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So I'm gearing up for an urban campaign. The setting is a flying metropolis, New Laqueta, cobbled together from various flying debris and structures: a flying city a la Laputa, a Cloud Castle, many derelict airships, several helicarriers... Pretty much a 40K space hulk, but in the sky. And colonized.
I've figured the city has a population of around 30,000, and is fairly densely packed. So much so that I have been considering inflating the cost of living values and/or the capital system from the Downtime system. Simply put, I want players to struggle early game to get a foothold in the city; as they start making a name for themselves and accomplishing greater and greater things, it will get easier.
Anyone have any advice or guidance?
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Space is a premium.
Living area:
That means that living space will be expensive.
Increase rents and land value.
Food:
All food must be made magically or imported.
Food is therefore expensive, and could possibly be used as a main campaign element. The powerful use food to control and quell the populace for example. Instead of the power struggle revolving around money, it revolves around food. Make sense?
Water:
this would be easier than food if below cloud level, can collect rain, and supplement with magic. Otherwise, must again be imported and can form part of the food crisis.
Crime:
The crisis and costs will lead to a high crime environment, or a police state depending on how you want the story to go. (High crime is overdone, police state on the other hand... Think "equilibrium" the movie)
The locale and style also tend to lend towards a large wealth gap, VERY LARGE. Small people struggle.
Why are people living on the city, who lives there, what is produced there if anything.
Does this city move? if yes how to other countries feel about this massive city, that could easily be a cover for an army, flying over their borders.
Interesting thought, how does the low oxygen level and high altitude affect the long term inhabitants.
Go to Reading.
The bit on Tibetans is interesting. Faster breathing, better at exercise.
People might also be "slightly" taller, lower gravity.
Will think more if you weigh in on this
EDIT: A lot of this campaign could occur indoors too. All those ships and things have insides with rooms already built, those would be the first place people started living instead of building on. The "under-ship" could be dark and a horrible place to live, with the wealthy living on the "upper-ship" with light and air. This can be a physical divide to accompany the wealth divide.
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The city does move, and is in fact a hub of airship trade. Food is mostly imported through a bidding process from settlements around the world to determine the flight path. I am very aware of the crime as well, and the various gangs will feature heavily into the early campaign. Water isn't really a problem because of magical measures, but food is a highly motivating resource. As for the city's reception, I mentioned bidding; the ship is generally banned from traveling too close to civilization, due to a superweapon built into the city.
You can generally assume I have acknowledged aspects of the flying city; what I really need help with is figuring out how to deal with costs of things in the city.
All of the things i asked factor into the costs... Or rather give indications of how to adjust the costs... Look up real world situations with scarcity of basic needs
You could easily look at doubling or triplling the living costs as a simple sollution
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They are, and they are things I have considered. All said, tripling the cost of living amounts and food prices seems fair enough. What I'm more interested in, though, is how to handle the downtime system. Do I make it harder to get capital, or do I inflate the costs of things on a case-by-case basis?
I would say go case by case. I'm not hugely familiar with the downtime system. It makes sense to go case by case...
"The various types of capital are build points, gp, days, Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic"
BP not an issue yet.
GP that they sorta just have, you could reduce the actual gp given for quests, and instead have intangible rewards (free rent, a favor from this or that merchant) to limit the GP capital.
Days are limited and always will be, but will be driven by the story.
Goods, as discussed earlier some good will be more expensive, wood, food, etc, but others may be cheaper (an excess shipment of steel) and costs will vary wildly with time depending on where the city is (going to be trading with a lumber camp, buy lumber there, rather than when trading with the jewelry consortium).
Influence, start off with very low, and provide as quest completion rewards maybe?
Labor, labor will be VERY cheap for unskilled labor.
Magic, depends on the kind of magic i suppose...
This is all from a very quick cursory glance at the downtime system at midnight. I may be far off topic
I assume unlocking will be story driven?
I like the 3 times earned, except when it comes to labor, labor should be cheap. A large dense population, lots of crime, people want any job they can get...
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Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just Goods that need to be changed. Perhaps changing them so that they are more valuable overall; doubling both their purchased and earned price, which would make them more effective. Using that logic, we could also bump up Influence, which works in favor of what ai wanted, a vast uncaring city that is hard to affect. They still work the same, just are more costly investments, also slightly devaluing labor and magic (two resources which are common as you mentioned for the former, surprisingly attainable for the latter).
I am just going to spit ball an idea I brought up in another thread, and I am just throwing it out there because it seems appropriate here:
With the heavy emphasis on limited space, perhaps the lower classes are forced to live in areas that would seem patently insane: the slum districts are actually built from a system of rope bridges and hanging houses that lies just over the edge of the city.
It seems like a logical conclusion- if there is no more room in town, you make more room by adding more area. But obviously this is...well kinda insane.
But you can also use this structure to address other issues- hanging gardens that take advantage of the wide open space in the open air under the city. This can provide an additional source of food stores (although never enough) and it can be used to provide poor quality rations for the slum districts. It also makes an insanely dangerous job (SKY farmer- tilling fields while hanging on for dear life).
For a slightly less awesome method, you could also use structures similar to piers hanging off the town. Poorly maintained piers with loose boars and poor guard rails.
Overall, this can be an extra part of the setting that adds a unique flair, and forcing your party to live and communte from these areas due to their low funds. Also, it gives you plenty of opportunities for SKY CRIME!Pterodactyl riding half orcs and tons of witches (cause would wouldn't want at least a 1 level dip so they can grab the flight hex for at will feather fall?)
Add in storms and perhaps an official or two 'letting a neighborhood go' in order to get rid of a possible base of rebels... your party will beg to be let into the districts with floors that lack that rustic rotting creek...
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There's really four sections for housing in the city. 1) Old Laqueta, which is small and populated by the upper class (who don't have their own private airships and docks), the Manifold, which is the wood and steel rigging holding the entire city together (biggest section), the Shell, the near-vertical outside of the old city which is where flight-capable races live (harpies, made into a player race in this setting, are a fairly large minority in the city, about 5000 strong), and the carrier-towns, where the really low-class live. Those support at least a third of the population on their own.
Funny you mention feather fall, since minor magic items are a major industry in New Laqueta. Specifically, there is at least one sweatshop that churns out talismans of beneficial winds, a normally 50-gold piece item that is an expendable feather fall item. Richer families go for the greater one that is 1/day, or even spring for snapleafs.
Well, I suggest the witch for at will castings of feather fall because a floating city might bring up a situation that rarely happens in most games- the duration of feather fall.
It expires at landing...or after 1 round/level. This usually doesn't come up since you are moving 60'/round. So even with 5 cl, you are surviving 300' drops.
But many forms of clouds exist over 6,000' up, and you seem to indicate that this city is above the clouds. That would need 100 cl.... (there might be much, much lower clouds... still seems rather untenable)
Thus, the ability to cast featherfall at will seems fairly useful, since you can spam it again and again. And this is something that even level 1 witches can do with the flight hex.
Regular methods of feather fall might still be useful for allowing you to find SOMETHING to grab onto. So lower hanging levels might be useful for that.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just Goods that need to be changed. Perhaps changing them so that they are more valuable overall; doubling both their purchased and earned price, which would make them more effective. Using that logic, we could also bump up Influence, which works in favor of what ai wanted, a vast uncaring city that is hard to affect. They still work the same, just are more costly investments, also slightly devaluing labor and magic (two resources which are common as you mentioned for the former, surprisingly attainable for the latter).
Sounds great