How would you make a canal city work as a fantasy RPG setting?

[jdrakeh]

There's a really neat adventure by Kabuki Kaiser called Flower Liches of the Dragonboat Festival that takes place in a canal city. It's essentially a race through the city judged by the titular Flower Liches. The prizes are riches and fame. The losers win only death.

 

[RobJN]

Glantri City, from Mystara, is also a canal city and has its own setting book.

There is also extensive -- and I do mean extensive -- fan work fleshing out Glantri City.

 

[Voadam]

It could have a history of being designed to defend against vampires.

Or it could have a secret vampire prison where the canals are the prison walls.

Or it could enable actually using the vampire running water weakness.

 

[amethal]

The Lies of Locke Lamora takes place in a canal city - it's an excellent read in any case, but it would be worthwhile for mining for RPG ideas as well.

Johnathan

I also thoroughly recommend that book.

It's certainly the best book I've ever read for insults which canal users might hurl as they cut each other up in traffic (unless the bit about "and your cows look so disappointed" was in one of the sequels?)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Canal cities look cool, but are they suitable for fantasy RPG settings?

Is there a way to have extensive dungeons?

What sort of basic setting assumptions follow from having a canal city?

Are there things having a canal city would enable? Are there things it would limit?

I don’t see why you can’t have one as they exist in real life. I would probably research real world canal settlements and incorporate the logic behind them as well as you can. I would also think a canal system would work very well as an explanation for the presence of dungeons in the area.

I am sure there are plenty of benefits but water access to the whole city would definitely probably impact things like trade. You may s as Leo have pretty advanced water engineering around it (including things like the ability to manipulate water levels and clever water gate systems). i would think flooding would be a downside

 

[dragoner]

15th century Venice is an awesome setting, plus there is apocalyptic Fall Of Constantinople. All around are the ruins of Rome too, Old Town Split Croatia was built inside an old palace: Diocletian's Palace - Wikipedia

edit: here is also a good map of the area: Explore this Fascinating Map of Medieval Europe

 

[Umbran]

It's very immersive.

Well, yes, if a lot of it was under water, it would be...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, yes, if a lot of it was under water, it would be...

 

[Umbran]

15th century Venice is an awesome setting...

Though, a note - Venice proper, the place we always think of with Saint Mark's, the Grand Canal, the Rialto Bridge, and the Doge's Palace is probably smaller than folks think. It is about 2.75 miles long, and 1.6 miles wide. There's also bunch of stuff on the nearby islands spread across the Venetian Lagoon that is part of the municipality, but much of it is 5+ miles away over open water. You'd not be taking gondolas between them.

For comparison, Manhattan is like 10 miles long and over 2 miles wide.

 

[Mad_Jack]

One general thing to remember about canal cities is that they don't necessarily need to be sitting out in open water, or even be stationary - a canal city sitting in the middle of a huge swamp or salt marsh would have an entirely different feel than one like Venice (especially if you go for an older or less technologically advanced feel), and you could also have an "island" canal city that's not actually anchored to the bottom of the water below it - maybe it actually floats around on a natural or magical current... Having an adventure to try to stop some villain from cutting or blowing up the huge iron cables that temporarily (or permanently) anchor the city in place would be cool.

On a different note - what if your canal city wasn't just built on top of older structures from a few decades or centuries earlier in the same city's history? What if it sits on top of an even older city (or cities) that also sank?

Random thought - what if the original city was actually built on the sea bottom by an aquatic people who just kept building and building until they hit the surface? And then land-dwellers eventually came and lived in their abandoned (?) city, and as the crushing pressures of the sea depths eventually began crumbling the lowest levels of the aquatic city and the whole thing began slowly sinking over the millennia the land-dwellers simply began building more and more buildings on top of the old ones, thus making the whole thing sink even faster?

And tying that back to the first thought about the floating city - what if the city wasn't originally built as a floating city? And whatever used to be underneath it is simply gone? (What happened to it? Why does the remaining city float?)

 

[Faolyn]

Canal cities look cool, but are they suitable for fantasy RPG settings?

Is there a way to have extensive dungeons?

What sort of basic setting assumptions follow from having a canal city?

Are there things having a canal city would enable? Are there things it would limit?

Perhaps there are places where the buildings are close enough together that their attics and crawlspaces are connected--or there are buildings between other buildings that have been boarded up and forgotten. With spells or the right sort of soundproofing (or high enough stealth skills), creatures could live in those areas without the humanoid inhabitants being any the wiser.

There could be areas underneath the buildings that are half-submerged that have been claimed as dungeons.

There could be caves under the water.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

One general thing to remember about canal cities is that they don't necessarily need to be sitting out in open water, or even be stationary - a canal city sitting in the middle of a huge swamp or salt marsh would have an entirely different feel than one like Venice (especially if you go for an older or less technologically advanced feel), and you could also have an "island" canal city that's not actually anchored to the bottom of the water below it - maybe it actually floats around on a natural or magical current... Having an adventure to try to stop some villain from cutting or blowing up the huge iron cables that temporarily (or permanently) anchor the city in place would be cool.

I think some of the Thousand Thousand Island settlements work like this.

 

[Faolyn]

Or it could have a secret vampire prison where the canals are the prison walls.

Ooh... or, honestly, any sort of eldritch aquatic creature where the canals are the walls.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ooh... or, honestly, any sort of eldritch aquatic creature where the canals are the walls.

Having an aboleth be a singular BBEG imprisoned this way is a pretty obvious place to start.

 

[aco175]

e) Where do all the dead bodies go?

First thoughts on a canal city in a RPG- LakeTown

Games Workshop sells this.

Some other thoughts on the feel of the city. I can see many bridges connecting the upper floors of buildings and maybe sidewalks surrounding the upper floors. Maybe shops are on the second floor and work is done on the lower level where cargo can be unloaded. I also see cranes for cargo that hang over the canals.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

e) Where do all the dead bodies go?

Venice has a very famous flooded catacomb (probably more than one, honestly). But New Orleans' response to having a high water table is to mostly have above-ground tombs.

I think the answer is probably "why not both?" Both offer different RPG opportunities.

I ran a memorable adventure where my players had to escape through a largely flooded cave system where there wasn't always air to breathe while pursued by the undead. The combination of pursuers, a lack of light and regular periods where their characters had to hold their breath scared the bejesus out of my players and was a great time.

 

[Voadam]

The canals could be laid out to form an elaborate sigil.

Either a warding sigil to keep something imprisoned, or an eldritch sigil to make some specific magical effect. The idea of gondolas traversing the canals generating mana is kind of neat.

 

[Aldarc]

Also when it comes to a fantasy city of canals, how did we not mention this historical city?

Also in World of Warcraft, there is the magical nightborne elf city of Suramar, which has canals and gondolas all over the place.

You could also make such a city with vertical layers. So not only are there the water canals, there may be leyline canals in the sky that permit floating islands above everyone else with sky gondolas.

 

[gamerprinter]

I think the City of Kasai, part of the Dragon Empires of Paizo's Golarion world setting, which I was hired in 2013 to create a map of, for use in The Empty Throne module of the Jade Regent Adventure Path (and I wrote the city of Kasai Gazetteer), is definitely a canal city, which I borrowed concepts from both feudal Osaka and Tokyo maps from the 18th century. Now I only created the linework version of the city with over 8500 hand-drawn buildings, but nothing was added or removed in the final map published by Paizo... Since it was published, this counts, right?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My fingers are cramping just thinking about drawing all of those buildings.