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

[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.