I agree with Khopesh, I'm not too keen on the dwarven idea, mostly I have a hard time imaging dwarves leaving a viable structure. What about this: The refugees come on a abandoned prison, there is an outside fortlike structure (now mostly ruined,) an attached cave system (formerly the cells,) and a river/spring/other water source. The prison was abandoned when most of the prisoners escaped into the cave system thru a tunnel they created. resources:shelter, fortification, water, possible food (farms or whatever the prison used to feed itself.) possible conflicts:whatever lives in the caves, maybe monsters or surviving prisoners
I'm also not keen on the dwarven idea. Like I said, my original view for the cave was that it was a very small cave (maybe the size of a large house at the most.) I don't envision the whole town being inside the cave; the cave would be large enough to provide shelter for the original inhabitants of the town and to serve as a basement for what used to be the fort, but not big enough to build an entire town inside of. At first I see the settlement mainly using the cave as shelter at night time and during harsh weather; during the day I see the settlement foraging for food and trying to improve their defenses against the outside world.
I have no problem with the dwarven idea; I just think that would be moving a little too fast. In keeping with the points of light idea (and with the ideas contained in the original posts by Axehammer) I think that the settlement should grow more slowly than the cities that were built under the 3rd Edition rules. It is my opinion that a slower progression of the town would fit better within the concept of the Points of Light style setting.
Some very good points have been made.
1) A town of refugees may not welcome every race and every class.
I think it depends upon what they are refugees from. I have no doubt that they would be overall suspicious of any new comers, but suspicious and hostile aren't the same thing. I don't think classes are really an issue because (from what I understand) most of the original residents will be npcs. Certain races may or may not be more or less welcome depending on what caused the residents of the settlement to become refugees in the first place.
I liked the dragon idea. Some other ideas could include something similar to the old computer game Oregon Trail; perhaps the originally settlements weren't refugees, but they were pilgrims or treasure seeker or something else. Another idea could be that they could have become refugees for a reason that didn't exist - refer to 3B for further details on this idea.
2) Why would a fort in such a good location be abandoned?
It may have been somewhat far away from where the main power center of the kingdom was in the past. When wars and other world changing events started to happen, the kingdom to whom the fort belonged to couldn't afford to support the fort anymore.
3) Things should be designed with a secret in mind.
I agree, and this is similar to the "landmines" discussion we had in the other threads. A DM should plant plot "landmines" within an area that can "explode" into a story or plothook if the PCs interact with them in the right way.
a) A long lost important artifact or magical item is at the bottom of the water source inside the cave. b) The reason for fleeing their previous settlement was a lie created by the leader of the group; his/her goal is to build his own power center which he/she can use to some day get revenge on someone in the previously occupied settlement. c) fill in the blank ___________
I'm both orderly and selfish. I act mostly for my own benefit, but I respect and help my community - Specially when it helps me. At best, I'm loyal and dedicated; at worst, I'm elitist and shrewd.
I really think that we are getting into the story part of the city before we establish the basics of the city as related to the D & D game. A basic city in 4E should answer some questions and provide a believable backdrop, IMHO. How can all the PC's core classes operate there? Will DragonBorn and Tieflings be viewed with suspecion? One has a mytic hertitage and the other extraplaner origins. How will this relate? If we take the refugee idea for a moment, would these 2 classes be welcomed? How can we know that without knowing some of the basic axis on which the city operates?
Loking back at the DMG2-IMHO establish geography, natural resources (can the city provide for the needs of civilization), type of government, moral and ethical compass, and since its D & D magical heitage, practices, & beliefs. Then decide its size - the number of buildings...and then build its story...
A basic question is will the city handle all core races and classes? If we are making it new for 4E I think it should, but that's only my opinion-what do you all say?
Ian
All good points. However, we're not terribly pressed for time just yet, and we can discuss these as our project develops. We've already mentioned geography as part of the theme, as well as natural resources. Governments, politics and racial views can all be decided later, even as we start drafting the first few chronicles, as a development of the city. Also, it is unsure yet how alignment plays into the new rules, and its not terribly crucial to the founding of a city; in the game itself, it could be conceivable to have a functioning city start out chaotic or evil (they may have loose laws or be oppressive, but they'd still somewhat function.) But right now, we should also focus on the beginings of the city: how will it get there, where is it located, and how do the denizens come to inhabit it. If you do disagree with some of the ideas though this would also be the place to tell us why (as is going on with the redoubt.)
To quickly address the issue of a dwarven redoubt.
To first define a Redoubt. Dictionary.com (specifically it's American Heritage Dictionary entry) defines a redoubt as, "a small, often temporary defensive fortification."
This means that it would be relatively small, just a fortification, and not a full dwarven town, etc. It was only a defensive position.
Why dwarven? Because dwarves would have built the most permanent structure, and explain why it is in such good condition after centuries of disrepair.
Why aren't the dwarves still there? My best guess would be that they were consolidating their military, and merely abandoned it as a matter of tactics. In the points of light setting, it explains that countless empires have risen and fallen, which means a war ravaged world and plenty of ruins. What would be most the most promising ruins to inhabit? Dwarven ruins.
Natural caves? If you read the article that I posted previously it makes some very good points.
The classic stalactite-and-stalagmite caves are called solution caves. They form when, over thousands of years, water seeping down through mineral-rich rock such as limestone, marble, and gypsum, dissolves some of the rock. This action creates interesting features like large caverns, tunnels, and irregular passages. Most caves-and almost all of the large ones-are of this type. They always feel damp, usually thanks to the pools and streams running through them.
If you're going for realism, quickly realize that caves are more than just dungeons with squiggly lines rather than straight ones for the walls. First of all, think three-dimensionally. Natural caves rarely form nice, flat floors. Ledges, steplike formations, slopes, and uneven floors are far more common. Make this a feature, rather than a drawback. A typical dungeon fight suddenly becomes much more interesting when everyone's on a different level and constantly having to make balance checks to avoid falling down; this can get old, but for one adventure, or part of an adventure, it's an interesting diversion. A large cavern that requires some climbing to cross is also more interesting than a simple room you walk through. Don't neglect to have the cave's inhabitants take advantage of tiny, high-placed ledges from which to fire their crossbows, or trick intruders into sliding down a steep slope of loose rocks.
Second, don't forget the water. Many caves, particularly limestone caves, are formed by water, and that water is always present. That means many surfaces are slick (more balance checks), and streams and pools pop up all over. Streams in caves are cold and often move very quickly. Moreover, they disappear into the rock and then come out again elsewhere. You could easily design a cave system where the characters could reach some portions only by going down into the cold, rapid-moving stream and swimming underwater.
This type of cavern would be perfect for dwarves to carve out into a hasty redoubt, then improve upon until they left a time later. I imagine large 20' high stone doors over the entrance that close to form an angled fortification, flat floors carved from the rock, and staircases throughout to make the front of the cavern easily travelable.
The dwarven redoubt would not be so large as to be able to build a city inside of it. And if you have ever been inside a cave you can see why the refugees would want to make their homes outside of the fortification, and not inside the dark damp interior.
In the future, you could easily build a keep over the mouth of the cavern.
For the location of the city, so that we see the most diversity, I vote for something akin to the coastal region northwestern United States. It is temperate, mountainous, forested, coastal, etc. This will give us a climate that we are all familiar with, with the benefits of limitless lumber, fishing, our caves, etc.
On to the topic of dragonborn and tieflings. I think that we should try and dodge that bullet altogether by including them from the start. The people of the city should be comfortable with all of the civilized races. They should also be comfortable with magic, etc.
Why a dragon? Because it wouldn't take the time to destroy every last inhabitant, but is powerful enough to demolish a city. It would leave many survivors and refugees in it's wake, to include the aforementioned paladin and warlord. It is iconic and classic, and makes the city easily portable into any world.
On another point, what rules will we have in the new TBACT? 3 vote majority? STOPs? No more than one chronicle a day? One month per chronicle? What other things are people thinking in this area?
As always, you are welcome to ignore my ramblings. Let's keep this up!
Alright, so if I understand the design philosophy of this thread, we begin with the local geography of our Point of Light, somewhat concurrently with what constitutes the PoL itself. After that's settled, we decide how the PoL came to exist (and what it was before), who inhabits it, and how adventurers came to dwell there. We've got a basic 'how it came to be' framework in the idea of refugee settlers.
The four major components of this PoL exitsting for the long term are Defense, Food, Water, and a Reason to Stay.
The reason to stay is why the PoL stil exists, and the refugees didn't scatter to the winds. It could point back to defense, but unless there is a (apologies to Mr. Clancy) clear and present danger, it won't hold up in the long term. It doesn't need to be addressed upfront, but it could play into the geography of the area, and will definitely play into the character of the populace. Reasons to stay include exploitable resources, politics, religious decree, or perhaps even simple stubbornness.
So, geography - We know there is a cave of some sort that accomidated our refugees, but is not large enough to inhabit. A cave presumes a mountain of some sort, usually. There is a source of water for the inhabitants, such as a mountain lake, river, or perhaps an artesian(sp?) well. There must also be a significant amount of sem-flat land for food (crops and livestock) if this is to lend itself to a small to medum sized city. And somewhere in the area is the ruins of the Old City.
As for the basics of the city, we have a city radiating out from the cave like a fan. Closest to the cave is (if it is kept) the redoubt, rebuilt and/or refortified, and the new city spreads from that.
I could see the cave and redoubt being at the mouth of a river valley. This provides an ample water supply and also flat land for crops and livestock.
OK I know I know I just said I didn't like the idea of dwarves, but I realized that dwarves might fit in well with the magical resource idea. If we say there is some kind of magical resource in the area (node, ley line, or whatever) who would build there, but not really realize the arcane importance of the area? Dwarves of course. As to why it was abandoned: in modern time we have many old forts which were abandoned not because of anything bad that happened, but because technology made them obselete. Maybe the dwarves developed stronger walls, better defensive structures or a newer better fort in the same area. Or maybe the dwarves won the war for which they build the fort. Now, I keep saying fort, but redoubt is indeed a better word, the structure should be small, but open to further exploration as a dwarven community develops in the town. I like the idea of a structure outside the cave, but I can't think of a reason dwarves would do this. On another topic: Refugees don't have to be hostile toward outsiders, most nations in the world are founded by people who didn't start there. Cultures have moved much more than people realize. And, while some nations are hostile to outsiders, many others are quite inclusive. [/brainstorm] I think rules for the new thread should be based on the old threads, STOPs for possible problem posts, and proposals ahead of time for contriversial ideas.
I am reminded of the Cappadocia underground, which is a region in modern Turkey that the native inhabitants carved out underground cities to protect them from invaders. The tunnels arn't occupied now, but they ranged from being able to support a few occupants to 30,000 people. I remember seeing a show where they found one underground structure that worked as a massive hotel, including stables.
If we're not going to go with the ruins of a massive city that previously stood leaving behind chunks of it intact, the Redoubt would work as the starting point. In the middle ages, people didn't start out living in walled cities or keeps, but a wooden palacade would serve as place of protection the populance could retreat to when invaders came. The redoubt would work great in a similar context.
As for why the redoubt was built and why it was left, is that necessary to answer?
During the war between the empires of Bael Turath (human demon worshipers/tieflings) and Arkhosia (dragonborn), the forces that were unleshed in a climactic battle caused the ground to open up and swallow the coastal city XXX. Thrown over the side of a cliff, it hung down inside of a ravine and was forgotten by the rest of the civilized world. Some of the buildings however stayed intact in the subterranean depths forming a gigantic underground labyrinth filled with treasure, monsters, and traps. The upper level, located more or less above ground consists of the least damaged buildings of the city and provides refugees and heroes alike with the opportunities and threats of a not yet fully explored city filled with intrigues, politics, and mystery.
The city is surrounded by swamp land, and right next to the sea.
To quickly address the issue of a dwarven redoubt.
To first define a Redoubt. Dictionary.com (specifically it's American Heritage Dictionary entry) defines a redoubt as, "a small, often temporary defensive fortification." This means that it would be relatively small, just a fortification, and not a full dwarven town, etc. It was only a defensive position.
Why dwarven? Because dwarves would have built the most permanent structure, and explain why it is in such good condition after centuries of disrepair.
Why aren't the dwarves still there? My best guess would be that they were consolidating their military, and merely abandoned it as a matter of tactics. In the points of light setting, it explains that countless empires have risen and fallen, which means a war ravaged world and plenty of ruins. What would be most the most promising ruins to inhabit? Dwarven ruins.
Natural caves? If you read the article that I posted previously it makes some very good points.
This type of cavern would be perfect for dwarves to carve out into a hasty redoubt, then improve upon until they left a time later. I imagine large 20' high stone doors over the entrance that close to form an angled fortification, flat floors carved from the rock, and staircases throughout to make the front of the cavern easily travelable.
The dwarven redoubt would not be so large as to be able to build a city inside of it. And if you have ever been inside a cave you can see why the refugees would want to make their homes outside of the fortification, and not inside the dark damp interior.
In the future, you could easily build a keep over the mouth of the cavern.
For the location of the city, so that we see the most diversity, I vote for something akin to the coastal region northwestern United States. It is temperate, mountainous, forested, coastal, etc. This will give us a climate that we are all familiar with, with the benefits of limitless lumber, fishing, our caves, etc.
On to the topic of dragonborn and tieflings. I think that we should try and dodge that bullet altogether by including them from the start. The people of the city should be comfortable with all of the civilized races. They should also be comfortable with magic, etc.
Why a dragon? Because it wouldn't take the time to destroy every last inhabitant, but is powerful enough to demolish a city. It would leave many survivors and refugees in it's wake, to include the aforementioned paladin and warlord. It is iconic and classic, and makes the city easily portable into any world.
On another point, what rules will we have in the new TBACT? 3 vote majority? STOPs? No more than one chronicle a day? One month per chronicle? What other things are people thinking in this area?
As always, you are welcome to ignore my ramblings. Let's keep this up!
That's close enough to my original idea that I support the idea. My original vision was that the cave would be part of the fort, but not serve as the fort itself. That's just an aesthetic issue though, so I'll support the redoubt idea if that's the more popular idea.
The cave need not have a uniformly formed floor or steps or anything of that nature. The main point to incorporating the cave into the construction of the defensive structure was due to the availability of water.
I like the idea that the underground water source could possibly lead to somewhere else, but it would be a dangerous way to travel due to lack of air while under water and due to the cold temperature of the water. This actually works fairly well with the idea I had that somewhere deep in the water could be an important (more than likely magically) item.
As far as the climate, I was imagining that it would be similar to either Ireland or the Scottish Highlands. If you want an example from the US, I'd say somewhere around central Pennsylvania or Ohio.
I'm both orderly and selfish. I act mostly for my own benefit, but I respect and help my community - Specially when it helps me. At best, I'm loyal and dedicated; at worst, I'm elitist and shrewd.
Someone suggested the idea that the Dwarven Redoubt was possibly part of an older Dwarven empire that has since diminished in size and now has with drawn their original posting of Dwarves.
Now, I have been reading the Wizard's Presents Worlds and Monsters book and the sections on the Feywild, Shadowfell, Underdark, and Underdark Feywild.
This section of text reminded me of the concept of Regio's in Ars Magica. A Regio is the concept of areas that have simultaneous regions neighbouring upon each other. Particularly magical areas can butt up against each other. A person normally can not cross the borders between these regions without some sort of guide, magic, or particular event (like longest night of the year).
This made me think that instead of thinking of a 'normal' border that the Dwarves had established the Redoubt against but instead this cross planar dimmension. This would be a secret that most people in this age would not realize (likely take a Dwarven Sage and some research to find out this history).
This would mean that deeper in the caves their might be found a Dwarven Temple that was originally established to help strengthen the resistances to things from the Underdark, Feywild Underdark, and Shadowfell. All of these 'mirror' regions could normally be reached within the wandering caves often by accident.
The time since the Temple was established and maintained has weakend the magical defenses allowing creatures to start to 'leak' into the depths of the caves.
This then gives adventures things to do. There is a temple the could restore. There are creatures to clear out to the area of the temple. There is the chance that adventures could 'accidentaly' travel through into the Feywild Underdark, Underdark, or Shadowfell. This thus gives the DM almost infinite space to spread out their description of locations and not have to worry of the physics of how big a particular cave size should be or why the players have now encountered truly weird and wonderous things like flows of lava or caves of ice. It also gives a great source for restocking and source for even bigger theats should they realize their is a passage to the main world with a supply of people to enslave, sacrifice, or other.
This weakening of barriers could also be the source of the magical font.
True mastermind type feywild creatures might even 'seed' the caves with some 'riches' to encourage more people to move deeper into the caves. 'Gold Fever' or the equivelant (Diamonds?) could make refugees choose to 'stick it out' when they are even presented with the true nature of the land under their home.
On another point, what rules will we have in the new TBACT? 3 vote majority? STOPs? No more than one chronicle a day? One month per chronicle? What other things are people thinking in this area?
I was thinking of keeping this thread for the discussions and proposals; it's already one big proposal anyway. That way in the official "Build a City" thread we can concentrate on the actual city and the stories and lives of its inhabitants, instead of getting bogged down by conflicts and debate. We should certainly keep the stops (for those who just aren't getting it), but I'm sure that if we defer to this thread, then we should be able to keep that to a minimum. Chronicles I'd like to have once per week, one month long. Once per day is fine, but I think it'd be nice if we had some more time to write. And a one month long chronicle would allow us to slow down the story enough to add more depth to the city. I also think it would be wise to declare who will write the next chronicle (including the first.) That will avoid double chronicles and alleviate confusion and inconsistency. I think I'll leave all that to consensus though. (The rest of the rules can remain unchanged though.)
I like the idea of a structure outside the cave, but I can't think of a reason dwarves would do this.
Actually, the dwarves of the new edition have lost their darkvision in place of low-light vision (according to Races and Classes.) That means they would need some light source to work. If the redoubt was built in relative haste (relative to dwarves that is), then it would make sense that there would be a larger outer structure and less underground. Also, since we're a bit stuck on the reason for it, that is also explained in Races and Classes: the war. In the past, dwarves were enslaved by the races of giants. After generations of oppression, the dwarves decided they'd had enough. A redoubt would be perfectly reasonable for such an event, regardless of any extra reasons.
I also had an idea regarding a magical source to bring several of the ideas together. I started by taking the idea of a coastal city possessing a similar lighthouse like on the earthberg. Powered by magic (nexus perhaps or a trapped entity similar to Final Fantasy espers), the city was a true point of light. But, like all lights, eventually they get too hot and burn out. In this case, though, it exploded, unleashing a torrent of magical energy across several countrysides, thus bringing us to the present. Now the city lies in ruins, the lighthouse is erratic and dangerous, and a redoubt in a nearby mountain valley is the last refuge for a mere handful of survivors. After that, the redoubt, an ancient dwarven structure, is used as the basis for the new city; think Helm's Deep (from Tolkein) or Thorbardin (Dragonlance setting/Dwarven Nations Trilogy.)
EDIT: I had another idea, spawned by the lighthouse idea. Perhaps the lighthouse is powered by a trapped entity. After centuries of confinement, a crack in its crystal "cage" allowed it to break free, causing a massive explosion. Now, the dragon (not necessarily red, or even chromatic, chaos perhaps), driven mad by slavery, lays waste to the surrounding countryside before departing into locations unknown, as a reminder to the survivors of their folly.
