Ideas for a City of the Angels (or Twelve)

[Inyssius Tor]

(Crossposted from RPGnet. The posts here might have a slightly lower proportion of liquid win to witty if irrelevant one-liners, but at least posts of any kind happen more than once or twice a week.)

I’ve been looking at Eberron’s planes a lot lately, trying to come up with interesting things to do inside them. This time around: Syrania, the Azure Sky. “Crystalline cities float in Syrania’s endless expanse of clear blue sky, their spires glittering in the ambient radiance of its perfect atmosphere. These cities, each ruled by a solar, are the homes of the angels.”

In my game, there are twelve such great cities. And, as you've been thinking since you read the thread title, a ruined thirteenth—taken over by something horrible and alien, though I don’t know what yet; the growing struggles between the expansionist 13th and the other twelve will provide a good backdrop. (Forget the “strongly good-aligned” trait, by the way. Light Is Not Good; evil can work here, even if it doesn’t feel too comfortable with all these devas and planetars flying around.)

Does anyone have any ideas for the other twelve? Urban adventures? Bits of political intrigue? Alternate takes on "city of the angels"? My only limitations are that the architecture has to be at least a little crystalline, and they each have to be ruled by a solar (at least nominally; if its functions have been supplanted by Congress, or its eyes and lungs and right arm have been replaced with infernal machines, or it's been missing for five years, that’s still good). I’m looking through the Manuals of the Planes, the Planar Handbook, and some of the old Planescape stuff—but it always helps to consult the hivemind, right?

[bosssmiley]

Take a leaf from "In Nomine" - all the Solars are fixated on their own Word (aspect of Good) to the point they have real trouble interacting with squishy, ambiguous and confusing mortals. Classic crystal spires dystopia.

[Eldritch_Ent]

First, try watching the film "City of Angels". Then, once you're no longer clinically depressed from it, forget you watched it and take a page from the Christian Angelic Hierarchy and have each city seperated by type of angel, with a caste system based entirely on the CR of the base type. IE, Lantern Archon city is nice and all, but nowhere near as fancy as the Astral Deva city. Plus it's built for little glowy orbs, so it's not very comfy for outsiders.

Have a nominal voting system, with the higher up caste cities recieving more votes, but still able to be beaten if all the lower ones (and none of the other higher ones) vote unanimously against them.

[The Mormegil]

1) Angel =|= Good. Take the 4E idea of angels: they are the servants of gods (or Solars for you) not the servants of good and righteous gods. And devils and demons aren't the servants of ANYONE.

2) The Cities are on different Planes. Most of them (like, 6-7) are on the same Plane, but there is one city for each Elemental Plane, including Positive and Negative Energy (angelic undeads = for me), and possibly Wood, because I like Wood-Elemental things.

3) Each City has a great stadium/arena for epic ritual duels that are used both as a form of sport and as a form of justice system/promotion generator. Yes even the Evil-aligned ones. The taken one still has it, but doesn't use it for that (meet my friends Roman Emperors).

[Inyssius Tor]

Excellent ideas, everyone! Need moar!

2) The Cities are on different Planes. Most of them (like, 6-7) are on the same Plane, but there is one city for each Elemental Plane, including Positive and Negative Energy (angelic undeads = for me), and possibly Wood, because I like Wood-Elemental things.

Since this is Eberron, we actually have thirteen planes, so that fits nicely. There are two planes that fill the role of Designated Planar Villain in Eberron--the realms of Dreams and Madness, and their Quori and Daelkyr overlords--and I've been thinking about letting a different plane try that out for once. Let the skeletal devas of City Nine, and the squamous ursinals of City Six, go about their holy business while the icy horrors of Risia do the invading.

...or maybe I could pattern them after bits of the Great Wheel's outer planes? Nah. Acheron, Pandemonium, and Mechanus have been sadly underrepresented in Eberron, but I'll probably be using them to spice up Shavarath (Blood War Lite) and Daanvi (freaking dull Arcadia) later on.

First, try watching the film "City of Angels". Then, once you're no longer clinically depressed from it, forget you watched it and take a page from the Christian Angelic Hierarchy and have each city seperated by type of angel, with a caste system based entirely on the CR of the base type. IE, Lantern Archon city is nice and all, but nowhere near as fancy as the Astral Deva city. Plus it's built for little glowy orbs, so it's not very comfy for outsiders.

Have a nominal voting system, with the higher up caste cities recieving more votes, but still able to be beaten if all the lower ones (and none of the other higher ones) vote unanimously against them.

Ooh, I like that. I can imagine the Trumpet Archon city, half taken over by this gigantic, baroque, vaguely Seussian pipe organ--trumpets, pistons, and beautifully etched coiling metal pipes everywhere you look. Or the Movanic Deva city, with angels endlessly fighting intricate skirmishes against each other throughout the iron city--they do live for battle, after all, and they'll regenerate those limbs later (or if not, hey, aren't scars a mark of valor?).

[Prometheus]

One perhaps, should have democracy - this however, is it's greatest liability when someone (say from the 13th?) starts tampering behind the scenes.

One should include the "upper-half" of the tower of Babel. Mainly being a tower, but also having the ability to speak in Tongue to everyone (which makes everyone speak and understand each other in a language that no one would ordinarily be familiar) and an equal proportion of arrogance to the size of the tower ("From here you can look down on the other twelve cities!").

One should be a test. The righteous can navigate it seemlessly, but the slightly less than righteous have a bit of a hard time. It is a large crystalline labryinth (in 3D), periodically festooned with blinding light ("why do you shrink away from the most holiest of light?"), the last feature is a giant mirror, which reflects back to you all your sins (and forgives you, if you wish to undego a free of charge atonement spell).

One should be where they send people to other planes (ultimately where the PCs would enter and leave). It should be shocking, the methods that they use to decide what help goes where. Either they should be completely cold about priorities, completely elitist about worshipers and clerics, or so completely "mysterious" that it just appears random.

[SurlySeraph]

1) Angel =|= Good. Take the 4E idea of angels: they are the servants of gods (or Solars for you) not the servants of good and righteous gods. And devils and demons aren't the servants of ANYONE.

One variation I´ve seen on this that I loved: angels ARE inherently good, but have to serve whatever deity they get assigned to, no matter how they feel about it. "Excuse me, paladin, but... *sigh* I can´t do this anymore. This is ridiculous and wrong - but I have to follow orders. Must be loyal, must serve well. Excuse me, paladin, I´m here to, er - I´m here to smite you in the name of the Devourer. I´m quite sorry about this, and I know how you must feel seeing an Archon doing this, but those are my orders. Have at you!"

2) The Cities are on different Planes. Most of them (like, 6-7) are on the same Plane, but there is one city for each Elemental Plane, including Positive and Negative Energy (angelic undeads = for me)

I endorse this in the strongest possible terms.

On the city taken over by horrible alien things, one thing you could do is have them turn out to actually be angels after all. Old Testament descriptions of angels tend to be rather terrifying; burning wheels covered in eyes are pretty much par for the course. Alternately, you could have one city of abberation-looking angels and one city that was actually taken over by abberations - but no one is sure which is which anymore.

EDIT: For good-aligned abberation-angels, Kysul is a good place to start thinking about them. They´re trying to help you, but the ways in which their actions will help you are very hard to understand if you don´t know what they know. This allows for them to stay good even if they´re trying to conquer the other angelic cities - perhaps they´re pre-emptively fighting corruption, trying to jolt the other cities out of their complacency, or forcing the other cities to become better fighters so they´ll be prepared for the true threat.

Statting out the abberation-angels shouldn´t be too hard. If you need quick stats, just make Half-Farspawn Devas or Pseudonatural Hound Archons or something like that. As for the average inhabitants... Flumphs. Lots of flumphs. Some of whom are paladins.

[chiasaur11]

I do like the idea of cities of angels that look like Cthulu's dreams after too much pizza before bed. Especially if they're decent guys.

Also, I favor a city of robo-angels.

Because everything is better with robots.