Help me if you can

[Holy Bovine]

Help me with a 'Different' City design!

I was hoping someone might have a good resource for a problem I've run into.

I am running a campaign in the Scarred Lands and the PC's are about to enter Khirdet, the home of the Druids of that world. My problem is I have the Druids living in a 'city' within the Stricken Forest (this may not be canon but that doesn't really matter) and i don't know what this 'city' should look like.

Anyone out there have a good online or print RPG resource that would provide a reasonalbe map for a city inhabited almost solely by Druids? I use the term city very loosely as I don't think Druids would build town walls, towers and such but there are a lot of Druids living in the Stricken Forest so they must have some kind of central meeting place. Also these Druids are very militaristis and waged war on just about everyone about 60 years in the past - they lost and were driven back into the Stricken Forest.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[EricNoah]

for some reason I'm envisioning little "Yoda huts" in a swamp. Sorry, nothing more coming to mind!

 

[Henry@home]

WARNING: Nightfall is the best resource for this, and I hope he sees it. I have never played Scarred Lands, but I can try to give you some advice, based on what you have told me of them.

Militant Druids, huh? I will assume these are "traditional" D&D druids. Think "elven city." Think very open air, homes GROW INTO trees more than built around them, think of wide open courtyards with beautiful views of the sky, and ritual stone circles are various locations of the city. There should be indicators throughout that city - no matter where you are - you would be able to tell the EXACT time of year, due to sundials, appropriately-placed stones, and so forth. You couldn't go 100 paces in that city and NOT know when midsummer night was.

Defenses should be all-natural. Extremely thick and Intelligent walls of thorns that can attack intruders attempting to go over them. Guardian animals are everywhere, serving as both pets and a primary and secondary line of defense. There should be plants grown and trimmed INTO table and chair shapes, and there shouldn't be a lick of dead wood in the place, except for limited supplies of natural deadwood used as fire fuel when winter comes.

Justice should be swift, harsh, and based on natural laws of territory and ownership, with a recognized central authority that governs the city.

Good luck, and I hope some of these ideas proved useful.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Wow. Those are some great ideas there Henry@home. I never considered that the Druids would have a strong interest in the time of year but it only makes sense now. The furnishing growing out of living wood - and the lack of dead wood except for fire fuel - that's really useful stuff. Thanks very much.

Eric Noah - that is actually more useful than you probably think as this Druid city will have a 'slum' district where Druids who don't tow the line as far as what the High Druid wants end up. 'Yoda huts' would be perfect for them!

Thanks so much for the feedback and if anyone else has more ideas keep 'em coming!

 

[EricNoah]

Oooh, maybe a hedge maze ... that moves around a bit...

 

[Piratecat]

What our divine bovine neglected to mention is that the druids of Khet are eeevil and cannibalistic, worshipping the titan of serpents and hags! Thus, since my PCs are mucking about the same area, I'd like to offer....

Khirdet.

The trees aren't dead, but they twist like screaming corpses, reaching anguished limbs toward the sky.

After the flesh is stripped from the druids' victims, their bones are placed over branches. Over the years, the trees have grown up and partially over the bones, leaving elven skeletons half-buried in the trees. Not all the elves have finished dying.

Outside the city proper is a small marketplace. Small and wheedling titan-spawn sell sharp knives, cleavers, blade sharpeners, and flensing equipment. The tents of the merchants are weathered and patched, but their business flourishes.

Snakes dangle from the trees, a sacred animal that none must kill on pain of being consumed alive at feast. They slither and wriggle across the path, supernaturally wise in the ebbing radiance of Mormo.

The buildings hang suspended from the trees, seemingly impossibly balanced between weak and ill branches... but a building will never fall from its perch. The trees know what would happen to them if they let a building drop. The building are more like wicker cages than proper houses, assembled nest-like from brambles, branches, thorns, and favored bones.

This is Khirdet.

 

[Piratecat]

I forgot to ask - why in the world would anyone want to go visit the cannibalistic druids of Khet? These guys are bad news, chock-a-block full of hags and asaathians and High Gorgons, cruel and deadly. You can be sure they sharpen their teeth. Yikes - I'd hate to be the one who had to go pay a social call on them!

My PCs are in Amalthea to the East, the city which the druids of Khirdet (and their army of titan-spawn) tried to wipe out sixty years ago. I love the Scarred Lands!

Meta note: You'll always get a better response if your subject line is specific, such as "Tell me about a militaristic druidic city!", than if you just ask for help.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Well, uh that's certainly graphic!

In the campaign I'm running I've set the Druids up a little more sympathic and xenophobic. I don't remember reading that they were cannabalistic though! Is this from the books or your own flavouring?

I have the Druids as originally worshipping Denev (the 'good' titan) but have since come under the power of factions of hags trying to reassemble Mormo's body. These factions have their own 'front men' in Khirdet proper and have been leading the bulk of the Druid population away from Denev and into Mormo's hands.

I know I'm taking a lot of liberties with the Druids as such but it fits with overall story arc I've built up. The PCs have been chasing a transformed piece of Mormo's carcass across Ghelspad and even other planes of exisitance (this campaign started in Forgotten Realms!).

The Druids of Khirdet (in my version) have also come under the effects of mysterious plague that is a direct result of the hags attempts to reassemble Mormo. The PCs were drawn to Khirdet because of this plague and think that the Druids are just a misunderstood group that made some bad choices in the past (in truth I am cultivating this as I have a small Druid enclave living away from the city proper that is fleeing the tyranny that resides in Khirdet now (like it wasn't there before!)

The actual climax of the campaign is very close and will take place in a ruined city just to the south of Khirdet (I'm actually using the setting from module I1 Dwellers of the Fobidden City and populating it with titanspawn, the hag covey and even a Woodwrack Dragon or enormous size - may sound like overkill but my PCs have wiped the floor with monsters that should have killed them!

Oh yeah I posted under the title I did because some of my players frequent this board and I didn't want to give away any details of the city just yet.

 

[Piratecat]

Wow, do you have a different take on them than I do! That's the cool thing about D&D: same material, two campaigns, two totally different interpretations. The cannibal aspect is discussed several times in the Ghelspad Gazetteer and the hard-bound books, where they're pretty clearly described as the bad guys. But hey... maybe it's just bad press from their enemies? *grin*

I wish you could have heard me laugh when I read "the Druids are just a misunderstood group that made some bad choices in the past." They're so nasty in my game, you can imagine the jokes that statement conjured up.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Oh believe me the Druids are still very nasty in my campaign too (just not cannabalistic). A very few Druids are trying to reestablish Denev as the predominate worship but most Druids are going along with the high Druid and the Mormo cult. The 'misunderstood' aspect is just what my players think.

There are forts and Vigilants all around the Stricken Forest trying to keep tabs on the Druids but few are having any luck (mostly they are there to keep people away from Khirdet - I have most all NPC's speak of the Druids in fearful and hateful tones - oddly this has only reinforced the PCs belief that the Druids are misunderstood and really nice people at heart)

Thanks again for all the input guys - you've really got my creative juices flowing again - time to create worlds!!