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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 2810995" data-attributes="member: 2">Man, I can't do this. Every time I try, it always seems boring and generic to me. I think I have an intrinsic need to associate stories with places in my campaign world, and so I just can't breath life into anything unless I can think of something cool that differentiates it from other places. I'm jealous of people who can.-- o --For instance? Right now I want to create a unique-feeling city in my game that the PCs have never even heard of. I have a name - "Tikritt" - and a feel. I want it to be a big dark city, someplace that they can have chases across huge sooty ziggurats while temple bells toll the time (and the upcoming sacrifices of the heathen infidels.)  So what might this place be like? Let's say that the buildings tend to have tall arched ceilings, and we'll put in lots and lots of gems, crystal windows and huge crystal sculptures outside that catch the light. Maybe the crystal sculptures are also monuments to the Gods - we'll have to see. But if there is crystal there should be both sand and light, so we'll set the city at the edge of a desert in the southweest of my main continent (far from the PCs' home.)  Probably a big river connects the city with the sea, and much of their income comes from slavery and the glassworks that belch filth into the sky.Belch filth into the sky? That means that there are probably a whole lot of druids who have declared vendetta against the city. We'll make them desert druids, and this means that the only people who go into the desert are well-armed hunting parties. Being a druid is a capital crime here; that extends to worshipping a nature god. Perhaps these are the "infidels" who are occasionally sacrificed.  And if I'm going to have a lot of gems, maybe the main slave population is gnomes who are forced to mine tirelessly in the gem mines outside the city. I should pick the city's patron God(s), though - they'll really define a lot of the architecture and the city's feel. If I don't have a God of industry, for instance, I can create one as an aspect of an existing God.I want clearly defined social classes, so we'll borrow a page from India's culture and create thinly disguised versions of the Unclean, who handle the dead and sewage, as opposed to the many ranks of middle and upper classes. There will be groups of beggars, of thieves, but also glittering balls full of high class citizens who dance the nights away. Drug use will be rampant, liquor will be unique and spicy. A doomsday cult wearing white robes fills the streets, each member prophesizing the end of the world, and strange animals - shall we say big beetles? - drag carts and sledges through the city streets.Okay, fine. With this I can easily fake it if the PCs come a-calling, and I could set an adventure here with brand new PCs with no problem whatsoever. If the city were going to be a major center of my game, I'd specify certain ruling families and their neighboring countries. I probably won't need to do that, though. When I need Tikritt I'll just think "ziggurats, beetles, glass" and I'll have a shorthand that will allow my players to easily remember this place.</blockquote>

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