PDA

View Full Version : These Mean Streets



Schylerwalker
2012-11-11, 02:11 PM
Note: I ramble a lot.

While this is an idea for a campaign setting, I don't think it belongs in Homebrew yet, being as it's really more of a concept of a theme than any actual mechanical changes.

The whole project really just started as a personal project, not meant for an actual campaign setting. When I design maps and campaign worlds, I draw up a detailed world map complete with geographical designs and regions, but no civilizations. Then I come up with ideas for certain races and nations, and either have them settle coastlines or otherwise come up with ideas for ways they arrive on them continent. And then organically and realistically come up with expansion, colonization, and areas they'd conquer. And I'll just do this for fun, without even intending on them becoming campaign settings, just so I can stay in practice.

I took one of these worlds and was thinking about what various human countries I wanted to have. A funny idea I came up with was an escaped band of prisoners. Like, one big ship and a few smaller boats full of human and half-orc jailbreaks landing on the coast and establishing a colony, barely working together out of a desperate need to survive. Eventually they ran into enclaves of black ogres (Smart, skilled blacksmiths and warriors from the Iron Kingdoms CS), who helped them mine the cliffs of dark rock that ran up and down the coastline. This led to the rather unimaginative name of Darkstone for the new city that came to be.

While other nations rose and fell around them, the city-state of Darkstone prospered. It was eventually absorbed by the elven empire, and became the capital of the kingdom that rose up when the empire fell apart and turned into several warring elven nations. Darkstone became the principal trade port on the eastern coast, squarely in between several maritime nations, taking advantage of nearby natural resources and its sheltered natural harbor.

Now, this presented an excellent backdrop for a very "themey" city that I quickly grew attached to. Being built by former criminals and a few evil creatures, Darkstone quickly became known as a corrupt place with a strong criminal element. However, the city council -- which is basically just a very bureaucratic mafia -- kept things in line, and stopped things like murder, arson, and rape getting out of hand, limiting the city to just large-scale petty crime. Tall walls of black or dark blue stone encircle the city, and the Citadel of the Council and the houses of the rich and powerful (Built of the same material), loom over the lesser streets.

While I was thinking of the city, three things kept circling persuasively around my brain: Cigarettes, coffee, and newspapers. While these are typically more modern things, I couldn't help but picture the citizens of Darkstone all being very in to these things. Darkstone is also a place of oppressive, brutal law-enforcement, turning a blind eye to the corruption of the Council. The officers wear long, dark blue woolen coats, occasionally donning black leather rainslicks and broad-brimmed black hats during the wet seasons (Three quarters of the year). They either lean on cruel looking halberds or twirl truncheons, mastiffs trotting at their heels when they go out at night.

It rains constantly in Darkstone, and when I actually roleplayed a group through a session in the city, I had a little random chart for how often it rained, how heavily, etcetera. Merchants throng the streets, offering umbrellas, coats, hats, galoshes, and the like, and there seems a cafe or newsstand at every corner. Thieves and cutpurses lurk in every alleyway and crowd, and burglars prowl the streets at the night. The docks are a clamoring place, loud with the languages of half a dozen different nations, thick with the smells of bird droppings, frying fish, sweating bodies, salt water, and blood. There's foodstalls everywhere trying to sell all sorts of things, from local common fare to exotic foreign delicacies (At one point the players were offered raw mice dipped in cloves and honey).

The actual adventure revolved around them retrieving several stolen goods from the mysterious "Mr. B" (A name that may be familiar to those who've seen my work in Vorpal Tribble's Homebrew Monster contests), including a bunch of magic items, some things they were suspicious of being drugs, and several "soiled doves" that had run out on their contracts.

Basically, I love film noir. The idea of men in trenchcoats, hands in their pockets as they spout ridiculous inner monologues, a cigarette lighting up their stubbled faces underneath a felt fedora as they step over puddles and under flickering street lights. Man, gives me the shivers even while I giggle at the ludicrousness of it. However, I don't really like modern roleplaying games in general, and I started thinking more and more what the film noir theme would be like in a fantasy setting.

Tl;dr? Film noir in fantasy! Thoughts, opinions?

JerichoPenumbra
2012-11-11, 08:23 PM
I like it. I could see this in close to any metropolis/major city in a fantasy setting. It would probably add a new air of mystery/depth to planar cities. Imagery like crawling through sewers in Dis, seeing the remains of tortured souls drift by like dead rats. Or wandering through an alleyway as monstrous spiders travel on their webs, acting as couriers in a city of drow.

The thought of cigarettes in a fantasy setting remind me of an anime/manga called Mushishi. The main character has to deal with, for lack of better term to explain, magical bug infestations. Occasionally the cigs he smokes actually have some of the critters inside them and in effect, he has magical cigarettes. Imagine a gumshoe, flanked on both sides by approaching thugs. He (or she) leisurely lights up a cigarette like someone resigned to their fate.They take a deep drag and blow out a smokescreen to make a clean get away. That is the kind of feel that would like to see in a fantasy noir setting.

And of course I'd love any excuse to have a character to wear a fedora.

Ninjadeadbeard
2012-11-11, 11:32 PM
Wow, this is eerily similar to something I've been preparing for the Worldbuilding section. Maybe more coming from the other way, real world meet's fantasy. Still, I love the flavor of Darkstone. Very appropriate for the noir-theme.