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| Making notes for the upcoming urban campaign! |
I am about to being a new campaign using Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. It's going to be focused on urban adventures of a band of mischiefs in a decadent, dirty, perilous but full of opportunities City-State in my personal setting (that I intend on publishing as a setting toolkit, inspired by the great books such as Vornheim, Yoon-Suin, Hubris and others).
My intention is to make it a sandboxing urbancrawl campaign. I want to work on the project of creating a city toolkit for it, and at the same time playtest it with my players. They will be adventurers in the style of Fafrd and Grey Mouser, ambitious men and women looking for opportunities to earn gold, fame, power and whatever strikes their fancy. But I want to city to be alive too. To spring things at them in unexpected way and times. So I am studying a lot of possibilities and other RPG materials that can help me do this.
However, even though I want to have an open game, generating a bunch of elements on the fly, I want some of the characteristics of the city to be defined. The tone of the setting, the major factions, locations and NPCs that are part of the setting should be present. They will not to static tough. I want to make tables for each of them, so they are always doing something, experiencing some chance or event.
My first step, then, was writing a small list of 10 boroughs, 10 factions and 10 locations to using during the game. My plan is to roll d10s to make relationships between these elements and other I will generate during play. Each faction will have objectives, conflicts, assets, goals that I will generate with some of the tools I will talk about below. Each borough will have a table of characteristic sights, smells, building and encounters. Each location will have events table, and notes on what's in there, who controls that location and what can be gained there.
So I am going to share what I have so far:
Boroughs
1. The Heart (where the decadent nobles live, where there is always a party, orgies, wine, blood).2. The Golden Ring (it's around The Heart, it's a rich merchant district, catering to the nobles).
3. The Hand (a district where most of the artificers and crafters have their shops and workshops).
4. The Maze (a large mass of alleys and poorly constructed homes, forming a literal maze).
5. The Pit (a great pit where the most distitute people and slaves live - maybe the main access to the Under-Mezzanthia).
6. The Old Docks (the docks of the older part of the city, where fishers, smugglers and even pirates mingle).
7. The Octopus (the new and richer docks, frequented by the rich merchants and the Overlord's navy).
8. The Bog (the old part of Mezzanthia, now almost overtaken by a growing swamp, where ruins of the ancient buildings of past civilizations and their ghost live side by side with mutants, crazy people and other miscreants).
9. The Candles (the small religious district, where people from many parts of the world of Anttelius come to make their offerings to their old and new gods).
10. The Feet (the travelers district, where most of the people that come and go from Mezzanthia stay).
Factions
1. Sisterhood of Death (an women only assassin's guild).2. Brotherhood of the Cloak (a man only thieves guild).
3. The Sword (a mercenary guild).
4. Order of Chroniclers (a secretive society of scholars and sages).
5. The Heirs of Zartar (a secret society of descendents of the ancient Sorcerer-Kings).
6. The League of Pleasure (a network of pleasure workers that are also spies).
7. Golden Gauntlet (merchant's guild).
8. Cult of the Devourer (a cannibal demon cult).
9. Stargazers (alien worshiping people).
10. Breakers of Chains (revolutionaries).
Locations
1. Skull Keep (the Overlord's seat of power).2. The House of Scrolls (HQ of the Order of Chroniclers).
3. Twilight Bazaar (a secretive bazaar that sells weird and illegal stuff and changes locations according to the stars).
4. Alley of Moans (where the best know whore-houses are located).
5. Garden of Bones (weird garden made of bones in may shapes, located in the Bog - still don't know exactly what I will do with it but I liked the name of it).
6. Temple of Hunger (located underneath the city, the HQ of the Cult of the Devourer).
7. The Moon Halls (the HQ of the Stargazers).
8. Tower of the Collector (the tower of a feared sorcerer that collects eyeballs).
9. The Museum of Zartar (a museum that collects ancient civilization artifacts).
10. The Monastery of Death (the HQ of the Sisterhood of Death, poses as a religious order).
So far, so good, I guess. I am also keeping in my hands a copy of Vornheim (especially for the crawling rules, generators of NPCs, Books, Contacts, Shopkeepers), Cities by Midkemia, Maze Rats by Ben Milton (with all his wonderful tables to generate NPCs, Locations, Building, Districts), the 650 city encounters by Role Playing Tips, Lankhmar for AD&D 1st Edition, Yoon-Suin by David McGrogan (for connections, relationships and faction generation) and the compilations of post in Last Gasp blog that contains In Corpathium! Oh, yeah, I will be using a bunch of tables from Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells - Addendum (life events, city changes, where did my money go?) I think that will be enough. Anyone has any other recommendations?
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