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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hand of Evil" data-source="post: 6817831" data-attributes="member: 371">Start with the name and any titles it has, it may have many; example, The Capital, The City of Boats, The Gateway City, The City of Adventure, The City of Rats, etc.  Next start with the reason the city is there.  Mining, port, gateway, trade, etc.  Next create a time line, just showing the highlight events.  Started as a pirate port, took over by X, major flood in X, rebuild period, etc. Break down the city into wards and districts.  You can have a number of these that reside with in wards, like Halfling town may be a number of blocks within the merchant quarter.  Power groups, who runs or controls the parts of the city.  Landmarks - these are common items that you can refer to that the players should know.  The fish market, the statue of X, the Temple of X, each area should have at least one. Smells and appearance - think of this as the Charisma of the districts and wards, matter of fact you may want to make a stat for it.  Use this to describe the area to the players.  The smell of piss and waste in the streets, the broken down and unpainted buildings, etc.  City Flow - when does some parts of the city comes alive and when does it sleep?  When are people paid?  When are good smuggled in and out?  Just note or chart events out, things like; time the fishing fleet goes out and comes back, workers go to work and when they go home, how often there is a murder or a rape or a noted mugging, or a house fire, gang fights.  Some of there will be random events but makes for gossip!Gossip, the news of the day.  This will be part of every day conversation, people will be talking about it, think about and it should be presented to the players, you then can slip plot hooks into it.  Some people say cities have alignments, I like to give them to the wards and districts.  All my players know that the part of town called Black Wash is CE where as the Market is NG and the Temple is LN.Note, stat blocking the wards and districts: use CR for the danger level, CHR for its look and appearance, and alignment for its nature.  Flow is when the area comes alive with activity.  Black Wash is CR 6 - CHR 5 - CE - Flow: dusk to 2 AM.</blockquote>

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