Interesting Extraplanar Cities?

Baron Opal

First Post
What would be 5-7 interesting extraplanar cities to adventure in or around?

I'm trying to come up with a number of appropriate mythic locales when the party is either appropriately bored with the knights, robber barons and EHP.

You have the City of Brass. That's not only iconic to D&D but measures in our stories as well.

There's the City of Dis. An iron citadel meant to shield an agoraphobic infernal lord that encompasses most of an extraplanar level. You might even call it the City of Iron or City of Chains.

There's Sigil, the City of Doors.

They each have their lord, sometimes hidden but always scheming. These can be interesting places but I would like to have at least one semi-friendly place they can go.
 

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Shemeska

Adventurer
(1e/2e/3e Great Wheel) Grenpoli - the Baatorian city of Diplomacy. If hell had lawyers, and it does, this is where they would all be trained. It's a wonderland of structured, subtle tyranny, with the dehumanizing brutality of hell whitewashed and replaced with gilded splendor for the benefit of mortals and planar travelers. Commerce, trade, and erinyes tutors.

(1e/2e/3e Great Wheel) Center - the city at the tangent point of all three layers of the Gray Waste. Ruled by an enigmatic, 'loth blooded tiefling named Dandy Will, segmented out into three iron-walled sections, each of which borders its respective layer of Oinos, Niffleheim, or Pluton on the city's exterior wall. Oddly enough, the 'loths make no attempts to rule the city themselves.

(1e/2e/3e Great Wheel) Death-Of-Innocence - one of the few places free of the spiritual leaching and wasting of the Gray Waste. Situated within the frozen forests of Niffleheim, almost adjacent to the border of the domain of Arawn the Celtic God of Death, the buildings and walls are all built from the evergreens of the surrounding forests. All of the trees so used however perpetually weep fresh sap, almost as if the city were bleeding.

(1e/2e/3e Great Wheel) Shrakatlor - military capital of the githzerai of Limbo. Imagine a city formed and sustained by the collective mental exertion and wellbeing of its inhabitants, and that's what this city is. If they all blacked out, the city would slowly begin to dissolve back into the roiled chaos of Limbo. And of note, these are the githzerai followers of Zaerith Menyar ag Gith, not the monastic githzerai who actually stand outside of the mainline of their species.

(Pathfinder) Galisemni - the City of the Infernal and the Divine, adrift within the Maelstrom borderlands, tugged along by the metaphorical tide of shifting landscape that changes as its proximity to the borders of the other planes of the Outer Sphere waxes and wanes. Unlike other places of structure within the Cerulean Void, Galisemni faces no opposition from the proteans, which possibly points to some sort of bargain by the city's creators with one or more kekatar choruses, or the entire city being a construct of their creation in the first place. - of course at the momen, Galisemni is just a name on a map of the Maelstrom, let me get back to you on this one - ;)

(Pathfinder) Awaiting-Consumption - daemon city in Abbadon. The name describes the city's function as it relates to the mortal souls dwelling there. Think of it as something between a larder, a stockyard-city, and Hansel and Grettel's cage where the witch fed them wonderful sweets to fatten them up to her liking. The fiends do this for the inhabitants, allowing some more freedom than others, quite literally to allow development and evolution of the soul to alter its eventual taste. But make no mistake, oblivion cannot come quickly enough for a majority of those trapped here, be it those in chains or those in temporary priviledge.

(Pathfinder) Axis - the city/plane of Axis stands as the epitome of manifest Law and the golden representation of a perfect city. Above ground the city's streets and buildings radiate outwards from Pharasma's Spire, ultimately ended at the golden exterior walls that rise up at the edge of Axis and the start of its edge adjacent to the Maelstrom's borderlands. The Axiomite Godmind and its children ensure the city's operation and its continued expansion out against and into the Maelstrom, spearheaded by their construct armies of inevitables. Belowground and drifting above the city in golden latticework wasp hives, the formians work alongside the city's masters. But even deeper, the god of murder and deception rules his own domain like a very real, idealized urban underworld, rotten and coexisting with the perfect city above.
 
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Nai_Calus

First Post
Grandfather Oak in Arvandor(2E, I suppose 3E as well) would probably be fairly safe. It's a town in a giant freaking oak tree. The tree is treated almost like a person and is said to be large enough to support a dozen elves on one of its leaves. If nothing else the visual is fairly interesting.

Although first you have to not fall under the spell of the realm itself... :cool:
 

avin

First Post
City of Glass (Planescape?) it's a must-use!

I drop the (silly) notion of one *World* for my 4E games, so Gloomwrought is a city that has an entrance in every world... always by a bog or a stormy sea.

The Plane Below has some kind of "necropolis" city, but I confess this books is less inspiring that I thought it would be, so I created my own necropolis-like city. I don't have it here for more details... =/
 

Barastrondo

First Post
They each have their lord, sometimes hidden but always scheming. These can be interesting places but I would like to have at least one semi-friendly place they can go.

I was about to suggest Moil, but you said "semi-friendly"...

Hestavar, as mentioned upthread, is a neat choice. All the enjoyable scenery of heaven without having to give up the intrigues of fallible and ambitious urbanites.

If it were me, I'd want thematic cities. I like necropoli, so I would consider a fusion of Moil, Hollowfaust and Hamunaptra for a deathly plane: something full of mastabas and jackal-masked priests, with great gateways to the finality of Death and various undead lingering as long as they can in the city before they're eventually coerced to step through and accept their fate.

Also, Valhalla. Could be the Valhalla, could be something campaign-personalized. The warrior's paradise, full of arenas where fights to the death occur regularly, but the dead are resurrected to fight again. Massive monuments to the greatest warriors in the planes. Booze on tap everywhere, and valkyries or Angels of the Sword passing overhead. If a group of players can't find ways to thoroughly enjoy themselves and/or get in trouble in Valhalla (preferably both), they are not even trying.

Are you thinking of thematic arcs for your campaign? Would the cities act as potential teasers for story arcs, or are they solely between-adventure rest stops in your mind?
 

Oryan77

Adventurer
You might even call it the City of Iron or City of Chains.
In the Planescape setting, Dis is not really referred to as "the City of Chains". There actually is a city nicknamed the City of Chains that you might be interested in using if you are a fan of Dis. It's called Jangling Hiter and is suspended by chains above a swamp on Minauros, the 3rd layer of Baator. It's infested with Kytons (Chain Devils). I only mention this because when I read 'City of Chains', it reminded me of Jangling Hiter and it's a pretty interesting city.
 

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