Building a city from scratch

[Stahn Li]

I am trying to make a thieves guild campaign.

The main idea is that I don't even write adventures, I just create one very detailed city, (and a world around it to explain that cities situation). Once the city is made I simply react to what the players do. My goal is to have a quick character profile of every one above fourth level and to have well defined city factions, maps, history, and economics. The players are charged with nothing more but to become wealthy and powerful. They will start at second level and will often have to tip toe around other city factions much more powerful than them.

The basic city concept is a large northern port city was conquered three years ago by an invading force. After three years of conquest the invading force made peace with its enemies and know seeks to develope the three major cities and all the new territory that it sacked. Silver mines in this northern land were the prized export. The northern land is furtile but the harvest season is relatively short and farms are jsut started to be harvested again.


Anyway how should I go about making a vastly detailed city for my players to run around in. The city has 3,000 people in it right now but that number increases every day as new settlers move in. Before the conquest the city held 9,000. Any tips or strategies on how to really flesh this out would be appreciated.

 

[Turanil]

1) Try to find documents (on the internet) about some real medieval cities, and expand on their info.

2) There is a FREE pdf available on RPGnow I believe to remember, which was about medieval cities. Unfortunately I forgot its name. Go and get it (probably someone else here will give its name), it's free and very well done.

3) Go and get the d100-City-blocks document created by the enworld community (link below in my sig.). It's FREE, and should help you describe various buildings the PCs will continuously run into.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Don't do all the work yourself, give your players homework and have them either provide you with NPCs or Locations (you don't have to use them and you can change them to fit).

Build a time line for the city: Founding took place when? Place events as you see fit, things like cannel built, ship builder X started up...

Build power groups and set up goals:

Group A Merchant Guild - Free trade and equal rights
Group B City Concil - Taxes, City Works projects and security
Group C Workers - Fair pay, housing, food for families
Group D Thievies Guild -
Group E Church - Worshippers and ?​

These groups have to work together or have conflicts and you can even have sub groups with more defined goals. Who are the movers and shakers of these groups?

Now think about trade, what moves in and out of your city? Create a list of goods, now apply taxes, which is imported what is exported and what is held (port city means warehouses for storage, good may be held until after things like storm season or dragon mating season ends).

There are also some very good city books out that you may want to check out.

Also:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

 

[EricNoah]

You might want to download the web enhancement for the 3.5 DMG from WotC -- it has a lot of good info for breaking your city into neighborhoods and what each might have to offer in terms of building types, businesses, different kinds of residences, etc.

 

[GlassJaw]

The other suggestions are very good. Doing all the work yourself will be painful.

Check out some older products if you can: City of Greyhawk boxed set, City of Splendors boxed set (Waterdeep), and Volo's Guide to Waterdeep. The boxed sets might be tough to find but check ebay. They are all amazing resources for cities. The maps in CoS are excellent. Even if you don't use Waterdeep, they are still chock full of ideas.

If you want to make a very detailed map of the city itself, you might need to invest in Campaign Cartographer and the city mod.

 

[jgbrowning]

2) There is a FREE pdf available on RPGnow I believe to remember, which was about medieval cities. Unfortunately I forgot its name. Go and get it (probably someone else here will give its name), it's free and very well done.

A Magical Medieval City Guide.

joe b.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Another suggestion for a faction: Freedom fighters who want to overthrow the invaders.

If the city is currently housing 3,000, and used to house 9,000, there should be lots of empty buildings around. These are excellent to use as hideouts, secret caches, safe houses, meeting places, and bolt holes for the various factions. Let your players detail a few of these that their characters can use.

I ran a campain very similar to this once. It can be lots of fun. Put in more than one thieves guild/crime group. Let the PCs be members of one. There should be lots of fighting for territority to control. With a port city, you probably have smugglers. And pirates coming in looking to refit their ships and sell their booty.

One thing I did in my campaign was give the PCs cover jobs. These were usually in businesses run as fronts by the thieves guild they were members of. Some of the businesses were legitimate, and some were covers for illegal activity.

For my basic city, I used the City of Lanhkmar boxed set. It maps out most of the city, but leaves some areas undrawn. You can use the enclosed city block geomorphs to fill in the blank areas, or draw your own. Also, there was an excellent line of supplements (CityBook) from Flying Buffalo that detailed various businesses and locations within a city. They could be placed in any city. If you can track any of these down, there are worth it.

Although you could just wait a couple of weeks and buy Sharn when it comes out. Even if you don't run an Eberron campaign, you could probably use all or part of it for your city. Although it might be a bit larger than 3,000 people.

There is a supplement called Thieves Quarter that details a portion of a larger port city. That might be what you are looking for. Some of the buildings and NPCs are detailed, but there is still plenty of room for you to include your own stuff.