

  Names for Scarterran toilets are often interchangeable and subject to slang but the basic term for an indoor toilet is a "privy chamber".   Outdoor toilets are the norm in most of Scarterra. They are generally preferred over indoor toilets in most cases because it allows for more privacy and more ventilation, but sometimes indoor privy chambers are more practical.   Having to poop outside a castle is not practical when the occupants want to stay inside the castle for protection, or they simply don't want to walk down the stairs past the guards to the outdoor privvy   Most Scarterran townships are walled, so it is difficult for them to expand outward without making an expensive and labor intensive set of walls. This means most townships grow up rather than grow out. When horizontal space is at a premium at outdoor privies are not very practical.   Larger homes and buildings often have a personal indoor privy, or more than one if its a very large building. Some public buildings have separate men's and women's privies. Some wealthy individuals may have personal privies in their homes separate from the privvy used by "the help".  

Households and buildings without a privy

  More than a few urban buildings do not have a privy in or near them. Individuals that need to "go" use chamber pots, or "skyte boxes", or "poop buckets" or other convenient receptacles.   In urban areas Poop porters periodically take carts and wagons and pick up the contents of people's chamber pots and take them to cesspits in exchange for a small fee. Homeowners will take their own chamber pots to the cesspits if they don't want to pay the porters' fee, in which case the porters will still collect a small fee when they sell the contents as fertilizer.  

Public Privies

  They are also public privies which are buildings which basically serve as communal toilets. Public privies are nearly always segregated for men's and women's toilets with a wal, but there isn't usually walls or dividers for individuals of the same sex on either side of the privy though more upscale public privvys have simple privacy curtains.   Most public privvies have a wash basin nearby and you can gage the overall quality of a public privvy by how often the water is changed.   Some public privies charge admission or are paid a monthly fee by the local lord. Others are publicly funded, either by voluntary donation, noble sponsors, or local Nonagons.   Public privies are cleaner than one would think. If they charge admission than most of the funds collected go to cleaning and upkeep. If a public privy is funded by donations, than it's a sign of civic pride for the person or persons sponsoring the privy to make sure it is well kept.  

Cheating and public dumping.

  Almost all Scarterran towns have laws against illegal dumping, but these laws are seldom strictly enforced. Illegal dumping of chamber pots is sometimes sardonically called "Maylar's rain".   Dumping chamber pots in public streets and alleys usually results in a fine but it is difficult to catch someone so lots of people flout the law against public dumping. It's often cheaper and easier to pay an occasional fine than it is to use the proper disposal methods.   Beyond the overall unpleasant smell of streets with illegal dumping, there is also a small but ever present risk of facing what is finding oneself underneath Maylar's rain.  

Poopy Rivers

  In the real world, preindustrial humans often dumped their waste into the same rivers and streams. The very same rivers that they used to bathe or do laundry as crazy and disgusting as that seems to modern humans.   Scarterrans are a little bit more interested in the cleanliness of their fresh water than pre-renaisaance Earth humans, but not by an extreme amount.   In Scarterra, it i sometimes it is illegal to use a stream, river, or lake as a disposal system for mortal wastes and sometimes it is considered not only legal, but standard practice to use natural water bodies as a natural sewage system, sometimes going as far as to build a public privy on a bridge over a river or stream directly depositing the wastes into the water.   If there are laws against putting humanoid waste into rivers the laws are not always enforced.   Complicating matters is Mera, goddess of water and health. Sometimes, using water bodies as a dumping ground for waste is considered a grievous insult to the goddess and therefore something that should be avoided at all costs. Other times, people take for granted that Mera or her minions will clean the water later, so they don't view it as a big deal.  

-Beslyfle, matron of the Fumayan Tenders

"Peasants and princes alike tend to overestimate what theurgists can do. The Nine in their wisdom gave us theurgy to make our lives' easier but it won't instantly solve all our problems.   I loathe it when people say, 'don't worry about dumping your waste here, the theurgists' will just clean it later.' The attitude and ignorance is more disgusting than the contents of their chamber pots.   Mera has blessed with the power of Purification and with this blessed ability I can take a barrel of contaminated water, and make the contents of that barrel perfectly clean. But the affect of my theurgy is very limited when cast on a natural body of water. Even if I cast my magic twenty times at a lake, I can only make slightly less contaminated, a vertiable drop in the bucket, especially if the water is running like a river or stream."

 

Pooping in a castle

 

Nuldrun Dragon by Eron12 using Hero Forge

Nuldrun Dragonbane, freelance castle engineer

  Some castles are very large with dozens or even hundreds of rooms and some are very small, basically a wide tower with one room floor. A large castle is going to have multiple privies, and a small castle may have to make due with only one.   Keep in mind a great many castle privies are not separate walled chambers, but are corners of a chamber partitioned off with a curtain.   If a castle doesn't have enough privies to go around, many occupants have to make due with chamber pots which are occasionally emptied into the privy if it has a good sloped disposal system.   Whether from a full on privy or a simple hole, waste products go through a "latrine" if you want to use the Dwarven term or "garderobe" if you want to be fancy about it and use the Elven term. Or "poop chute" in Common. Language can be truly beautiful.

  A latrine is either going to empty into a cesspit or the moat. If a castle has a cesspit, you need an unlucky servant to empty the cesspit periodically, but at least you get some easy to collect fertilizer out of the deal.   If the latrine into the moat which means the castle occupants are going to have an unpleasant smell to suffer through on wind-less days. On the other hand, anyone trying to assault the castle is going to have to literally swim through skyte and most defenders like the idea of their would-be attackers having to do this.   A larger castle is probably going to have latrines that empty into moat and have latrines that empty into cesspits. During peacetime, they favor the cesspits. During wartime they favor the moat. Best of both worlds, you have to have to have a servant dispose of the skyte and you get to throw it at the enemy.   A lot of larger homes and buildings use a latrine system similar to castles. Whether in a castle or a home, a disporpotionately high number of privies are on the second or higher floors of a building. That one can use gravity to move the excrement as opposed to carrying it off with shovels or jars.   There is historical precedent for invaders with strong constitutions option to climb up a latrine in order to gain entry into a castle or home. A very gobliny tactic but not exclusive to goblins.   A paranoid castle owner can pay a competent engineer to put in safeguards to make it more difficult to enter a castle's proverbial asshole. You can make the chute narrower or you can add grates or even booby traps. There is a serious downside. Eventually, you will need to clean a latrine (or hire someone to do it) and harder it is to climb up a latrine, the harder it is to clean it.   A solid principle applies to everything in castles, not just latrines. Don't build any feature you are not willing to pay the maintenance cost for. This very much applies to a booby-trapped garderobe.   A very determined assassin can clamber up a garderobe, but he's not going to be able to climb up wearing heavy armor or carrying large weapons though in theory an invader who takes a Bags of Holding, just like an invader climbing over the wall with a Bag of Holding is a serious problem unless the castle is warded against that sort of thing.   If a castle designer is really concerned about invaders using the latrine shoot and your castle is big enough to have a courtyard, you can be completely safe by making all latrines empty into the courtyard. I means you need to have servants empty the cesspits every day, but no one is going to be clambering up the chute from the outside. You can still dump your waste over the side into the moat if you are being invaded."

 

Animals Also Poop

   

Supernatural Forces that affect sanitation

  About 1% of Scarterra's population are spell-casters. At most, about one-in-fifteen of these spell-casters has some ability to help with sanitation with their magic.   While adventurers and warriors get most of the attention, a lot Scarterran mages and theurgists are more or less ordinary people who have a few magical tricks that help their communities and a lot of these magical tricks geared towards helping with basic sanitation.   There are also mages and theurgists that use their ability to spread disease and filth but they are generally outnumbered by spell-casters on the side of sanitation.   Mera is the goddess of water and medicine, so it's not too surprising that she is also the goddess of sanitation. She has a small number of spirits that can supernaturally clean up water sources or remove waste but prefers to operate through her mortal agents. She is helped by Zarthus, Korus, Hallisan and their minions and followers sometimes aid in sanitation. Some of the rest of the Nine and their minions will aid in sanitation but generally for compensation.   Maylar is the god of disease. He has both spirit and mortal minions dedicated to spreading disease but a great many refuse to lower themselves to using feces as a weapon. Greymoria and her minions often like to embody the harsh and more dangerous aspects of waters and sometimes this involves tainted water.   On a more mundane side, Mera's spirits and priests have evangelists the benefits of handwashing and overall hygiene far and wide. Among other things, it is common knowledge that boiling water makes water safer to bathe in or drink in Scarterra, something that wasn't widely known on Earth until the late 19th century.   On the whole, the net impact of the supernatural forces is that Scarterrans have a slightly easier time dealing with fecal matter than real world pre-industrial humans, but given the choice, I would prefer to live in 21st Earth if for no other reason than its access to modern sanitation.  

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Daana, Defender of the Hearth

"Purification theurgy can make unclean water safe to drink. Safe to drink does not always mean pleasant to drink.   In the extreme case, Purification magic can make urine safe to drink, but it still tastes like urine, or like urine mixed with water. No reasonable person will rely on this method of water treatment until all other options are exhausted.   This segues into the question on many curious people's mind. What does Purification magic do to feces?   Well it's still feces, but Purification magic will do two things to make easier to use as fertilizer and easier for gong farmers to transport. First, it dehydrates it quickly. This makes lighter and easier to transport and a little bit smell smelly. Second, it will at least temporary kill any disease spores in the feces."

 

Pooping in Scarnoctis

   

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

Besoulin Chainbraids, dwarf homemaker

 

"Not all dwarves live underground, but a lot us do live underground. Unless you are fortunate to live near a wind tunnel or direct shaft going to the surface, ventilation is going to be very limited. This means it is quite a task to make sure waste is not just hauled out out of our homes but that it is carted away from anywhere homes are clustered.   Most dwarf households keep a large pot of smoke eater fungi on hand to preserve air quality, and many public areas underground have communal 'gardens' of smoke eater fungi. You have to 'feed' your smoke eater fungi with table scraps or fecal matter. Smoke eater fungi is inedible, so waste matter that is used to feed a smoke eater is not being used for fertilizer.

  The guidelines set by the salt masters is that respectable households should aim to use half their domestic waste for fertilizer and half for smoke eater fungi, and the entirety of animal waste should go to fertilizer."

 

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Beznak Bristlebranch, Dwarf Deep Ranger

"  

You want to me to talk about, what? Okay...   Goblins are notorious for going whereever they please and you can often find evidence of their movements by noticing their...droppings. Even goblins will go in the corner at least, like beasts.   Apart from goblins, most of the so-called uncivilized mortals of Scarnoctis still have enough common sense not to go in their drinking water. Kobolds, igundans, and other Scarnoctans that claim permanent territory will normally maintain an insect hatchery, edible fungus farm, or a a patch of smoke eater fungi at the very least. Very large encampments probably have lots of these things.   Whether out of politeness, a desire not to be tracked, instinct, or reverence to the Nine, most non-goblins that are nomadic will make a reasonable effort to do their business in out of the way places, preferable in places that already have scavengers or fungi that will clean up after them. Scarnoctis has no shortage of insects and rodents that will rove around and collect this 'bounty'.

  While not as obvious as goblins, a skilled tracker a make reasonable guesses about the locations and activities of nearby mortals or beasts by finding their 'leavings' or following the migration patterns of tiny 'bounty hunters'.   Most of types of fungi can break down number two waste but not number one. This is why civilized folk have to separate their waste accordingly but this is harder for us underground than those above ground. Fortunately there are some disgusting but vital invertibrates that can break down and to an extant, clean up number one waste. Proof that at least one of the Nine are very thorough in balancing things in Scarnoctis."