I thought it was cool using the airships to showing the insane scale of sharn(?). Looked like I wasn’t going to answer double facepalm inducing questions like “so almost as big as waterdeep?” about a city big enough to have its own weather patterns for once 😀 The city isn't larger in ground area than Waterdeep in area or population unless they changed it for 5e. It's one mile tall according to Keith, and the official side-view depicts it being much taller than it is wide. Waterdeep is several miles wide and twice as long.
— The Glorious DM (@techjunkie30) August 21, 2019
There's NEVER been an official scaled map of Sharn, but it's certainly not "much taller than it is wide." Consider this 4E map; if the towers are a mile in height, then by this map the city is about four miles wide. But even that's a generalization, as the map has no scale. pic.twitter.com/hiiwD2PxeL
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
But this map is still a generalization; if it was perfectly to scale IT WOULD HAVE A SCALE. Ultimately, as others have said, what does it matter which imaginary city is larger? They're exactly as large as they need to be for the story you want to tell.
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
If we assume this map to be roughly to scale, that would give Sharn a footprint of about 16 square miles; but it has a fairly uniform one mile height, giving it far greater DENSITY than a city that’s more spread out but has a maximum building height of, say, three hundred feet. So Sharn’s footprint is about half that of Manhattan, but Manhattan has an average building height of around 600 feet… which means you’re stacking eight Manhattans on top of each other. That height and density are what makes the city remarkable.
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
This is based off of one picture, as I said another official picture (from 3.5) depicts it as taller than it is wide. So you could also say it’s less than a mile wide. That’s my point. You’re taking that picture out of context. As a picture of “The Vertical City”, it’s sole purpose is to show that Sharn is a city of LAYERS; it shows the layers, but makes no placement of specific districts—unlike the top-down maps in the same book. It’s intentionally abstract. pic.twitter.com/inwHjzcNpr
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
There’s no reason to compare the two. It doesn’t matter which is larger. What does matter with Sharn is recognizing how its uniform height and density makes it unlike any city in our world. Again, eight Manhattans stacked on top of each other!
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
I’m not taking anything out of context, I’m merely showing you the variety of maps which by your own admission don’t have a scale because they’re not to scale is proof there is no official size of the city, which you started off by saying as much. You’re contradicting yourself. You seem to think we’re arguing. We’re not. There’s no official scale for Sharn and it’s pointless to argue whether it’s larger than Waterdeep. But you are taking that image out of context; it’s not a “map,” it’s a picture illustrating the vertical nature of the city.
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
I don’t care which city is larger; that’s a pointless discussion. What I find interesting is the thing that makes Sharn unique; regardless of its footprint, it’s a mile in height, a city of layers many times taller than any city in our world. That’s what interests me.
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019
If I recall correctly, the Sharn: City of Towers sourcebook from 3rd edition states Sharn is six miles wide If it is six miles wide, that would make it around 36 square miles, so about the same size as Manhattan… but about 8 times the height.
— Keith Baker🔜DragonCon (@HellcowKeith) August 21, 2019