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How would you make an Epic city?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sollir Furryfoot" data-source="post: 2854842" data-attributes="member: 748"><p>To make Union special and unique as an epic level city, I basically made several merchant type NPCs to populate it with special goods that you couldn't find elsewhere. A lot of them were hard to get a hold of, and the PCs had to make several Gather Information checks while in town to see who they could find. Furthermore, several of the NPCs were regulars, and other ones were only around the area some of the time. As some examples for exotic venders I had</p><p></p><p>Lower Secrecy (Gather info check 20-25):</p><p>-Centaur Druid who crafted infusions and potions of greater potency than those found normally. I.e. 4th-6th level spells.</p><p>-Half-elven cleric, retired adventurer with the ability to cast True Ressurection for a decent price. Pacifistic-type who also carries some standard potions.</p><p>-Planar rogue informant with access to lots of rumors/information</p><p>-Relatively new Charm & Curse shop with an Ettin sorcerer as the owner, each of its heads being in charge of a different aspect of the store.</p><p></p><p>Moderate Secrecy (Gather info check 30-35):</p><p>-Telepath with the ability to let PCs rearrange skills and feats for a decent price.</p><p>-Mad Scientist type who sold Grafts/Symbiotes (Fiend Folio, etc..)</p><p>-Loremaster, standard sage to give advice. Ability to scribe scrolls of non-offensive abilities.</p><p>-Taskmaster who buys/sells outsiders/undead, etc...</p><p>-Artificer, standard arms/armor merchant who could take requests (something not usually done by magic item makers in town)</p><p>-Fame shop, run by bards with access to plane shift. They could spin tales of the PC's exploits into even more daring stories of bravery and courage and subtlely introduce these stories/songs/etc... into other Prime material planes...for a price of course <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>-Ethergaunt (Fiend Folio) antique dealer dealing with goods turned ethereal, making them much harder to steal. His shop would be empty at first glance, but seeing-eye gems enchanted with See Invisible would be given to guests who wanted to procure items. Might have some ties in with Ethereal filchers seen about.</p><p></p><p>Higher Secrecy (Gather info check 40-45):</p><p>-A night hag who could trade out (Su) or (Sp) type abilities the PCs had, accepting cash as well (generally she got the better deal). Magic item equivalents such as a cloak of displacement would cost twice as much as the original item to make it slotless as a rule of thumb, and then some more to keep everything balanced.</p><p>-A half-fey smithy who could create powerful amulets/weapons tied directly to their owners, only he accepted their lifeblood in exchange (Permanent, incurable Con damage). Only the owner's blood would work, as the weapons were tied to their owners. They came in three types, costing 4 con (lesser), 6 con (moderate), and 8 con (graeter/suicidal), respectively. The weapons would be tailored to the person and among other unique powers, would be summonable, indestructable (as long as the PC was alive), and could pierce several types of damage reduction. ~Idea stolen from Saga Frontier.</p><p>-Gargoyle rogue with access to a black market of sorts (based off of the given character in the ELH, but with more resources).</p><p></p><p>Beyond being merchants, a few of these creatures had their hands tied in other aspects of the 'verse, with the PCs interacting with some of those elements. The higher secrecy merchants were especially shady and rightly so, the PCs would eventually fight villains that had inappropriate Su/Sp-like abilities and I planned for the monk who traded out a lot of his abilities find that those same abilities would come back to haunt him (the special abilities being more effective on their original owner).</p><p></p><p>As to actually enforcing the city's laws, I explained to the PCs through a recently acquired wizard cohort of theirs that the city used all maners of divinations each day to weed out trouble, and had special task forces (including Mithril golems) to take care of problems. Violence of all sorts was illegal in the city, along with several other potential crimes. The PCs were given a long list of crimes and their penalties. Furthermore, there was a dimensional lock on most of the city making it harder to get around and also escape should some crime have been committed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sollir Furryfoot, post: 2854842, member: 748"] To make Union special and unique as an epic level city, I basically made several merchant type NPCs to populate it with special goods that you couldn't find elsewhere. A lot of them were hard to get a hold of, and the PCs had to make several Gather Information checks while in town to see who they could find. Furthermore, several of the NPCs were regulars, and other ones were only around the area some of the time. As some examples for exotic venders I had Lower Secrecy (Gather info check 20-25): -Centaur Druid who crafted infusions and potions of greater potency than those found normally. I.e. 4th-6th level spells. -Half-elven cleric, retired adventurer with the ability to cast True Ressurection for a decent price. Pacifistic-type who also carries some standard potions. -Planar rogue informant with access to lots of rumors/information -Relatively new Charm & Curse shop with an Ettin sorcerer as the owner, each of its heads being in charge of a different aspect of the store. Moderate Secrecy (Gather info check 30-35): -Telepath with the ability to let PCs rearrange skills and feats for a decent price. -Mad Scientist type who sold Grafts/Symbiotes (Fiend Folio, etc..) -Loremaster, standard sage to give advice. Ability to scribe scrolls of non-offensive abilities. -Taskmaster who buys/sells outsiders/undead, etc... -Artificer, standard arms/armor merchant who could take requests (something not usually done by magic item makers in town) -Fame shop, run by bards with access to plane shift. They could spin tales of the PC's exploits into even more daring stories of bravery and courage and subtlely introduce these stories/songs/etc... into other Prime material planes...for a price of course :) -Ethergaunt (Fiend Folio) antique dealer dealing with goods turned ethereal, making them much harder to steal. His shop would be empty at first glance, but seeing-eye gems enchanted with See Invisible would be given to guests who wanted to procure items. Might have some ties in with Ethereal filchers seen about. Higher Secrecy (Gather info check 40-45): -A night hag who could trade out (Su) or (Sp) type abilities the PCs had, accepting cash as well (generally she got the better deal). Magic item equivalents such as a cloak of displacement would cost twice as much as the original item to make it slotless as a rule of thumb, and then some more to keep everything balanced. -A half-fey smithy who could create powerful amulets/weapons tied directly to their owners, only he accepted their lifeblood in exchange (Permanent, incurable Con damage). Only the owner's blood would work, as the weapons were tied to their owners. They came in three types, costing 4 con (lesser), 6 con (moderate), and 8 con (graeter/suicidal), respectively. The weapons would be tailored to the person and among other unique powers, would be summonable, indestructable (as long as the PC was alive), and could pierce several types of damage reduction. ~Idea stolen from Saga Frontier. -Gargoyle rogue with access to a black market of sorts (based off of the given character in the ELH, but with more resources). Beyond being merchants, a few of these creatures had their hands tied in other aspects of the 'verse, with the PCs interacting with some of those elements. The higher secrecy merchants were especially shady and rightly so, the PCs would eventually fight villains that had inappropriate Su/Sp-like abilities and I planned for the monk who traded out a lot of his abilities find that those same abilities would come back to haunt him (the special abilities being more effective on their original owner). As to actually enforcing the city's laws, I explained to the PCs through a recently acquired wizard cohort of theirs that the city used all maners of divinations each day to weed out trouble, and had special task forces (including Mithril golems) to take care of problems. Violence of all sorts was illegal in the city, along with several other potential crimes. The PCs were given a long list of crimes and their penalties. Furthermore, there was a dimensional lock on most of the city making it harder to get around and also escape should some crime have been committed. [/QUOTE]
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