Port City Companion

[F1zban]

Hi Forum,

I'm looking for a companion I can use as a backdrop in my upcoming game. It's a high seas campaign so it needs to be a port city. I don't plan on having adventures there, maybe one or two to bond the players to it, but for the most part it's going to be a stop gap between adventures, allowing the players to have some down time, build items, train skills/feats, and generally use as a base of operations. I can build it from scratch but I'd rather not pay too much attention on something that's only serving a function. Does anyone know of a good resource for a law abiding port city?

Thanks in advance.

[hamishspence]

Waterdeep: City of Splendors, for Forgotten Realms, might work if you're playing 3.5-ed Realms.

[Palanan]

For my seafaring campaign I used Waterdeep for exactly this purpose--a point of departure for parts unknown. We had a session or so in the city itself, to ground the campaign in a relatively familiar place, and then shaped course for the uncharted West.

I didn't rely too much on Waterdeep: City of Splendors, but I've been playing in the Realms for years and was long familiar with the city. If you're new to the Realms, or if you haven't kicked around the Sword Coast that much, it couldn't hurt to look at the book.

Since Waterdeep is one of the classic locations in the Realms, there's plenty of information beyond the one book. Near the bottom of the Candlekeep Map Room (http://www.candlekeep.com/library/maps.htm) there's a truly massive PDF map of Waterdeep that shows the city in lovingly rendered, truly insane detail. Should be enough to handle your seafaring needs.

[Khedrac]

There's also Magnamar in Pathfinder's Golarion. I have only met it through playing Rise of the RuneLords but it is an interesting place. I am not sure how much material there is outside RotRL though.

[Khedrac]

Bother - I completely forgot to ask "What Sysyem?" - this is the General RP forum so it makes a huger difference.

If RuneQuest there's Eldarad - the Lost City. Not a typical port city but it does lie on a sea.

[BWR]

Freeport, City of Adventure (http://greenronin.com/freeport/)
A series of pretty decent adventures which spawned a setting book. The mechanics in the book are a bit iffy (Heal checks to raise the recently dead for no cost, for instance) but the fluff is great and you will be tempted to run adventures there. Perfect for rogues and pirate and suchlike.

[EccentricCircle]

Across the D20 system I think it's fair to say that pretty much every setting has at least one port town detailed.
Waterdeep in the forgotten realms has already been mentioned.
Golarion in pathfinder has a few for it's more maritime adventure paths. ( I only know Sandpoint well, since one of my characters lived there, but I think several have books.
Eberron has Stormreach (and Sharn although that's less traditional)
Iron Kingdoms has Five Fingers Port of deceit
Kalamar has Loona Port of Intrigue
For that matter I think that the Free City of Greyhawk itself might be a port (although possibly on a river from a quick glance through the "expedition to" book).
The City of Saltmarsh detailed in the 3.5 Dungeon master's guide 2 is also has extensive docks, its only one chapter in the book, but DMG2 is an excellent resource on any number of levels.
Finally my perennial favourite: Cityscape has information on designing a wide range of cities, including ports.

[F1zban]

Cityscape, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm nice.