Writer block/need a town in crisis

[JusticeZero]

My party is off to a new city and mrp, writers block.
Currently the party is underwater, in a city marked by breathable water with a lot of Dark City feels. No daytime, no money/free food and supplies, brutalist architecture.
In setting, land is controlled by generally apathetic nightmare gods who claim land and make vague geopolitical demands of the city states inside of it toward goals they have hints of; the local one is a goddess of weather and wrath. The followers are spies who have license to kill rapists and child abusers.
For reasons unexplained to them as of yet, the other underwater city-state has trade disruptions. It is a deep, dark trench water outpost that also trades through a proxy with a surface city (whose local diety covers art, hedonism, disease, plague) and which exists to guard a portal and prevent people from entering it. (all such portals have been guarded against the world getting in, not the other way around.)
The party is to investigate the interruptions with plausible deniability, and carry out an assassination.

I am blanking on ideas for the city-state they are investigating. It's supposed to be a mess, and different from the city they are in, but I'm just... Drawing a blank, I was thrown off, and my notes aren't helping. Does anyone have any memories of dysfunctional/in crisis low population, low resource city states that might apply here? Because I don't want to have to call off a session because of writer's block.

[Pauly]

I am blanking on ideas for the city-state they are investigating. It's supposed to be a mess, and different from the city they are in, but I'm just... Drawing a blank, I was thrown off, and my notes aren't helping. Does anyone have any memories of dysfunctional/in crisis low population, low resource city states that might apply here? Because I don't want to have to call off a session because of writer's block.

Shanghai in the 1920s is my normal go to for a dysfunctional city. However the low resource requirement probably doesn’t work.

Sydney of the late 1790s/early 1800s might apply. Specifically the Rum Rebellion era.

Late Republican Rome in the era of the Marius/Sulla wars. More for the brutal political payback for supporting the wrong faction at the wrong time.

Medieval Rome where the population was a small fraction of it’s heyday with the population living in the ruins of a once great city.

Constantinople following the plague outbreak in 1347.

[Vinyadan]

It all depends on which standards you are adopting, but civil wars and coups were a common problem for city states. The most admired constitutions historically were the ones that avoided such problems.

Then you have external wars, famine, and pestilence. A serious military defeat can mean economic impoverishment, and that's another problem.

Athens had most of these during the Peloponnesian War. War, pestilence, the death of the city's most important leader, an oligarchic coup during the war, defeat, the imposition of another oligarchy/kleptocracy by the Spartans, the demolition of the league/empire it led, and an overall decrease in wealth of the richest citizens.

However, it remained one of the richest, largest, and culturally most productive cities in the Greek world.

Florence also had frequent civil wars during the time of its expansion.

What about Detroit, or Murmansk? Places where the tide of history seems to have retreated and left them without their reason to exist?

[gbaji]

Your OP is a little vague as to why the party is going there in the first place. Presumably these trade interruptions are affecting the city they are currently in and someone wants them to investigate? And why are they assassinating someone? That suggests a specific target already picked out. Setting those aside though, here's a few ideas:

The city is suffering from infighting. Perhaps there are mutiple factions/powers within the city, and each is currently vying for control of the trade, and their dispute is causing the disruptions. Aligning with one faction and helping them secure control over the trade may help here. Have the PCs have to investigate the different factions, learn about them, then make a choice who to approach. Perhaps they are approached by one or more of these factions, and asked to "eliminate" the opposition. Lots of possible angles here, including the possibility that the party is being used for some bigger nefarious plot that is yet to be revealed.

Similar to the first. Some dissidents/rebels/bandits are causing the disruptions. Perhaps the current leaders are oppressive, but "make the trains run on time", and there's an uprising going on. Put's the players in the position of having to choose between helping the rebels perhaps overthrow the oppressive existing power structure (time consuming and no guarantee they will be better), versus helping the current power/oligarchy/whatever put down these rebels (faster, and solves the problem, but perhaps isn't as satisfying morally).

An old evil has risen and is causing the disruptions. Perhaps one of the city leaders "dug too deep" into ancient crypts/vaults/whatever, and unleashed something. Perhaps this "thing" is acting in minor ways now, calling servants to do its bidding and causing some disruptions now, but if not stopped will gain power over time and overwhelm the entire city bringing destruction to all. Tons of ways to resolve this, but finding out about it (someone has to fess up to what they are doing to unleash this in the first place), and the figuring out how to seal it away or destroy it or something becomes a later part of the adventure.

Variation on that: Some nearby population of some native underwater creatures or something is attacking the trade from that city. Maybe they're more or less bandits hitting transports of goods. Maybe they are innocent and defending themselves for some reason (city has been sending folks out to their burial grounds and digging them up for resources or something). Maybe they are outside invaders encroaching on the city and this is just the first signs of their inevitable large scale attack. Perhaps there is yet another power "outside" the cities themselves that is driving these creatures to attack? Could be lots of potential here.

Heck. Perhaps there's a plot from the city the players are in now, using third parties to disrupt these deliveries for some nefarious purpose at home. Some local power is actually stealing the deliveries and stocking them away, creating artificial shortages for <some benefit down the line>. Perhaps they are setting up someone in the other city as a patsy to take the blame for this, perhaps even planting clues to lead back to a local political rival. Perhaps this is all just an excuse for a later take over of the other city itself and all its resources and trade connections.


Just a few ideas off the top of my head. I tend to like plots that involve a lot of intrigue and politcal manipulation. Keeps the players on their toes. Especially in a somewhat dark setting as you describe. Everyone is more or less out for themsleves and manipulating things to their benefit. So sometimes, the party more or less has to just go with the lesser evil. Or find some way to just not play the game at all (or flip over the table if they can).

[Pauly]

Another historical source.
Vienna in the aftermath of WW2. The film The Third Man is my main inspiration for this idea and it shows quite a grimdark setting.

[JusticeZero]

Your OP is a little vague as to why the party is going there in the first place. Presumably these trade interruptions are affecting the city they are currently in and someone wants them to investigate? And why are they assassinating someone? That suggests a specific target already picked out.
They were sent by the Drowned Lady, so assassinating someone is not unusual. She has a particular soft spot for children and certain kinds of violence; there was a Boarding School built inland of a town, at which the kids were being nastily abused. When Her agents couldn't deal with it quietly, the Drowned Lady acted directly with a miracle.

...The new shoreline laps at the foot of the school property. Everybody who lived in the town who wasn't able to flee in time — and there was almost no warning — was killed by the storm. The school grounds, now a temple to The Lady and orphanage, has in its courtyard a glass lightning tektite the size and approximate shape of a great oak tree where the schoolmaster had once been.

... The Lady's representative in Her city asked them to kill the person, no explanation given, and to investigate the interruptions. Having the PCs commit some morally ambiguous wetwork is almost certainly the merciful thing to do.

While there is a concept of "dug too deep", and where they are going is based on that, it creates a need to keep the things from THIS side out, not the opposite.

[Notafish]

I'm still a little uncertain about the directionality of the portals - it sounds like the reason they are guarded is to prevent escape rather than to guard against invasion from the Other Side.

If that is the case and the trench city has lost contact with the outside world entirely, perhaps the people have overthrown the guards and defected?

If it's just that there have been delayed or lost shipments and the trench city is already known to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy, I think you can pick from any number of crises - the three that come to my mind are gang wars, invasion, or a plague outbreak (supernatural or not). Since their trading partner has a patron that works with plagues, the latter seems the easiest choice. I'm not sure what system you're using, but if you are doing a lot of action, a zombie/monster plague can turn a city from a social setting into a dungeon full of encounters, with the assaination target (or their mutated form) as the MacGuffin. For a more social-heavy game, an occupying force (either a gang like the bandits in Seven Samurai or a full hostile army), or gang wars causing collateral damage both seem like reasonable options to me.

[JusticeZero]

I'm still a little uncertain about the directionality of the portals - it sounds like the reason they are guarded is to prevent escape rather than to guard against invasion from the Other Side.
If it helps, the explanation the party arcane type (who subsequently became a PTSD alcoholic after a few more reveals) was given by his patron goddesses is basically that the (Very Very) One True God is sleeping deep down below and nobody wants to risk waking it up. There's an entire class of deity just to secure places that are "dug too deep"; the arcane type recently found out that the God of Decay that obliterated the old capital city and reduced it to a wasteland of hostile roaming plant and fungal monsters was of that type. The patron of the city they are going is of that type. (They still need a handful of worshippers on site. This is *wonderful* worldbuilding design by the powers that were, honest. :smalleek:)

As such, if there is a danger to the gate, it is a danger from the human side.