So I'm running a campaign for one player in my home brew world. I have multiple story lines going but the current one involves the players paladin tracking down a target aberration in the city's old sewer system just as the city (metropolis) is attacked. The player has spent 3 days in the sewers helping a thieves guild (yay rp) only to just now reach the surface again.
I want a gritty urban campaign and so I'd love to know what others have done to set the feel for encounters and just post attack city scape drama,
Spoilers: attack was a combined attack by a fallen paladin (the city's bishop....can't wait for that rp) and a disgraced politician. The anti paladin wishes to restore an old defeated god and is seeking the objects needed for the ritual which he thinks may be partially in the city. The politician seeks to rule the city. The attack included clerics and cultists of the evil god, troglodytes (controlled by pol.), mercenaries and other brigands paid to fight, and an assortment of other creatures including a few demons (summoned by cultists) and ice trolls (historic connection to the evil god).
The city has a population of about 250,000. About 10% of that is still within the walls and I just don't want to mess up setting the scene by overlooking any really realistic or interesting tropes.
Sorry for post length.
Well there's a lot of encounters or little side-plots to consider:
- schemes of the other politicians
- rival thieve's guilds
- independent BBEGs
Take the 3rd point above, just for a hoot. Let's say that, unbeknownst to anyone in the whole city you've got a vampire living in a crypt in the city. It's existed since the first fall of the dead god; it is in fact a cursed soul doomed for it's original heresy.
However, it DOESN'T want its dread lord to rise. It knows that things will only get worse for it if the dead god returns, but it can't suffer the sanctimonious paladins either.
Now you have a 3rd, independent faction in the mix. This faction might have roving vampire spawn, ghouls, and other undead. It might also have dominated slaves as part of a "herd" upon which it feeds from time to time. Perhaps make this herd into point 2, the rival thieve's guild. This guild gets wind that the paladin is working in the sewers and they move to take him out. The paladin is then saved by another agent of the vampire - an undead. RP situations abound.