Last Friday I spent most of the afternoon at the library researching castles.  And last night, I spent most of the evening researching tents and glass.

Now I know why almost all fantasy books happen in the woods... you don't have to research trees and campfires... they really haven't changed much in the last couple thousand years.

But buildings... they are driving me crazy.  Yes, Chris, I know I'm obsessive, but that's who I am. **grin**

The hero's based in a garrison of a stone castle, and the heroine lives in a post-and-beam wooden structure with a central court yard.  I'm happy to have that pretty well figured out, finally.

And, tents, you may ask, why tents?  Because when you have a bunch of newbie firestarters, you don't want them practicing in a town of wooden buildings and risk burning down the whole place.  So they practice far away from town, in a small training camp with large sleeping and dining tents.  I knew the heroine's people had canvas tents, but I knew they weren't cotton, because cotton came from the new world... so what were the tents made of?  Come to find out it was hemp canvas, just like sailing ship's sails were made of.  Cool!  :-)

Why glass? Because I really want windows.  And given I have firestarters, I've decided that I can have glass, too.

The next thing to research is a point that Chris brought up... why in the world is the hero back at the castle instead out on campaign or at his own estate?  Going to have to research military stuff for a bit to figure that one out.

I guess the good news is that I'll have plenty of fodder for the "Researching" class I'm teaching in a couple weeks.  :-)