Venice is such an iconic city, both due to its geography but also its importance particularly during the period of history that seems to have most influenced Pathfinder's setting.
Paizo are rarely super coy about their inspirations, so is there a city in the setting that seems based on Venice?
The only one that come to mind is Senghor, a fortress city on the mwangi coast that is built in an island, and whose every disctrict are separated by canals, here's it's the PF1 map. There's also an updated one in the mwangi expanse book of PF2, which is a lot more "built" and overall give a much more "big city" feel than this map. Do note however that it have few stone building and it's architecture is quite removed from venise.
Other than that, the country most the most italian influence in golarion would be Cheliax (and that's where you're going to see the architecture that most closely ressemble venice) but I don't know of any specific cheliaxian city that would mirror venice.
It's not exactly 1:1 since it's in Osirion, but Tephu has entire neighbourhoods with a large canal running through it that is used for transport and travel. It's not the entire city, it kinda makes a loop around the city centre through what's known as Wadjet's Walk, but at least in looking for potential battle maps for future use I've found that venetian-flavoured ones wouldn't be too far off.
If you mean architecturally or culturally, I would look at somewhere in Taldor or Cheliax. If such a city doesn't exist yet, there's plenty of room to just make one - they're big places, and even large-ish cities can be glossed over when describing their major settlements.
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Vyre has kind of a Venetian energy, does it not?
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Vyre has kind of a Venetian energy, does it not?
Vyre absolutely has a Venetian energy! I can't believe I didn't think of that- I've run Hells Rebels so many times!
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Vyre has kind of a Venetian energy, does it not?Vyre absolutely has a Venetian energy! I can't believe I didn't think of that- I've run Hells Rebels so many times!
How so? Everything about its geography, architecture, geopolitics, history, and culture is different.
Westcrown was designed to have Venetian energy, and still doesn't quite pull it off.
Westcrown, former capitol of Cheliax, is the best match-up.
It's a coastal metropolis with extensive canals, heavy Italian inspiration, theater scene, and was supposed to be the site where Aroden would come down from the heavens to rule the Chelish empire himself.
See: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Westcrown
Vyre has kind of a Venetian energy, does it not?Vyre absolutely has a Venetian energy! I can't believe I didn't think of that- I've run Hells Rebels so many times!How so? Everything about its geography, architecture, geopolitics, history, and culture is different.
Westcrown was designed to have Venetian energy, and still doesn't quite pull it off.
Did they say anywhere that this was the inspiration? Because saying something fails to pull off an inspiration might just mean it isn't really an inspiration.
It's true that geographically Vyre doesn't have Venice's most iconic feature (no canals) but the island has a similar impact of making it relatively protected from other world powers. It's closeness to a prison is also a feature of early Renissance/late middle ages (these terms are all so messy) Venice.
It's most Venice aspect imo is it's political situation- it's proud independence. Particularly in the Lost Omens timeframe it's balancing a relationship between a newly formed, progressive (one could say humanist) government and a totalitarian theocracy... this dynamic defined venice for most of the renissance paritucalrly.
I would disagree that the artitecture is not Venician, but yeah the lack of canals is mark against it. But the most direct inspiration is the outfitting of virtually every character from Vyre- an exaggerated version of how Venicians were depicted! Add to that its reputation for pleasure, sin and secrets, all things that have been alleged of Venetians throughout their history! Masked balls were particularly a staple of the city until it became part of Italy (at least in reputation). You could even argue that the association with Norgorber is an allusion to the various secret societies and conspiracies Western Europe and the Middle East thought Venice's merchants were part of.
I admit I am not particularly familiar with Westcrown, but I don't see the argument that it is particularly Venetian? The artitecture and geography isn't similar, no the history is very, very different- most notably its role a former capital city and still part of a grand (if crumbling) empire.
Sorry- that last post was a lot more words than I realised. I think you'll never find a single direct equivalent particularly since one of Paizo's great world building strengths is homage and pastiche.
But Wescrown DOES have canals!
It does- I apologise if I said/implied it didn't. Maybe I should have been clearer in my original post that I don't consider canals the be all end all of a Venice-inspired location. Of course if part of the reason you like Westcrown is Venician-stlye canals, then I certainly don't want to imply that I think that's wrong or bad.
For decedancy, political maneuvers and sinister secrets I prefer Vyre.