Sir_Chivalry
2011-06-29, 12:18 PM
Note: This is all my thought process for making an urban fantasy 3.5 game, please PEACH (even though this isn't really homebrew) my ideas.
Okay, I'm making a city for a pbp game called Garan's Fate. Originally I was looking towards a sort of victorian/steampunk aesthetic, and looked to the population of turn of the century London for an answer as to how big it should be. 6.5 million. Wow. However, this led to problems with city size, the mechanics in the DMG II for generating square mileage put the city at somewhere around 28,200 square miles, while present day london is very much smaller than that.
So I went to the largest city of a similar feel in DnD, and chose Sharn as my population ruler. After a little bit of tinkering to increase size because this would be the only setting for the game, I ended up with 285,000 as a population, which creates a much more manageable city that's still very large in size.
I decided to attempt to rationalize why certain classes would be allowed within the city, and I came to the single largest problem, the Dread Necromancer. Instead of the easy option (the city uses undead as cheap labour) I set about refluffing what a dread necromancer was in the city. Classical dread necromancers still exist, strange twisted members of society, but I figured, "Why wouldn't members of the nobility take up necromancy as a hobby and object of study?" Thus the Promethean Society, animating bodies "donated" after death by people who need a little money from the overfull coffers of the society, along with the bodies of monsters that adventurers bring back, like hydras and owlbears. All of this in the pursuit of necrotic research, but with a "hellfire club" way about it, rich nobility getting together and, along with discussing necromancy and animating bodies, they drink fine wine and eat exotic cheeses and the like.
Next problem I had was the knight. Not a difficult issue, but I just see a huge overlap between the crusader, paladin and knight. Easiest way to fix that is to eliminate two of them, but in that case crusader wins for its flexibility or paladin wins for its holy warrior imagery, but the knight loses out both times. So I look to what the knight can do, mechanically, and re-imagine the fluff. The knight is a warrior (good attack bonus, d12 HD) with a strong resistance to things that affect the mind (good will). He can taunt people into fighting him and has a strong ethical code. Wears the heaviest armour and carries a shield, can block enemies' attacks. And knows how to fight on horseback. Without that last thing, the knight could be an honourable pit fighter, a bodyguard or an enforcer for the gangs. The only problem comes with that Mounted Combat feat, and even then, if this is now some elite group of tough warriors for hire, fighting from horseback as a training perk can't hurt. Of course, the classic knight on horseback could exist still, but I don't see anyone but the king's men really going for that archetype, and even then it's probably better served by a fighter or crusader.
So, does anyone have suggestions for what to do next, and how to fill out a city with 570 districts organized into 114 wards?
Okay, I'm making a city for a pbp game called Garan's Fate. Originally I was looking towards a sort of victorian/steampunk aesthetic, and looked to the population of turn of the century London for an answer as to how big it should be. 6.5 million. Wow. However, this led to problems with city size, the mechanics in the DMG II for generating square mileage put the city at somewhere around 28,200 square miles, while present day london is very much smaller than that.
So I went to the largest city of a similar feel in DnD, and chose Sharn as my population ruler. After a little bit of tinkering to increase size because this would be the only setting for the game, I ended up with 285,000 as a population, which creates a much more manageable city that's still very large in size.
I decided to attempt to rationalize why certain classes would be allowed within the city, and I came to the single largest problem, the Dread Necromancer. Instead of the easy option (the city uses undead as cheap labour) I set about refluffing what a dread necromancer was in the city. Classical dread necromancers still exist, strange twisted members of society, but I figured, "Why wouldn't members of the nobility take up necromancy as a hobby and object of study?" Thus the Promethean Society, animating bodies "donated" after death by people who need a little money from the overfull coffers of the society, along with the bodies of monsters that adventurers bring back, like hydras and owlbears. All of this in the pursuit of necrotic research, but with a "hellfire club" way about it, rich nobility getting together and, along with discussing necromancy and animating bodies, they drink fine wine and eat exotic cheeses and the like.
Next problem I had was the knight. Not a difficult issue, but I just see a huge overlap between the crusader, paladin and knight. Easiest way to fix that is to eliminate two of them, but in that case crusader wins for its flexibility or paladin wins for its holy warrior imagery, but the knight loses out both times. So I look to what the knight can do, mechanically, and re-imagine the fluff. The knight is a warrior (good attack bonus, d12 HD) with a strong resistance to things that affect the mind (good will). He can taunt people into fighting him and has a strong ethical code. Wears the heaviest armour and carries a shield, can block enemies' attacks. And knows how to fight on horseback. Without that last thing, the knight could be an honourable pit fighter, a bodyguard or an enforcer for the gangs. The only problem comes with that Mounted Combat feat, and even then, if this is now some elite group of tough warriors for hire, fighting from horseback as a training perk can't hurt. Of course, the classic knight on horseback could exist still, but I don't see anyone but the king's men really going for that archetype, and even then it's probably better served by a fighter or crusader.
So, does anyone have suggestions for what to do next, and how to fill out a city with 570 districts organized into 114 wards?