Sewage and the Rustics

Imperial Journal of Civil Engineering

4E 207 Rain’s Hand; Volume 351 4^th ed.

Where’s the Bathroom?

An innocent question to a denizen of the Imperial Province, to be sure. But ask a provincial living in Skyrim, and he will respond, bemused, by pointing to the nearest bucket. Though shocking to the more refined citizens of the Empire, many rustics living on the fringes of civilization have never seen a proper toilet.

How then, do they survive? A cursory investigation carried out by Bryce et al (4E 187) was dismissive of Skyrim’s sewage systems, calling the province “a savage place… the streets run with effluent after a rain, in which children bathe happily, as their dead-eyed mothers look on.”

I returned to the province this year to assess the veracity of what at the time was a stunning report. I find that though Skyrim does not possess the technical sophistication of Nibenay, there is much to appreciated in the simplicity and ingenuity of systems built without the full resources of the Empire.

Leveraging Natural Advantages

Whiterun typifies the Nord approach to sewage. The city is clean and vibrant, yet unlike our own Imperial City, there are no underground sewers or toilets.

That is because Whiterun was built on a hill for a reason. A well at the top serves the palace at Dragonsreach. From here water flows down into two sluices and finally into drains south into the White River. A second sluice also originates in the Cloud District and does the same.

The denizens of Whiterun use these sluices for sewage and sanitation. They empty chamber pots into the waters, which swiftly carry it far away from the city. The people here also use the water to wash clothes, bathe, drink, and cook. I would not advise a newcomer to drink directly from the water without first boiling it, but those who have lived in Whiterun for years have become accustomed to whatever minor maladies inhabit the slightly tainted water.

Of course there are drawbacks for those living in the Plains District. As they live nearest the end of the sluice, all the effluent and dirt passes through their quarter, making the water least safe here.

The Beam in Your Eye

Overall, however, Whiterun is a healthy city well-supplied with water. Indeed the people here are more cleanly than those found in southern Nibenay, where cities like Bravil and Leyawiin have much to learn from the inventiveness of the Nords.

The pools of standing water in these cities function more like cesspools than reservoirs. In Leyawiin, members of the guard are known to bathe in the resevoir itself, a disgusting proposition for those expected to carry the fouled water back home.

A system of airation like the slopes and falls in Whiterun’s sluice system would go a long way to keeping the region’s water potable. As the current administrator of Cyrodil’s sewage system, Mister Bryce would do well to look at the shortcomings of his own jurisdiction before mocking model systems such as Whiterun’s.

Andren Brentree

Imperial Office of Urban Construction and Planning, Skyrim Desk

Associate Professor of Political Economy at the Bard’s College in Solitude