D&D General A Setting! A Setting!

[Indagare Nogitsune]

You've gotten 898 views on this, so I think there's more than two people tuned in - others are probably lurking, waiting to see how this gets fleshed out or cribbing notes.

One of the things I've been thinking about is a Fire Rift; we have the other three, could there be a Fire one, perhaps suppressed or not well-known to protect the city from being burned down by careless individuals? It could be of benefits to keeping the city warm in an otherwise wintry clime, mined for live coals or manipulated for forges/hearths and the like. Perhaps it was sealed long ago, and the ancient portal lies in the deep caverns beneath the city, protected by ancient guardians or under the stewardship of a cult who wants the city burned down (figuratively as well as literally). A "fire brigade" rebellion or criminal ring would be interesting; a protection racket of "pay the fire god or he'll visit your establishment" sort of crime syndicate.

When people don't comment it's hard to know, but I appreciate all the views

As Brendan Byrd pointed out, Hackwark is where the Fire Rift is, opposite the Water Rift in Waveswith. It is very useful for both heating and smithing and may or may not have had something to do with the Great Burning. It most likely has a lot of protection, especially since the crime syndicate you mention certainly could have existed (or still exist in different form).

In my head, the Modern City would be very Metropolis, the Noir City would be very Gotham and the Victorian City would be something like the various novels Sherlock Holmes, Around the World in 80 Days, 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and War of the Worlds among them. I'd argue Girl Genius too, but that would make the weird stuff of the future need to be weirder than the stuff of the past and that's a lot to ask from something based on that series.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Certainly an opportunity to redefine "fire ants".
Faction idea: The Formic Legion

Hackwark has a fire rift location, I think.

I mean, we've got Earth Ants, so Fire Ants are a possibility.

Everything should be on the map, I hope ^^;

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

For those keeping track, I've added a new map with the actual scale on it! I suppose the next part might be adding the Underground Lines or maybe streets?

 

[Stormonu]

For those keeping track, I've added a new map with the actual scale on it! I suppose the next part might be adding the Underground Lines or maybe streets?

For my money's worth - streets. Seeing how the city blocks are broken out is pretty defining, from the grid layout of planned cities, to the meandering cow-trails-turned-roads of Atlanta, or the narrow, defensive streets of some European cities. It can be as defining as the architecture or the population.

 

[Stormonu]

An idea:

The Waveswith Aquaduct and Canal: Some time ago, an enterprising individual realized there was great profit in erecting an aquaduct that ran almost directly from the Water Rift in Ellindam Lake straight down into Waveswith, bypassing the fouled waters of the Ell. The individual formed a construction company using their vast family funds, with buy-in from others who sought to benefit from the bypass. While the project was ultimately successful, its architect went bankrupt along with the company it founded. The original portion of the construction, which brought fresh water directly to Waveswith's core, was completed. The add-on, to create a keyed canal system to float boats up from the bay to the lake, was incomplete. Time and persistence has seen a less grand canal system emerge, allowing canal traffic to permeate Waveswith. A modest system, large enough to accomodate specially designed rafts, does exist to raise goods, but not boats from inner core of Waveswith up to the lake. It requires ships to unload at the bay, move the goods (by canal, wagon or foot) to the keyed Canal, and then placed on rafts where channels then "step up" the goods to the lake level. Though it is only marginally faster than travelling upriver along the Ell, it is considered much safer and easier than navigating against the current and flotsam often found in the Ell - in the best of weather.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

For my money's worth - streets. Seeing how the city blocks are broken out is pretty defining, from the grid layout of planned cities, to the meandering cow-trails-turned-roads of Atlanta, or the narrow, defensive streets of some European cities. It can be as defining as the architecture or the population.

I'll see what sort of scale I'll need to show them, but I definitely have ideas for it that would reflect the different parts. Your canal idea would definitely be part of it!

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Are there tides?
If yes, is Wavesith intertidal even of the river isn't? (Relevant to the age of sail technology.)
Waveswith = little Venice?

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Are there tides?
If yes, is Wavesith intertidal even of the river isn't? (Relevant to the age of sail technology.)
Waveswith = little Venice?

There are definitely tides, so Waveswith is definitely tidal though the Ell is not. It would certainly make sense to have it be akin to Venice with the "streets" being more like canals and the Grand Canal Stormonu mentioned being a failed project that, perhaps, gets half-measures of completion due to both cost and public sentiment. If other canals exist, they could be tied to the part that's incomplete where the special rafts now have locations they go to and completing the Grand Canal might mean financial ruin for the business.

 

[Stormonu]

Another idea:

The Great Road: Not to be confused with the Grand Road in Hackwark, Lambeth's Great Road stretches from the edge of Trigon Bridge to the westernmost outskirts of Lambeth, curving to follow the base of the Lambeth Earthmound. While starting wide in the east - enough for two lanes of two-way wagon traffic with a gardened central median - it is a simple cobbled two-way foot traffic road at the far western end. Craft guilds line the busy street in the east, with adjacent apartment tenements and schools in the lesser streets behind these sections of the Great Road, creating micro communities of like-trained individuals and their families. There are, of course, several well-respected guilds whose halls and showrooms line the street, with proud families who have generations of members in these guilds. As the road stretches westward, the guild centers become less frequent, and is slowly replaced with warehouses for raw goods and plush estates held by the retired lords of the various guilds. At the extreme west end of the Great Road is an ancient fortress that straddles the road. This fortress was used both to defend the city from attacks and to monitor/tax goods coming in and out of the city. While not considered as necessary in ancient days, it now generally acts as a welcome center, museum and grain storage area for the city, geared very much more for tourism now than protection.

The road's current main claim to fame comes from the gardened median; freshly graduated journeymen from the local guilds are strongly encouraged (if not required) to set up temporary shop in this middle lane to display and sell their newly minted wares. The funds garnered from these sales are used to pay for continuing education under local masters, and the quality of the produced goods and resulting sales volume are generally used by guildmasters to judge those who are worthy of their attention.

These tent-shops are purely meant to be short-term, with local laws enforcing a two-year maximum seller's license. Rarely, non-guild individuals will set up shop in an attempt to garner attention and patronage, but the guilds look sourly upon those who attempt to sale on the Great Road without aspirations of joining a guild. Lately, however, a small unorganized sect known as "Free Thinkers" have been setting up booths to exhibit wondrous and strange artifacts of self invention. These "Free Thinkers" reject being forced to apprentice into guilds, and many are harassed by the guilds subtly putting pressure on the local constabulary to make these offenders "go away".