Landmarks, historical events, personalities, and other oddities from your city.

[RangerWickett]

I was just rereading Piratecat's "Look on my mighty works" thread, and realized I could use help along the same lines.

For the ZEITGEIST campaign saga I'm writing up the description of the city that's central to several adventures.

I've already settled on the basics -- a subtropical coastal city, where the mountains near the shore are covered with slums and rainforests, while the wealthy live in the lowlands. While traditional folk druidism holds sway in the rural and poorer areas, a nascent industrial revolution has turned the city's inland lake into a polluted mire as crude factories hem it in.

Huge influxes of farm workers, come to the city in hope of work and the supposed benefits of the steam engine, lead to unorthodox philosophical and art movements as the educated elite mingle with the desperately poor. Smuggling and drug crime plague the slums within the city and the swampy bayous without, while supernatural entities lurk in forests, beneath the waves, and in the shadows cast by billowing smokestacks.



Basically, it's modern Rio de Janeiro crossed with 19th century London and some of my favorite elements from urban fantasy literature. Not quite steampunk, exactly, but with hints of it. So that's the gist of the place. Now what I need help with are the details.

I figure what better place to mine for ideas than the real world. If you've got a favorite landmark, person, historical trivia, or other random interesting thing from your own city (or another city you love), please post it. Maybe fantasy it up a bit.

Atlanta, for instance, has a single mountain just outside the city, where they've carved a massive relief sculpture on one side to commemorate the generals of a war we lost. Every summer there are festivals out there, and they put on big musical numbers with a laser light show. Maybe a fantasy version could instead have a mountain where the generals actually met their end by petrification, and people perform rituals to keep their uneasy spirits from harming the city.

By home town had a tiny museum devoted to firefighters, with the largest fire hydrant in the world out front. We also had a museum to a female golfer/basketballer/track star, and another one devoted to the first fur trader who moved into the area decades before it was ever a real town. These sorts of things could inspire a bevy of random minor locations throughout a city.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help out.

 

[OnlineDM]

I know you have Rio in mind, but I'm also reminded of San Juan, Puerto Rico from a visit I made there last year.

I live outside of Denver now, but I don't know the city that well yet. The only landmark that comes to mind is a giant blue statue of a bear that's set up to be peeking in the windows of a museum downtown.

I previously lived in San Francisco. Some landmarks that might be inspiration-worthy:

• The Golden Gate Bridge, of course. A beautiful feat of functional engineering
• Cable cars that carry passengers up and down incredibly steep hills, pulled by underground machinery
• The Transamerica Pyramid - a tall, skinny pyramidal building
• The Mission District - a part of town where immigrants from another country have settled and thrived. Lots of artwork and food from the other country are available here. It's a poorer area of the city, but lively.
• The Ferry Building - Situated right at the end of Market Street (sort of the city's main street), the building features a big clock tower, lots of shops and restaurants, and of course the ferry terminal itself.
• Alcatraz - An island prison in the middle of the bay. Within sight of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but separated by cold water with nasty currents (though good swimmers can manage the trip).

I could probably go on and on... I think San Francisco has all kinds of things that could be turned into fantasy versions for an urban setting.

 

[Gilladian]

Along the lines of the "almost industrial feel" you seem to be promoting, the city I live in built a low-water dam on the local river. Only it never worked. It took them 40 years to rebuild/replace it with a working dam that actually properly regulates the flow of the river... maybe elementals or other river creatures could be sabotaging the old one?

We have the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame, too. Immortalizing the history of Law Enforcement in the earliest, rowdiest days. Maybe you need your own Ranger equivalent organization, too?

Nothing else comes to mind.

 

[Wik]

I love my city, and, more importantly, my island. A few of the landmarks that spring to mind:

* The West Coast Trail. Originally developed to rescue stranded sailors who had been dashed against the violent reefs of the west coast. It was a series of trails with safety sheds every few hours filled with supplies. the idea was that sailors could use the trail to walk to safety, or hole up in a shed and be rescued by rangers who patrolled it. Nowadays, the trail is a backpacker's heaven, and is one of the most well-known and difficult trails in backpacking circles.

* the guy who dresses like Darth Vader and plays the fiddle. He is probably the most interesting street busker I've ever seen, and peole all over the world mention him when they visit Victoria. Strange, but awesome.

* There's also a nearby island that is accessible only by boaters... I forget the name. Basically, only a few hundred people live on the island, but those who own boats visit it pretty frequently. There's a stairway to the main village from the docks, and the entire stairway is paved from planks from old ships that have washed ashore in the 1800s. In the 1960s onwards, visiters actually started replacing these steps, by carving their names, their ship name, and their home port in the plank before putting it on the step. Now the stairway is filled with a history of the people who have been there.

 

[The Shaman]

My town is known for surfing, stingrays, and the Pacific Electric railroad; it's also home to a national wildlife refuge and a naval weapons station.

 

[Stormonu]

The (small) city I live in is known for its university, and the image of its brick and marble auditorium (with a copper roof) is well-known through the area. Another feature is our rails-to-trail, where an old set of railroad tracks (about 40 miles or so) were turned into a walking trail. For your city, it could be an old mine path (to a played old gold or silver mine) that's become a major trade road because it presents a well-worn path through the jungle.

And if this is based off of Rio, it needs a giant statue (with secret underground catacombs) overlooking the city. Perhaps a statue of a diety or a powerful ancient wizard....

 

[TarionzCousin]

Portland has an extinct volcano within its city limits. It is a city park/reservoir.

 

[El Mahdi]

I've been all over the world, and one of the wierdest places I've ever seen is only about an hour down the road from me (just south of Miami, near Homestead, Florida)...

The_Coral_Castle

I remember seeing a segment about it on That's Incredible! as a kid back in the 80's. As crazy wierd as it looks on the websites, it's a hundred times more strange and surreal in real life. Along with Wikipedia and the official site for the museum, just run a Google search on Coral Castle, and you'll get more webpages and videos about it than you'll ever need.

Coral_Castle_(Official_Site)

 

[Mark CMG]

Giant eyeball sculpture catches our eye » Blog Archive - Seva Canada: A Solution in Sight

 

[Jan van Leyden]

From 1533 to 1535 my home town was the capital of the Wiedertäufer, a rather radical anabaptist sect promoting community instead of private property as well as polygamy.

Münster fell after two years of siege, and three of the head Wiedertäufer were tortured and executed. Their corpses were put in iron cages and displayed on the outside of a church tower.

Even today these three cages hang on the 270' tower, albeit without the corpses.