Looking for a good ruined city adventure setting

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'll second Dwellers of the Forbidden City. Jester forgot to mention the Tasloi and Mongrelmen. They're in there, too.

If you don't mind converting, there is plenty to excite your imagination.

http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/TSR/TSR9046_500.jpeg

 

[el-remmen]

I'll second Dwellers of the Forbidden City.

And I'll third it.

 

[vectner]

I'm running a 3.5 version of Dwellers of the Forbidden City right now. The maps are excellent, and there is a lot you can do with it. The module itself is a bit lacking in details, but you can work up the city into what ever power struggle you want.

I turned the wizard Horan into a drow who uses the lesser beings in the city to run raids and made the Yuan-ti a powerful opposition to him as they use the city resources to try and rebuild their empire. I also added a pair of black dragons in the swamp, the pang lung was a bit "eh". anyway, I love this city and you can plop it down anywhere in your campaign world. A jungle region is best, but any place could work.

 

[catsclaw227]

Oathbound had Wrack & Ruin, which is basically a huge city built on ruin after ruin after ruin. That might spawn some ideas.

 

[jdsivyer]

I'd go with the old 1e module Dwellers in the Forbidden City. Evocative, full of weird, new (at the time) creatures, with multiple different 'zones' for encounters, etc. It's great, and brought D&D such luminaries as the yuan ti, aboleth and bullywug.

Definitely! I have used this module for every edition of D&D, from 1st ed up until now. Every time I think of something different to do with it. It's good some great encounters, interesting and unusual ways of tackling things, including traps and obstacles...very cool indeed, one of my all-time faves!

It's not a huge place like some of the others mentioned in here, but it will give you a few sessions (at least) of some rather wicked gaming

 

[Korgoth]

I'd go with the old 1e module Dwellers in the Forbidden City. Evocative, full of weird, new (at the time) creatures, with multiple different 'zones' for encounters, etc. It's great, and brought D&D such luminaries as the yuan ti, aboleth and bullywug.

Good call! My first thought on reading the thread title.

 

[jdrakeh]

Before I forget, if you simply want excellent maps that you can populate/customize yourself, check out the Ruined Town series from 0One Games. It's cheap, crazy functional, easy to print, and easy to populate (plus, it's expandable via other blueprints).

 

[Old_school_overlord]

Parlainth is thematically tied very strongly to the earthdawn setting - the city was transported to a pocket dimension for several hundred years to enable it to wait out The Scourge in comfort (this failed rather spectacularly).

The city has a small corner that has been cleared and walled off from the rest of the ruins - this has a detailed level of development with NPCs, and locations. It is very much a settlement of semi-retired adventurers.

The city is infested with lingering Horrors, if your not playing Earthdawn, your players will probably need a bit of backstory as to why these powerful entities are spending so much effort simply on their malice.

I'd also like to note the box set comes with a wonderfully wretched "map" drawn by the combined efforts of the settlement's adventurers - it really does look like what your players would end up with after 20 or so expeditions.

 

[grodog]

Another possibility is the Lost City of Gaxmoor, published by TLG and currently on sale for $1 on their site. Like I1, Gaxmoor was originally set in Greyhawk (in case that's of any interest). I'll second the recommendations of Pavis/Big Rubble, and also mention Caverns of Thracia---while the ruined city environs are tiny in comparison to the dungeons below, they're definitely fun (and it was converted to 3.0 by Necromancer Games some years ago).

Another fun possibility is to take a city that the players know---real world or from gaming supplements---and to key a ruined version of it. When they find things they recognize, it's always fun ("hey, wait, I just found this sign with a green dragon on it, we must be in Greyhawk City!" ).

 

[Darrin Drader]

Oathbound had Wrack & Ruin, which is basically a huge city built on ruin after ruin after ruin. That might spawn some ideas.

A most excellent suggestion, that one. I hear the lead designer is quite talented.

Another suggestion is Ruins of Adventure. That's right - first edition, Forgotten Realms, and based on the first gold box D&D game. It's not a modern supplement, but it's quite a good one. I launched two campaigns with that module back in the day. Good times and worth the price for the download. RPGNow.com - Wizards of the Coast - Ruins of Adventure