Building a Dwarven city as hub for Underdark game, Need advice.

[Elias Alexander]

Hey there Everyone, I was just getting started on building my summer game, and The thought occured to me how different an underground city would have to be from one on the surface.

I thought I'd ask around the Forum's, getting people's advice on how exactly I could A) make a city under a mountan work B) How I can make it unique.

plotwise, the game is going to have some political stuff, overlaid with exploration. there are two factions battling for political control of the city itself, one more defensive and traditionalist, the other more expantionist and industrial.

Anyway, Just wanted to see if you all had any ideas I could use, Cant wait to hear from you,

Thanks In advance.

Elias.

[sunbeam]

Elias Alexander wrote:

Hey there Everyone, I was just getting started on building my summer game, and The thought occured to me how different an underground city would have to be from one on the surface.

I thought I'd ask around the Forum's, getting people's advice on how exactly I could A) make a city under a mountan work B) How I can make it unique.

plotwise, the game is going to have some political stuff, overlaid with exploration. there are two factions battling for political control of the city itself, one more defensive and traditionalist, the other more expantionist and industrial.

Anyway, Just wanted to see if you all had any ideas I could use, Cant wait to hear from you,

Thanks In advance.

Elias.

There have been a bunch of them published over the years. If they haven't removed it because it was 3e there was a pretty good one on the WOTC site. In Plots and Places or something like that. You probably couldn't find it now.

If you have or can find any of the old 2e dragonlance stuff they had some really good ones. Thorbardin is more like a dwarf metropolis than anything else. It was featured in different places in a bunch of the novels and has some really good maps and probably a sourcebook writeup or two for different eras.

If you are looking at ecology and economics or something... well they pretty much are all kind of wonky.

Thorbardin is cool because it is actually a series of linked cities with tons of politics and doubledealing. If you want ideas or would like to drop in something with the serial numbers filed off I'd use that one.

[sunbeam]

Oh yeah, and about the same time there was a Mystara gazeteer called "The Dwarves of Rockheim."

Forgot about that one, but it is even better than the dragonlance stuff.

Mystara was gonzo, but generally it was better written and thought out than most of the other TSR stuff in a lot of ways. Even if a lot of things about Mystara didn't make a lot of sense.

If you only get one thing to mine for ideas, this is the one. Has maps, an ecology, economy, social structure, you name it for a dwarf society and it is there.