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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 6658220" data-attributes="member: 6779310">I think first about nature of the town/city.I think in terms of population size first - Hamlet, Village, Town, or CityHamlets are just a few buildings around a common well. One of the houses is larger, and serves as the pub. Religion is usually either a circuit preacher or is "hike to the village."A village likely has a dedicated square - if it's a small village, it's the combined market, well, and meeting square... And villages usually have a fixed house of prayer. Larger villages may be 2 or even three neighborhoods...If it's a town, I also think in terms of how many wards/parishes/neighborhoods. (each ward likely has a well of its own, and a public house of its own.) It also is big enough to have more than one each blacksmith, miller, carpenter, mason, joiner, cooper, tailor, and butcher. It also has a dedicated full-time market, and may have additional part-time markets - one additional per ward or two. It will have multiple wells or multiple fountains. A town also usually has a nobleman's estate either overlooking it or on one side of it.If it's a city, each "quarter" is a couple wards or more. Cities are big enough to have real wealth - both nobles and merchants - and both have a ward of their own, with guards and walls to "keep the riff-raff out"... They may be one "quarter" together, or may be separate quarters each their own. Most cities are big enough to have a couple full-time markets.If there's a waterfront, anything bigger than a small village is liable to have a distinct dock-ward or even quarter.Once I have an idea of how big it is, I figure out the main roads.And then, I can also figure which wards are ethnic, which are racially distinct, and which are religiously distinct. A temple's ward is likely to be almost exclusively followers of that temple's faith....Theaters are a cultural issue. Roman villages had an outdoor one as a matter of course. Most towns in the middle ages had some theater presence, and most large villages would simply present plays on the churchsteps... so in my games, those are staples.I usually describe the ward they entered from, and its features. For example, in my current home game...Fort Vellay is a large village in the fort, and a small village half a mile down the hill.The fort proper has 3 wards - the castle, the garrison, and the peasants. It's got three walls, forming 3 baileys, with the keep in the center on a motte; the middle bailey is offset so that 1/3 is to the east of the inner bailey, and 2/3 to the west; likewise the outer bailey is offset 1/6 and 3/6, with the inner taking most of the remaining third. There are 3 chapels - one to Barg & Barb, one to Necron and GORD, one to Arnold Swordundhammer; there are shrines to Noradth and Daotain Mu by the south garrison gate, and one to Snuffy just inside the south gate. The peasants are in the outer bailey, on the west, and number some 75 families. The garrison is on the middle bailey, and comprises barracks for the border patrols - about 300 men. The castle quarter houses about 20 families, including the Vellay Valley governor, plus the offices of the tax collector, and the smiths and wrights guildhalls for the valley. It also has a mage in residence in the castle quarter, in a tower in the inner bailey; only the governor's keep and the wizards tower are freestanding in that bailey, with the other families living in townhouses on the inside of the bailey wall. The martial road runs east from the keep to the valley through three large gatehouses wide enough for paired cavalry. The Civil road runs west, through 3 smaller gate towers. The fort has a south gate in the outer and garrison walls, but not into the keep. The eastern side of the outer bailey includes the necropolis, the butchery, and the inn.The Village of Fort Vellay is about 60 families. It's got a daub and wattle wall, two gates, and is surrounded by worked fields. The north gate leads to the fort's south gate. There is one chapel to an as-yet undefined farm-god, and a shrine to Barb and Barg. The shrine is tended by an old paladin of Barg who happens to be blind, crazy, and the party's patron. There's a dual smithy - both white and black - that helps with the keep's needs, right on the center square. Population is mixed halfling and human, with an elven family. There's an inn across from the smithy. Next to the in is that chapel. There are two wells - the main well, and the back well. 40 of the houses cluster around the main well, while twenty surround the back well. Both gates lead to the main well-square; you turn west to go to the back well. The paladin is just inside the wall in the southwest. To the south, there's a hamlet only a mile off - 10 families in tenant to a wealthy peasant. The landlord's hall is also the public hall... but he doesn't like visitors. There's a village 4 miles west of the villages, too: Elfdale. It's elven and human, with until recently, one family of halflings. It's an oval of  around the 3 wells and 8 buisinesses: Tavern, Glassblower, Healer, Blacksmith, Wainright, Cooper, Butcher,  and Inn. There's a shrine to The Bard in Silver. 15 great rounds (30' diameter, typically have a cellar.) house 3-5 "families" each. The coopers were halflings, but are deceased due to a recent takeover by cultists.  There is a miller, and a brewer, but the best brew is sold in the tavern. The majority is shipped off to pay taxes. The buisinesses and shrine form a U-shape in the center; the family halls are each fenced off with gardens. If it grows, a second court will be the expansion, but one of the halls will like be moved, There are a dozen surnames here....</blockquote>

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