Although the rifts remain, the arrival of harvest season forces the villagers to work together to get the summer crops out of the ground, plant winter crops and build a rough storehouse to keep the harvest safe for winter.
Also arriving with the ripe crops is what seems to be a plague of marmots and it becomes a race between humans and rodents to get to the crops first. Mikael Goreden comes to the fore against them, as his old training allows him to take out marmots with hard slung stones. Crag Crompton requisitions the marmot skins to be cured and tanned for later use.
Most of the marmot meat is dried, smoked, and placed in the stores with the crops while the rest is cooked on the spot and served up in a rather tense harvest-home meal.
Rumors of this fledgling community have reached the surrounding region. Latham the Trader has recently experienced a down turn in his luck, and he's decided that venturing here might be his last chance to turn it around. He's brought only minimal supplies to trade, but he's hoping to find out what the community needs so he can return with more, as well as to find out what the community might have to trade in return. However, if he doesn't leave before the first snow, he'll be stuck here for the winter.
Total Population 23
Buildings
Cabins (6)
Simple Shrine to Erastil (1)
Well-hut (1)
Storehouse/Granary
Fields planted with winter crops (kale, snowpeas, garlic etc).
Major Characters
Ottar Velsking (LN human warrior 1/expert 3)
Lysanthir Mistmorn (NG half-elf ranger 3)
Bornel Buslem (N human aristocrat 1/expert 2)
Devin Wortherson (LG human cleric(Sarenrae)1/expert 1)
I just combined the last two posts to make a definitive Sept post. So what did the the scouting pair find on their trip? Are we due for another quake? Who's writing next?
The violent spring rains gave way to heat of summer. This was initially a welcomed relief to the women in the community who found it difficult to keep mud out of wood cabins and impossible to keep clothes clean or dry. However, some of the men of the community worried the dryness of summer meant that their snow fed stream would wane and that water might become an issue.
While noone could recall after the fact who suggested the building of the well-hut, it was clear what happened next.
First, Crag Compton excused his family from the work, citing their responsibilities with their cattle. While both the baker and the cleric offered to help with the work Ottar Velsking took it upon himself to call out Bornel Buslem and his son for their uncanny knack for disappearing when their was work to be done. The conversation deteriated further until both Buslem and Velsking were yelling, shoving, and making the claim that they were the obvius choice for a community leader. It was only the level head of Devin Wortherson that stopped a real fight from breaking out.
In response to the outburst the Wortherson's met with each family individually to pich the idea of a town council instead of any individual mayor. While neither Velsking or Buslem was found of the idea, it was certainly better than loosing out to the other. The heads of each of the founding families were determined to be members of the council (though Bornel Buslem insisted his Son be offered a place to give his household proper representation), and major decisions would be made by a majority vote. Their first order of business was to decide to build the necessary weirs and well-hut needed.
The fish found in the new community's central stream suggested that it flowed from a larger source, so while the founders focused on keeping their fields from scorching, Lysanthir took the eldest Wortherson boy with him to explore where the stream originated from.
Total Population 22
Buildings
Cabins (5)
Simple Shrine to Erastil (1)
Well-hut (1)
Fields planted with summer crops (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets, buckwheat, etc.) - not sure how many.
Major Characters
Ottar Velsking (LN human warrior 1/expert 3)
Lysanthir Mistmorn (NG half-elf ranger 3)
Bornel Buslem (N human aristocrat 1/expert 2
Devin Wortherson (LG human cleric(Sarenrae)1/expert 1)
Anyone who wants to jump in next, feel free! And as a note, yellowdingo, if you had wanted a development like adding a well-hut isn't major enough to demand a proposition (though I certainly understand having a good idea you yourself don't want to write up and that's fine).
Well friends, I created the "official thread" for creating our city. I linked it back to here so people can read all of the great ideas that have been posted. The new thread is still in the homebrew forum (though was anyone else lost when it got moved over from general discussion?) Build A City community project.
I also took the honor of posting the first chronicle.
On a different note I'm not sure if this thread would still serve the best for most of the "what about these ideas" type of post, or if most of it could just move on over to the new thread. Thoughts?
I’m not even sure if Golarion uses these months, and I’m basing my timing off of the American West. Go ahead and call me ethnocentric. But I thought putting real world months on it might make it easier to keep track of the seasons.
Also, I think it might be convenient to make a running list after each post what the towns current population is, what the major buildings are, and who the main players are. While we have brainstormed who the starting families are, I would also say we hold off listing them as “major characters” until that time that they are actually named in someone’s chronicles. I listed the heads of our founding families however as a separate list since they are most likely to become a major character and for ease of reference.
All that being said, the next 1 to 3 month chronicle is open for whoever would like to write it. (Summer would most likely be well on its way).
The recent string of earthquakes caused their share of destruction, but for one Ottar Velsking they signalled a great opportunity. The shifting earth opened up a path wide enough for wagons into the mountains to an area he had long suspected to hold the mineral wealth that would make him and his family rich. However, he knew and his family wouldn’t be able to survive settling the unexplored valley alone. Careful not to invite competing miner families, he convinced the other founding families of the untold number of possibilities that exist in settling a new community. Spending a considerable amount of his own money, he hired Lysanthir Mistmorn, a ranger familiar with the nearby mountains, to be their guide and to stay with the settlers at least until the end of their first winter. It remained a secret between the miner and the ranger that a tribe of hobgoblins were known to have lived in the valley.
The trip to the valley took several days but the optimistic spirit of the settlers carried them through it easily. However, the valley itself disappointed many of them. Instead of the verdant fields and mountain flowers of their imaginations, they are met by yellow grasses and the last vestiges of winter. The first cabin was constructed near the largest stream that flowed down from the volcanic mountains, and was erected quickly out of the timber that had been purchased by the merchant Bornel Buslem, dragged along with the party. It took nearly a month before five more suitable cabins could be constructed from the timber that grew on the sides of the mountains.
While a spirit of community remained among the settlers, after the initial teamwork of building the cabins the individual families turned a lot of their efforts towards their own endeavours or exploring the rest of the valley.
Total Population - 22
Buildings :
Cabins 5
Major Characters:
Ottar Velsking (LN human Warrior 1/Expert 3)
Lysanthir Mistmorn (NG half-elf Ranger 3)
Bornel Buslem (N human Aristocrat 1/Expert 2)
The Founding Settlers:
Velsking Family
Ottar Velsking (LN middle age human male Warrior 1/Expert 3 )
Amira Velsking (LG middle age human female Aristocrat 1/Expert 2 )
Crompton Family
Crag Crompton (N old human male Expert 4)
Eliza Crompton (NE old human female Commoner 1/Expert 2)
Wortherson Family
Devin Wortherson (NG middle age human male Cleric (Sarenrae) 1/Expert 1)
Banetta Wortherson (NGmiddle age human female Commoner 1/Expert 1)
Goreden Family
Mikael Goreden (NG middle age human male Expert 2)
Buslem Family
Bornel Buslem (N middle age human male Aristocrat 1/Expert 2)
Conroy Buslem (NE adult human male Aristocrat 1/Expert 1)
Welcome, friends, to the Pathfinder Build a Community project. The purpose of this thread is to develop a community organically that can then be used as an adventure locale. Everyone is welcome, but there are some rules to follow. Take a peek at the guidelines and then jump right in!
Please Read These Guidelines:
Each poster may post a "Chronicle". An account of the activities and the going's on of the town and its members. A "Chronicle" typically covers between a 1 month and a 3 month period but they may be longer under some circumstances. You may make anything occur that you wish but please obey the following guidelines before chronicling.
3 Rules:
1) No artifacts. Artifacts are unbelievably rare. Most adventurers will go their entire careers without ever seeing one.
EXAMPLE-RIGHT: Bob buys a periapt of wisdom from the mage
EXAMPLE-WRONG- Bob kills the evil mage and pries the Sword of Kas from his dead hands
2) Major events (zombie invasions, dragon razings, disintegration of major characters) should be proposed, rather than enacted. You would post a "proposition" at the end of your post if you wanted to do something huge with a rough outline of what you wanted to happen. The NEXT poster would then be able to decide if they thought your major even was truly warranted. Thusly for any major event to occur it would have to be seconded.
EXAMPLE: "Proposition" I think it would be interesting for Bobville to be raided by a squad of Hobgoblins
3) Any poster may start the body of his post with the word "STOP". This means that he has taken serious issue with some event posted in the last chronicle. Further posts should not be made directly chronicling the town's events until the issue has been decided on. Without my posting an event can be considered "decided" if three consecutive posts are made in agreement as to whether or not the event is canon excluding the original poster of the event.
EXAMPLE:
Poster 1: Everyone is now a Vampire
Poster 2: STOP. That is ridiculous
Poster 3: I agree. The vampire thing is stupid.
Poster 4: I agree. And that’s three of us so it's out. Next person can chronicle without it.
On specific characters:
Pathfinder is about PC's. However this thread is not. If you plan on adding a character you made to the town then problems arise. You see if you spend a few hours making a character you have already invested effort into him. You feel some sense of ownership to him and that means you want to -control- him. The problem is that if you control an NPC he is no longer an NPC, he's a PC. This thread is about letting as many people as possible input their ideas and use them to shape the City at large, and if you have a character that you don't want others to control then the thread stops being about Building a City and becomes about your character. If you ever make a character, item, group, or event that you consider to be specifically -yours- then it is likely that you have done something that is not conducive to the continuation of this thread.
EXAMPLE-RIGHT: I think the town needs an experienced Blacksmith. I'll make a 5th level Expert move in this season, I'll say he's a dwarf.
EXAMPLE-WRONG: I want to make a town Blacksmith. I'll make Gart Stonenose the 9th level former rogue retiree. He'll be a level 2 Fighter/Level 5 Rogue/Level 2 Dwarf Paragon* and he'll have only one eye.
On all characters: [/b]
How many stuntmen do you know? How about professional bastketball players? How about astronauts, celebrities, CIA agents, Rap stars, or SWAT commanders? The answer is probably "not a lot" and the reason I ask is to give you an idea of the general rarity of PC's in the world. You see in the D20 system the above mentioned people are the folks you play as PC's and are no more common. As such while it's perfectly acceptable to have people with PC classes move into the town they should be limited. Most should be NPC classes of the appropriate type and when PC's DO come into town they should generally be of the 1st-5th level kind. An arrival of a 10th level PC into town would be like if Ludacris bought a house down the street from you. It's rare.
For further discussion on this topic, check out this thread here: Level Demographics
On major events:
Above I said that "Major Events" should be proposed rather than enacted so I've complied a quick list of Major Events that can be used as guidelines. These are to be used with common sense so if your Satyr invasion only kills 4% of the population then it’s still probably not that cool to just do it.
-Any event that kills 5% of the population or more (Zombie invasion)
-The introduction of an individual of equal or higher level than the highest level person in town (King arrives in town)
-The introduction of a "Character" (The Wizard Zell arives in town)
-The introduction of a group or organization (A member of the "Black Thieves Guild" arrives in town)
-Any event which irrevocably changes the way the town will function for the foreseeable future (The Wizard Zell builds an enormous Magic Academy)
-The death or permanent altering of any "Character" in town (The Wizard Zell gets disintegrated in a duel)
-The introduction of any monster or group of monsters which cannot be reasonably defeated by the town (A Black Dragon takes up residence in the nearby hills)
On location:
While this city is not being built in any specific region of Golarion, standard Pathfinder assumptions exist, e.g. Humans are the dominant race, all standard fantasy races are present, low-level magic is common, etc.
On the thread that started this topic there is a lot of good discussion on what the environment for our community will be, as we as a whole bunch of brainstorming of possible ideas. Feel free to draw inspiration from this as you want.
I like the settler feel, but remember that any giving point each person will have say over a relatively short period of time (1 to three months) and shouldn't have the town suddenly explode in size. And I love all of the brainstorming here, but I think a key about other races etc in the valley should be we figure it out as the settler's do.
Also, just because it has a western feel does not mean it is destined to be a John Wayne movie.
I think several of those details are things we all would like to decide now, but then it just becomes making a city in more of less the way it is always done. Things like, how dangerous, are there really mineral deposits, or even if the hobgoblins are still around (though I assume no one would pass up the chance for a goblinoid raid) and the like are things that can be left up to the community as more and more posts are made. Similarly, I would say we should start at the beginning in order to really get the organic growth experience that is the goal.
That said, we should talk about what the valley is like.
So a couple of things: 1) We need a name, Tremens was suggested. What do other people think? Once we have a name that might be the last of the "ugly" background talk and then I'll make a PbP thread for all this to go on.
1a) On a similar note, while the above name is fine, maybe the romantic in me wants something a little weightier? What do you think about naming our little community after the child of one of our starting families that died during the trip to the valley? However, I have no names in mind?
2) I agree that we should ignore the stat block for now since our city will be growing over this whole thread. But I think that's a great link to refer to.
3) We currently have Four families: Velskings, Cromptons, Worthersons, and the Goredons. Plus our guide. Their family professions are Miners, Cattlemen, Cleric and Farmers, and Baker (I would add and farmers considering the size of the town.)
I vote only one more family with a career that could keep our community a float, and that's it for this first wave of characters before proper chronically starts (which can probably start tonight on the other soon to be made thread). Remember, not every person in the city needs to be named, and this will be especially important as the city gets larger and larger.
That being said, I'll keep a running list of current NPCs at the top of the afore mentioned near future thread.
In summary: 1) Let's decide on a name, we should have at least a few people agreeing on one.
2) We need one more Family. And a name for our guide.
3) We do not need to "stat" everyone in a family, just the key players
4) Look for the other thread soon, though I'll post a link from here.
Lastly, I propose that our town's government will be composed of the heads of reach of the founding families. So assuming that each of our families have both a Mom and a Dad at the head (not that we need to), That will give us a town council of 10.
Hey friends, I made some edits to the rules above, what do you all think? I included a note that this the city is not in any specific Golarion region, but follows the assumptions for a Golarion setting:
rules wrote:
Each poster may post a "Chronicle". An account of the activities and the going's on of the town and its members. A "Chronicle" typically covers between a 1 month and a 3 month period but they may be longer under some circumstances. You may make anything occur that you wish but please obey the following guidelines before chronicling.
3 Rules:
1) No artifacts. Artifacts are unbelievably rare. Most adventurers will go their entire careers without ever seeing one.
EXAMPLE-RIGHT: Bob buys a periapt of wisdom from the mage
EXAMPLE-WRONG- Bob kills the evil mage and pries the Sword of Kas from his dead hands
2) Major events (zombie invasions, dragon razings, disintegration of major characters) should be proposed, rather than enacted. You would post a "proposition" at the end of your post if you wanted to do something huge with a rough outline of what you wanted to happen. The NEXT poster would then be able to decide if they thought your major even was truly warranted. Thusly for any major event to occur it would have to be seconded.
EXAMPLE: "Proposition" I think it would be interesting for Bobville to be raided by a squad of Hobgoblins
3) Any poster may start the body of his post with the word "STOP". This means that he has taken serious issue with some event posted in the last chronicle. Further posts should not be made directly chronicling the town's events until the issue has been decided on. Without my posting an event can be considered "decided" if three consecutive posts are made in agreement as to whether or not the event is canon excluding the original poster of the event.
EXAMPLE:
Poster 1: Everyone is now a Vampire
Poster 2: STOP. That is ridiculous
Poster 3: I agree. The vampire thing is stupid.
Poster 4: I agree. And that’s three of us so it's out. Next person can chronicle without it.
On specific characters:
Ok. Here's the thing. Pathfinder is about PC's. However this thread is not. If you plan on adding a character you made to the town then problems arise. You see if you spend a few hours making a character you have already invested effort into him. You feel some sense of ownership to him and that means you want to -control- him. The problem is that if you control an NPC he is no longer an NPC, he's a PC. This thread is about letting as many people as possible input their ideas and use them to shape the City at large, and if you have a character that you don't want others to control then the thread stops being about Building a City and becomes about your character. If you ever make a character, item, group, or event that you consider to be specifically -yours- then it is likely that you have done something that is not conducive to the continuation of this thread.
EXAMPLE-RIGHT: I think the town needs an experienced Blacksmith. I'll make a 5th level Expert move in this season, I'll say he's a dwarf.
EXAMPLE-WRONG: I want to make a town Blacksmith. I'll make Gart Stonenose the 9th level former rogue retiree. He'll be a level 2 Fighter/Level 5 Rogue/Level 2 Dwarf Paragon* and he'll have only one eye.
On all characters:
How many stuntmen do you know? How about professional bastketball players? How about astronauts, celebrities, CIA agents, Rap stars, or SWAT commanders? The answer is probably "not a lot" and the reason I ask is to give you an idea of the general rarity of PC's in the world. You see in the D20 system the above mentioned people are the folks you play as PC's and are no more common. As such while it's perfectly acceptable to have people with PC classes move into the town they should be limited. Most should be NPC classes of the appropriate type and when PC's DO come into town they should generally be of the 1st-5th level kind. An arrival of a 10th level PC into town would be like if Ludacris bought a house down the street from you. It's rare.
For further discussion on this topic, check out this thread here: Level Demographics
On major events:
Above I said that "Major Events" should be proposed rather than enacted so I've complied a quick list of Major Events that can be used as guidelines. These are to be used with common sense so if your Satyr invasion only kills 4% of the population then it’s still probably not that cool to just do it.
-Any event that kills 5% of the population or more (Zombie invasion)
-The introduction of an individual of equal or higher level than the highest level person in town (King arrives in town)
-The introduction of a "Character" (The Wizard Zell arives in town)
-The introduction of a group or organization (A member of the "Black Thieves Guild" arrives in town)
-Any event which irrevocably changes the way the town will function for the foreseeable future (The Wizard Zell builds an enormous Magic Academy)
-The death or permanent altering of any "Character" in town (The Wizard Zell gets disintegrated in a duel)
-The introduction of any monster or group of monsters which cannot be reasonably defeated by the town (A Black Dragon takes up residence in the nearby hills)
On location:
While this city is not being built in any specific region of Golarion, standard Pathfinder assumptions exist, e.g. Humans are the dominant race, all standard fantasy races are present, low-level magic is common, etc.
Also, I propose that our small founding group of families has hired some sort of guide to get them to the area and to serve as protection. Maybe a Lv 3 Ranger?
I really like the ideas so far. I'm not super familiar with Golarion, but looking at what is posted on pathfinderwiki these are the places that looked good to me.
Sounds good, lets start by throwing out some ideas of who, maybe why, and a generic where of our settlement to be. Once we have a few votes for the same idea we can get started on the game proper.
Idea 1) After a major plague outbreak/natural disaster/monster attack a small group of families have moved into this area looking for a fresh start.
Idea 2) A recent campaign has devastated the local population of some evil creature. In order to prevent it's return, the King has granted this still dangerous valley to one or more of the adventurers in the hope that they can prevent the return of the monstrous tribe and tame the rest of the area.
Hey Friends,
Over in the archived threads at WOTC they had a thread where the community organically built up a city. The thread, including their rules, are found here.
Would anyone here be interested in participating if we started a Build a Pathfinder City thread?
