What would be in a flying city that just recently appeared on the Prime Material plane?

[The Human Diversion]

As always, players in my Wednesday night home game DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

If any of you are familiar with Faerun (and I’m sure a lot of you are), I’m talking about the City of Shade. A little background:

I’ve been running a home campaign for the bulk of the last 2 years that has the PCs chasing leads all over Faerun to find out the City of Shade has returned and is doing not good things. The characters are now level 12/mythic 4 and are faced with having just defeated a major lieutenant of the Prince of Shades and are standing before a portal to the City – wherever it may be. I’m figuring 5-6 sessions in the city itself, but I’m having a bit of trouble with populating said city. I’m guessing for the bulk of the inhabitants life is fairly “normal” living on the plane of shadow and they’re not really involved with the Prince of Shades plot to return and restore the “Evil” Netherese empire. Heck, I’m kind of counting on a lot of the city to be non-evil as it means the PCs will have moral choices in front of them in how to defeat the Prince.

Since the city is built on the flat side of a giant chopped-off mountain top, I’ve used Dalaran from WoW for some inspiration … So I’ve got a map of the city and I’ve prepared 3 major “levels.”

The Mezzanine – the flat part of the shorn-off mountain where most of the city is built, “street level” if you will. City Center I have the portal with a lot of city guards and the portal operators. I figure this will be a big, wild, messy encounter. Going out from city center I have roads leading to all the cardinal points, and two other “ring” roads – an inner loop and an outer loop. The city has high walls for population control on the inner loop and lots of residential areas on the outer loop. I’ve even put in some greenhouses to grow what the city can’t trade for in the outer loop. I have a few bars/taverns, some guard posts, an armory, some temples, a library, and some professional shops on this level.

The Underground – inside the upside-down cone of the mountain, there are some important places here. I have library catacombs, a prison, a quasi-legal gladiatorial arena, and some lower-class residences here. There are also many warehouses and old forgotten rooms in this section.

The Spires – There are quite a few tall spires built up from the mezzanine and many of them have bridges and walkways going back and forth leading to it’s own area. The rich/elite/powers-that-be reside and interact here. On the spires I have the Prince’s residence, a few temples, griffon roosts, a wizard school, and a few ultra-rich residences.

Aside from city guards and maybe an encounter in the armory or library, what do you think PCs should face? Should I be ready for them to just rampage on an all-out assault or should I steer them toward hiding out and exploring? When they first get there, the city is going to jump from the Plane of Shadow to the Astral Plane in preparation to steel a Githyanki artifact

I’d like to get at least 3 sessions out of all of this, perhaps as many as 7 or 8. The PCs know their foe, know he’s caused general trouble, but don’t know he’s planning on appearing over Waterdeep soon to launch an invasion with the help of Skullport. My hope is they don’t decide on all-out destruction since the bulk of the city’s inhabitants are non-evil (as are the guards) and try to blend in until the Prince of Shade’s plans come to light.

Thoughts? Advice? Encounter ideas?

[Shoga]

I have read a bit on Fearun but I am not familiar with the city of Shade but allow me some thoughts.

I floating city(fortress) might be better as an invading army where almost everyone are soldiers except for support people. Every army needs cooks, fletchers, weaponsmiths, etc... to function. There could even be families of the soldiers on the city too.

There could be a faction within the city that doesn't want to be there and the PC's could join it to rebel and take over the city.

The leaders of the city could be dissidents from their home plane that took over the city and are trying to force their leaders back home to take a conquest frame of mind instead of a peaceful coexistence.

Just these thoughts could allow for many more than 8 sessions in the PC's trying to get support from the people and soldiers to plan a revolt with the epic battle at the end.

[Typelouder]

From what I read about the netharese (pretty sure that's the shade empire), one of the warlocks loved to collect monsters and beasts and put them in stasis. When you have a floating city it makes sense that there could be some pets there for the sole reason of having the ability too. Also experimentations. Maybe a medusa guard levels

[Wolfsnap]

In the heart of the city is a huge chamber where resides the enormous magical dingus that keeps the whole thing afloat. You have to have an encounter in there! It should be a dangerous environment with lots of environmental hazards, and if it gets damaged than you can have an epic encounter in which the city is falling out of the sky.

[The Human Diversion]

Excellent ideas, thank you!

[Cevah]

Also load up on half-magic items. That is items that are powered by the central power dingus that keeps city afloat. When out of range, they have no magic. Otherwise, they are half price of regular items. Therefore the NPCs have more magic than expected & the PCs can't make long term use of it.

/cevah