d100 CITY CONTENTS [Edit:] Complete & Available for Download!!

Edit: THREAD COMPLETED !

I am glad to announce that the d100 City Thread is now finished! and available for download as a PDF or RTF document. Just check one of the following webpages:

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And now lets create a table to use with city-based adventures.

When you run a city adventure, you rarely have a city entirely described down to the smallest hut in a back alley. Hence, if the PCs decide to enter that unknown house just in front of them, the DM will have to improvise it. If he must do that more than twice or thrice, he will quickly run out of ideas and always tell the same things.

So, the purpose of this list is to create short descriptions of buildings and their occupants, so DMs would have an easier time improvising them.

Remember this is for buildings and people unrelated to any adventure, and that can be used in most circumstances.

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1. This is an old, two stories building, with a strong wooden door. Behind the house, there is a small garden where vegetables are grown. The proprietor is a widow with three young children. Since her husband died, she has been on hard times, and currently is very poor. Her husband was a sergeant in the city watch, and she still owns his equipment (sword, halberd, and half-plate armor). This woman would be glad to answer a couple of questions, if any, about the city watch, for a couple of silver pieces. Due to what her husband gossiped when he was alive, she gets +6 in Knowledge (Local: city watch) , and knows the names and habits of most of the city watch's soldiers, even if they rarely frequent them.

2. A new and pretty building with a brightly pink-painted door. It was built recently, to replace an inn that burned to ashes. Often, drunk people try to enter the house, still believing it to be a tavern, which upsets the proprietor. The latter is a scribe who delights in intelectual pursuits and hate vulgar people. He loves books, and has +8 in Knowledge (Local: where to find specific books) if asked where to find one. The scribe has often worked for wizards, thus knows a few of them in the city, although none is an important wizard. (Of course, in settings where magic is reviled, the scribe will hardly ever admit this.)

3. This shabby looking building is supposedly haunted. Indeed, when you enter, there is a skeleton seated on a chair right in the middle of the corridor. However, that skeleton is just a skeleton, not an undead or anything, despite a clever system of strings animated by a wind-propelled mill on the roof, makes it look like his arms and jaws are animated. What's true however, is that the building inside reeks of urine and unwashed beggars, and is infested by rats and cockroaches. The ground floor is desert with no sign of people living there. However, two beggars live on the 1st floor above. Most of the time they are totally drunk and sleeping. Given a few silver pieces or an appropriate drink, they have information about the criminal activities in this disctrict: +4 Knowledge (Local: crime and thieves). When they don't know the answer, they make it up if they haven't been properly intimidated beforehand.

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Bump.

I seem to have absolutely no success with this thread. Can you at least tell me if you would find such a table of city buildings and mansions useful in your urban adventures? Maybe this idea is worthless, or you don't have ideas, or not the time doing them. Let me know, so I let this thread die or I bring more items to it... (If many people find it interesting, I would thereafter make a pdf and make it available on enworld and other appropriate download sites.)

Thanks.

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4. This large two-storeyed mansion belongs to an adventuring party who is almost always absent. It contains numerous trophies, including stuffed monsters and odd weapons and armors from distant lands. Two domestics take care of the mansion in the party's absence: an old gruffy dwarf with a missing arm, who had been saved from a horrible death by the proprietors, and a mute strong woman visibly native from a distant country. Both are more than simple commoners and know how to defend themselves if need be. In any case, if there is a treasure chest hidden in this mansion, they don't know about it.

5. This mundane looking building is in fact a true fortress. While the doors and windows shutters look like plain wood, they are in fact thick iron inside. The walls are especially thick stone reinforced with metal bars. Inside, there is first an entrance hall with a counter, another reinforced metal door, and also a thick wall pierced with four arrow slits. On the other side of the wall is a corridor with seats in front of the arrow slits, obviously for archers to stand and watch. All the building is likewise fortified. In the basement there is a tunnel leading into the sewers (it had been dug by thieves to rob the first proprietor). The building originally belonged to a jeweler. Then, the jeweler was robbed by daring thieves who later bought the building for their guild, as the jeweler had gone bankrupt. Most of the thieves are currently missing, and three old women inhabit the building. They of course "know nothing about anything"; use of proper magic or intimidation wouldn't reveal much more to an investigator however.

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Mmm, this thread looks like it'll be delicious. Hopefully someone will change it to a printer-friendly format, because I could definately use this.

***

6. It's the local youth lodge, of sorts. The building is a low-slung, long one-story den, with exits all along its length. While most of the building is built out of stone, a good portion of it is made out of what is clearly barely refined lumber -- perhaps the kids who spend their time here are more industrious than they seem. Most of the youths inside have Knowledge (Local) +10, and fewer posess a level of Rogue. It would be wise to watch your belongings closely upon entry.

7. This is a small Chandlery – it is small two story building but in good condition, used by locals for household items, tools and cheap leather goods. The owner is a stick thin older man with a large mustache and his brother. They are friendly to locals and regulars, but business like with strangers. They live above the small cramped shop, using a set of outside stairs. At dusk the two men push all the goods up against the walls, and set up tables and tap a keg. The small bar can hold only about 10-20 people, and has no advertising but word of mouth. The two men serve and talk, and the bar closes early. They have great local gossip and are generally friendly, and the bar will typically empty out and close rather than fight.

8. This small crowded house is filled with recent immigrants, three or four generations or related families living in a small house, most of the able bodied will be out trying to find work during the day. The house can be clean or dirty, but filled with people either way. They will be happy to find someone who speaks their native language, or who is actually from there. One of the teenagers lives a life of crime, and has a midlevel position in the local thieves guild. Some of his loot is stored here and there may be some jewelry, which was given as gifts, but is far too expensive for them to sell easily.

9. This building is abandoned and owned by an absent landlord. squatters never stay long but a good Gather Info check would be necessary to find out they think it is cursed. it is empty and anything of values has been taken long ago. A small family of kobolds lives in the basement behind a heavy stuck door (dc23) which opens easily from the other side. The kobolds go out at night in heavy cloaks they don’t mind people moving in the house but their sorcerer will use cantrips to encourage people to move on. Attempts to force the door will be met by violence.
Or a party of low level adventures could be camped here, having been hired by the absent landlord to clean the place up, they will brag that they were offered 25-100 gp
EACH ! and whatever they find. Especially good if PCs are 7th level +

Hey! Thanks to those who help me in this endeavor. I plan to make a great PDF (printer friendly) out of it, available to all.

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10. This sturdy stone house, is home and forge to a female half-orc balcksmith. This strong woman is well respected by her neighbors, for she is an honest and hardworking person and has lived here since her childhood. However, men tend to avoid coming in the vicinity, and as a result her job is not flourishing. The fact is that she would like to get a husband but fails to find any despite her efforts. There is a rumor she would have raped some men unfortunate enough to encounter her at night in the streets. However, evidences of such rumors still have to be brought. Yet, if she meets with some strong adventurer, she will be explicitly enterprising. If one provides her with a suitable (and willing) husband, she would become an invaluable and loyal ally. (This woman is probably a 5th level warrior / 5th level expert, who served for a time in the city watch, but was expelled before all guards resigned).

11. This is a small orphanage run by two women and an old paladin. The three are much burdened and cruelly lack of resources, since they are affiliated with no local church (and if the city's government is evil, they tend to keep quiet and discreet). They will ask for help if some wealthy looking adventurer happen to visit them, but can give nothing in exchange (except maybe of taking care of an orphan the adventurers would have found). In fact this orphanage would be ideal for an adventuring paladin to relieve himself of his excess of treasure.

12. This two storeys building is home to a couple who seems to spend their time arguing and screaming. Husband is a potter and works in his shop on ground floor, while his wife is a seamstress and works above. All the day they find new excuses to go to the other and argue about some inane subject which always degenerate in screaming and broken pottery. It has been like that for years, and those two don't want to divorce. Anytime they are suggested to do so, they have a new reason to explain they would really like to, but cannot.

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Nice thread

10. This rather run-down building houses an apothecary filled with strange substances and fetishes coming from as near as the nearest forest or as far as the mythical Qum, one continent away. Most remedies are cheap and and absolutely mundane, some blatantly cross the border to charlatanry. Generally the apothecary looks dingy and disreputable and attracts a matching clientele. The owner, Mal'Sharaf, is actually quite an able herbologist and pharmacist, but his perceivedly strange methods (he is from Qum after all) cause people to have no trust in him, which is, why although famous in his homeland, Mal'Sharaf has to play on the superstitions of his customers to scrounge up the money for the ticket home. Understandably he is quite grumpy and ill-tempered, but if presented with an interesting problem and more importantly some trust in his abilities, he might be just the one to know an antidote to that mysterious poison - or mix an exotic and toxic mix for a customer with enough silver to his name ...

14. This large building is in fact a joiner's shop. Inside there are all manners of wood, tools, and carpentry items such as barrels, chests, furniture, etc., all of excellent quality. Furthermore, the workers are polite, well mannered, and seem to be happy to work despite belonging to an "unsavory" race (half-orc, goblin, or what not). They work well and hard, without ever complaining. Some neighbors suspect the proprietor (a charismatic human) to rely on enchantment/charm magic to achieve this result; but the latter only pretends to be friendly and paying well his employees.

15. This is a cloth / tailor's shop. The obsequious, wealthy and successful shop owner seems to work fast for decent fees. Unknown to all but his family, he employs illegal workers (or slaves), who rarely see daylight and work night and day in his basement for a little food. What he does to keep them quiet is unknown, but it seems these workers come from a distant place where they are scared to death to return. On the floor above the shop live the proprietor's wife and their five children, who also rarely leave the house.

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16: Doogan's Glass Works - this group of five building is made up of office, shop, warehouse, lab and factory. Doogan imports sand from all over and is known to blow some of the most expensive bottles and glass works.

Games notes:
Sand or Glass Golem
Adventures can be hired to retreave 'sand' from different locations for different effects, such as from the underdard or the demonwaste.

Turanil said:

I seem to have absolutely no success with this thread. Can you at least tell me if you would find such a table of city buildings and mansions useful in your urban adventures?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't find it useful, no. I use buildings as backdrops to characters; unless the building is tonight's-scenario then it's of limited interest (though floorplans are always handy). A generic city encounter table that included events (fires, overturned wagons), NPCs, a few monsters (rats, gargoyle etc) and a few interesting features including buildings (fountain, jail, burned-out building etc) might be very handy for off-the-cuff inspiration, though.

Thanks for the feedback. However, since now I have begun it, I will try to bring it to completion, especially if others still help me come with ideas. Indeed a table of city encounters/events would be great, as such cannot simply be treated like wilderness encounters. But I would have to think about how doing it, then come up with good ideas. As I am not sure to get more success than here, I will see later if I also begin a thread on that subject.

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17. It seems that this old mansion is on the verge of collapsing. Nothing stands upright clean, and the whole edifice is rickety. Thankfully, the buildings on each side look much more solid, and probably support it. Inside, everything is squeaky, and in some places one must be careful or risk fall right through the bad wooden stairs and floor. Yet, this house is clean and smells good of perfumes and flowers. A frail middle-aged woman and her 24 cats live in there. Some people pretend she is a witch, but she is before all a poor widow with a meager pension. If any strong fight erupts in this house, it has a great chance of collapsing entirely, doing 8d6 of blunt damage (Ref save at DC=20 for half dmg) to everyone inside. (For example: a natural 1 on a melee attack would result in striking a wall or whatnot, with a 2% chance per point of damage of collapsing the house; while a Lightning Bolt would wield a 5% per point of damage; etc.)

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