Worldbuilding Starting City

I've recently started to ramp up a Basic Fantasy campaign. As a result, I'm doing some worldbuilding. I like PoL settings, and want a bit of an urban base surrounded by howling wilderness, smaller settlement, ruined cities, and so on. I'm using the Cities of Harn map for Golotha to create "Ravenglass", the main settlement. The Old Kingdoms fell about 160 years ago, and monstrous creatures have crept into the ruined places that men once inhabited.

I'm having fun creating a campaign start point. Any ideas about what I should include? Any neat ideas you've used in starting cities of your own?

Basic Fantasy is sort of like Holmes Basic with the D20 mechanism thrown in. It's a simple enough ruleset that a good DM can stat up just about anything, so ideas from any edition are possible.

RC

There should be a couple of factions who influence the governance of the city:

-Merchants Guild
-Noble House(s)
-Farmers
-Mayor/Counsel/King

A couple of low level threats, such as kobolds and goblins. Perhaps a dark cult is practicing in the town also.

A couple of mid-level threats. Maybe dark elves or some were creatures. These can be foreshadowed early on. Vampires would also be a good choice.

A couple of high-level threats. Nearby volcano? Actually a red dragon who's been asleep for a while. That mountain? Terrasque. Giant statues? Actual giants.

Another way to go would to think of the conflicts you want to highlight (i.e. good vs. evil, law vs. chaos, tradition vs. innovation, magic vs. technology, man vs. monster, nature vs. civilization, etc...) and choose things that highlight that.

Since you're going for a PoL feel, throw in a couple of points of light. An old shrine in the middle of a haunted forest protected by an aged warlock. An old fortress that could be refurbished and manned.

Started a game once that took place in a city that was reduced to town-ship size after an Arcane-Holocaust. Sort of like a fantasy version of nuclear holocaust. The city had a huge arcane-fallout sector that was avoided where most/all of the monster humanoid and magical beast critters from Monster Manuals spawned from. A 'bad' area in the city with whatever scale of arcane radiation is fun.

Kind of situational but also had a town that did not have a primary source of fresh water which is usually really important. But the town was located in extremely rainy climate so the entire city had large amounts of rain collecting gutters/chutes and piping all over the place which made for interesting scenery... and places for creatures to pop out of.

Regardless of starting status, communities characters visit always end up including 'mad old wizard' type figures who live just on the outskirts in an old shack that is extra-dimensional. So it looks like an old shack but inside is a glorious mansion. And when you knock on the door, the old wizard doesn't open it to answer, instead his head pops out of a flower pot off to the side or maybe he comes out of the broken chimney.

Remember to put in some potential for conflict.
Different parties want to rule the city. But what are they going to do with it?

Maybe Isolationst/Expansionist/Restorative.
The Isolationist want to harden the city defenses and increase its independence from the rest of the world.
The Expansionist want to conquer the surrounding area and grow - and they are willing to go to war for it.
The Restorative want to restore the old kingdom to its former glory. They want to establish old trade routes and reactivate old allies to work together.

Now you just need to find ways (if you like to do so) to make each of these parties morally a little more ambigious. The Restoratives might not care for positive changes and just want to re-establish a king. The Expansionist are willing to make allies with the "Darknes" if that suites their purposes (which can be good or bad). The Isolationist might be hunting for ancient artifacts that can help their goals, and are promoting scientific discoveries.


There might be some dark spots in the city itself - a group of Kobolds that live in the Sewers or abandoned part of the town. Not neccessarily hostile, but also not quite friendly - do they need to be purged or is an alliance feasible?

There might also be external threats - maybe someone outside the city believes it should be him (by rightful heritage?), and is manipulating others to move against the city.

Thanks for the replies, folks!

Keep 'em coming!

Can you give me a little more to go, RC? I have a deep and abiding fondness for urban fantasy settings, but I'd like to know more about what's you're looking for: is this swords-and-sorcery, high fantasy, old-school, small level cap blend (sorry, I've been looking at index funds this morning...)? Are you looking for some kind of thematic framework or real-world/literary parallels, or is that the kind thing you'd like to avoid?

I need a punch card w/operating parameters before I fire up the old imagination mill.

Also, in the spirit of community and quid pro quo, my group's got a brand new homebrew we're working on. Comments would be appreciated (2nd link in .sig). Particularly from someone who enjoys worldbuilding but doesn't neccessarily have the same approach to the game as I do.

Well, your request is very broad, but since you asked for what's worked well, here are a few specific ideas...

- In a recent campaign, I had about 4 or so noble families in a large city (~20,000) with controlling interests in various aspects of the economy. This provided a nice framework to help determine what sort of schemes, motives, and plans might be going on in the background. Good relations with one family could sour relations with another, and relationships helped to influence what sort of services/discounts/mark-ups the PCs might expect.

- The Duke's keep had a smuggler's tunnel that ran through sewers and to a tiny hidden dock on the river. Very handy when the Duke needed to smuggle the party out of the city and avoid the rioting populace.

- I haven't done this yet, but I definitely want to incorporate a Monster Hunter's Association in my next campaign. In fact, I don't see why 3e affiliations wouldn't work just as well with 4e as they do with 3e. In a PoL setting, it's not hard to imagine the MHA having a strong influence within the city.

- A knight recruiter for an order of noble knights that occupies a desparate outpost on the edges of a dangerous wasteland. In my campaign, it was the Order of Silver Light (this was before Eberron, honest!), and they kept watch over an ancient battleground that now was home to a trio of death knights who were marshalling an undead army. Their mission was vital, but they had great difficulties in recruiting due because people generally were ignorant and ambivalent about their cause.

Hmm, I'm sure I had other ideas, but I'm drawing a blank now.

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Do a timeline of your city...think about doing it as a map too. This will help you build it's history.

questions to ask:
...why is the city there? Port, trade center, holy site, control of the surrounding land, etc...
...what is the city known for? The greatest fighters, it's forges, it's wizards, the red light district?
...groups in the city? who are the movers and shakers?

See DM sdvice in my sig (if the links still work)

It would be good to know how advanced the city should be, how big and how much PoL the world should be.