How large(area) is a settlement of a given population?

[azmodean]

I'm going to be running a game soon where the party is probably going to be attacking a hostile city. What I need to know is what area the city will occupy in order to draw up a rough map of it, plan encounters, etc...

The city in question would be classified as a large town by the DMG random settlement table, with a population of approximately 8,000.

Also I'm interested in any ideas people may have on handling various encounters as the party approaches their targets. Their primary goals will probably be 1. to take out the church of Tyr near the center of the city. 2. weaken the defenses of the city. 3. "sow destruction, fear, and confusion in the general populace.

The party is average lvl 11, they have access to flight and etheralness, and many of them are undead, but immune to turning

My current plan for handling their progress through the city is to make up a random encounter chart for the city and roll once for every few blocks of progress.

The city will be preparing for heavy aerial assault as the party passed through once on the back of a possessed adult blue dragon. Much damage ensued. They won't have the dragon this time, but they might have it's animated skeleton.

 

[The Shaman]

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe includes information on developing the plan of a city, including its footprint - in fact, the free demo download at RPGNow might have that in it as well.

 

[Harmon]

Is the city in a hostile area or relitively a calm no roaming orcs, goblins or what have you, because a hostile area will require a walled city and that means much more compact. If not then it could be a village- twenty buildings (stores, cobblers, blacksmith, etc) surrouned by farms and such.

 

[Hurtfultater]

The size of the town depends on the economics, technology, and magic of the setting. If the city's set up to resist seiges, there is going to be extra space for farmers and stored food.

For encounters, what's the timeframe and ultimate goal?

If I were your players (who are presumably playing evil characters), I'd be tempted to go around the surrounding areas killing off farmers and making an army of the undead for general mischief. Fouling water and food supplies will hurt the city, and doing the general razing and sowing salt routine makes for easy morale damage without attacking the city directly. If the area's a temperate forest, plains area, or (worst case) tallgrass prairie, the players might create wildfires. Tunnelling's an option here, both to sneak into the city and to collapse walls and buildings. The temple, as a food source, hospital, and garrison is the biggest threat, barring a college of magic, a proper castle, or a Tarrasque-themed petting zoo.

You will have raiding parties, probably cleric-heavy. Some of them will be for reconnaisance, and as the players leave survivors, have the following attackers be progressively more adapted for the players.

You can expect allies of the city to come racing in, and any of that dragon's old buddies and thralls might have a bone to pick.

Holy guardians and protective curses will come into effect as the PCs piss off everyone in a 50 mile radius. Partisans are likely. Every defender who's owed a favor will be calling it in, so extraplaner allies may show up.

 

[S'mon]

A medieval city could be up to ca 80,000 people per square mile, so yours might be a tenth of that in area, say 600 yards x 600 yards within the walls.

 

[azmodean]

One, thank you for telling me about A Magical Medieval Society, I've been looking for this book for months now. (I am positively BURNING to install visual studio on my home PC and write up a program to automate the city creation process it presents. Also, I'll probably buy the full pdf before too long.)
Two, I hadn't considered allies, especially extraplanar ones, so thanks for that.
Three, I guess more detail may be warranted.

All of the things Hurtfultater suggests are things my players would be likely to think of, however, the impatient characters slightly outnumber the methodical characters, and they have a patron nation that won't want the land completely destroyed. On the other hand, just last session the death knight suggested parlaying with the rampaging stone giants, so who knows...

The city is walled, extremely walled as a matter of fact. It is the main fortress standing between the patron nation of the party and the nation they are attacking. Therefore it will be slightly more compact than is suggested by A Magical Mediveval Society(MMS). MMS suggests 80 acres for a population of this size, but I'll be reducing that to about 60, and the slums and areas around the main gate were burned down last game. Leaving me with a rather manageable 40 acres or so of city.

Another point, the nation in question(primarilly human btw) has been mobilizing against the party's patron nation (hobgoblin) for about a month now, and this city is one of the main assembly points for the army.

How does one go about raising an undead army anyway? (I started asking the question here, but decided not to hijack my own thread )

I'm also very interested in what defenses a fortress like this might have against ethereal attackers (in general, the inhabitants don't yet know the party can go ethereal).

I expect raiding parties, probably multiple, likely centered around assassination (thankfully the party doesn't have teleport, and won't any time soon)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

MMS:WE is worth every penny. It is one of my favorite books out there for creating a setting. And I have to admit that the free demo did me in... I could have resisted the purchase, but the demo was so darned useful I had to try the rest.

The Auld Grump

 

[Treebore]

Yes, Mag. Med. Soc.: Western Europe is an excellent resource for a DM who actually wants to work out such details for their campaigns.

 

[azmodean]

A question to someone who has the book or the demo chapters. How do you determine how large individual wards are? Is there more information on it in the full book or does it stay very genereal as in the demo?