[Mor's End Discussion] Time to open shop!

[Knightfall]

And Thanks Knightfall for collating.

You're velcome!

I did one more but that's it for me tonight. No more typing.

[EDIT}

Ok, now I'm ACTUALLY done!

KF72

 

[starwolf]

So, when did the mercenaries come into the picture?


Well in the early history of the City three guilds became embroiled in a bitter contest over the Clay beds....The Glittering Botherhood wanted complete control over the beds because of the sapphires.
However the Porcelin (sp?) Posse obviously felt the Clay was more important, while the Weavers chaffed at the monoply of the Gem cutters over there needed food source for the worms. Each in turn kept hiring in new muscle to try to force the others out.
The fighting escalated until one day "She" showed up. Now no one knows whether "she" was a leader of a troop, or another force, but in any case, She evidently had a hand in creating the "Code" that colors all activity within the City to this day..

 

[starwolf]

I'm feeling particularly verbose this evening (no coffee needed). So I'm just throwing things at the walls to see if anything sticks.

Trash the word mercenary and replace with the Guild of Guards.
After all if the city is a magnet for caravans, all of those caravans are going to need guards.

As to the Dam...well I was just intrigued by the KnidV's artwork.....it made me think of really massive stonework, which made me think of Hoover Dam. And of course the Guild of Architects would be really just one large clan of Dwarves.

 

[Knightfall]

How about this... there is a local cult to the Holy Grandmother... The patron deity of the city. There are whispers on the streets that the Holy Grandmother "walks among us"... Sightings of the Holy Grandmother are often talked about... but none of the descriptions are ever quite the same.

Sam, how about Holy Matriarch instead of Holy Grandmother.

For local little Gods I'd like to suggestion these options

Lake/River Goddess
God of the Mountain
Biting Insects/Marsh God

Just some ideas...

Ok, now I'm done for the evening.

 

[Conaill]

Also we should be careful about how much of 'EN World' motifs we want to work in.

Here's some other ones that could easily fit into a city setting:

- Officials with a "moderator" title. For example, the mayor could be called the Grand Moderator - an appropriate designation for someone who has to mediate between the mages and the guilds.

- Code of Conduct: perhaps a term for the city's constitution?

- Wackier suggestions: bulletin boards spread throughout the city, on which citizens exchange rumors; the local army is led by General "R.P.G. Discussion"; a mysterious feline pirate plying the waters of the lake; random garden gnome attacks...

ok, I need to get some sleep!

 

[Conaill]

Hmm... Having just bought my DM "A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" from Expeditious Retreat Press for GM's day, it just struck me how useful this booklet would be for a project like this. It's chockfull of information on city layouts, trade, guilds, goverment, magic, etc.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=711

Heck, the entire 3rd chapter is "On the Magical Medieval City"... all 15 closely-spaced pages of it! Then chapter 4 is 13 pages full of tables on "Generating Towns and Cities". This stuff could save us a LOT of work!

I'll see if I can extract some guidelines for a city of our size from the tables. We may also want to get jgbrowning from Expeditious Retreat involved in this project...

 

[Lalato]

Grand Moderator reminds me of Star Wars... Grand Moff Tarkin...

Grand Mod Kulpin

 

[Conaill]

BTW Krug: Have you decided on an exact population size for the city? Right now it says "25,000+ Metropolis". If we get a more exact number, we can use that as guideline for how high in level our top NPCs should be.

E.g. is "Grandma" a 16th level NPC, or an epic level one? How about the mayor? How about the head of the Mage's Guild? Using the demographics from the DMG and "A Magical Medieval Society" we can get some guidelines for those numbers based on the size of the city...

 

[Krug]

BTW Krug: Have you decided on an exact population size for the city? Right now it says "25,000+ Metropolis". If we get a more exact number, we can use that as guideline for how high in level our top NPCs should be.

E.g. is "Grandma" a 16th level NPC, or an epic level one? How about the mayor? How about the head of the Mage's Guild? Using the demographics from the DMG and "A Magical Medieval Society" we can get some guidelines for those numbers based on the size of the city...

Hmm.. how does 10,000 sound? Since EN World is getting its 10k member soon.

I have MMS but haven't had time to look at it. (Story of my PDFs.) So what does the book tell you with a population that size?

A 16th lvel Grandma sounds powerful enough. Armed with the deadly rolling pin of death..

Ok if there are no other objections, Mor's End is the name of the city and Kul Moren the Dwarven settlement, and Enheim the area.
Kul Moren will have a population of about 800, and the fishing village 500. This is so they don't overshadow Mor's End.

(Not that auspicious a name though... why would one call it Mor's End? Or just Mor-En/En-Mor?)

 

[Conaill]

Hmm.. how does 10,000 sound?

Ah! Then we're in the "Small City" category (5000-12000), no longer "Metropolis". That will change things quite a bit...

According to MMS, a Small City has a population density of 80-120 adults/acre, and 40-60 structures/acre. That comes to a total of about 100 acres (less than 1/2 a mile side-to-side!) and ~5000 structures.

For your amusement, also check out Jamis Buck's town generator:

http://www.aarg.net/~minam/towns.cgi?size=6&seed=

Just as an example of what you can do just with the demographics rules from the DMG!