<Homebrew> A Nameless City on a Many-Named Sea

[Mallus]

Getting back to this... here are the Magistrates appointed by the Governor:

• Lord Thomas Winterborn is an Eladrin nobleman who follows the Fae legal system, which is either insanely complicated or entirely random. Those who come before him are questioned closely on such arcane as their birthday, their favorite color, whether or not they were wearing a hat at the time of the incident in question, and if so precisely how wide its brim was....
  
  His Bailiffs are also Eladrin, and rumored to be his brothers. They wear full helmets, entirely devoid of features, which give them a very ominous appearance. No few of them are warlocks.

• Stefan Petard is a former Naval Artilleryman 1st Class, a rank which is entirely literal in the Port's Navy. A wizard of some power, he was made a magistrate after he did a favor of some sort for the Governor. The details of this have never been revealed, and likely
  never will be.
  
  Petard has turned out to be a surprisingly reasonable Magistrate – he bases most of his rulings on a simplified form of Old Imperium Goetia law -- saving perhaps his habit of personally executing --in a very explosive manner-- anyone that he condemns to death.
  
  His bailiffs are, like himself, veterans of naval service. Their only uniform is a red and black strip of cloth worn on their right arm, intricately knotted.

• Henry Scatter was born into a wealthy family, which promptly disowned him after an ill-fated fishing trip on the Aster left him twisted into the shape of a goblin. How exactly he became a Magistrate is a hotly debated mystery, but it's generally assumed that blackmail of some sort was involved.
  
  Scatter makes no pretense at objectivity; any case that involves a goblin will be declared in his favor, no matter what the actual circumstances. His bailiffs are mostly Bugbears, with a handful of ogres, and it's not unknown for them to beat people nearly to death for failing to give them the proper respect.
  
  It's unlikely that Scatter will survive much longer, as he's already been the subject of several assassination attempts.

• Lord Bartholomew Choke sometimes prefers to be called Dr. Choke, or Lord Doctor Choke, as he is also the port’s self-appointed Minister of Health. He rarely makes his preferences known, however, and his temper is on the short side of mercurial.
  
  The good doctor is, barely, a man; just shy of 8ft tall and more than 500 lbs. Rumor has it he afflicted himself with gigantism during an experiment trial of curative elixirs in which he was the sole test subject. It is said he must regularly endure a ghastly kind of 'pruning' to keep himself even remotely man-sized. It's also said that as his body grows larger, his conscience and his ability to feel for the smaller creatures grows proportionally less.
  
  Lord Choke is usually an indifferent public servant, except during outbreaks of plague.

[Mallus]

The rest of the port Magistrates:

• Lord Myles Lively and Lady Lively are a rarity; a pair of married Magistrates. Lord Lively is a famous bon vivant and Lady Lively is known for her charitable activities. He is often described as having a ‘delicate cast’ to his face and she as having ‘large hands’. They are never seen together at the same time and it’s likely that they are, in fact, the same person.
  
  Lord Lively is also reputed to be the head of one of the port’s newest syndicates; a sort of entertainers union based in the Quadrille that dabbles in the more criminal forms of pleasure, the so-called Guild of Revelry. Their rapid rise to power is obviously the result of Lord Lively’s rumored intercession on their behalf and not at all because of their rumored connection to powers Beyond-the-Sea.

• Lord Dandy is rather unusual for an Elf; he is far from flighty, he disdains wine and song, in fact, he seems altogether unnerved by, even frightened of, the pleasures of the flesh. While he does have impeccable style and the appearance of a fop, he is better known as the port’s foremost authority on botany (his love of flora is perhaps the only truly Elven trait), and for his seven, beautiful, unmarried daughters.
  
  Despite his daughters, Lord Dandy is long-rumored to be asexual. Of his wife little is known, or even said. Dandy claims to have met her on a botanical expedition into the Interior, though none on the trip recall his leaving the Interior with the bride-to-be. Just wagon after wagon of floral samples, some quite massive.
  
  According to Lord Dandy his wife is his ‘unique flower’, or as he is sometimes wont to call her, his ‘all-consuming woman’. Supposedly she never leaves his manse, spending most of her time in its enormous glass hothouse. However, his daughters are often about town. By name they are Dahlia, Iris, Violet, Lily, Primrose, Hyacinth, and Larkspur.
  
  They are highly sought after, being pretty and always intoxicatingly scented, though their eyes are disconcertingly empty. None have married, though they've gone through quite a number of suitors each. Apparently the experience is so heart-breaking the men leave the port immediately after and are never heard from again.
  
  Also, there exists a certain rivalry between Lords Lively and Dandy.

• Tom Hollow is a half-elf. He’s gregarious and informal; he’s prefers to go by his first name, even when conducting official business. Despite his even-handed rulings and high ethical standards, people still say of Tom what they say of all his kind; that there’s a hollow space in his chest where half of a man and half of an elf should go. That he’s doomed to spend his entire life wanting.

• Billy Twist, who has been mentioned before, is the same as he was; a big black man who likes to be carried around on a surprisingly tasteful divan. Both former slave and slaver in the Snake States, he’s now a man of the people.

• The Lord Moribund is a title given to the Magistrate whose sole jurisdiction is the Hereafter, though ‘sole’ in this case is misleading since, thanks to a legal loophole, it actually extends beyond the mortal world to encompass the whole of the Other Side.

• Sebastian Androgore is a Tiefling Magistrate. Of him the harpers sadly sing (jk). His background is best described as 'pending'.

• Balthazar Lux is a Dragonborn Magistrate. One day we'll invent a story for him that's worthy of his name.

[Mallus]

And now, a color-coded map of the port showing all 12 revised and final districts, courtesy of my friend Steve.

Note: the top river is the Livia, the bottom is the Ossuary Flow, and the small island in the harbor is the base for the Grand Armada. If, for some reason, you can't make out the district names, they are...

... the Breakers
... the Ethical Circus
... the Gaze
... the Sway of Medallion
... Gog-Magog Station
... Five Fathoms Market
... the Hereafter
... the Quadrille
... the Hush
... the Shambles
... the Stagger
... and Rumcastle

[Mallus]

Here's one version of the Middling Lands (by Steve):

[Mallus]

And here's the other version of the Middling Lands (courtesy of John).

Which do you all prefer?

[shilsen]

I prefer John's version. Steve's version looks a little too clean to me, and even though John's one looks more like a real map (and by real I mean medieval/Renaissance), John's is also much more legible to me.

[Moniker]

Mallus,

Can you and your cowriters post this over at the Campaign Builder's Guide? http://www.thecbg.org/news.php We have a very active community of campaign builders.

It has a free wiki system usable for all campaign builders, and I know the folks over there would love to see this system. Kudos for a truly unique setting!

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by Moniker

Can you and your cowriters post this over at the Campaign Builder's Guide? http://www.thecbg.org/news.php We have a very active community of campaign builders.

Heh... before I post this anywhere else I'd like to organize things better and clean it up. I posted new details here pretty much as soon as we came up with them. It was meant to show the work in progress, as it evolved. Now I'd like to make a proper setting document --which I'm working on. Also, I need to start preparing to actually run (well, co-run) the campaign...

For now could you just link to this thread? That would be swell.

It has a free wiki system usable for all campaign builders, and I know the folks over there would love to see this system.

That's sounds cool. I'll check it out.

Kudos for a truly unique setting!

Thanks. You know, it's only unique by virtue of being stolen from a lot of good sources...

[Mallus]

A few odds and ends... with emphasis on the odd:

• Thrice-a-Day is an Eladrin clockmaker. He gets his name from the old Eladrin saying, “even a broken clock is right thrice a day”. He actually crafts a variety of intricate curiosities in the shop he both lives and works in just off Five Fathoms Market, but it’s his timepieces which are most readily identifiable.
  
  In the small yard behind the shop, Thrice-a-Day is building his masterpiece; a Fae Clock Tower. Seen from the street, it resembles an ornate grandfather clock that just peeks over the wall around the yard. When looking out the shop’s back door, however, the Clock Tower looms up 10 stories or more, at an impossible angle, seeming far larger than the space it’s crammed in to.
  
  Thrice-a-Day is always in need of some odd part or ingredient for the elaborate Ritual that is the construction of the Clock Tower. He's sure he'll finish it one day, and from that glorious day onward, his Clock will 'tell time'. People assume he means it'll tell Time 'what to do' or 'how quickly to run', rather than in the conventional sense.
  
  A professor at the University, Wulfram Fritz, has recently become interested, if not obsessed, with the impractical clocks Thrice-a-Day makes. He's convinced that they all show the correct time, a fact which has disastrous, though unnamed, consequences for the Middling Lands.

• Lord Bum is the port's "King of Beggars". He lives, when he can afford to, at a dockside flophouse in the Stagger called Bumcastle, in honor of him. He dresses in a mocking patchwork of "castoff" finery that suggests both a quick wit and a more than passing acquaintance with the criminal underworld. It's said he almost has as many eyes and ears on the streets as the Governor.
  
  When asked his full name he usually gives it as "Arsely Bottom", or "Arsely Keister-Bottom". His "court" of homeless men and women can usually found meeting, or at least sleeping one off, on the benches of a park near the flophouse. They are known as the Unseemly Court.

• Medallion just might be a man, though port odds-makers give better than even money that “he” is actually some kind of animating force that resides in the medallion he always wears around his neck. Either way, he basically owns the nicest part of town, including his fabulous estate on Memorandum Hill, which is said to contain pieces of the World Before.

• Eustace Mar is the Lord High Oceanographer of the Oceanographic Guild. His nickname, primarily among those who don’t respect him, is “Hydrocephalus”.

• Meridian Cantor is the Cartographer-General of the Geographic Society.

• Shem and Shaun are goblin tale-spinners and bards. They are compiling the complete, definitive, and, unfortunately, entirely incomprehensible history of the port.

• The name of the Tiefling empire in the World Before is the Imperium Goetia.

• The name of the Dragonborn empire in the World Before is the Magna Publica Machina, the Great Machine of State.

[RabidBob]

Originally Posted by Mallus

When asked his full name he usually gives it as "Arsely Bottom", or "Arsely Keister-Bottom". His "court" of homeless men and women can usually found meeting, or at least sleeping one off, on the benches of a park near the flophouse. They are known as the Unseemly Court.

Brilliant.

I have to say, as a huge Clive Barker fan, I'd love to be playing in this game!

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by RabidBob

Brilliant.

I have to say, as a huge Clive Barker fan, I'd love to be playing in this game!

Wish us luck that this all works as well in actual play as it does on (virtual) paper... we start in a week!

[Mallus]

A few remarks about naval personnel, both current and former:

• Saul Invictus is the Grand Admiral of the Armada. He is nearing 60 years, bald as an egg yet fit as a man half his age. He is stern, given to drink, and known for making any necessary sacrifice, so long it involves others. He hasn't taken his flagship, the Delicate Needle of Inquisitive Purpose out into the deep waters of the Aster in nearly twenty years, even though it is a rebuilt Black Ship, made out of hell-forged obsidian from the Infernal Isles. Nowadays he rarely sails it out of the port.
  
  This wasn't always the case. It was a young and fearless Captain Invictus who discovered the wreckage of a Black Ship, cut evenly in two as if by some titanic butcher, on some nameless island in the Aster Sea. It was he who towed it back to the port, found engineers and occultists of sufficient skill to make her whole once more, and was subsequently made admiral of the Armada for it, claiming the black glass vessel as his flagship.
  
  During the Needle's maiden voyage, far out on the Aster, Admiral Invictus met that titanic butcher who originally split his ship in two. It was the God or the Devil of that star-tossed sea that men call the Kraken.
  
  Let's just say the Delicate Needle of Inquisitive Purpose acquitted herself slightly better that time around. Saul Invictus managed to flee, with only half his crew maimed or killed. To this day he won't brave the deep sea, for fear of meeting the Kraken again.

• Ishmael Flyte once was promising young officer in the staff of Admiral Invictus, serving aboard the Needle. Fortunately, he survived the Kraken's attack. Unfortunately, he was maimed. Unlike the Admiral, he swore revenge. Flyte was eventually drummed out of the navy for 'obsession and madness', but nevertheless managed to both become an accomplished aeronaut and, later, a father.
  
  Flyte now hunts the Kraken from the skies, a pursuit which has earned him the nickname 'the Man Who Wages War With the Sea', since the sea is, to this day, the only thing he’s scored a reliable hit upon.

• Arachnae Flyte is Ishmael’s grown daughter. She is the 2nd woman to become an aeronaut, behind Ingenue Santos, and, like her father, has a host of serious personal issues. She is known as the Black Widow of the Air.

[Mallus]

Here is email that's going to kick things off. I have it on good account that the first live session will begin with the words 'roll initiative!'.


"Just before the bell of Thrice-A-Day's Tower struck ten this morning, there was a rain of blood over the Shambles that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Fat red drops fell from a cloudless sky, leaving puddles that evaporated moments after the rain ceased.

In the Rumcastle district, at fifteen minutes after eleven, a child was born who had a hole in his chest where a heart would normally be found. The baby was in no way discomfited by the missing organ, and otherwise seems entirely healthy. His parents have not yet decided on a name.

At thirty-five minutes past noon, a brown dog leapt atop the rim of a fountain in Five Fathoms Market and recited a quatrain in an unknown language, vanishing back into the crowds before anyone could succeed in laying hands upon it.

There were doubtless more omens --there always are -- but they have passed unseen and unremarked. There is no question in anyone's mind, however: another god washed ashore sometime today.

That might be why someone is screaming for help now, here in the Stagger, as midnight approaches. Probably not; murder is far more common than apotheosis, even in these degenerate days. But one never knows."

[Raven Crowking]

Mallus,

Just wanted to say (again) that this sounds like a great setting.

RC

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

Just wanted to say (again) that this sounds like a great setting.

Thanks again RC. We've had a lot of fun writing it up. Hopefully things will go as well as we actually run the campaign.

[Mallus]

This is my starting PC:

Sir Yatagan Fracas (pronounced British-style, 'fra-ka') is a Dragonborn paladin and poet residing in the Shambles. He prefers to live in the past, like most of his kind. He does this primarily through the writing and performance of classically-styled Dragonborn love poetry, a mode famed for it's combination of lyric romanticism and veiled threats of violence. It was this study of ancient Dragonborn poetry that led him to religion, a belief in the 'Dragon Within', and eventually, to take the oath of paladinhood. While Yatagan shares his people's fascination with the past, frankly, he's none too smart, which might explain why he's a poet and not a historian.

Yatagan is an odd combination of charming and revolting, at least by human and fae standards. While he's very charismatic, literally dressed in shining armor, he's also uncomfortably reptilian. His breath weapon is his toxic, bacteria-laden saliva, a la a Komodo dragon. His paladin's 'marking' ability involves him passing his sword under his cloaca, spraying it with his semen, and then flinging it foes. This, naturally, humiliates and enrages them. In addition, Dragonborn semen also has some mildly hallucinogenic properties, like the skin of certain frogs.

Scholars believe that this unorthodox combat technique has it's origins in Dragonborn reproductive biology. They conjecture that chemical agents in Dragonborn ejaculate sicken 'marked' females if they attempt to mate with, or even approach, other males.

Yatagan is also overweight.

He's also in --involuntarily-- chaste love with a 'young' elven woman named Dulsynada. She's a tavern server and a nihilist, a member of the Cult of That-Which-Is-Not.

[Mallus]

Some remarks on the Other Side from my collaborator Rolzup:

THE OTHER SIDE

• The realm of the Dead is coterminous with that of the living; it's *here*, but a different here than the one that the living know. The Other Side looks not dissimilar to this one -- buildings are different, or more dilapidated, but generally if there is a structure on one side there will be a corresponding building on the Other. The Eternal Bureaucracy, for example occupies an enormous building on the same patch of land that houses the Governor's mansion in the land of the living.
  
  There are differences, of course. The Other Side is in a perpetual state of dim twilight, with neither sun nor moon visible. The air is heavy, leaden even, and devoid of the rich scents that flavor the living Port. Curiously, the smell of the living is particularly strong on the Other Side, and carries a great distance. This is even more true of freshly spilled blood, which can be smelled literally miles away.

• The Dead wander about, on errands of their own, rarely bothering to speak to or even acknowledge their fellows. Among them are the Spring-Heel Jacks, servants of the Bureaucracy, moving in great leaps through the crowds as they hunt the spirits of the freshly dead. The Spring-Heels also function as the de-facto police force of the Other Side, enforcing the will of the Bureaucracy and punishing those who violate its numerous (and nebulous) laws.

• The Spring-Heel Jacks look and act much like Hopping Vampires. Their names comes from both their unusual stride and the matte black truncheons they carry, whose blows are capable of stupefying even the incorporeal dead..
  
  When they find such a soul, likely confused and disoriented from their passage, the Spring-Heel Jacks set upon him and use their claws to carve a sigil into his forehead. A single glance at this mark will tell the bureaucrats and their servants all they need to know about the sprit. Name, time and method of death, karmic balance, and so forth.

• Having been marked, the dead are left to their own devices. Most seek out the Bureaucracy, located on the same piece of land that the Governor's mansion occupies in the living world, and join the seemingly interminable line of those waiting to be processed. When they finally get the chance to see a bureaucrat (a wait that can take years), their ultimate destination is determined and a scrip is issued for their voyage upon the black ships.

• This passage might be scheduled for next week, next year, or the next decade. Or it might be four hours ago, and you're already out of luck. Some few are denied passage at all; these unfortunates, along with those who lose their scrip or miss their scheduled ship, have the option of appealing to the bureaucracy for reconsideration. It will come as a surprise to none that this is not a quick process.

• Some try to swim the Aster, or to build their own boat. Nothing good ever comes of such attempts.

• Of course, the ones who die in the Port are the lucky ones. Those who die elsewhere need to make their way to the offices of the Bureaucracy, which generally entails a long and very hazardous journey. There are many predators on the Other Side, and they will consume their victims entirely if they catch them.

• Most of the souls in the Hereafter are waiting. Waiting to be seen, waiting to take passage, waiting for their loved ones to join them. Some few have duties; working for the Bureaucracy, helping to re-unite families, or even working in one of the many brothels. These are the exceptions, though...most simply lack the energy.

THE UNDEAD

• The undead fall into several sorts....
  
  Souls which could not or would not pass over. These are ghosts, specters, and similarly incorporeal undead. Many are quite mad.

• Reanimated corpses. Zombies and skeletons; mindless shells animated by simple spirits, with no connection to the soul that once occupied them.

• Revenants. Corpses occupied by their own souls; they possess the full memories and intelligence that they had in life. Vampires, or the crew of the Momento Mori. Most of these sort are in the world of the living with the permission of the Bureaucracy; they, or a living relative, were able to present a successful petition for a return to semi-life. Those without the blessing of the Bureaucracy are hunted down and dragged back to the Other Side, after their body has been torn to pieces.

• The half-dead. Shadar-kai and Ghouls, primarily -- neither fully dead nor fully alive, they are native to both worlds and can pass between them with relative ease.

• And then there are the resurrected, the ones who are pulled fully back to life through powerful magic. Such individuals are out of the Bureaucracy's jurisdiction, but they're never entirely free from the other side. Anyone who has been marked with a sigil, for example, bears it in life...and these people also lose the ability to see their own reflection. Mirrors, pools of water, your lover's eyes...any reflective surface will act as a window to the Other Side. It's an unsettling thing, to say the least.

[Storminator]

You should make a pdf of this setting and charge me money for it.

It frickin rocks.

PS

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by Storminator

You should make a pdf of this setting and charge me money for it.

If we'd have known people would pay for this stuff we wouldn't have given (most of) it away for free. In case anyone is interested, here is the complete list of PC's for the inaugural port campaign...

• Captain Artichoke: a human warlord who failed at soldiering only to find success as a motivational speaker/pamphleteer. He's "the son of a greengrocer with a sadly literal name and a woman with an unfortunate liking for military men". "Captain" is his actual first name, not his rank. He's played by our resident tactical genius and Pratchett fan.

• Mister Odanais Dare: a Byronic young dandy of a human wizard who was carrying out an incestuous affair with his sister until she was captured by air-pirates. He seeks her rescue, revenge, and a brandy of suitable complex flavor, in precisely that order.

• Heyoka Jumps-Off-Mountains: a Longtooth Shifter fighter from a small town near the Interior whose enthusiasm is only rivaled by his gullibility. He's described as a "puppy with a bastard sword".

• Penelope Pindar, aka The Black Burqa: a young female human ranger clad in head-to-toe clothing whose deadliness with a bow is only rivaled by her body-image issues.

• Asarlai: an elderly half elf whose novel approach to retirement was to a) decide his life up until that point was meaningless b) resume his incomplete warlock training and c) make a pact with the entities Beyond-the-Sea for the powers required to live out his remaining days as an adventurer. BTW, his curses are all variations on 'get off my lawn'.

• A Nameless Dwarven Cleric: he's still being worked on, but we're trying to convince his player to worship the Sphere of Annihilation.

• Sir Yatagan Fracas: a Quixotic Dragonborn paladin and poet who sometimes goes by the name of poetic alter-ego, Onan Ruckus. His paladin's "mark" involves the spraying his sword with hallucinogenic semen from his cloaca and flinging it at opponents.

Together, they fight crime!

[John Q. Mayhem]

Onan...that's great. Heheheh.