It’s time to start throwing around ideas for specific areas of the City and the best place to start is the Core. I like doing things with bullet points. It’s easier to reference and gets right to the point without lots of other flowery text getting in the way. Probably on the first pass, I’ll stick the main points and move onto even further detail as time goes on.
*The Spire: Lone tower that pierces the clouds. No one goes in or comes out.
*Temple of Justice: HQ of the Judges.
*Heavily Patrolled: Judges routinely watch the streets for any type of trouble.
*”Good” Temples abound.
*Monstrous races are rare and watched very closely.
*Law and Order are facade. There’s still a seedy underbelly.

I know not a long post but I’ll make up for it.

I don’t often pay close attention to economy and population density and so on. It’s one of things that I usually hand wave during the planning of a campaign. But The City is a little different. There is no farmland. There are no forests or seas. So what do the inhabitants eat?
For the more evil and monsterously inclined. There’s always the slower less powerful inhabitants.
The City does provide a bit with the Gruel Fountains. Sure it’s pretty much a tasteless porridge but at least it’s food. Of course, the fountains usually come under control of a local gang. That is until they rousted out by the Judges or an angry hungry mob.
Then there’s where most folks get their food. As with most fantasy settings, the solution to any problem is MAGIC! So enter Gastromancers. Magic-Users skilled in the art of summoning food and/or ingredients. Since I haven’t decided what system that I’m going to use I haven’t written up Gastromancers yet. But then I’m also envisioning them as an NPC class. We shall see.

I continue on my rambling construction of that weird city setting. I still don’t have a good name for it. But I’ve still have lots a little things to get organized so there’s time. This post is all about who’s in charge and basically what keeps some powerful being from stomping the place into oblivion. So who’s in charge and protects the place. Well that depends but first an foremost, the City protects itself.
Yep, that’s right. The City does react to to threats in sentient fashion which at times can seem random to the casual observer. The City has three main tactics for defense. First, districts can move. This was reflected in the earlier posts and done randomly. Now imagine try moving an army or even attacking a target when the path to the battlefield is constantly changing to your disadvantage. The second is “Voiding”. The City can cause a whole building to cease to exist temporarily. This can anywhere from hours to centuries. For anyone inside the building, no time passes. For those outside the building time passes normally. Once again, this can screw up villian’s evil plan. And third, “Swapping”. The City can cause two beings to switch bodies. Once again, this can play havoc.
The Judges: Think of them as a cross between Judge Dread and Lawful Neutral Paladins. In this case, they are granted their “divine” powers by the City.
But there’s more and let’s go down the food chain.
The Gods: Yes, there are gods who walk the streets of the City. While quite powerful, most have learned to cooperate with the City. It really hurts to have your temple taken away.
The Elders & Their Followers: These are the mysterious leaders of the City. Generally, each district has its own Elder or Boss if you will. They wield power on the streets and so on. As long as they don’t overreach then..
That’s today’s rant on The City. More to follow.

In the most recent episode of Playing It Wrong, I ranted about doing a campaign within a single city. Those rants didn’t come totally out of nowhere. Because besides all the other stuff that I’ve got filling my plate, I crazy idea popped into my head for city campaign. I haven’t even named the danged city, yet. Or even decided if I’m going to stat it out for old school or 5E.
So what’s the gist of this idea? A cool and weird fantasy city that is heavily inspired by Sigil and Dark City. While sitting around waiting for new tires to be put on the car, I started scribbling down notes and putting the ideas together and so here we go.
The city is self contained and it wraps around on itself. You know like some of those old video games. You travel in one direction long enough, you’ll get back to where you started. Maybe.
The city is constantly shifting and morphing. Whole districts and neighborhoods, will shift and move without any detecting anything. The city has a relatively “stable” core but the further you travel from the core the more unstable it gets and the more alien it gets The City has multiple levels with various other hazards.
Whole buildings can be “voided” A building could disappear for a period of time but reappear a couple of hours or a couple of centuries later. Those within the building have no idea that this happened and it’s as if no time has passed.
Weather: Wherever the light comes from, the brightest things get is the equivalent of a heavily cloudy day.
The Gods of the City actually live in the city. Of course, I know I’m going to have to do some interesting tweaking.
I know there’s a lot of other things that I’ve got to take into consideration like what effects are there on teleporting, flying, and summoning. And of course, what about food?
But all of that will come in time. Hey, this is a start anyway. So more to come.