Elf/Eladrin City

[chronoplasm]

OK, so I want to have this nation in my setting populated by fey creatures. The nation will be called Elocin, and it will be built around a portal to the Feywild. Elocin consists of an amethyst city surrounded by lush green forest with little rustic towns here and there hidden amongst the trees.
The eladrin mostly live in the amethyst city, tending to massive libraries and keeping the portal open. The elves mostly live in the forest.

So now that I have the basic idea down, I need a little help refining it. Any suggestions guys?

[Kizara]

Suggestion 1: Post in homebrew instead of general gaming.

[Tempest Fennac]

How dangerous is the area? If there's a large risk of invasion, having most of the citizens trained in a PC class would be important. Based on the area, waiting for the Primal Power Source book to come out may be wise (other then that, I'd expect a lot of Arcane classes, especially Spell Swords, if Elves are still seen as magic/sword masters in the 4th Edition. In regards to trade, what sort of resources are available, and do the Elves and Eladrins specialise in any particular industry? This could be important as far as plot hooks go (eg: if they don't have much Sulver and creatures with DR X/Silver are attacking them, the PCs could be required to find an area with a lot of silver before negotiating a trade deal for the Elves).

[InaVegt]

How dangerous is the area? If there's a large risk of invasion, having most of the citizens trained in a PC class would be important. Based on the area, waiting for the Primal Power Source book to come out may be wise (other then that, I'd expect a lot of Arcane classes, especially Spell Swords, if Elves are still seen as magic/sword masters in the 4th Edition. In regards to trade, what sort of resources are available, and do the Elves and Eladrins specialise in any particular industry? This could be important as far as plot hooks go (eg: if they don't have much Sulver and creatures with DR X/Silver are attacking them, the PCs could be required to find an area with a lot of silver before negotiating a trade deal for the Elves).

Elves are wood elves, Eladrin are magicy high elves.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thanks. In that case, Primal classes and Rangers would be a better fit for the Elves with most of the Eladrins being Arcane classes, right?

[Kurald Galain]

Thanks. In that case, Primal classes and Rangers would be a better fit for the Elves with most of the Eladrins being Arcane classes, right?

I'm not sure if classes fit into it that well. From a mechanical point of view, Eladrin get bonuses for fighters as well, and Elves make quite decent wizards. From a fluff point of view, both societies would have their warriors, their mages, and their leaders and so forth. It's just that their outlook is different.

[Drakefall]

Try to flesh out the running of the city a bit.

What kind of government do they have? High council, mayor, king, noble houses? Are they very strict law wise or somewhat more liberal?

A basic history for the place would be a good idea. Founding, a major conflict or two in the past and relations with neighbours would be all you need.

What is it's economy based on? Even elven cities need to have an economy and basic industry. It would also have to be something fitting to the area and society. Magical item, alchemical and fruit exports perhaps?

[chronoplasm]

Ideas:

Elocin acts as a trade route between the plane of Runa and the Feywild in much the same way that the middle-east was a trade route between Europe and Asia. Elocin gets most of its wealth simply by moving goods back and forth.

Elocin is simply one of many planar colonies set up by the Erlking to expand his dominion throughout the multiverse. Each of these planar colonies is ruled by a governor who reports back to the Erlking every year.

Runa is a very important to the fey empire as it is the only plane where a magical substance called Marrow is produced. Generally the elves leave it up to the natives to collect the Marrow and bring it to Elocin to trade, but some attempts to squeeze more Marrow out of the plane have lead to conflicts with the natives in the past.
The elves once preferred not to deal with the humans, dealing only with the dwarves, but after relations with the dwarves went sour, the elves were forced to begin trading with the humans in order to obtain precious Marrow.

[Shadow_Elf]

You could have the reason the relations with the dwarves went sour the meddling of the drow. If they attacked the dwarves, for example, their xenophobic nature would naturally lead them to close off all elves.

If your planing on having a wizard or swordmage group in the city, you could have a temple to Corellon and the Spiral Tower (PHB paragon path). That would account for all the divine and arcane (warlocks = feylocks). You could even have an underground cult that worships Lolth and uses evil cleric magic, Darklocks and Infernolocks, as well as evil wizards.

You could also have the portal take a toll on the land - maybe it weakens the walls of the universe around it, being open for so long, and Aberrant and Elemental creatures are leaking into the forest and terrorizing the Wood Elves?

[kbk]

I always start with a sort of scaffolding, by figuring out some of this information:


Government

Population and demographics

Trade relations & views on outsiders

Wars and/or banditry/other threats

Underbelly

Religion

So for government:
So you might say that its an elective monarchy with a legislature. The legislature has an equal number of seats for both elves and high elves, but there are more and more of (Insert elf or eladrin) which stirs political problems. This also means that any nonelf and noneladrin residents don't get to vote!

Further, the monarchy is elective, and the house chooses the Monarch, but only nobles are eligble to run for office and the same family has managed to keep the Monarchy for the last 2000 years. And so on.

And then for population and demographics
Decide how big the city is? 1000, 10,000, 100,000?! a million?!! Decide the racial divides and age divides. Are there generational conflicts?

And then trade and wars sort of come together. What relationships does the city have with the rest of the world?

Underbelly is important! Is there a thieves' guild? Are there forbidden weapons, magics? Can they be found? What are the penalties for theft, and traffik in illegal goods?

[Kizara]

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