#Siting and Approach Routes — Where the Castle Stands

Contents

Reference Only. This chapter is a picture on a map — background for imagining where a castle stands and how one approaches it as a scene, not data referenced for checks. Converting siting into zones and battlemaps (numbers, Target Numbers, gimmicks) is handled by zone conversion. Up to here is the shape of the land; from the next step onward, rules.

#Scent — Seeing One Castle Three Times

Three people see the same castle from different places.

The one who first sees it from far away looks up at the black outline on the mountain crest and thinks — where should I climb? The road is visible, but not where it bends or where it narrows.

The one standing in line before the gate only understands after finishing the climb — this is where we are stopped. The road does not run straight to the gate; it angles under the wall, and all the way up, someone was looking down from above.

The one looking down from the castle wall does not ask. He already knows — where am I looking? Every approaching footstep lies beneath his eyes.

Siting and Approach routes are a matter of sightlines and legs before they are numbers. "How do we strike the castle?" is the second question, and the first question is always — where do we approach from?

#The Land of Fact — Siting Types

A castle is half decided by where it stands. As fc09 archipelago overview says, this land is mostly mountains, and plains mean rice, while rice means armies — so where to build a castle becomes the question of "choose height, or choose people?"

Mountain castle (山城) — a castle seated on a mountain crest or ridge. Height gives sightline, range, and dignity. The climbing paths are narrow and easy to defend with few people, but it is hard to haul water and food onto the mountain, while people and trade remain below. The deeper war becomes, the more castles climb into the mountains.
Hilltop-flatland castle (平山城) — a castle seated on a low hill or rise in the middle of fields. It has a little of both height and people. It is not as hard to climb as a mountain castle, nor as exposed as a flatland castle — a place of compromise.
Flatland castle (平城) — a castle seated on flat ground. Instead of height, it gathers people, roads, and water, making it good to govern and good for trade. It fills the lost height with moats, earthworks, and layered kuruwa. As the world settles and governance grows heavier, castles are said to descend from mountains and move into fields.

Even within the same country, castles move from mountains to fields — from castles for fighting to castles for governing. Which siting you face tells first what that castle stood for.

#What Siting Decides

Siting	Height and Sightline	Main Approach Constraint	Where Weakness Appears	fc09 Terrain Match
mountain castle	high — sees far and shoots far	paths narrow into one or two climbs	water and supply (hard to haul up the mountain)	mountain paths and passes
hilltop-flatland castle	middle — sees as far as the hill allows	slopes and fields mix, with several routes	gaps in the widened perimeter	hills and field entrances
flatland castle	low — all visible from afar	moats and rivers force routes into one or two lines	open exposure (for both the approaching side and the defending side)	fields and rivers

#Approaching Roads — Rivers, Lakes, Moats, Castle Towns

Once siting fixes the place, Approach routes bend, cut, and gather the roads toward that place.

Rivers and lakes — natural moats. As fc09 roads and travel notes, in this land people often deliberately avoid building bridges over rivers, or control ferries, making the river itself a defense line. For a castle seated where rivers join, on a lakeshore, or on an island in a river, water is the outer wall.
Moat (堀) — a ditch dug by people. It may be a water moat filled with water, a dry empty moat, or a shape leaving an embankment. Width and depth force Approach into one or two roads — a moat is less a blocking wall than a finger that decides the approaching route.
Castle town (城下町) — the urban area below the castle. Highways and markets, samurai residences and temples/shrines surround the castle, becoming the first outer defense line and the threshold where rumors, information, and Infiltration routes pass in and out. A castle stands on top of people — the one approaching first passes among those people.

The one line in fc09 about leaving a river without bridges becomes, around a castle, the answer to "why dig a moat?" It is not to block, but to decide the approaching route ourselves.

#Reading as Scene — Scouting, Pressure, Detour

Before fighting begins, siting has already decided the texture of three scenes. (Actual checks, Target Numbers, and maps belong to 02 and 03~06 — here, only "what kind of scene is natural?")

Scouting — where do you see from / where are you seen from? A mountain castle grants sightline, but is also easier to notice. Watchtower eyes reach far, while mountain shadow and winding roads also give approaching people places to hide. A flatland castle is visible from far away, but the approaching side is also exposed unchanged on the field. The asymmetry of seeing and being seen is laid differently by each siting.
Pressure — the narrower the road, the deeper; the wider, the shallower. A mountain castle's climb has fewer pressure points, but each one is deep (one road becomes everything). A flatland castle's broad outer perimeter has a long, shallow pressure face (enemies can come from anywhere, so nowhere can be left empty). Rivers, lakes, and moats force pressure into one or two roads between them, telling the defender in advance where to gather strength.
Detour — the road that breaks the promise. Secret passage, cliff, sewer, dry well, back alley in the castle town. A castle is a promise saying "enter here," and a detour breaks that promise. Whether there is a gap for breaking it or not — siting already laid that down when the castle was built. A side path below a mountain-castle cliff, a flatland castle's sluice and river, the dark alleys of town.

So when choosing a stage, the first question is not "how solid is this castle?" but — what kind of scene does this castle naturally call forth? Solidity is converted into numbers in the next chapter (02). This chapter only points to the land where those numbers grew.

#At the Table — Laying the First Scene with Siting

GM Tool. This section is an operation note for running siting as scene — checks, Target Numbers, and gimmicks are held by 02-01 conversion procedure and co; here, only tools usable without rolls are placed.

When deciding a castle's siting, ask three questions:

Where does it get height from? — mountain crest, hill, or moat and kuruwa. (This decides "where do they see from, and where do they shoot from?")
How many Approach routes are there? — one climb, every side of a field, or one or two lines cut by a river. (This decides the depth and width of pressure.)
Is there a road that breaks the promise? — below a cliff, a sluice, a dry well, a town back alley. (This decides whether Infiltration can exist.)

Lay the first scene using only siting. As fc09 said, "land is heaviest when used as a fork, not a roll" — before an unbridged river, simply asking "swim or circle upstream?", or before a closing pass, asking "wait for night or force through?" makes a scene stand without a single roll. Castle Approach is the same. Pick one place that forces a choice out of the siting, and that becomes the first scene.

Siting → sharpest mode (one-line recommendation):

Siting	Most Natural Meal
mountain castle	siege through uphill pressure, or Infiltration through mountain shadow — narrow roads make both sides sharp.
hilltop-flatland castle	defense/holdout through layered kuruwa — the layers of pushing and falling back live the longest.
flatland castle	Infiltration through moat and castle town, plus outer-edge siege — open fields test stealth and mass at the same time.

Recommendation is not command. The same mountain castle can be used in all four modes (reading the "hierarchy of layers" in fc12-01-01 in order or reverse). Still, siting gives one first scene for free.

#After Reading — To the Next Chapter

Up to here is the shape of the land. If you can now imagine where a castle stands (mountain, hill, field), how it is approached (river, moat, town), and what kind of scene it calls first (Scouting, pressure, detour), this chapter has done its job.

For the picture of the castle structures themselves (kuruwa, gates, watchtowers, wells), go to fc12-01-01.
For turning this siting and these structures into actual zones and battlemaps, go to fc12-02-01 and fc12-02-02.

All structure and zone rulings follow 02-01 conversion procedure. This chapter is Reference Only — there is not one line of numbers. Even when speaking of ranged shooting, that is the work of Archery, not something this chapter decides. From the next chapter, land becomes rules.

"Before striking a castle, see where that castle stands waiting for you."