In my campaign setting, Dwarves love unique and difficult architecture and engineering. It's why they don't just build regular cities like everyone else. They prefer to put them in interesting environments.
So far, I have groups of Dwarves that construct cities in deep underground cave complexes, groups that carve cities out of the faces of mountains, groups that suspend cities between hundreds of trees in thick forests and jungles, and groups that build gigantic ships that serve as permanent homes for entire communities.
What other interesting non-standard cities could my Dwarves build? I'd love to have more ideas to work with than just these four.
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A city that is built inside of a giant lake. They build a giant cylinder in the center of the lake sticking a good ways out of the lake, then drain the interior and build inside. To get in you have to dock on the edge and walk down stairs on the side of the cylinder. May possibly overlap with the "underground" one if they dig deeper to make room.
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Love the idea of the city in the middle of a lake! Reminds me of this picture, kinda sorta.
A city built into a chasm / cleft deep within the earth, carved into both sides, and with bridges (both stone and rope) criss-crossing back and forth as 'highways' to and from the two sides of the city, could be neat. A similar city, built into a shaft that descends deep into the earth, built into all of the sides of the shaft and connected by spiraling stairs and ledges that go around, and rope bridges and 'cable-cars' (raft like vehicles that are winched from one side to the other, and back again) that slide across, could also be neat.
If there is some sort of naturally occuring anti-gravity element in this fantasy setting, perhaps occuring in a 'Hollow Earth' sort of place, impossibly high towers could be built in underground caverns, connecting floor to ceiling, and composed of alternating bricks of normal ore and 'anti-g' ore, so that the weight of the tower is countered and 'at balance' could be funky. Cities or fortifications built upon floating islands of this ore could be precisely counterweighted, and anchored in place with cables moored into the rock of the surrounding caverns, with visitors to the island only allowed if they bring enough ore to counteract whatever weight they'll be adding to the delicate 'balance' that keeps the island bouyant. Instead of one giant floating rock island, dozens of smaller ones could be connected by chains and cables and rope-bridges, and orbit around a larger island like some bizarre molecular structure (imagery from Avatar or even the Undercity from the old Beauty and the Beast TV series could fit here).
Instead of an ore being the source of the anti-gravity effect, some sort of fungus grown on the floating islands could cause them to levitate, or a city or structure could be constructed on the back of (or hanging underside of) a dormant mu-spore like creature.
Solid cloud stuff, able to support cities, is also an old standby, popular with cloud giants and silver dragons, but there's no reason a society of dwarven sky pirates couldn't have such a dwelling, and use it in conjunction with hot air balloons and a longship enchanted with levitate spells to raid groundborne civilizations...
Or one could have a dwarven city that has expanded underwater, using lava tubes, at first, but expanding to have underwater tunnels leading to an undersea fortification hollowed out of a coral reef or something, and from whence dwarves in special 'diving suits' and the rare apparatus of Kwalish forage for ore on the seabed, including deposits of gold gathered together by giant ammonites, and mysterious balls of manganese that form on the seabed or whatever.
A city carved entirely of ice (alchemically or magically enhanced in some areas to be as strong as stone or even steel), in the polar regions, could also be (ahem) cool.
Cities built on the back of zaratans (island sized turtles) could be funky, particularly if the dwarves have designed their city to be water-tight, and can signal the beast to submerge and travel underwater, unseen and unsuspected to surface dwellers, when need be, and then rise up in the harbor of a trading partner, to the shock of anyone who didn't know that they could do that. (Or just offshore of a rival nation's port capital, taking the battle to them in a most surprising way!)
A city that is built inside of a giant lake. They build a giant cylinder in the center of the lake sticking a good ways out of the lake, then drain the interior and build inside. To get in you have to dock on the edge and walk down stairs on the side of the cylinder. May possibly overlap with the "underground" one if they dig deeper to make room.
I love it.
Or one could have a dwarven city that has expanded underwater, using lava tubes, at first, but expanding to have underwater tunnels leading to an undersea fortification hollowed out of a coral reef or something, and from whence dwarves in special 'diving suits' and the rare apparatus of Kwalish forage for ore on the seabed, including deposits of gold gathered together by giant ammonites, and mysterious balls of manganese that form on the seabed or whatever.
A city carved entirely of ice (alchemically or magically enhanced in some areas to be as strong as stone or even steel), in the polar regions, could also be (ahem) cool.
These, too.
After reading up on the Bay of Fundy, I built an Elven city over a similar inlet, with arcane engines tapping the tidal energy to power the city. Really cool...until the players crashed a sky barge into it!
Seems I'm left with the plains and warm deserts. I'm not sure the type of rock formations found in places like the Grand Canyon have been covered, but that's also a place they could build.
Now, while plains and deserts could seem like boring places to build, they also present a lot of interesting challenges. First, there aren't going to be many building materials right at hand. Second, the shapes of the buildings probably would need to allow for the wind that tends to rip through such areas (and Dwarves would find a way to tornado-proof a structure).
But would these structures look like typical castles? They could extend both above and below the ground. They might be globe-like structures or there might just be mounds. Perhaps they can rise and sink above and below the earth. They might even be arcologies.
Some examples of things I think would be neat:
here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Volcano city, drawing power and resources from the magma pool of the caldera.
City Made of a living creature, like a hollow Tarrasque.
Castle in the Sky.
Walking machine city.
A symmetrical city that replicates reality to match sides. a city that time travels randomly. A city that is 2nd and so is everyone within it.
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Seems I'm left with the plains and warm deserts. I'm not sure the type of rock formations found in places like the Grand Canyon have been covered, but that's also a place they could build.
Now, while plains and deserts could seem like boring places to build, they also present a lot of interesting challenges. First, there aren't going to be many building materials right at hand. Second, the shapes of the buildings probably would need to allow for the wind that tends to rip through such areas (and Dwarves would find a way to tornado-proof a structure).
Some examples of things I think would be neat:
here,
Ooh, I like the floating city, held in place by chains!
For deserts, a butte that's been hollowed out and has a city inside of it, like a circular cliff-city, that only has sunlight in the center of the city during mid-day (and uses bronze or copper mirrors atop the mesa, rotated to face the sun and reflect light down into the central shaft, to provide light the rest of the day) could be wicked cool. Cue Airwolf soundtrack.
For plains, with a shortage of rock, the city could be dug into the earth (topsoil in the plains supposedly was 28 feet deep when we arrived here in the US, thanks to millenia worth of buffalo poop), and the actual building material could be mud bricks reinforced with plains grasses, which are surprisingly sturdy, if properly built. Terraced communities built atop hills or into ravines, similar to the stepped agriculture popular in central and south america (near sites like Macchu Pichu, sp?) could work. With much of the housing underground, and pasturage / fields above ground, the heavily populated dwarven plains lands would appear to be outlying farms of some greater civilization, with the actual cities dug into the ground, and not visible, with every inch of surface land devoted to agriculture.
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How about a city built over some kind of magical energy source, designed to hide it beneath while also containing it. Or maybe it contains some elder evil that is held in place by a device powered by the people living in the city such that if it were ever abandoned the evil would escape (probably make it something passive so people may have even forgotten).
Or how about a city built in layers (like Midgar from FF7). The layers' populations need not be separated by class or some such, but would probably be separated based on *some* factor or another.
A note about the city-held-down-by-chains idea: That's similar to the mountain in Chrono Trigger, except that it was a mountain and not a city (and contained no cities).
I created a city in my game called Bridge City. it is an entire city suspended inside a canyon like a giant spider web. all of the buildings are built downwards hanging from the main walkways, framed with catwalks and latters and smaller bridges.
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A symmetrical city that replicates reality to match sides. a city that time travels randomly. A city that is 2nd and so is everyone within it.
What do you mean, "2nd"? Two-dimensional? Second best?
My suggestion: a city built in the form of a ziggurat in the middle of a desert. Imagine the Great Pyramid at Giza, only there's doors and windows along all the sides. Or better yet, instead of a pyramid, it's some other shape. Like a giant statue of a sphinx?
Or how about a city built around a waterfall? Sort of like the networks of decks and balconies around Niagra Falls, only people live, work, and play on them.
Also, it's just not high fantasy until you've had a flying city. I don't care what makes it fly, and neither will your players. It just has to be a flying city.
Thanks for the link ^_^.
The waterfall idea is awesome.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I have a city for gnomes that is in the trees. They trees are twice the height and width of redwoods (600 ft. tall x 50ft. wide). The branches are 30-80 foot long. The end of branches sway around depending on the direction and strength of the wind. Temperature changes the angle of the branches as well. In hot weather, the end of the branch would travel higher seeking sunlight. In temperate weather, the branches are perpendicular to the trunk. And in cold weather, the branches sunk lower towards the ground.
Since the campaign was based in Arcadia on Golarion, the everchanging travel routes in the city helped combat the Bleaching. Gnomes build their homes into the trunks with small platforms running the circumferance of the trunk (reminiscent of Ewoks). There are no walkways or ropes between trees. Rather, the gnomes went from tree to tree, like squirrels do, along the branches. The gnomes use prestidigitation to warm and chill the branches to help facilitate travel. They could use that spell at will, but did not have any other innate gnome magic. They also had a +4 racial bonus to Acrobatics and Climb checks instead of defensive training and obsessive traits.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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For deserts, a butte that's been hollowed out and has a city inside of it, like a circular cliff-city, that only has sunlight in the center of the city during mid-day (and uses bronze or copper mirrors atop the mesa, rotated to face the sun and reflect light down into the central shaft, to provide light the rest of the day) could be wicked cool.
I have been using the mesa idea for a while. The inside is turned into concentric circles with buildings hollowed into them. The very center is a very large ampitheatre with temples and other civic rooms underneath. The rock removed from the inside is used to build terraces on the outer part, large towers on the mesa tops outside edge, and workshops around the outside ground level of the mesa. Then there is the giant fortified wall. Underneath it all is tunnels used for transportation. Built by dwarves of course.
Really the basic design of a dwarven city should be in some ways quite alien to humans. In a human city some buildings might be "3D" that is having upper levels, but a dwarven city is likely "3D" in it's entirety. The city's wards will be on different levels.
However, consider a possible variant of this. What if the dwarves find themselves in a land where it is difficult to mine, probably due to the presence of an aquifer, which is common in the low lands. Now assume they want to build in they're traditional style, but since they cannot dig down (at least not as far as they are accustomed), they instead build up wards, with parts of they're city built on top of one another in a massive spire.
Also, I suggest you look for accounts of people playing the game Dwarf Fortress. Many players have endeavored to construct they're fortresses in odd and/or spectacular ways. This website might give you some inspiration, to start with.
I have a city for gnomes that is in the trees. They trees are twice the height and width of redwoods (600 ft. tall x 50ft. wide). The branches are 30-80 foot long. The end of branches sway around depending on the direction and strength of the wind. Temperature changes the angle of the branches as well. In hot weather, the end of the branch would travel higher seeking sunlight. In temperate weather, the branches are perpendicular to the trunk. And in cold weather, the branches sunk lower towards the ground.
Since the campaign was based in Arcadia on Golarion, the everchanging travel routes in the city helped combat the Bleaching. Gnomes build their homes into the trunks with small platforms running the circumferance of the trunk (reminiscent of Ewoks). There are no walkways or ropes between trees. Rather, the gnomes went from tree to tree, like squirrels do, along the branches. The gnomes use prestidigitation to warm and chill the branches to help facilitate travel. They could use that spell at will, but did not have any other innate gnome magic. They also had a +4 racial bonus to Acrobatics and Climb checks instead of defensive training and obsessive traits.
It's a good idea, but I don't have Gnomes as a player race.
Really the basic design of a dwarven city should be in some ways quite alien to humans. In a human city some buildings might be "3D" that is having upper levels, but a dwarven city is likely "3D" in it's entirety. The city's wards will be on different levels.
However, consider a possible variant of this. What if the dwarves find themselves in a land where it is difficult to mine, probably due to the presence of an aquifer, which is common in the low lands. Now assume they want to build in they're traditional style, but since they cannot dig down (at least not as far as they are accustomed), they instead build up wards, with parts of they're city built on top of one another in a massive spire.
Also, I suggest you look for accounts of people playing the game Dwarf Fortress. Many players have endeavored to construct they're fortresses in odd and/or spectacular ways. This website might give you some inspiration, to start with.
Thanks for the site.
Most dwarven cities are multilevel like that, especially mountain dwarf cities.
Dalaran, but with cannons.
A symmetrical city that replicates reality to match sides. a city that time travels randomly. A city that is 2nd and so is everyone within it.What do you mean, "2nd"? Two-dimensional? Second best?
My suggestion: a city built in the form of a ziggurat in the middle of a desert. Imagine the Great Pyramid at Giza, only there's doors and windows along all the sides. Or better yet, instead of a pyramid, it's some other shape. Like a giant statue of a sphinx?
Or how about a city built around a waterfall? Sort of like the networks of decks and balconies around Niagra Falls, only people live, work, and play on them.
Also, it's just not high fantasy until you've had a flying city. I don't care what makes it fly, and neither will your players. It just has to be a flying city.
Sorry added a n in 2d.
25 years ago a friend ran a GURPS game with a hollow butte inhabited by flying monkeys...yeah, THOSE flying monkeys!
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A city of interconnected towers. Like New York City, but with the skyscrapers all connected by sky-ways, slides, tunnels, tubes, and elevated walkways.
A group of pirates inside an iceberg.
Traditionaly designed city that is in a pocket dimension only reachable via a closet in an old manor house (which has four children living in it).
A city where the most plentiful building resource is rock salt.
Towers suspended from the ceiling of a large cavern, which would also be able slide up tubes to be above ground.
City made of glass, posssibly on the edge of a sandy desert.
City which, when viewed from above, makes a design, like the Nazca lines.
Mine have built a city around a dormant volcano and also out of magically enchanted ice alongside a sub-arctic mountain.
An amphibious race could have a "city" in a swamp. From the surface it just looks like a swamp, but all the "buildings" are warrens dig out of the mud and accessed from below the waterline.
Edit: what about a flying city built on the back of one or more giant Mu Spores?
I actually have some Gripli that have a sunken temple in the swamp. More like a temple city though. Most of the chambers are drowned, though some still have integrity and provide stale air.
In my setting, the players usually go between 3 cities
Mavera is an island city, built on ancient ruins that got ushed up to the surface. It's a chaotic good city, mainly with progressive values and love for arts
Alyez is the opposite, a more conservative-oriented city oriented on buisness and the industrial era with a great military force
And last but not Least, Ambrefort, the city i gave to my players to rule, which is a total mess and run over by a sentient Cannon Golem named "The Mordatron"
