Community Worldbuilding Project [Ishka: Urban and Urbane]

[Owrtho]

Well, I can't think of anything at the moment. But I hardly would say that the well has run dry for ideas with this setting. Also, people could try making some more campaigns similar to the Garbage Campaign. I'd almost be willing to index the thread, but I have allot of stuff I need to do in RL (and I'm lazy...). Anyways, we could try filling out some of the more ignored districts at the moment.

Owrtho

[Strawman]

I'm going to be too busy with RL to get much work done on the Garbage Campaign now that my semester has started. If anyone wants to take that and run with it, feel free.

[Silverscale]

I'm sad to see this project seems to have died *Thread Necromancy*
I'm planning on using this setting to run a new campaign with my gaming group....you see we are trying to get to the point where each of us has a game that we're running so that we have options in case someone is unable to show up or we just want to do something different for a while.

[UserShadow7989]

Yeah, it's a shame. I really liked the direction of the setting and making a couple of contributions. If anyone is still willing to work on it, I'd be glad to chip in.

[Owrtho]

Well, first I'd not that it seemed less like the project died and more like people couldn't think of much else to ad and saw that it was at that point fully functional as a setting. Thus they left it.

That said, I wouldn't be oppoed to helping if people wish to work on it again.

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

If nothing Else I'd love to read more about "Graveyard Shift"

[Silverscale]

I've just spent the afternoon copy/pasting all the posts from this thread so that i can pair them down to a usable format for the campaign I'm starting.....all told there are 130 pages worth of posts.

I'm still looking forward to more "Graveyard Shift" if BRC ever gets around to writing more.

[Vadin]

Silverscale, any chance you could put that into a pdf and throw up a link here so the rest of us could download it?

[Silverscale]

Actually I was going to pair it down for my own uses and re-post a concise version....probably a series of posts for the different sections including but not limited to History, Districts, Places of Interest, Notable People, Holidays, and a single post of "Graveyard Shift". If I come up with any other ideas as I go, I'll put them in too......In the mean time let me see what I can do about a PDF for you.

Unfortunately I don't have any way of making a PDF......sorry

[Silverscale]

Since I already had it separated out here is a complete posting of "Graveyard Shift' by BRC

Graveyard Shift part 1

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Graveyard Shift
The Steamcart clattered along the deathly quiet streets, the Column and Road crest on it’s side proclaiming to all that it belonged to the Streetbuilders. Not that it could have belonged to anyone else. Such vehicles were rare outside of the Steamworks, and even then it wouldn’t be driven by a kobold, with a young human in the passenger’s seat and an ogre in the back. And even if such a group came together under other circumstances, they wouldn’t be escorted by a pair of steely-faced and suspicious-eyed Civil Servants
The Kobold spoke first. “Something the matter kid?”
“I just don’t like being here. I don’t feel safe.”
“The Necropolis is perfectly safe. The Bonesheilds will come down hard on anybody who tries to mess with us, and we’ve got the Civil Servants here in case they do.”
The Kid, whose name was Patrid, knew all these things to be true, but they gave him no confidence. He had grown up near the temple district, he’d volunteered at the Hands hospitals, and listened to the sermons. When possible, he always tried to attend services at the little all-purpose chapel that abutted the Streetbuilders barracks where he now lived. Because of this, he had trouble with the idea of trusting the undead, even those that belonged to the Order of the Bone Shield, and while the two Civil Servants certainly looked tough, he doubted they could do much against the shambling horde of flesh-hungry ghouls he expected to rush them from the shadows at every moment.
“Geeze kid, lookatcha. You were just fine on last weeks Trimming Job in the Oakgrove, and we all know what can happen on those. Besides, you get along just fine with Rattle”.
“Rattle’s not like these undead”. Patrid gestured at some of the zombies walking on the street outside the window.
“Of course not. He’s a skeleton. These guys are more similar to you than he is. At least they’ve still got flesh on ‘em”.
The Kobold, whose name was Kritlid, stopped the steamcart and checked his map. He didn’t want to admit to the kid that he’d felt the exact same way on his first job in the Necropolis. Perhaps less so, since his eyes were better in the dark, but not that much. He’d just have to get over it. The Streetbuilders served the city, not just the parts they liked. He’d feel better once the job got started, one he had something to do.
Kritlid stopped the cart in front of a derelict looking house and checked his map again. This was the place. He was about to tell everybody to get out and get started, but instead he turned to the human sitting next to him.
“Kid, you ever done a 470 before?”
Patrid shuffled through his memory. 400 jobs were for small groups, but he knew that from the team in the cart. His mental index came up blank. Then he remembered that the Ogre had brought his sledgehammer.
“A Demolition job?”
“Close, Demolition/repair. This building has some load-bearing pillars that are starting to crack. I don’t need to tell you what happens if they fail, especially with the new developments being built on the upper layers. What’s going to happen is this, Tark’s gonna knock out a pillar with his hammer, then we’re going to assemble the mold around it and pour the concrete. Now we’ve already got some reports of subsidence on the layers above, so we’ll want to be quick about it. Surveyor reports say we should have more than enough time to replace the pillars before things start collapsing on our heads, but that’s no excuse to dally once Tark’s done his thing. Now get out of the Cart and start unloading.”
As the Civil Servants took up their positions on either side of the doorway, the Streetbuilders began to haul their equipment inside. Patrid dropped the mold piece he had been carrying with a yelp when he witnessed somebody step out of the shadows.
Kritlid glared “Hey, you, get out of here. Streetbuilders at work yaknow.”
The figure, whose face was obscured both by the darkness and by a hood spoke, but without the
trademark rasp of the undead. “My apologies, I was merely interested in which pillars were scheduled
for replacement”. The figure gestured towards the red X’s the surveyor team had left on some of the pillars.
“Well you’ve seen. Now Git!”
“As you wish”. And with that the Figure slipped into the street.
“Who do you think that was?”
“A squatter probably, I dunno and I’m not interested. He wasn’t supposed to be in here and he knew it, but he also knew we weren’t going to go through the trouble of doing anything about it, which we aren’t. Now get those molds built”.
It took them ten minutes to assemble and place the first of the molds, getting it positioned around the first of the pillars. One everything was to his satisfaction, Kritlid gave the signal, and Tark hefted his hammer, smashing into the massive support pillar, and emerging from the other side.
“Nice swing Tark!” Patrid squealed, only to be cut off by the ogre’s grunt.
“Wasn’t me. Dis tings hollow”
Six eyes at varying heights off the ground looked in confusion at what, according to the records, was five feet by five by ten feet of mortared brick. Instead, they saw only one layer of brick, minus the hole the ogre’s hammer had made.
What was more disconcerting was what was inside. A Halfling, with a knife in his chest, lying slumped against the wall. A bottle of wine clutched in his hand.
“Hey, what’s the big idea!” the Halfling rasped.
Kritlid screamed a draconic word that translates to "Sleeping on rocks". Tark dropped his hammer, it punched a hole in the floor and interrupted a heated debate on the nature of life between two ghouls downstairs. Patrid simply fainted.

Graveyard Shift part 2

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Gordon Tordely consulted the address on the slip of paper and moved to put his glasses back on, only to remember he didn’t need them here. He was one of the lucky ones. He’d been found early, with a decent amount of cash on him, and by somebody who brought him straight to the Office of New Awakenings. As such, he’d been able to afford a tattoo of gentle repose that stopped the rotting before it began, which let him pass for human most of the time . But it couldn’t help his eyes. Nothing short of an illusion would make his eyes look anything but dead, and he didn’t feel like paying for something he could cover up with a pair of glasses. Besides, it was useful when he needed to unnerve a suspect. Still, he preferred to hide what he was.
But here, in the Necropolis that wasn’t a problem, so he left the glasses off and walked to the building, its “Work Zone” sign was covered up with one that read “Crime Scene”. A pair of Skeletons stood outside in black armor, wielding nasty looking maces and carrying shields of bone. He nodded to them and walked in. A Ghoul in a black cloak pinned with a clasp that looked like the shields outside was sniffing around.
“Hey there”, Gordon searched for a name, and made a guess “Chim?”
“It’s Chris, but nice try.”
“Alright Chris. Tell me what’s going on here.”
“A Streetbuilder team was in here, they knocked in the wall and found a secret room with a recently dead halfling”.
“Where’s the body?”
“Ran off as soon as they cracked it open. Knifed one of the Streetbuilders on the way out, we sent him to the Holy Hands, he should be fine.”
Gordon sighed. In a city where any fresh corpse could rise again, cases like this weren’t half as unusual as detectives would like, which brought up the question of why he had to handle it.
“Okay. Why did you call M.I. in. Why am I here”. It had been in the initial report, but Gordon had barely read it, and had forgotten pretty much everything about it on the way in.
“Suspected Alliance activity”
Oh boy, this was getting better and better wasn’t it. The Cutthroat alliance was the slipperiest band of criminals in a city full of them. Actually, being the most anything in a city like Iska was an achievement, considering it’s population was comparable to that of many nations. Either way, anytime the Cutthroat alliance was suspected to be involved with a crime, it instantly fell under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Investigators.
“All right. What makes you think ‘Alliance’”.
“The Streetbuilders said the corpse was fairly fresh, which means the murder happened recently, but their foreman said the brickwork is old, so the pillar wasn’t replaced recently. No signs of hidden doors or panels, which means magic. Big magic, which means Alliance”.
At this point Gordon accepted that this case did indeed fall under his jurisdiction, and was therefore his job to solve, unless he could pass it off to somebody else when he got back to headquarters. Either way, he was officially out of excuses to get out of here and go back to his book. Resigned to an investigation, Gordon looked around the scene.
The room was mostly barren, except for the stuff the Streetbuilders had brought in. A wheelbarrow stood to one side, it’s concrete now solidified past usefulness. A hole in the floor, some molds for the Concrete, a little bit of blood on the ground, and a scattering of bricks.
The hollowed out column itself proved even less useful at first sight. It seemed completely barren of everything except dust. Which is, in itself useful.
Gordon looked closely, there were two patches where the dust was lighter. One was definitely where the Halfling had been lying, but the other was been distinctly rectangular. Something, about a footacross either direction. He made a note of these things, then he reached and put on his glasses. Not the normal ones he used to hide his clearly dead eyes. The special ones with crystal lenses and silver frames that he’d bought from a fast-talking sorcerer in the Magic district. Technically, it was a business expense, but Gordon couldn’t find “Form 8b” or whatever the pencil pushers at Headquarters said he needed to fill out and then get approval from, at which point Gordon lost track. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the system was deliberately set up to be as difficult and confusing as possible.
Oh wait, he did think that.
He mumbled the words the sorcerer had taught him, then mumbled them again. Then he tried again, finally feeling the distinctive tingle as the magic on the glasses took effect.
A few seconds later, he began to see glows through the glasses. The faintest bit of necromancy from where the Halfling was. Some Abjuration on the square spot of less dust, and, ah, there it was. Conjuration on one of the walls. In a familiar pattern too.
“Yup, that’s an alliance door alright. I think this is everything I’ll get from this site, but send me your notes. You said they took the Streetbuilder to the Hands?”
“Yeah, Saint Radlen’s Mercy, on the outskirts of the Necropolis”.
Gordon Sighed. The Hands were okay, even though they always looked at him like some sort of sick freak, but they hung around with the Holy Swords, who always seemed about two inches away from chopping off your head and dumping holy water down your neck, but Gordon supposed it was unavoidable.
With a sigh Gordon took off the silver glasses and started for the door. He had a feeling that he should pull a flask out of his pocket and drink it, to fortify himself for what was to come. But then he remembered that M.I.’s were prohibited from drinking while on duty, and that he was physically incapable of getting drunk anyway. So instead Gordon just walked out into the unlit streets and tried to think of a way to get somebody else to handle this nightmare of a case.

Graveyard Shift part 3

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The Halfling huddled in an alleyway. He shouldn’t have stabbed the human, he realized that now. It was the outfit. The Face had been wearing that outfit. He didn’t know the Faces name. He felt he had known that name once, but did not now. All he knew was the Face, staring at him, that was the last thing he knew before the Hammer. He wished he knew The Face’s Name. He wished he knew his own name.
As his mind reached into the foggy, death-clouded memories, the word “Quick” floated up, and the Halfling decided that it was his name.
Quick stumbled through the streets of the necropolis, wondering why he knew, really knew, knew in the same way he knew he had hands. Why did he know that he could get through any of the locks on that street in less than five seconds.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Gordon made sure his glasses were on before he approached the hospital. He was still technically in the necropolis, but here on the outskirts the living were actually in the majority, and he didn’t feel like aggravating the Swords any more than necessary.
As he walked towards the engraved doors, an armored figure with a Red and White tabard stepped to block his path.
“You hide your nature, but I see you for what you are, Dead Thing. If things were as they should be, I would strike you down right now, for you are a-“
“Can it. You’re on guard duty, not a crusade, and I haven’t done anything aggressive, so if I see so much as an inch of steel, I’ll have you brought in for Assaulting a Municipal Authority”.
Gordon reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. “Detective Gordon Tordley, Municipal Investigations, I’m on the job, so move it”.
The Sword grumbled and stepped aside, allowing Gordon entry to the Hospital.
__________________________________________________ ______________
The Grindly Arch (Fig 2), can only have a maximum width of 10 feet before it loses structural integrity. However, at a five foot width, it can support considerable weight depending on the materials used (Table 3).
Patrid was about to read table 3 when he heard a knock on the door. He looked up to see one of the clerics that had treated him standing in the doorframe. Behind her was a pale looking man in a rumpled leather coat, battered hat, dark glasses, and a grey shirt.
“Are you okay Patrid? This is Detective Tordley, he wants to ask you a few questions about what happened”.
There was something odd about the way the detective walked, but Patrid couldn’t quite put his finger on in. The detective looked down at the book he had been reading.
“Studying?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to take my Apprentice Engineer exams in a month. Rattle lent me this book, he’s an engi-”
“Well good for you. I hope you pass. Now, I need to know what happened with the Halfling”.
“Um…”
“Start with a description. You got the best look at him”.
“He was…um…short, with dark hair, he had a knife in his chest, and then…”
“He stabbed you with it, I know that part. What’s next”.
“He ran really fast, I mean, I passed out, but I heard that he got away before the Civil Servants could grab him, and…um…”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?”
“No, not really, it all happened so fast.”
Internally, Gordon sighed. This wasn’t helping. It always happened “so fast”. A golem could stumble into a crowded room, stab somebody twenty times with a butter knife, then stick around to talk politics for twenty minutes, and everybody would say “it all happened so fast”.
“There were two people with you. Where are they now?”
“Well Tark couldn’t fit into the hospital, Kritlid stuck around for abit, but now they’re both back at the barracks probably”.
__________________________________________________ _______________
Tark is an ogre name, and Kritlid sounded like a kobold. Halflings didn’t get along well with either of them. Prejudices like that tend to survive the transition between life and undeath. So why did this Halfling stab the human, and where did this speed come from? Even accounting for the surprise, the civil servants at the door should have had time to block it. This also didn’t seem like blanket aggressiveness some undead feel towards the living. This Halfling had the presence of mind to pull a knife out of it’s own chest, use it, then flee. If he was mindless or semimindless, he probably would have just started trying to pummel the ogre with his fists. Something was definitely off here.
After confirming that the useless kid didn’t remember anything else, and would work with an M.I. sketch artist, Gordon left him to his studies. He doubted the other witnesses would be any more helpful, and the sketch artist would probably end up with something completely useless. He contemplated calling in sick, but then remembered that he couldn’t get sick, on account of the whole undead thing.
__________________________________________________ _______________
The Man who had been lurking in the building stepped out of a wall and approached the table.
“We’ve got a problem. The Streetbuilders found Quickfinger. It looks like M.I.’s involved”.
“Have they identified the body?”
“Not likely, it ran off on them”.
The room was silent for a minute.
“… Sometimes I hate this town.”

Graveyard Shift part 4

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The portal Whooshed, and Gordon appeared in “Detectives Square”. The massive edifice of the M.I. offices filled up one corner of the square, and took up a good piece of space directly above it as well. The other four sides were largely taken up with living quarters, warehouses, bars, and other things the detectives needed to make it through the day.
Gordon could hear a bell ringing, and was almost bowled over as a column of hobgoblins in riot gear rushed past. He was about to shout something when a voice answered his question preemptively.
“Gate raiders in the Steamworks, heavy team is moving in to contain before they cause too much damage”.
Gordon looked down, a gnome was standing there grinning behind a pair of blue-tinted glasses.
“Hey Ollie”
“Hey Gordon, why the long face?”
Off in the distance, a Wizard obviously on loan from the Academy teleported the riot team away with a Pop. The two detectives started walking towards the big double doors that led into the Municipal investigations central offices.
“Bad case, looks like the Alliance killed some poor halfer, left him inside a pillar. Then, when some streetbuilders find him, he reanimates and runs off. I don’t suppose you’re free to give me a hand with it?”
“Ooh, nice try Gordon, but next time wait until I’ve agreed to tell me about the corpse running off. Besides, I’ve got my hands full”.
“Doing what?”
They were inside now, and Ollie smelled the distinct scent of a fresh pot of coffee and took a sharp left. Gordon followed.
“Robbery case up in the merchant’s district. A bank job, real slick too. Four guys walk in and start brandishing weapons, collecting wallets and things like that. The bank’s got a few trolls on retainer though, and once they show up the perps throw up a fogcloud and skedaddle. When the Trolls get back to the vault they find it opened and empty, they swear they couldn’t have been gone more than a few minutes, and that was a serious safe, one of them custom jobbers the kobolds make, with all sorts of gears and hidden traps and the like. It’s the type of safe a dragon would trust with it’s gold”.
“When did you become such an expert on Safes”.
“When I heard the manager blather on for twenty minutes about all the features on it. He seemed more distraught that they’d gotten through that thing than that the cash was gone”.
“Ouch, so, what are you doing here”
“Putting the rookie they saddled me with to use, having him pull the blueprints from the arc while I grab my tools from my locker.”
“You didn’t bring them with you?”
“Slipped my mind, besides, it gave me a chance to think about what I’m going to do with ‘em on the way back. Good luck finding you’re runaway corpse”.
Gordon grabbed a mug of coffee, it wouldn’t do him very much, but the warmth would be nice, it might help him make some headway on this nightmare.
__________________________________________________ ______________
It was a nightmare. Not the case, Oliver relished a challenge, that’s why he got into the business, and it’s why he spent two years at the Academy so he could get his Occult Investigator certification.
No, the nightmare was this rookie. He was plenty bright, but he was fresh from training, and was going for his Occult certification as well, so he was like a big friendly puppy. Always asking if he could help, wondering what Oliver was doing, asking if he could help. Oliver had a Process, he didn’t mind working with Gordon, who also had a Process. But both their Processes involved very quietly looking at things and thinking quietly. The Rookie (Oliver didn’t find him deserving of a name yet) also had a process (Oliver did not find it worth of capitalization). His process seemed to involve saying “Detective Midersen, look at this!” every two minutes. Oliver did not approve of the rookie’s process.
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“Detective Midersen!”
Oliver turned around. There was the big human, all elbows and knees, Carrying a binder under one arm and a roll of blueprints under the other. “I found the blueprints for the bank. In addition, I grabbed a copy of the Known Criminal Index, Volume four, safecrackers, lockpickers and-”
“I know what’s in volume four. All right, let me grab my tools and we’ll get back to the scene”.
Junior Detective Rekin watched his mentor with awe. The gnome stood in the safe, softly chanting, eyes closed behind those blue-tinted glasses. He’d sprinked some powder around. Rekin made a note of that. He made a note everytime Detective Midersen took something out of his bag. The Detective hadn’t said what the powder was, so Rekin just wrote down “Powder for spreading (divination aid?).
Detective Midersen’s bag was a constant source of wonder for Rekin. It contained the tools of the Occult Investigators trade. Each object in it was like some priceless artifact, an ancient blade that the Detective used to cut through the lies and find the truth. He would like nothing more than to search through the bag and see just what was in there.
“Detective Midersen”
“What!” The detective sounded testy. He must have found something.
“What have you found?”
“None of you’re business”. A Test. The Detective wanted him to figure it out on his own. The Detective was always doing that, keeping Rekin on his toes. He was considerate like that.
“Well, they obviously didn’t use magic to break in. The safe is warded against that according to those runes, though they might have used magic to get the money out, since it’s not an A.M.F.”
“Alright, very good”. The Detective said that oddly, he must really be concentrating on the spell.
“Also, the criminal was most likely a Gnome, Halfling, or Goblin”
__________________________________________________ _______________
Oliver stopped his spell; he wasn’t picking up much of anything. What looked like a Gust of Wind, which explains how they moved the bills that quickly. They probably held a Bag of Holding or a portable hole or something open to catch most of the bills.
Now, normally he wished the rookie would shut up, but here he had to see what the idiot was babbling about.
“Alright, what makes you say that”.
“The Blueprints sir”. The rookie pulled them out, dropping most of them in the process. “I was looking for a way they got in without going through the lobby, and I found something interesting”. He finally found what he was looking for. “The Ceiling, up there, it’s solid stone except that it’s at the base of a Dormanger type pillar, which means there should be a Streetbuilder’s accesses tunnel at the base. According to the blueprints, the tunnel is built to Gnome standard. It’s the only way they could have gotten in and out without alerting the Trolls.
Oliver threw some dust at the plain stone ceiling and started focusing, and what do you know, transmutation magic.
“I’ll be damned. They busted a hole, then fixed it up, looks like a Stone Shape or something. Which means a two-man job. The caster and the safecracker.”
Oliver took another look at the safe. It’s massive door stood ajar, it’s inside revealing a mess of clockwork that made his brain hurt.
“Rookie, do you got that book of Safecrackers?”
“Yes, I have it right here Detective-”
“Good, Shaddup and look in there for a Rank A small-sized Safecracker known to use strength enhancement, he’d need it to budge that door.”
The rookie started looking through the book while Oliver took another look at the lock. The runes were all in check and glowing softly, but he saw the faintest scratches in the metal.
“Add in that he’s probably got mithril tools, that stuff might not show up in there, but these crackers love their tools more than anything.”
“Here’s one, Krazzlik Gordash, a goblin, his brother’s a sorcerer. He mainly specializes in smaller lockboxes according to this. No mention of tools, but he may have picked up a new set”.
“Nice guess but no. Books out of date, Krazzlik and his brother got caught trying to do a job in Mithril heights. The Brother’s in the Vault, Kraz is feeding the ghouls in the necropolis. What else ya got?”
“Here’s one, Jonathan Quillan, Halfing , suspected alliance member. Last year it was suspected that he pinched an enchanted crowbar from the Streetbuilders, which would let him open that safe door. Alias Johnny Quickfinger”.

Graveyard Shift part 5

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Jack the Nimble, Jack the Quick
Help me flee, help me trick.
Cloud their eyes and damp my noise
trip their feet and take their toys
Tommy “The Rat” Lemmor muttered the prayer and hoped the smiling saint was listening, and would intervene before his pursuer, whomever it was, caught up with him.
The man had entered the Squeaky Wheel and instantly started approaching Tommy’s table. Tommy thought he smelled something off about him, but this close to the East Steamworks, even a wererat’s smell was only of limited use.Tommy didn’t start to worry until he spied a gleam from the man’s coat pocket, Silver.
At this point Tommy, who made a point to always know the fastest way out of wherever he was, bolted for the door, the man in hot pursuit. That was ten minutes ago. Tommy considered himself pretty fast, but this guy was relentless, while Tommy scrambled and jumped and climbed his way through the tangle of backstreets, the guy just ran, keeping up a steady pace, never tiring. What was up with this guy. If he didn’t lose him soon he’d have to run into the copper junkyard, and while he could doubtlessly find him there, he could easily break a leg and be lost forever in that mess. Tommy turned to look back, to see if he’d shaken his relentless pursuer, only to run headfirst into what felt like a wall of iron. When the stars cleared he felt himself in the firm grip of a burly man in the uniforms of the Merchant Agents.
The guy, his pace slowed to a jog, approached, pulling out a pair of silvered handcuffs and a badge.
“Detective Gordon Tordely, Municipal Investigations. I’ll take it from here”.
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“Thanks for lending me a hand here Ollie”
“No problem Gordon, besides, since it looks like our cases have some overlap here”
“You mean Jonny Quickfinger”
“Yeah”
“We don’t even know if either your corpse or my safecracker WAS Quickfinger”.
“It fits though, and don’t pretend it doesn’t. Dorkal got sketches from all three Streetbuilders that matched the archive’s description of Johnny Quickfinger. He pulled the bank job, then somebody gave him a new knife. We just have to figure out who and why”.
“Which brings us to our friend. A contact of mine says he’s an information broker, got ears everywhere in the underground. The Allies use him to spy on each other, but since all he does is ask and listen it’s nigh-impossible to actually pin anything on him”.
“So, what’d you drag him down here on?”
“Resisting Arrest, I chased him between the Commons and the Steamworks, ergo, it’s multiple districts, and our jurisdiction”.
“What were you going to arrest him on?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to talk”
“No judge in Ishka will let that fly and he knows that”
“How about murder? A Wererat was implicated in a stabbing near his stomping grounds”
“We caught that guy didn’t we?”
“Tommy doesn’t know that”.
Oliver grinned “You know what, I take that back. For the next ten minutes, I’m pretty darn sure we’re still looking for a wererat who stabbed a guy on Gramer Street”
“I agree, let’s squeeze us a Rat”.
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The Guy (Gordon, that was his name, right?) and a gnome entered the room (a Gnome, that explained the little high-chair on the other side of the table).
The Guy spoke first “Just so you know Tommy, this is a formality. We could get you into the Vault in no time”.
The Gnome spoke next “It was your bad luck really. You decide to stab some guy, happens to be a bureaucrat from the treasury. Which makes that Murder of a City Official, we can send you to the Vault a good long time for that”.
“WHAT, I never stabbed anybody”.
“Do you have an Alibi we couldn’t arrest you for?”
Tommy thought. Meeting with several wanted Alliance members wasn’t exactly the type of thing you wanted to talk about in this room, especially with the anti-lie runes his chair was covered with.
“Alright, what do you want. I know you’re playing games here, you don’t want me in the Vault, you want information. So, what do you need to know?”
“Johnny Quickfinger, that’s what. What jobs was he pulling recently”
“Johnny? Lessee, he broke in the Warehouse, stole a crowbar from the Streetbuilders, got some help from some guys. In exchange he’d do some work for them”.
“What sort of work, what guys!”
“I dunno, I just heard rumors, no facts!”
“I like rumors”
“Alright, rumor said that Bloody Jack had some of his boys give Johnny a hand with the Warehouse job, and in exchange Johnny would help work the Graveyard Shift”.

[Owrtho]

Unfortunately I don't have any way of making a PDF......sorry

Well the easiest was is to use a program like CutePDF which acts like a virtual printer you select when printing something from a normal text editor, but instead of actually printing it out it has you save it as a PDF.

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

Is it free? Cuz that's the budget I'm working with right now.

[Owrtho]

Yes, it is. At least so long as you have a functioning computer with internet (which from your posting here I assume you do).

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

OK I have a PDF ready of the whole thread minus every ones sigs and a few redundant quotes. So how do I post a link to it here on the forum?

[drakir_nosslin]

I've never used it, but I think that Google docs allows you to upload pdf:s, and then all you have to do is post a link here, just write [URL="URL goes here"]flavor text[/URL]

[Silverscale]

Well folks, If I've done this correctly then HERE is the entire forum up to the top of page 11 minus every ones Sig and a few redundancies.

Work and the Holiday season is getting in the way of pairing everything down but I'm already half way through and I should be able to finish the rest shortly after the holidays.

[Renrik]

Everything you need to know about The Wild:

http://www.greenanarchy.info/index.php

Well, mix that with some crust-punks, neotribalism, and deep ecology, with a bit more mysticism and a bit less social critique.

The Collective is essentially the One Big Union idea, so if you need inspiration, imagine the IWW, but way, way more militant.

Now, we have a Humans First hate group. Do you think we should make other hate groups? Or a goblin nationalist group? I already have a Goblin Nationalist group ready to go. Two of them, in fact. I developed them in The Town down in Silly Message Board Games. You've got the more secular, nationalist, and federationist Goblin Statehood Army (GSA), and the fundamentalist, racialist, and theocratic Sons of Maglubiyet (SoM).

[BRC]

Ah, Ishka. This thread brings back memories...

[Silverscale]

Everything you need to know about The Wild:

http://www.greenanarchy.info/index.php

Well, mix that with some crust-punks, neotribalism, and deep ecology, with a bit more mysticism and a bit less social critique.

So tree-hugging Radical-hippies

Now, we have a Humans First hate group. Do you think we should make other hate groups? Or a goblin nationalist group? I already have a Goblin Nationalist group ready to go. Two of them, in fact. I developed them in The Town down in Silly Message Board Games. You've got the more secular, nationalist, and federationist Goblin Statehood Army (GSA), and the fundamentalist, racialist, and theocratic Sons of Maglubiyet (SoM).

Not necessarily Hate groups but if all the races with a large enough representation (Elves, Dwarves, Kobolds, etc) had they're own "Mafia" style group....perhaps as part of the Alliance or perhaps separate.

[Renrik]

So tree-hugging Radical-hippies

If hippies killed you.

[BRC]

If hippies killed you.

And regularly attacked roadworkers, only roadworkers trying to stop the city from collapsing.

[Owrtho]

This setting is quite fun. It's nice to look over it again and be reminded of everything I'd forgotten. BRC, you should certainly write some more graveyard shift. It was quite good, and I would most certainly look forward to the conclusion.
Also, if anyone were to run a game with this setting, I might be interested in taking part.

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

And regularly attacked roadworkers, only roadworkers trying to stop the city from collapsing.

You mean the Street-Builders?

What do people think of my idea for race specific Mafia groups to add to the list of Hate groups?

[Owrtho]

I'd expect they wouldn't really be hate groups. Likely more of an 'business' group that seems to be made almost exclusively of members of a single race or handful of races and is rather entrusting of people not of said race or races.
They'd likely be willing to cooperate with other races, just highly unlikely to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

While I've been away visiting Family for the holidays and unable to work on pairing down the posts, which I will get back to soon, I had an idea for a Point of Interest

Point of Interest: Millennium Tree
Location: Grove District
Situated near the bank of the river as it comes off the lake, before plunging into the canyon, is a massive tree that has been growing there since long before the City of Ishka grew up around it. The tree is dwarfed in size only by the very largest of the temples and the Mithril Tower.
The central feature of one of the largest sections of the Grove District, this tree is home to a large number of fey and a tribe of Elves who guard over it. There is also a sect of Druids who commune with the tree for it is indeed a very magical and ancient sentience. Though few can say for certain that they have ever heard it "speak" The gifts it has given and the ones it has chosen to give those gifts to point to a very wise intelligence. The tree even seems to be able to sense when danger is approaching and warn those around it before danger comes.

Sorry this isn't a very good description. For those of you who have read through any of the "Rifts" books you'll recognize what I'm talking about.

[Silverscale]

I've just realized that we've overlooked an important part of the city. Since Ishka started out as a fishing village, part of it would have naturally grown into a sea port. Therefore in the interest of completeness....

District: The Port District
Other Names: Port-town, The Waterfront, Pirates Cove
Government Type: Guild Masters Collective. While each guild in the area runs itself fairly efficiently, the Guild Masters come together once a month to share information and ideas. The Collective votes every two years on who gets sent to the City Council.
Police Force: Ishka Port Authority

I'm bad at fluff. Someone else can write some if they like.

[Owrtho]

I thought it started as a mining town. Still a port district makes some sense.

Owrtho

[Silverscale]

I thought it started as a mining town. Still a port district makes some sense.

Owrtho

However it started, I've always envisioned Ishka as covering the entire length of a great river that starts at the Lake District, flows through the canyon, and winds up at the Port District by the sea. I mean it is described as being 450 miles long, which if you think about it, the city is longer than the State of Maryland.

[Silverscale]

At long last, I have the whole thing paired down into 6 different documents covering Districts, Places of Interest, Organizations, City History, Important Figures, and Holidays......
I have not extracted the Garbage Campaign since I don't plan on using it for my own campaign.
I've already posted the entirety of Graveyard Shift in an earlier post.

What would be the most helpful/easiest to read method for me to post the documents here?

[50cr4t3s]

I stop by on a whim to reread some stuff, and wouldn't you know the thread started up without me.

If you'll recall, the village is believed to have been a fishing village, but much of the actual details of that time have been lost to time. There are of course ports in the Lake District, but it makes sense that there would be another large port further down the river.

As for the Millennium Tree. Should we consider this tree's Consciousness a member of the Saints?

[Edit]
Here's the list of all the Saints mentioned so far:
(Mentioned in Graveyard Shift) Saint Radlen
Saint Kenrik
Saint Bretre
Saint Baltin
Saint Merkiel
Saint Cassandra
Saint Olliden
Saint Minerva
First Builder
Fleet-Footed Jack
Hulutch
The Twin Dragon Saints
The Stone Raven