How would you make an Epic city?

[domino]

Simple enough question. Someone posted another thread asking about what was wrong with Union, the Epic version of Sigil. 15th level cooks in the stores, 18th level guards.

How would you do it right? Mithril Golems manning the streets? A verdant paradise with each person's garden always fully ready for harvest through some high level druidry? Or maybe it is the city of masters. You would have the 15th level cook, who makes food for gods and demigods. A military run by men who don't really need an army backing them up in the first place.

What kind of person would have that much power, and knowledge, and just live in a city? Or would they go out, and just use the city as a base while they travel the planes for treasure, adventure, and challenges?

What do you think?

 

[Razz]

I agree, the city of Union seems like a such a silly idea of how a city would be run by such epic characters.

Though, the multiverse is infinite. It's had infinite time to gather like-minded individuals of epic power who want to run such a city. But then, that would only work for a few generations. Eventually, the children of these people and their ancestors would be level 1 characters, unless they're spitting out 10th-level newborns.

I always thought Sigil was epic in scope, but not on the level of Union. Sigil has characters ranging from the weakest, primordial ooze seeping out of a portal to mighty demonic beings and angels, run by an enigmatic being known as the Lady of Pain who keeps the perfect balance maintained in the city. Union always came off as just...everything gone wrong.

I'd say Union belongs as an alternate, parallel universe sort of plane where legendary power, strength, and charm rules all and such and such. W/E

Union sucks. lol

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ordinary people are still going to be ordinary people. You won't see level 21 commoners pushing the nightsoil carts through town; they'll still be level 1 or 2.

I'd just have things scale up much, much higher. Perhaps the city's warlord is level 30 and has a pact with a group of dragons, so dragons and dragon-related beings are a common sight above the city and (in polymorphed form) in town.

I'd also have to have a reason for it to be epic. Perhaps its a guardpost watching over a Mordor/Iuz-style region where having super tough forces on site is a necessity.

 

[Psion]

I sort of touched on this in said thread. As I said there, I see a city policed by Golems of great power modelled after Klatuu of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

As long as we are pulling from classic SF for inspiration, anyone remember "Forbidden Planet"?

[sblock]
In it, the crew of a proto-enterprise style ship captained by Leslie Nelson lands on a planet that is almost abandoned save for one scientist and his daughter. I'll leave the bit plot thread out, but a premise is this: beneath the world is a huge set of machines powered by huge reactors that granted the every whim of a long vanished race called the Krell.
[/sblock]

Now imagine, if you will, a powerful living race like the krell... endowed with mighty magical and psionic power, floating quitly above the street, aloof and incommunicado with the populace that they reside over.

Just a few ideas. Another place I would draw inspiration is the great cities of Rifts Atlantis, in which humans are peripheral; dragons and servitor races prowl the street, and the city is ruled by a race called the Splugorth, great tentacled lovecraftian entities with immense power.

 

[domino]

I sort of touched on this in said thread. As I said there, I see a city policed by Golems of great power modelled after Klatuu of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

That's basically what led to me thinking about it, and the golem thing.

 

[green slime]

Well, that depends.

I base my campaign's largest city on Rome. A sprawling metropolis in the centre of a large Empire. Much of the area covering the Emperor's palace and senate is in the middle of a huge permanent Magically Dead area. The Guards of the Emperor are hand-picked centurions, veterans of the war against the Evil Necromancer (2000 year-old, 60th level Lich) to the East, and so are Epic or near epic level.

Obviously every city needs a spread of character levels. You just need to motivate why such a large number of a certain Epic types are present within the city. The low-Epic Wizards are arcanologists of the School of Wizardry, guiding the wizardry efforts in creating new spells and forging items to support the armies in the field.

Such a city encompasses such as would be seen in any city: both the very, very, very rich and the very poor. While there may be some attempts to improve the lot of the poor, the enormous numbers (attracted from the entire empire), prevent any real meaningful improvement in their lives.

 

[Darkwolf445]

I am actually working up a near epic scale city. By the time the characters reach it they will be 15th level. The idea was similar to Skullport from the Realms, where a city lies hidden in a vast labyrinth. In my situation the city is the center of a kingdom ruled by one or more dragons. Many, but not all inhabitants are dragon worshippers and dragon-type beings (Draconians imported from Krynn, races of the dragon stuff, and some ideas from Dragon Mountain), but the others are normal, albeit not human, humanoids. The only way, other than magic, to enter the city is to progress through the labyrinth or from lower reaches of the underearth realms. I figure it is going to be a major trade center for underearth races with a mix of good/evil factions vying for (secret society type) control.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I run Sanction in DL as a quasi-epic city. More than a thousand draconians (century-old veterans of 3 major wars) set the baseline for "hardcase" at around CR12. I've got an ancient red wyrm as ruler and a brood of status-hungry offspring.

It's epic-Mordor rather than epic-Myth Drannor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's epic-Mordor rather than epic-Myth Drannor.

Nice! That also nicely fits the setting into the standard D&D scheme of things: "Oh, you want to know what's the toughest stuff around to go fight? Here, on the map."

 

[domino]

"Here there be Dragons. But if you want a real challenge..."