| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah in my little setting I'm working on and throwing the players into, you won't find all types of spellcasters everywhere. Some regions and civs specialise, even into sub-schools. One country favours conjuration and necromancy, another evocation, another abjuration, insect folk favour illusion to pass amongst us, and so on. For clerics, monotheism in one place, domain clerics, ancestor worship but no gods worshipped in an area of stone city states above the jungle. Druid even get a bit of attention, they are allied to some pretty dark powers, and nature and its protectors owns a good...Did you yourself go to college? Think of any memorable professors or classmates you had and reinvent them as NPCs.
I definitely agree that the main enemies should be wizards and clerics. Maybe the clerics have a few inquisitors on retainer for when the trouble gets heavy and someone needs to get their hands dirty. The wizards, meanwhile, prefer golems and animated objects as their resident muscle.
The traditional spellcasting enemies, necromancers, probably won't work in a setting like this. A society that embraces magic in all its forms probably tolerates necromancy, if not outright embracing it. Personally, I always wanted to see a society where it's evocation that's considered the "forbidden" branch of magic. Necromancy may be macabre, but the ability to throw fireballs seems much easier to abuse.
Maybe one recurring enemy is an eidolon, and the party has to figure out which of the NPCs they've met is secretly its summoner? A summoner would have no trouble passing himself off as a sorcerer or a wizard, as long as he keeps his hat on while his eidolon is out and about.
Meanwhile, there's always a bard or two causing trouble. The wizards and clerics are probably tired of the bardic element of the city, so a bard could be convinced to let the PCs in on some bardic knowledge to help them against the wizards-- for a price. But can the PCs trust that they aren't just being bluffed?
The city of Kou'an is criss crossed by canals, making "islands" throughout the city. The center isle is the Wizards Tower, which non but the High Council enter. The canals are circles and lines centered on the Tower "island". Several circles cut into quarters or greater, with a final half circle between the city and the river, upper part is the city's farms and rice patters. The lower part is a mix of slums and Market Bazar, a tent city of merchandise from around the world... Zhen Empire, Wu Kindgon, Kindom of Shima, Claw Island (Grippli), Vanamarga Empire (Vanaran's), etc.
The Four quarters of the Inner Circle (the "islands" around the inner Tower) makes up the main "Campus" of the University, though the area is broken up into different Colleges based on Class (Alchemist's Acadamy, Sorcerer's Society, Druid's Den, etc)
The classes maybe one type of Caster, but the dorms/housing is different... The Dean of Students makes sure that each dorm room and senior/family housing is as mixed as possible, ensuring the students get as cross cultural an experience as possible.
I don't see the rest of the world being as tolerant about magic, infact I see the city growing because it became a haven for both Divine and Arcane casters that may have had to flee their homelands due to prosecution. By the time the more conservative nations noticed what was going on the city had too much magical firepower (knowledge from across the continent) for them to dare attack Kou'an, City of Magic.
I can see College revelries and rivalries getting out of hand, causing strife in the Dorms and Houses (not to mention "frats" and "sororities" built around styles of magic i.e. Death or Fire or Winter,etc.)
I'm starting to think this might be good as a total social game with random magical mayhem... Join a house and have to battle for first prize of the University "Mythic Faire" (kinda like the rivalry in "Real Genius"), dare to find a banned spell to "prove" your loyalty to your new "Frat" etc.
I have tons of ideas, just wanted to see what the minds of the Paizo Message Board users could come up with to spark even more! I want this game to be amazing ;o)
(it's the first time running D&D since 3.0 came out... Been in nWoD too long! LOL)