Designing a city for my pirate campaign

[Eltab]

In the forest (besides lumber)

• Mushrooms. Edible, poisonous, hallucinogenic, mini-shriekers, the Fungous Humongous from HotDQ, myconids (their OotA cavern is nearby).
• Maple trees provide maple syrup and lightly-scented lumber and "helicopters" (seeds that spin as they fall) inspiring a childrens' toy and a local hedge wizard's unique version of Fog Cloud.
• Oak trees provide lumber and acorns. Acorns as-is taste bad but can be soaked then ground into edible flour. Maybe the leeched-out chemical is a component for the local equivalent of something else that tastes bad but people consume fanatically anyway: Buffalo Chicken.
• Birch and Aspen trees look white from a distance
• One local monster is a reverse Minotaur: he leaves you lost in the woods but it never has such a problem.
• A group of animals that look suspiciously like the friends of Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. These are permanently wildshaped druids. Why are they just here? Nobody has ever asked them.

 

[pogre]

Don't have a suggestion for improvement, but I do love this style of map. Reminds me of the old 1e WFRP maps, and that is most definitely a compliment.

Well done! You have some lucky players.

 

[Derren]

The placement of the sawmill is strange.
Also the habor looks quite cramped for so many ships and it lacks warehouses and other facilities. And where does the city get its food from?

 

[Imaculata]

The placement of the sawmill is strange.
Also the habor looks quite cramped for so many ships and it lacks warehouses and other facilities. And where does the city get its food from?

Hmm, that is a good point. There should be warehouses. As for food, there are nearby forests that should provide plenty of food from hunting. But maybe there should also be farmland surrounding the city.

 

[Eltab]

Hmm, that is a good point. There should be warehouses. As for food, there are nearby forests that should provide plenty of food from hunting. But maybe there should also be farmland surrounding the city.

You could have the space close by be unused because it is still steep hills with the farmland "just off the top of the map". Maybe a cave or two in the hills (for early adventures) and flocks of sheep / cattle / mountain goats graze the hillside. Never mind that goblin chasing the free-range chicken; getting exercise makes the meat taste better.

 

[TarionzCousin]

• A group of animals that look suspiciously like the friends of Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. These are permanently wildshaped druids. Why are they just here? Nobody has ever asked them.

With good reason: those weird animals look terrifying!

 

[Derren]

Hmm, that is a good point. There should be warehouses. As for food, there are nearby forests that should provide plenty of food from hunting. But maybe there should also be farmland surrounding the city.

I doubt that you can sustain a city of that size with hunting alone.
Depending on how large you want it to be you need to have either or both fishing (including a bigger habour or otherwise access to the sea for fisher) and farming communities around the city.

 

[Tonguez]

Your city appears to be a well established religious center with a thriving trading community. So other than having a harbour, where do Pirates fit into the scheme of things?
Are your pirates meant to be illicit criminal scoundrels who will be wanting their nefarious trade hidden from the eyes of Paladins? Where are the hidden piers, coves and caves that the pirates can hide their booty from the customs men? Where is the black market?

Or are your priates intended to be heroic Privateers comissioned by the Basillica to undertake heroic actions at sea? Where then is the Harbour Masters office?

 

[Eltab]

Or are your priates intended to be heroic Privateers comissioned by the Basillica to undertake heroic actions at sea? Where then is the Harbour Masters office?

Letters of Marque? If the Paladins think the applicant is too much of a scoundrel or otherwise untrustworthy, they may assign a Representative to sail with the ship. If the ship comes back later but the Rep does not, everything the crew says (especially the bragging during the drinking) may be used against them ...

Inside joke among regional mariners: a temple city with a harbor exports a lot of Holy Water. (Some of which seems to be firewater mislabeled.)

 

[Tonguez]

Letters of Marque? If the Paladins think the applicant is too much of a scoundrel or otherwise untrustworthy, they may assign a Representative to sail with the ship. If the ship comes back later but the Rep does not, everything the crew says (especially the bragging during the drinking) may be used against them ...

Inside joke among regional mariners: a temple city with a harbor exports a lot of Holy Water. (Some of which seems to be firewater mislabeled.)

having the cities major export being “Holy Water” from the Distilleries of St Lucia, which the PC pirates have to get through the blockades of a neighbouring teetotaler nation would be brilliant

EDIT:
actually that solves the cognitive dissonance of Pirates and Paladins too, perhaps a Petit-forte Lucia is part of a nation which has a peice rety with a larger nation which has put tariff blockades on the Diistiled LIquor - which just happens to be St Lucias major export.
The City needs the export income but cant be seen to be breaking the Treaty, thus the Paladins tolerate Pirate smugglers who can transport the barrels for them