• Registered: 2013-10-14
  • Posts: 6

Topic: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

Seeing how my current gameworld is two steps to Hell (Or Hilarity)...

I was thinking of a new narrative frame - "Joop Van Ooms and the Isle of the Unknown"

Because the only profession that our beloved and strange polymath has yet to try is "Explorer/Discoverer of Strange New Lands."

I'm probably going to set it in an alter-Earth setting - but I was hoping to populate the Isle of the Unknown with some interesting cities (or portals to cities) that kind of fit the theme Mckinney was going for.

The one that comes to mind automatically is the fabled City of Brass of 1,001 Nights - Necromancer Games produced a lovely box set which has a much stronger feel for the mythic source material than other stabs at the topic.

Could anyone suggest any other "Out of the Box" cities that I could crib material from?

  • Xid
  • Member
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  • From: Belleville Illinois
  • Registered: 2013-06-27
  • Posts: 24

Re: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

The city of Sigil from AD&D 2nd edition's Planescape Campaign setting is a great place built on the inside of a floating ring. All in all that setting was fairly strange so quite a bit could be gleaned from it most likely.

  • Registered: 2013-10-14
  • Posts: 6

Re: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

Xid wrote:

The city of Sigil from AD&D 2nd edition's Planescape Campaign setting is a great place built on the inside of a floating ring. All in all that setting was fairly strange so quite a bit could be gleaned from it most likely.

Already robbed a few bits and pieces from the setting. ;-)

I can't quite use Sigil itself however, its a little too out there.

I was thinking of using Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, after all Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser did in fact visit the Earth at one particular point in time.   It is a rather interesting fantasy location with a strong sense of "grittiness" lacking from other "famous" places like Waterdeep, The City of Greyhawk, etc (To be honest though, i'm pretty "Meh" about many of the old D&D settings, Planescape being an exception.  Dark Sun being another just because it was the right kind of oddness big_smile ).

I suppose I could toss in a portal to Vornheim, but i was thinking of just cribbing the encounter tables to use in the Isle of the Unknown's unnamed Capital.


The absolute weirdest suggestion I have thus far have is to bring, of all places, Al-Amarja - yeah that Al-Amarja from the RPG Over the Edge - in all its  Burrough-sean glory into the setting.   Or rather have Al-Amarja = The Isle of the Unknown.

I will admit though, there is a part of me that's curious - in the same way I was curious of having "Machinations of the Space Princess" win out during Raggi's multi-kickstarter.   Curious in the sense of "Could a game grounded in Fantasy/pseudo historical 16th Century  "survive" a prolonged exposure to Modern/Hi-Tech beyond that of a small "blip" like the old "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" module?"

  • From: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
  • Registered: 2011-08-09
  • Posts: 79

Re: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

If you like Lankhmar you should take it another step and use Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

  • Registered: 2011-12-19
  • Posts: 4

Re: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities will change the way you think about cities on a fundamental level, and I can't recommend it enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities

www.fromtheashesrpg.blogspot.com
  • Registered: 2011-06-29
  • Posts: 194

Re: Wonderous/Awe Inspiring Fantasy Cities?

Do you have Vornheim from LotFP? Plenty of odd stuff in there!

The Eberron setting for D&D has Sharn: City of Towers which has floating city parts and a pretty interesting overall story.