Free Building Plans Resources

At one point I had intended to do a series of gridded building plans based on one of these resources. Years later, I only ever did one. I find these old architecture books on Gutenburg to be a valuable way to quickly come up with a building layout I can describe to the players.
The trick to these is to find the list of illustrations or plates, these usually provide clickable short cuts to the floor plans. Otherwise keep scrolling, they're in there somewhere.

The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius - classical roman architecture, covers temples, forums, villas and houses    

History of Indian and Eastern Architecture by James Ferguson - mostly building elevations and details, but there are some floor plans in there, including a couple of temples located in caves. 

Chaitya Cave, Bhaja

The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles by Ella S. Armitage - what it says on the cover. You don't get interior layouts, but you do get site plans of castles for intrepid adventurers to sneak into or assault.

Problems in Periclean Buildings by G. W. Elderkin - plans of classical Greek temples and buildings.

Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century by Henry Chandlee Foreman - not a lot of plans and many lack detail, but there are a number of drawings of Native American structures that can be used by your barbarian and orc villages.

Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir by Gertrude Lowthain Bell - despite the name it includes Greek house plans, a plan of the Roman fort at Housesteads as well as more oriental dwelling plans, along with the palace and mosque layouts. 

Rural Architecture by Lewis Falley Allen - moving to America this book has detailed floor plans for farms and plantations. It includes plans for outbuilding such as a piggery and smokehouse. 

Woodward's Country Homes by Geo. E. and F. W. Woodward - a couple of dozen house designs from the Reconstruction period. Also plans for outbuildings like an ice house and carriage house

Bennett's Small House Catalog 1920 by Ray H Bennett Lumber Company - dozens of floor plans suitable for eldritch horrors to ooze out of when playing Call of Cthulhu. With price lists and pictures of internal details.

Convenient Houses by Louis Henry Gibson. Fifty Gilded Age domiciles 

     There's more books on Architecture at Gutenberg, but they are mostly antiquarian volumes on specific architectural details, rather than floor plans. Nice for color, but don't help design an adventure.

Update:  All the links broke overnight, don't know if it's Blogger not letting me link to Gutenberg or what happened.  Fixed them 11/08/20.  If not just search for the titles on Gutenberg and you'll find them. SOrry if you came and none of the links worked - RDT

Teddy Roosevelt and the Orcs

 TR, before he became a politician, had aspirations as a historian. His history of the War of 1812 is regarded as a solid overview, although not considered a first tier history. In that regard, he's on the level of Churchill - who he had to dinner at the Whitehouse, leading to a mutual dislike.

Recently I've been going through his four volume The Winning of the West, the original trans-Allegheny west, written just after his sojourn in South Dakota. Now if you're someone who is offended because an author writing in the 1880's doesn't have your enlightened opinions, don't read them. TR was a man who tried to epitomize his time, not to transcend it.  He views his subjects in terms of race and nationality that are out of vogue today.  And yet, despite or perhaps because of his over generalizations, he successfully describes the cultural differences between the tribes and the settlers which made the conflict not only inevitable, but inevitably brutal on both sides.

Which brings me to the humble orc, the archtypical fantasy bad guy.  The common reason given for the conflict between the 'civilized' races and the orcs is the fecundity of the orcs leads them to erupt in lemming like hordes throwing themselves over the barbaric precipice to drown in a sea of civilization.  They form a constant threat to the adventurers and are in return butchered in vast numbers. A brutal one dimensional interaction within the game.

Appendix N

Whew!  I think I have completed cataloging the background texts I've been using over on the other page.  Now, I'll have to start on the more expected fantasy texts.