What cities do you use in your game?

[Zindil]

I have been running Turakian Age for about a year now. I love the setting. However, it looks like there will be no more setting supplements for this world. I have a wife and a two year old, so time to work on a campaign isn't as plentiful as I would like. I definitely don't have time to sit down and create several cities wholecloth, so I began getting city products for D20 and filing off the serial numbers.

 

So far I have used the Great City blueprint from 0one Games for Antyratori in Keldravia and Shadowspawn's Guide to Sanctuary for Athford in Mezendria. I have the new Pirate's Guide to Freeport to insert somewhere in the world, but I haven't decided where yet.

 

Does anyone have any other city suggestions? It doesn't have to be a 100% perfect fit with Turakian Age because I do change things around some. Do you have a favorite fantasy city that fits the Turakian Age pretty well?

 

Zindil

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

You might consider The Valdorian Age for Fantasy HERO. Almost half the book deals with the independent city of Elweir, a sort of Lankhmar analog, with lots of detail and extensive maps. And of course, HERO stats.

[Zindil]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Thanks Lord Liadon, I will give it a lookover sometime at LGS. I had never really looked at it before since I run Turakian Age. If I ever did run a sword and sorcery campaign, I have the Conan d20 stuff, so that was yet another reason to never consider it. However, with that much of the book being city content, that definitely sounds right up my alley, no pun intended.

 

Zindil

[Thia Halmades]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

And you can pick up Hudson City, which I use exclusively, not being a fan of most of the pre-genned HERO stuff, Hudson City was an oddly satisfying book for me. Dark Champions very much comes off as "Steve's Genre" and it came through in the text. You may not use the map, but you can always:

 

a) Zoom in a section and mentally "widen the roads" to create a small fantasy area.

 

use the NPCs and plot seeds. With very, very little alteration they'll make fine FH adversaries.

[Savinien]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Waterdeep?

 

Curufea has New Crobuzon somewhere up here.

 

Lankhmar itself?

 

A lot of Middle Earth stuff covers Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Bree, and some of the others.

[Coyotecloudchas]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

My players prefer the D & D Greyhawk setting because it has a lot of politics and background material, but they also like it when I mix it up by throwing some World of Warcraft settings in there. The characters have been based in Greyhawk, Chendl, and some areas of the Vesve Forest and Nyrond.

[Curufea]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Waterdeep?

 

Curufea has New Crobuzon somewhere up here.

 

Lankhmar itself?

 

A lot of Middle Earth stuff covers Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Bree, and some of the others.

 

http://www.curufea.com/games/crobuzon/

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

All mine are homegrown.

[maros]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Another 'vote' for the TSR Lankhmar booklet. It was a really wonderful supplement. Especially the 2nd/later edition that came out that included the sewer maps. The later adventures and stuff, however, IMO were the worst.

 

If you just need a bunch of cities Palladium Fantasy Book II – “Old Ones” has lots. I've used some of those.

 

You mentioned having GRR's Thieves' World GM book. But if you can get it, Chaosium's version has some great extras such as bigger/more detailed maps and things like encounter tables and a few sample layouts. And the companion was nice.

 

Ptolus is utterly insane (in a good way, but costs a good chunk of change.) If you just want a map you can use vs the whole thing it's available (at least in PDF) and a lot less expensive.

[Photon1966]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Harn has some of the best fantasy city maps around. They always have a black and white for players and Gms to mark up and then a colour every one can look at. I have scanned several and then printed them really big. Best to get them laminated if you can as they keep in great shape then. There is on line harn stuff, as well as all sorts of Harn books. I don't know what is still in print but I have a horde of it and use it alot. It is low fantasy and stats for harn but easily converted in my experience.

 

Home grown is great but very time consuming. D20 Dungeons has also had some great towns and the city of Sasserine that just is finishing off. Those have been great as well as neat small cities with colour maps and soem adventure ideas to make use of.

 

I also have someof the old Judges Guild booklets with hamlets and the like for quick on the fly villages and country estates.

 

Plus using modern maps of ancient cites is alot of fun to make use of. There are links on line, or local Libraries have maps, especially University ones as I work at one and have used them as well, though more for outside then cities, they have those as well.

[Curufea]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Depends on the flavour of your game to - Harn and historical cities are good for low-magic games where cities have populations less then modern towns.

Large cities (ie over a million people) are more for high fantasy settings. Or possibly as the seat of an empire that is required to maintain it (ie Rome).

[Zindil]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

It seems like Lankhmar and Harn are being suggested a lot. I will definitely check them both out.

 

In the first long term D&D game I played in, the dm transplanted Lankhmar into Greyhawk. That is what made me think about getting city books and filing off the serial numbers. I don't recall much about the TSR version of Lankhmar, but I will definitely check it out now.

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. If anyone else has some favorite city supplements, please suggest them.

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Hey there Zindil how about defining what you would like to see within a city and maybe

we might be able to come up with some ideas and plans for you. I do my best work

from simple draft ideas and expand on them from there.

 

I can however relate to your family time issues!!!

[CorPse]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

http://www.curufea.com/games/crobuzon/

 

Very, very cool.

 

I have to remember to return later with a paper bag full of unmarked Rep.

[Curufea]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

There's good stuff on wikipedia too-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Crobuzon

[CorPse]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

There's good stuff on wikipedia too-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Crobuzon

 

I bet! But I haven't read all the books yet, so I'm on spoiler avoidance duty until further notice...

[Savinien]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Quite right. I'm using the New Crobuzon model for Ossenhaven in my Age of Reason game. Both wikipedia and Curufea's site have been invaluable!!!

[CorPse]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

There's good stuff on wikipedia too-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Crobuzon

 

Repped for New Crobuzon build...

[Vondy]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Take Constantinople, plop it down in Malaysia, change its name and make a few cosmetic nods for climate...

 

Home grown.

[Hermit]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

http://www.ptolus.com/images/MASTER_MapDraft600.jpg looks pretty cool.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

I've always been partial to the town of Adelfarn, a unique, detailed and well-mapped free city setting, whose concept allows it to be literally dropped into almost any fantasy world.

[Markdoc]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

http://www.ptolus.com/images/MASTER_MapDraft600.jpg looks pretty cool.

 

Although it stokes one of my pet peeves - fantasy cities that look like modern cities. Medieval and ancient cities were (in general) not planned out and if planned, were rarely built according to plan. They have randomly scattered squares and markets, important buildings scattered higgledy-piggeldy, where they were built (and converted to other uses, and built on some more) and streets running in all sorts of direction, with weird shapes and random connections and dead ends.

 

Ptolus - and all too many fantasy cities - are laid out with boulevards and public places like they'd been built from scratch to a design laid out by a planning committee.

 

OK, it's not a big deal - it just grates a little every time I see it...

 

cheers, Mark

[teh bunneh]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Although it stokes one of my pet peeves - fantasy cities that look like modern cities. Medieval and ancient cities were (in general) not planned out and if planned, were rarely built according to plan. They have randomly scattered squares and markets, important buildings scattered higgledy-piggeldy, where they were built (and converted to other uses, and built on some more) and streets running in all sorts of direction, with weird shapes and random connections and dead ends.

 

Ptolus - and all too many fantasy cities - are laid out with boulevards and public places like they'd been built from scratch to a design laid out by a planning committee.

 

There is one city in my fantasy world that was built to a specific plan (the streets form more-or-less concentric rings around a central palace). All the others, I've designed much like the real-world Santa Fe -- whose streets were famously described by Mark Twain as having been laid out by a drunk man riding backwards on a mule.

[John Desmarais]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

I've always been partial to the town of Adelfarn' date=' a unique, detailed and well-mapped [b']free[/b] city setting, whose concept allows it to be literally dropped into almost any fantasy world.

 

Cool! I'd not seen that one before.

[Hermit]

Re: What cities do you use in your game?

 

Although it stokes one of my pet peeves - fantasy cities that look like modern cities. Medieval and ancient cities were (in general) not planned out and if planned, were rarely built according to plan. They have randomly scattered squares and markets, important buildings scattered higgledy-piggeldy, where they were built (and converted to other uses, and built on some more) and streets running in all sorts of direction, with weird shapes and random connections and dead ends.

 

Ptolus - and all too many fantasy cities - are laid out with boulevards and public places like they'd been built from scratch to a design laid out by a planning committee.

 

OK, it's not a big deal - it just grates a little every time I see it...

 

cheers, Mark

 

I can understand that, though it doesn't bother me as much because I tend to see most fantasy worlds less as historical and more as a world where magic replaced science but still evolved in a lot of areas.