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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 1275585" data-attributes="member: 7177"><a href="http://juergen.the-huberts.net/dnd/urbis/index.html" target="_blank">Urbis</a> is all about cities, and I try to make each and every city unique and memorable. A few examples:    Gigam (Small city, 60,312): Two hundred years ago, the shifting sands of the Desert of Thunder revealed the cyclopean ruins of an ancient city of unknown origin. Shortly afterwards, several highly productive wells were discovered there, and the resettlement began in earnest. Still, even today, only a small portion of the city is truely inhabited again, and explorers manage to find an ancient artifact now and then despite generations of looters.    The most striking feature of Gigam are the ubiquetous lion statues, which range from small figurines to a giant crouching lion more than two hundred yards long. Defacing the lions is said to bring terribly bad luck, but some outsiders claim that the "bad luck" in question is nothing more than the retribution of a local lion-worshipping cult.    Medras (Small Metropolis, 562,932): This ancient city was the center of several death and funeral cults in the days of the Atalan Empire. Therefore it had sprawling underground catacombs when the Eternal Storm broke loose. When the surface was ravaged, most inhabitants retreated beneath the surface - and have stayed there ever since.    Today, Medras is the largest permanent settlement in the region, and serves as its unofficial capital. Its inhabitants have expanded ever further downwards to expand their living space, and their tunnels reach all the way into the Underdark. Most prospectors come here to sell their finds, restock their supplies - and spend the rest of their money in the city's casinos and brothels.    Bodenwald (Metropolis, 1,837,284): In Bodenwald, the Astromantic Society was founded, and the city still serves as its headquarters. Thus, Bodenwald serves as the center of most activities involving the exploration and colonization of other planets, and many people who hope to start over on a new world come here. The city has become rich by trading exotic goods and minerals from the colonies, and its zoological gardens, which feature many creatures from other worlds, attract many scholars.    Markub (Large City, 341,782): This city is famous for its glass blowers. Its glasses, lenses, and colored window plates are renowned the world over, and always fetch high prices.    To the citizens of Markub, however, this is only a secondary concern. Their pride and joy is the Observatory, an array of giant telescopes on the mountain above the city. The dry air and the high quality of the lenses used in their construction allows viewers to see other planets as if they were close by. Most citizens of Gol Algor, and many other gnomes and dwarves from all over Rothea travel to this observatory at least once in their lives to marvel at it. A strange sect of predominantly gnomish priests controls access to the telescopes, and recruits from promising pilgrims.    Bagrash (Small City, 56,335): This unique city is located directly on the acid waters of the Molten Lake. It consists of a large number of floating metal barges that are connected by walways and rope bridges. Its unique location and flexible structure (the barges can be moved very easily from one location to another) make the city highly defensible and more than make up for the city's dependency on imports. As a result, Bagrash houses a large military garrison that often patrols the borders to the Eternal Storm region. The headquarters of the Dominion River Navy is also located here.    The city's industries are mostly based on the unique alchemical properties of the lake waters, which are used in all kinds of refining processes. The city is also noted for its unusually high goblin population - many of them squatters - who are adept at finding living spaces for themselves on the barges and use the ropes that tie the city together to evade all foot patrols.     Kalab (Metropolis, 1,253,769):  Kalab lies close to the border to the Hobgoblin Dominions, and has a large minority of hobgoblins who live here. The High War Council has frequently commented that the hobgoblins who live there should be "brought back into the Dominion". League diplomats skillfully played on the fears of invasion that loomed large in the minds of the Kalab city council to bring that city into the League five years ago.    This might backfire on the League, however, since now the city council feels it has nothing to fear from the Dominion, and started to persecute the hobgoblin residents. The property of many hobgoblins was confiscated, and they were driven into crowded ghettos. "Random street violence" against them became common. Now the hobgoblins are beginning to show organized resistance (possibly with covert Dominionite aid) to the oppression, which in turn has caused the city council to crack down on them even further (and once councilwoman was quoted as saying "Let's just get this over with and kill the lot of them!").    Meanwhile, the Dominion High War Council have stated that they won't permit this repression of fellow hobgoblins to degenerate even further, and have threatened to send in soldiers to protect them. Since the League Council of Equals is treaty bound to protect Kalab, but doesn't want an all-out war with the roughly equally strong Dominions at this point (not while there are still smaller realms and city-states to be conquered), League diplomats are working overtime to come to some kind of peaceful solution to this dilemma. Bargeto (Metropolis, 1,349,772): The citizens of Bargeto mostly live an easy and carefree life, for its wizards have created a race of homunculi with the aid of alchemy and the nexus tower's magic that serves as laborers. This servant race can be made to look in whatever way its creators choose. The magic spells put upon them with the aid of the nexus towers keeps most of them loyal and obedient to the city and its citizens.    Byblos (Large Town, 23,120): Possibly the oldest settlement in the Siebenbund, the remote mountain town and monastery of Byblos has the largest concentration of loremasters on the continent. Their stated mission is to gather a copy of all books in the world, and while they are still far from that goal, they make a good effort nonetheless. Outsiders are only given access to the library after a large donation and a lengthy waiting period, though bringing books that are not yet in the library can speed up things considerably.And there are many more. Take a look at them - I hope you can find some inspirations...</blockquote>

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