Rural Realms Architecture

The blue mists of the portal faded around them. "My lord," the Dragon Queen murmured, staring up at windows she did not know, "where in all blessed Toril are we?"
Some streets in Waterdeep resemble a row of walled castle keeps interrupted by clusters of tall, narrow, Tudor-framed houses with multiple upper floors that cantilever out over the streets on which they front. Many streets in Secomber look like pleasant rows of tidy Tudor (outside dark wood framing, amid pale or white stucco) one- or two-level cottages. However, it's very wrong to think every settlement in all the Realms looks like either sort of street.
The Dragon of Cormyr looked at his wife with something akin to a frown deep in his eyes. "Why, Fee," he replied, "in Immersea, of course. Right outside the back door of the Five Fine Fish. Don't you --"
And then he stopped, grinned rather sheepishly, and added, "No. Of course not."
Filfaeril crooked an eyebrow at him.
"No," she agreed, "of course not. Unlike certain parties to this conversation, I haven't yet been thrown out of this particular tavern."

In settlements anywhere in Faerûn, local materials predominate, because they're easiest and cheapest for builders to get. Anyone standing on a street in most cities can see a wide variety of buildings. This variety of building styles is due to long-established overland trade: Merchants and pilgrims see things they like elsewhere and bring the ideas home, or relocate to distant places and want to dwell in "what they're used to." Moreover, buildings are almost always raised individually: Except in rare instances of royal or temple architecture, there's no such thing in the Realms as identical buildings standing side-by-side.
In rural (to most Realms speakers, "backland" or "upcountry") areas buildings tend to be simpler and more alike, thanks to a limited array of building materials and fewer builders. These builders often cling to what they know or copy what they can see locally.
In the countryside of the Sword Coast North and the Moonsea North, log buildings are the norm. If space permits (in other words, in almost every isolated farmhouse, or "steading" in Realms-speak), these homes are dug into hillsides or protected from prevailing winter winds by "stormshields" (berms) of sheltering earth planted with strong, squat sorts of trees. Trees are usually planted to protect entrances (to keep dwellers from being entombed alive by huge snowdrifts), and roofs are steeply pitched to prevent too much snow from building up and causing a collapse that crushes, suffocates, or buries the folk inside.
Barns are similarly protected when possible, and root cellars are dug into hillsides where stones are available to line them, which helps keep entrances secure against digging animals. Sometimes the cellars are dug right into the dirt floors of homes where stone isn't so handy or easily won.
A mud or mud-mixed-with-pebbles "slather" (stucco) is usually used to seal all gaps between the logs. In many places, local saps or boiled-leaf distillates are added to slather to make it more glue-like and slower to dry, crack, and crumble away; slather must usually be reapplied in at least one place in every building, each autumn. Where there are professional builders (those who take coin to raise buildings for others, as opposed to building their own structures and just hiring others to help), the precise mix of slathers tend to be jealously guarded secrets. Building timbers are usually squared, rather than left round, to minimize gaps that let cold breezes in -- unless a builder is in a hurry, or lacks help enough, and just wants to get the walls up now. "Shieldwalls" (stockades of logs) are common where wolf packs, goblinkin warbands, and other predators are a problem (in other words, in most rural northland areas), and short walls of this sort are also built to serve as windbreaks where natural topography doesn't provide one.
Window glass (made from fine sand) is widely known in the Realms, but expensive. In Calimshan and Tethyr (and less prevalently elsewhere, as ideas spread from the Sword Coast), windows tend to be rectangular, with rough-cast metal frames crossed diagonally by three or four bars, with small panes of glass leaded into place between the bars.
Where metal is dear but wood plentiful, "layer" windows are made by carving out a "tray" of precise shapes to hold available pieces of glass (loosely, to allow for the wood to expand and contract with the seasons). The pieces are held in by an overlapping-their-edges layer of wood scraps, or even a "sheet" of wood precisely carved.
So glass pieces and fragments of all sizes are sold in markets all across the Realms. Merchants transport these wrapped in oilcloth or scraps of old clothing and laid in layers in wood "presses" of boards bound tightly together with leather straps. Merchants often sell them in "tomes" (named for the large books they resemble): two pieces of wood, one hollowed out with chisels to form a cavity before the second piece is fastened over it to form a pocket, for carrying to the building where it will be used. Large panes of glass are rare and expensive luxuries to most rural folk, and even urban windows tend to have long narrow panes (vertical, diagonal, or horizontal) with large expanses of glass reserved for palaces and the mansions of the very wealthy, or for a single "grand window" in slightly less luxurious residences.
Mica can be gleaned in some areas (notably near Loudwater and Secomber, and in the Vilhon and the Vast) for use in windows, but most poor rural folk have windows that are simply holes in the wall covered with shutters: stout winter shutters on the outside, and louvered shutters on the inside. To keep out dust and insects, old clothing is wetted down and hung over the louvers, stretched tight and overlapped to prevent gaps.

Filfaeril sighed. "And where has Vangey's little toy sent us now?"
Azoun blinked at her. "Well, this is obviously a roof, and just as obviously, 'tis in Arabel -- see the row of snow-blades, standing up from the slates? They cut thick snowloads into slices, so an entire roof-face of deep snow can never fall into the street below when melts come, in a huge sliding rush that could slay dozens and shatter or bury wagons."
"Dragon of my heart," Filfaeril said gently, turning to gaze at her lord with a certain look in her eyes, "you understand my words, but not my meaning. I am well aware that this is a roof, and I care not a whit where in all the realm it might happen to be. I was really asking this: How by all the happy dancing hobgoblins in the Stonelands are we to get down from here?"
"Ah," the King agreed helpfully. "Ah, yes. Ahem."
He blinked again, and turned slowly on his heel to gaze all around, with a hopeful look on his face that told all Arabel that its king fully expected an answer to this thorny question to leap up onto the roof beside him and present itself. Preferably before nightfall.

Adventurers often seem to find themselves chasing across roofs, hiding on roofs, or jumping onto adjacent roofs. It helps to know if leaping onto a roof is going to plunge you right through it - or send you sliding helplessly down it, and thence into the street below.
Many roofs have hatches (usually very securely fastened on the inside -- with crossbars slid into wooden or metal sockets, chains, or even turn-wheels governing large screws through crossbraces -- against intrusion from above, by anyone who isn't using an axe or a meteor swarm), connecting attics to the rooftop slopes. These allow access for roof and chimney repairs, and they also allow inhabitants to reach hiding spots for valuables.
In the Realms, putting caches of coins in metal coffers that are then hidden in rooftop chimney niches (often concealed behind loose stones), is a favorite ploy, second in popularity to putting valuables under one's floorboards or buried in a dirt floor or the cellar, but more popular than burying a coffer in nearby woods (or pasture, along a fenceline).
A few old, massive buildings have roof-beams or braces large enough to permit hidden cavities to be situated within them: Seekers are advised to look for doubled construction (posts side by side or touching). One will be unbroken and do the structural work, and the other will contain the hiding-places, often under a removable "false front" slice.
Roofs of rural log steadings are framed with wooden trusses (rows of triangles with internal braces) that rest on the log sidewalls, and the treetrunk posts in the center of the rooms hold them up. These posts are often shimmed, as the building settles, with wooden wedges hammered in between post-top and truss-beam.
Roofs are covered either with logs sealed with moss and slather, or logs (sometimes sawn in half lengthwise, into "half-round" form) used as a base, covered with slather, and then covered again with wood shingles or shakes. Slates and tiles are so heavy and expensive that their use is almost entirely urban, except as threshold-stones or the tops of farmhouse cutting-tables -- or on the sturdiest buildings (such as temples or keeps, where warding off the effects of fiery missiles may be a concern) in areas very near slate quarries.
Severe windstorms can wreak havoc with almost any sort of roof, but slate and tile roofs can shed deadly missiles when the wooden pegs that hold individual slates and tiles rot or lose the battle against gales. Veteran battle-mages have been known to use explosive spells to deliberately shower groups of foes with most of a roof-worth of heavy, razor-edged slates, or daggerlike shards of tile.
Thatch roofs are common only where nearby marshes can provide the necessary reeds. Where skilled thatchers are absent, extensive mud slather keeps poorly constructed thatch from blowing off or copiously leaking in every rainstorm.
The poorest dwellings have sod roofs, often planted with clinging, thorny vines to hold the soil against being blown away in high winds when dry, and to discourage animals from burrowing into it. Aside from a low-headroom loft created by laying boards across the cross-beams of the roof trusses, and subfloors created when a house is built on sloping ground, farmhouses almost always have just a ground floor, never any sort of habitable "aloft" (we would say "upstairs").
By contrast, most taverns and inns have extensive attics, used for storage of travel chests, excess and in-need-of-repair furniture, and for servants to sleep in (those who don't sleep in the kitchens or stable lofts), just because their trusses are so much larger. These large trusses allow folk to stand up in rooms "within the trusses" since the area has enough height.

"Aha!" Azoun exclaimed, in sudden triumph. "We'll descend yon downspout!"
"Oh?" The Dragon Queen eyed the feature her husband was grandly pointing to with deep suspicion. "Just how quickly will we descend 'yon downspout'?"

Roofs exist to keep what's under them sheltered from rain, snow, and dew, from the worst of the wind and cold, and to keep out climbing (and, in jungles, slithering) vermin and birds. Most roofs in Faerûn leak, some of them copiously and in many places, so either shedding or gathering rainwater is a very real concern.
Water is collected in downspout barrels, "plungepours" (ponds dug where roofs drain off to), or even (in many urban settings where buildings can be made strong enough to support the great weight of stored water) in rooftop cisterns. Waterdeep is about the most northerly city where cisterns can be seen; the long frozen months, and the problems they bring of having huge, heavy blocks of ice up on roofs, prevent cisterns being popular farther north. Collected rainwater is used for washing, cooking, or even drinking.
The Moonsea and Sword Coast North log steadings and holds usually lack downspouts, though they may have either barrels or plungepours. At the lowest points of their roofs (the "downward" corners, plus sometimes in the middle of a roof, added when age has caused the roof to sag in the middle), they have "tongues." Tongues (usually called "corner tongues" because of their location) are projecting wooden logs with shallow channels carved down their upper surfaces, that serve to carry water away from buildings, in attempts to prevent flooding inside. Where leaking or overflowing rainbarrels would cause such dampness, crude troughs made of hollowed-out logs are often rigged up to drain away excess water from the barrels.
In cities, grander stone buildings usually have roofs of tile, tar-sealed slate, or even metal-plate-over-log (plates that overlap like scale mail, and are sealed with pitch), descending to metal gutters ("eavestroughs" to many real-world modern folk) that channel water to lower roof corners. There, ornate stone "gargoyles" (spouts) project water out from the building like the aforementioned tongues, or spit water directly into drainpipes. Such stout, elaborate stone structures are almost unknown outside cities, except in large, long-established temples and abbeys (or in buildings erected very near quarries).
Where hard freezes are rare or unknown, in the warm South of Faerûn, drainpipes tend to be sections of cylindrical tile made with a flaring flange at one end so the section "above" can slide into it. Each joint where these drain-tiles meet is sealed with a mud and lime mix (cement) to keep it from leaking; it's not uncommon to have to reseal such joints annually.
In castles all across Faerûn, drainpipes tend to be very large stone-lined shafts, made waterproof with pitch or cement. The large size of the shafts prevents ice from blocking them entirely or at least gives workers with scraping-rods room to chip at ice that does threaten to choke off a pipe.
Buildings in cities have drainpipes and gutters made of either cast iron, hollowed-out stone sections sealed with cement, or (on the most cheaply made buildings) hollowed-out logs or bound-together log sections (sealed with cement or pitch). Wooden pipes seldom last more than a single season without preservative spells, no matter how thickly they're tarred.
The grand dwellings of nobility and the wealthiest merchants have drainpipes either of sculpted stone, or more often, of ornately cast, fanciful metal pipes, shaped on their outsides to resemble giant scaled serpents, dragons, rows of dolphins swallowing each other's tails, and the like. The pipes, either of iron or most often of various colorfully hued alloys, are actually lengths that bolt together and are sealed with pitch or cement inside. They tend to rust quickly, and they get very brittle in winter cold, but they can be resealed for some years by means of long daubing-paddles reached up or down them from a removed section.
Tavern-tales and adventurers' lurid yarns to the contrary, very few external drainpipes are strong enough to take the weight of climbing thieves, lovers, eloping or fleeing folk, servants bearing secret messages, or eavesdropping kings.
Chimneys in the Realms are almost always of fieldstone, mortared to prevent high windows toppling or collapsing them. In some Southern lands (such as the Tashalar), chimneys are built first, before a building is erected around them, and made of stones that partially melt into a glassy, sealed surface on the inside when subjected to very high temperatures. So the chimney is raised, a fire is built in its hearth that's carefully tended to slowly rise to very high temperatures, and then just as slowly brought back down again (to avoid cracking). The result is a self-sealed chimney not very susceptible to the "chimney fires" (where accumulated soot takes light and burns very hot) that often consume wooden dwellings in the Northlands. Please note that many drafty buildings in the North that have dirt or cobblestone floors (such as most warehouses) lack proper chimneys entirely; if warmth or cooking-heat is needed, metal braziers are set up and charcoal and kindling are burned, with doors and hatches being opened if the smoke gets too bad.
Only the largest "grand hearths" in the kitchens of great castles and palaces have chimneys large enough inside for an adult human to climb or fall down.

"Ah, yes, a fence," King Azoun pointed out, gesturing to the hedge fence, which ran through an otherwise featureless field.
Queen Filfaeril merely stared at him for a moment.
"Let us see about leaving this place, shall we?" he added quickly.

Farm fences at their crudest are simply stumps and stones gathered and heaped in a line. Often such barriers go wild with neglect (into a hedge of scrub trees and tangled shrubs), or they are encouraged to grow into tall, nigh-impenetrable hedges by planting thornbushes, especially edible berry-bushes, along them. "Sword-sag" fences are also common (in modern real-world terms, these are often known as "split-rail" fences): timbers placed in zig-zag fashion, ends overlapping like interwoven fingers, so posts aren't necessary.

Queen Filfaeril did not entirely manage to keep a sigh out of her voice. "Lord of my heart, where think you we've arrived in now?"
King Azoun blinked the last blue mists of translocation from his gaze, shook his head to help them depart, peered around, and announced, "A village."
The look Filfaeril gave him had daggers in it and caused her husband to recall that beneath her rich gown, two sharp and slender daggers rode sheathed to her garters.
"Ahem," he added hastily, "I fear 'twill take me some small -- nigh negligible, truly -- amount of time to ascertain just which village. I find that for the most part they're all very much alike."

Most realms in Faerûn have wild ("wilderland" in Realms parlance) areas, often mountainous or at least hilly, and heavily wooded. Wilderland dwellings are few, isolated, and home to hardy, self-sufficient folk used to battling monsters without aid, and providing for themselves.
In slightly less wild areas, as one moves from the frontiers toward larger settlements, "holds" (ranches with subsistence crop planting) and farms become common. In such rural country, villages, hamlets, or thorps usually develop around a temple or shrine, waymoot, waystop (inn), or mill (hence, a stream). Such settlements usually have an open-air market where local farmers sell their produce (at least once a tenday), a public well or horsepond or both, a tavern, and one or more local shops and services. Typically, an "anchor" business will be a smithy or the workshop of a carpenter, cooper (barrel-maker), or wagon-maker.
If the settlement or its temple is large or important enough, or strategically located along a trade route that is either sufficiently popular or sufficiently perilous or lacking in shelter, there will be an inn.
Typical farm-country villages and hamlets are a mix of fieldstone and log dwellings (called "steads" rather than "cottages" or "cabins," though a "steading" refers to a house and its outbuildings, gardens, and other cleared land). Most steads have shingle or board roofs (sometimes covered with earth where gardens of vine-edibles are grown), and a kitchen garden "out back," between the dwelling and its "jakes" (outhouse or privy).
Most buildings front along the roads or tracks of the settlement, and occasional steads may have walls of clay brick or wattle-and-daub. Dwellings of more than a single floor in height are rarities; the exceptions are usually the grand homes of local lords, wizards, community leaders, or priests.
Many rural settlements have woodlots and pastures among the homes, and there may be communal outdoor ovens or roasting-hearths, a "midden." (A midden is what many modern real-world folk call a "dump" or "tip," though it's dominated by what has been dug out of jakes, not by discarded furniture. In Faerûn, anything metal, cloth, or wood tends to get used and re-used until the remnants disintegrate.)
Most settlements have a lookout, either a tower or more often just a hilltop (with a signal beacon bonfire laid ready for lighting, to warn of an approaching army or orc horde). Roads are usually hard-packed bare earth except in swampy areas (where logs are laid crosswise to form a rough, bumpy roadbed, in what some modern real-world folk call a "corduroy road"). Only the best roads have ditches.
In almost all cities and towns, and wherever cheap and plentiful stone of the right hardness can be quarried, earth roads soon give way to a road made of cobblestones, which provide a hard surface vastly preferable to rutted, frozen winter mud or soft, sucking spring mud. Where cobbles can't be had, but small stones are available, roads will be made of gravel, sometimes laid over logs or culverts in areas prone to being washed away (not just where streams or springs cross, but also on or at the bottom of steep hillsides, where fierce storm rain can do damage).
Gnomes and halflings prefer to tunnel into hillsides to fashion their dwellings, lining excavated caverns with stone and roofing them with stone lintel arches. Where stone is locally handy and plentiful, they prefer to quarry and cut precisely fitted blocks, and most building they do for human clients is of this sort. Typical gnome-work is of rectangular stone blocks carved with a slight ridge or spine along their tops, and a corresponding trough or indentation on their bottoms. Blocks then bind together when placed atop each other, preventing the passage of most winds and making a wall stable against side pressure (such as from earth heaped up against it). In the crudest gnome- and halfling-work, walls are reinforced by simply building a second wall against the first, and if still more strength is required, they construct buttresses (short sloping "feet" of wall built perpendicular to the main wall).
In cold climates, such stonework is kept simple, oversized, massive, and durable, and they make it with "expansion joints" to withstand the shattering forces of cold, ice, and chilling winds. Windbreaks (known in the Realms as "cloak walls") shelter most entrances; at their simplest, these are simply walls that thrust out from an outer wall beside a door, and then turn to parallel that outer wall at about the distance of a stout man, and run along it for a dozen feet or so before ending. (When looked at from above, this sort of cloak wall forms a long-stemmed capital letter "L.") Cloak walls shield the most frequently opened doors, and climbing vines with edible vegetables often cover them. Small niches in their blocks, often hidden by the leaves of the vines, allow folk to leave messages or other small items (such as keys or payments).
Building in the Realms is almost always the work of a single overseer directing family and/or paid laborers (professional roofers, glaziers and tilers, or carpenters, and casual "harhands" who fetch, hammer, and carry). A farmer, small merchant, or retired soldier usually serves as his own overseer and will be the owner of the land being built on. Wealthy merchants and nobles hire an overseer (what modern North American real-world people call a "contractor") or order their own stewards to serve in such a capacity for them. Only in rare cases do landowners, even if planning to derive income from rents as landlords, hire builders to erect more than one building at a time.
"Master builders" (what in our modern real world might be called "engineers" or "architects") are very rarely used, and then only by royalty, nobility, or the wealthiest private clients; for everyone else, carpenters, in consultation with patrons, "design" buildings. The work of a master builder is usually necessary to build multiple identical buildings (or buildings in the same style). Most organized priesthoods have their own master builders who are members of the faith or even ordained priests.