The most important thing about a campaign is who is running it. And you should know a few things first and foremost.
1. "Let It Ride": I'm not a good storyteller. I'm getting better at exploration and interaction. Adjudication and mechanics are my forté. And I'm a huge fan of the Burning Wheel rule Let It Ride. You tell me what you want to do, I tell you what you have to roll, you roll, and I decide what happens. No halfway rolls. Short and simple.
2. Communication: I expect a lot of it. Use the OOC chat like it's going out of style. Tell me what you want to see or don't want to happen. Decide with your fellows who gets that awesome magic item and why. Talk about your favorite pizza toppings. Talk!
3. The Rules: Are open to interpretation for both GM and Players. I don't like rules lawyering but I do like critical thinking and creative arguments. By default, if you think you deserve a re-roll or bonus, you get one chance for a challenge for that roll or situation. Make it exciting if you're gonna pull this card!
4. Have Fun: This is play, not work, so you better enjoy it!
Posting Rules
1. Try and post every two days. More than that is better, but don't go crazy.
2. Try not to post until everyone else had has a chance.
3. If you are going to be absent for more than two days, give me a notice and let me know what to do with your character.
4. One-liners are fine as long as they are contributing to the gameplay. If your post for the day would be something like "Wizardman is fine with this plan", you can just post that in the Discussion thread, and that's fine.
5. Try and use proper grammar and punctuation. And spelling. I know English is not everyone's first language, so this is not really a big a deal.
That maze of stone and cobble, where the gold is traded by the cart and the brew flows like a rushing river. Seems like there's a bank and a tavern on each and every corner. Overpopulation, short days, long nights, and a whole host of chaotic competition. The largest city anyone knows of this side of the Great Blue.
A city that grows with abandon.
A city that is a constant battleground.
A city that has forgotten its name.
To The City:
You arrive by boat. A galleon, perhaps. The stark white beam of a lighthouse breaks through the dark, and illuminates your destination. The harbor is big enough to always accommodate one more big ship. The white sails billow as the nightly breeze caresses your vessel to a dock. An old dock, refurbished who knows how many times, with fresh logs and rotting ones seemingly at random down the walk. Burly deckhands in cotton shirts stained with sweat and blood help secure the ship with ropes of various sizes. Is that a chain they're using near the aft?
Stepping off the dock, your boots meet with the charcoal colored concrete of the Harbor. It's a new thing, concrete. You can see workers smearing it over metal pillars jutting this way and that, expanding The City's boundaries even at gods-know-what-time-it-is. Most of the buildings, Victorian style here and there, Greco-Roman rarely, and a spattering of pure Gothic, have illuminated windows glowing yellow. The City rarely sleeps. Whatever your business, you aren't sleeping now, either.
The twelve-foot-tall electric streetlamps light the way down the cobbled stone street. At this time, not many others wander the path save for the drunks and harlots. A few dockhands stand under a light taking a break. One is smoking a pipe, the other is smoking something rolled up. Could be a cigar or a cigarette, could be something else. Out of the corner of your eye, in one of the darker parts of the street, you think you catch a cloaked figure palming something to a shadow. Fizz deal, maybe. And then the Watch catches your eye.
They come out of nowhere. Two men in fine mail coats, feathers in their caps, wielding steel crossbows that gleam in the lamplight. They stomp by you towards the shadows, oiled leather boots barely making a sound upon the stone ground. Their faces are like statues, frozen in discipline - or maybe it's the anxiety of the coming high if they manage to confiscate the goods.
Wandering the streets, you see the gate to North Quarter. In the morning, the nobles' district will be alive with trumpets and guitar, streamers of all colors will line the spaces between houses, and the streets will be so clean they'll reflect the golden sunlight like a mirror. Young wealthy women will lean against their ivory balconies wearing nary but a wine-colored cloth. A glimpse of their succulent skin may be awarded to you by the wind, so pray to Avaren for that chance.
You avoid Hartscourt gate. The houses in that district, brick wood and stone mashed together in seemingly no sense at all, are in rows, each one touching another and most likely there's a hole in each, so that neighbors can travel a whole block or two without having to touch the dirty street. The gutters are full of mud and blood, just like the hearts of the men who run Hartscourt. Chimneys blow black smoke at all times, whether to warm a house or to run a furnace that makes charcoal, or iron, or rubber.
You crest a hill on the street, and see tall spires from the Bazaar and Cloister jab at the stars. Their clay tiles are slick from fresh rain, glinting in the moonlight. Clouds like will-o-wisps whip through the sky, illuminated by their astral brethren. How many were formed from the chimneys across The City? The clock towers cut the highest above the horizon, monuments of stone and gear. Monuments of The City.
Welcome.
Places:
Are you from North Quarter? The noble's district, where the streets are clean and the thieves are nary? The watchmen actually do their jobs there, since their pockets get lined with gold. Perhaps you work at one of the finer taverns in The City, or a goods store. Maybe you're a noble yourself, and have had an audience with the Baron in your life.
Maybe you're from the Bazaar, which has grown from a market to an entire section of the City full with housing and its own watch. The Merchants created their own guild to police the marketplace and protect their profit from the Baron's taxes. This is the heart of the City, and it beats with the clink of gold, the shouts of merchants and hagglers, the sound of hoof upon cobble as horses drive carts filled with strange and wonderful goods. What have you spied? What have you stolen?
The Harbor is where men are made, and where men work. Sailors, drivers, dockhands... if you're strong and don't mind smelling like sweat and seawater, this is the place for you. And that's not all that's strong. The taverns in the Harbor district have the strongest brews in the whole City, enough to kick a bull on his hindquarters. Do you wrestle in the midnight fight clubs? Or do you try to steal from the boats that have just docked?
The City doesn't stop there. What of Hartscourt, the oldest district? Streets swirl and sprawl here, and if you don't know you way, you may end up on the sharp side of a rusty dagger. Hartscourt holds a plethora of hideouts for thieves, and its streets are lined with beggars and the poor. The black market thrives here, as neither the Baron's Watch or the Merchant's Guild can hold power. Are you a thief? A black marketeer? Were you just unlucky to be born in Hartscourt?
The Cloister, religious district, may hold the most amount of flora in the entire City. Cathedrals to different gods and causes thrust their steeples and flags to the sky in a grid-like pattern, surrounded by (mainly) beautiful gardens and grounds. The varying religions are always squabbling against one another, but when it comes down to it, they'll band together to protect their land.
But let's not just speak of the land the sun touches. The Sewers are just as much a part of the City as any district or quarter. Thieves might use them, slimy and dark as they are, when they need to move as quickly as possible. The druids live down in these depths, growing their luminescent mushrooms and bloodweeds. It's rumored that in some corners, monstrous creatures may lurk... but none have ever proven it.
It's rumored that there is an ancient magic buried in the City. It may not be underground - it may be a lingering power, or a god's blessing, or curse. But it's said by those learned in the arcane arts that there is a power that pervades throughout the City, just out of reach.
People:
The Baron is the most powerful man in The City. He oversees the Nobles, of which he is one. They are the magistrate. They are the power and wealth. And their traditions and culture come from the Old Empire. No one's sure whether The City or the Old Empire came first, but no one can deny the Empire's influence. The nobles wear expensive Greco-Roman clothing while the rest of The City wear rags and cloaks, cheap threads that don't compare to the noble dress code.
The Baron also oversees the Watch. Armed with sleek steel weaponry and the latest crossbows, fine leather and mail armor, they patrol the streets of The City, catching thieves and fining citizens for any minor offense they can think of. Tax collectors, policemen, common thugs, true heroes... all of these things are in the Watch. A watchman is as quick to hunt down a thief as he is to accept a bribe.
That being said, it's obvious that the Watch's greatest friend and enemy is the Thieves' Guild. While not the only criminal organization in The City, the Guild is certainly the oldest, and the most shrouded in mystery. Like the Old Empire, the roots of the Thieves' Guild are unclear. So is its membership, leadership, and headquarters. Only those in the Guild truly know how they operate. Are they a loose confederation of second-story men and fences? Or are they something greater, more organized?
The Syndicate is the Guild's greatest competitor of late. Founded from immigrants of a distant culture, this company utilizes stronger tactics to gain leverage. Blackmail, strong-arming, drug trafficking, kidnapping - even murder. The Syndicate is serious business. And they're hell-bent on taking over The City with knuckle and katana.
On the flip side, the Merchant's Guild is the most successful legitimate business in The City. The guild was founded by some of the larger stores and merchants in the Bazaar to protect against growing tax laws from the Baron and the magistrate. The Merchants' goal is to keep prices low for their customers by opposing tax increases and allowing free trade in and of The City. And, of course, to keep their profits high. They employ their own guardsmen to patrol the Bazaar, and in that district have their own set of laws. Merchant Law isn't much different from the rest of The City, except that gold can easily pay for almost any crime.
Rarer to see than anyone else in the City are the Druids. These aren't your tree-hugging, drug-tripping, animal-loving druids. They aren't the heavily bearded, shilleglagh-wielding, storm-calling ones either. These druids are the ones who eat the insides of monsters for breakfast and wear the outsides as casualwear. Their cavernous network under The City connects with the Sewers, and is lined with glowing mushrooms of all colors, and trapped with hungry, carnivorous plantoids grown by the druids as guardians. A symbiotic relationship keeps both parties strong. Of course, these are all rumors from delirious adventurers who were dumb enough to go that deep under The City.
Substances:
Alcohol: As usual, it's the number one offender. And most of the time, the offense is from the golden, bitter, heady ale that every tavern in The City offers. But they also offer their own brews. Brews like marau, which tastes like hot iron and gives the drinker strength like a horse. There's also the richer and smoother ulmiro, derived from berries and said to calm even the most savage drunkard. For those brave enough is the magically enhanced empyrea, the only known beverage to exceed 200 proof. It's reminiscent of smoked pineapple, and costs about a month's rent in North Quarter for two liters.
Tobacco: Follows close behind alchohol, only because it isn't mood affecting. Pipe-smoking, nowadays, is seen as rather passe. Most folk roll their own cigars and cigarettes after buying an assortment of raw materials from the Bazaar. There are leaves that cause a rainbow of colors of smoke, a glittering effect when you exhale, and some that have a minimal amount of vapor. Flavors come in every which variety, but the supply ebbs and flows with the seasons, and it's always first come first serve. Tobacco can also be chewed, but it's not as popular as standing around by your lonesome, smoking away.
Fizz: The leading illegal drug, fizz is a grayish powder that users typically rub on their gums. It's extremely addicting, giving the user an almost instant adrenaline-rushing high. Fizz does actually fizz in your mouth - while you could smoke or snort it, it's not the same as letting it pop and whirl on the roof of your mouth. It takes an accomplished alchemist to make a strong, substantial batch, and while the Thieves' Guild sometimes pushes fizz, the Syndicate is more known for this drug.
Rumors:
The Executioner: Old age is something that people in The City like to draw out, just like in our world. Medicine, while primitive compared to contemporary first world countries on Earth, is effective at keeping people alive past seventy years old, provided you haven't been skewered by swords or drunk your liver into destruction. Culture dictates you try and keep your senile grandmother alive as long as physically possible, even when she forgets how to cook her favorite recipe, or your name, or what numbers are. Fortunately for those less "moral", there are whispers that a singular person will end the life of another person with a signed contract by said person and next-of-kin. And good pay. Rumor is that his work is quick, "humane", and untouchable by the law. The individual has been nicknamed the "Executioner". It's said he can be found in The Cloister - but how and where is not common knowledge.
The Doctor: Hartscourt is poor. They don't have access to the type of medicine the bazaarites and nobles do. It's expensive, after all. With the burning of the Temple of the East and the raid on Hartscourt, money is tighter, and some sort of mind-affecting plague has taken root in the darker corners of the district. Nicolette can tell you about The Doctor, some good Samaritan who's opened a clinic in some sub-basement-cellar of Hartscourt, treating those he can with what supplies, knowledge, and expertise he can provide.
The Rutherfords: With the Watch broken over the knee of Jacknall's Syndicate, the fall of house Triton, and the loss of Hartscout, the Baron is in no position to be calling all of the shots anymore. The Rutherfords, a noble house that originated from a merchant family with no prior nobility, are making moves to rally the North Quarter under their name. The Rutherfords have been ruthless in the past when it came to power and politics. They aren't afraid to shed blood to gain more control over The City. Money follows blood pretty easily. There's opportunity for a bit of cash, here. Or, stopping them might be "good".
