TSR 9262 FR8 Cities of Mystery Boxed Set.pdf

OFFICIAL GAME ACCESSORY

Cities of Mystery

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Putting the PCs to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Where to Locate Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Keeping the Party Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Hamlet or Metropolis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What Kind of Government?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Charting the Government

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 How to Use the Fold-ups

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . 41

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Sauter, City on the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Makeup of the Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 City Adventures

Taxes: A Fact of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Encounters in the City

Fabricating a History

Ike Likes Spiders and Snakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

A Citys Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

A Slave to the Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A Grand Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

City Design Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The Maltese Roc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Customs and Beliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Adventure Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

The Horrible Haunting of Mycky Fynns

Crime and Punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Credits

Author: Jean Rabe

Building Fold-ups: Dennis Kauth

Editor: Kim Mohan

Cover Art: Larry Elmore

TSR, Inc.

Interior Art: Chris Miller

PRODUCTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION

Typography: Angelika Lokotz and Betty Elmore

Keylining: Stephanie Tabat

TSR, Inc.

TSR Ltd.

Product Manager: Bruce Heard

POB 756

120 Church End, Cherry Hinton

Acknowledgement: Special thanks to Skip Williams for his

Lake Geneva,

Cambridge CB1 3LB

suggestions on city design.

WI 53147 USA

United Kingdom

ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, FORGOTTEN REALMS, DRAGON, PRODUCTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION, and the TSR logo are trademarks owned by

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Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Random House, Inc., and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Ltd. Distributed to the toy and hobby trade by regional

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This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is

prohibited without the express written permission of TSR, Inc.

9262

ISBN 0-088038-744-0

9262XXX1501

Special Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Lifeblood of the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Putting Life into Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Making the Fantastic Real

The Citys Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Where Goes the Neighborhood? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Cities of Mystery, a product

designed to help you, the Dungeon Master,

create colorful, exciting cities for your

campaigntaking the mystery out of creat-

ing and using city environments in a fantasy

role-playing game. With the aid of the build-

ing fold-ups included in this product, cities

will come to life before your players eyes.

Although the text of this book contains

terms and specifics that pertain to the

D&D® game, the AD&D® game, and the

AD&D 2nd Edition game, the facts and prin-

ciples can be used in conjunction with any

fantasy role-playing game. A city is a city

no matter what game system the city is

located in.

Well-developed cities are an important

part of every good campaign, because play-

er characters must visit cities throughout

their adventuring careers. Cities are ideal

places for PCs to purchase equipment and

to rest between adventures. Unfortunately,

that is all cities are to many players, because

their DMs concentrate on developing

dungeons and wilderness scenarios to tax

the abilities of the players characters. But

cities can be much more than waysides and

watering holes. They are places teeming

with life, and they hold as much mystery

and adventure as the deepest, darkest

dungeons.

Some of the chapters in Cities of Mystery

begin with boxed text. These are designed

to be entertaining and to help you get a bet-

ter feel for some of the characters who

might populate your fantasy cities. The

characters in these boxed sections are

Athormis, a mage, and Boliver, a dwarf.

They are adventurers who have visited

many cities and consider themselves

experts. If you wish, you can develop statis-

tics for these personalities and add them to

your city campaigns.

You also will be given an overview of vari-

ous forms of governments which you can

establish in your cities. A city can be nearly

useless without a government; taking time

to select a government for each city the PCs

visit is worth the effort. In addition, you will

learn how to create rulers and give them

personalities that will affect how the city is

run.

Other aspects that are covered include

establishing city defenses; creating histories

for cities; setting up celebrations and spe-

cial events; determining the races that live

there; deciding what a citys buildings are

made of; and establishing neighborhoods

for the various factions within a commu-

nity. In addition, a tax system can be imple-

mented, and a list of crimes and penalties

can be set up. All of these aspects of city life

need to be considered when constructing

communities for your player characters

enjoyment.

Cities of Mystery will help you get player

characters closely involved in your cities by

putting them to work as merchants, guards,

or in other professions, or by giving them

roles in the government or defense of a city.

be assembled to add a new dimension of

gaming to city adventures. The buildings

are easy to put together; the directions are

on the back of the building diagrams. More

than 30 buildings can be created from this

packet. The buildings can be arranged

many different ways on the street layouts,

and many of the one-story buildings can be

stacked to create multistory buildings or

towers. The buildings are made to scale for

25mm miniatures and are sturdy enough to

support miniatures on their upper stories

and roofs. The buildings can be folded flat

for easy storage and can be kept in the Cit-

ies of Mystery box and taken to game ses-

sions. And the buildings and streets in this

product can be added to; future accessories

for the AD&D game, the D&D game, and

the AD&D Oriental Adventures game will

contain more buildings and streets that can

be merged with the set in Cities of Mystery.

City encounters are more fun with the

fold-ups. As DM, you can set up city blocks

in advance of a gaming session, concealing

monsters and characters under various

buildings. As player characters explore the

city or move through a preset adventure,

they go from building to building. You lift up

the buildings they enter to show the occu-

pants. There wont be any arguing about

where player characters and their adver-

saries are standing, because the fold-ups

and miniatures detail the placements. More

directions for using the fold-ups and the

street layouts are presented throughout

this product.

Sauter and the

Adventures

In addition to all of the guidelines outlined

above, Cities of Mystery contains a sample

city, Sauter, which was created using the

information presented in the product. Sau-

ter can be used as a sample you can study

when creating your own cities, or it can be

more fully developed and added to your

campaign.

Five complete city adventures are includ-

ed with this product. Although they are

written based on the AD&D game and the

AD&D 2nd Edition game, with a little

adjusting they can be used with nearly any

fantasy game system. The adventures are

for characters of a variety of levels, and

there is room for you to expand the adven-

tures based on the businesses and charac-

ters in your own cities.

Following the adventures is a page filled

with adventure plots just waiting to be

fleshed out for the pleasure of you and your

players.

Getting Started

In planning the cities for your fantasy

campaigns, you have all of historyand

your imaginationto draw from. You might

choose to pattern your cities after real ones

of the present or the past. Cities have exist-

ed nearly as long as people, beginning when

groups of cavemen, hunters, and foragers

banded together to protect themselves

from other tribes. Cities are responsible for

the rise of commerce and industry, and they

are also credited with advancing the arts,

literature, and education. And cities will be

attractive in your campaign as long as you

keep them interesting and exciting for your

players.

Laying the

Foundation

Cities of Mystery will teach you how to

create vibrant cities that will become essen-

tial parts of your campaign. You will learn

how to place cities on your campaign map,

paying attention to geographic features and

climate. You will find out how to determine

the size of a city. In addition, an extensive

list of merchants and shopkeepers is pre-

sented to help add life to your cities busi-

ness districts. And encounter charts will

help you keep the action moving.

Building Fold-ups

The stars of Cities of Mystery are the

street layouts and building fold-ups that can

WHERE TO LOCATE CITIES

The dwarf tucked his long gray beard

into his belt, looked up at his human

friend, and sighed.

Weve been on the road too long,

Athormis. Its time to spend some of our

wealth in a city; dine on fine meals, ride

on a riverboat, spend a few evenings in a

tavern. Maybe therell be a festival. And

that city looks as good as any other, the

dwarf said, pointing toward Sauter, a

bustling city located at the juncture of a

river and the sea.

Ah, Boliver, the human mage replied.

Yes, I think youre right. A week away

from adventuring would do us both

some good. Im getting too old to spend

every night sleeping in the woods.

Besides, Im in need of some spell compo-

nents. And Im sure youre in need of

some ale.

The pair walked toward the city, their

backpacks full of treasure from their last

adventure and happily weighing them

down.

I like river cities, Boliver mused.

Those kinds of cities have plenty of tav-

erns and a good number of adventurers

passing through. Barge captains and sail-

ors always seem loaded with rumors of

treasure to be gained and castles to

explore. After a week or so here well be

ready to pursue one of those rumors.

And maybe after that we can travel up to

a mountain village. We havent been to

the mountains in a while.

ing city because it has the best harbor with-

in hundreds of miles. Or a mining

community that began with a half-dozen

dwarves could develop into a town of a few

thousand people who have a dozen differ-

ent livelihoods, but who ultimately are sup-

ported because of the presence of the mine.

If your campaign map is one that came

with a fantasy game product, it probably

already has several cities on it. Of course,

you can always add moreas long as where

you put them (and why you locate them

there) makes sense.

If your campaign map is one you have cre-

ated, look at the terrain features you have

devised and compare them with terrain fea-

tures and cities in an atlas. Study the fea-

tures on a map, and you will be able to

reason out why a town or city comes into

being in a certain location. This knowledge

will help you to place cities in realistic loca-

tions on your campaign map.

prime industries or livelihoods. In addition,

lakes provide a source of fresh water, which

is a necessity to all communities. Some lake-

shore cities are involved in farming, draw-

ing water from the lake to the crops. And

some become involved in forestry because

of the profusion of trees which usually

grow near lakes. If the lake is large enough,

or serves as a source for a river, it can be

used as a transportation route and will

allow cities located on the lake to more easi-

ly engage in trade with other cities.

The first step in creating interesting cities

for your campaign is deciding where to

place them. It is not good enough to unfold

your campaign map and make marks at ran-

dom to represent cities. While it might look

nice to have cities evenly spaced three to

four inches apart on a map, that sort of

placement might not be realistic or practi-

cal. The better judgment you use in locating

your cities, the more enjoyment and satis-

faction you and your players will get out of

them.

Communities are established in certain

locations for certain purposes, and a com-

munity grows to the size of a village, town,

or city for a reason. For example, a lake-

shore settlement of fishermen might even-

tually grow into a town that becomes

involved in exporting fish to other com-

munities. A seacoast village that boasts a

deep harbor could grow into a major trad-

Seacoasts: Many large cities are found

along seacoasts because of the opportuni-

ties the coast provides the populace. The

coast is a source of industries, such as fish-

ing and shipping. A city located along a por-

tion of coast that affords a deep harbor can

develop a shipbuilding industry and

become a vital trading port, developing a

myriad of industries and growing in popula-

tion. A tourist industry can develop, since

ship passengers and crewmen must do

something with their time between jour-

Lakes: Cities located along lakes fre-

quently rely on fishing and hunting as their

WHERE TO LOCATE CITIES

neys. Many coastal cities are also on rivers,

which provides an avenue for transporting

goods inland.

Combination: Many cities will exist

where more than one of the above geo-

graphic features are present. In any combi-

nation, water is almost always one of the

elements. For example, a village of hunters

nestled deep in the woods might be a short

distance from a river. Or a town that devel-

oped because it was a convenient stop

between two large cities could be near a

small lake.

because of their familiarity with the place,

can easily avoid.

Other possible locations for fantastic cit-

ies could include the ocean floor, a station-

ary cloud, in the boughs of a huge tree, deep

within the earth, in an interdimensional

pocket, or on a solid patch of ground in the

middle of a dark and dangerous swamp. Let

your imagination run free, but remember

not to overdo the number of unearthly cit-

ies you place on your campaign map. Even

in a fantastic universe, the laws and princi-

ples of our real world will still apply for

most of the communities that come into

existence.

Rivers: For many of the same reasons

given above for lakes and seacoasts, cities

develop along rivers. Rivers provide a fish-

ing industry and are a source of transporta-

tion for taking goods to other communities.

Grain mills and lumber mills can develop,

The Fantastic: Since the AD&D® game,

D&D® game, and other fantasy role-playing

games are filled with wondrous and

fantastic things, cities in those worlds can

be located in unusual, unrealistic spots.

For example, a city populated by sages

might thrive on a cold, lonely mountain

peak; an isolated group of people could

have built a stunning city with golden spires

in the middle of a dormant volcano; a village

built on stilts over a mist-covered bog could

serve as the home for an austere and war-

like band of fighters.

In a fantastic universe, not all of the stand-

ard rules need apply. If the residents of a

town have some magical means of obtaining

water, it wouldnt be necessary for their

community to be located near a lake or riv-

er. If they can likewise create food magi-

cally, then their community could be

located in a barren, isolated spot (such as

the city of sages described above) far away

from any fertile land or trade routes.

However, even in a world where magic

exists; it is important that fantastic cities be

limited in number. If they are the norm

instead of the exception, they will not be

unusual and distinctive to your players, and

their excitement and interest level will drop

off. In order for the fantastic to be seen as

fantastic, you must use such devices spar-

ingly.

Even a fantastic city must have a reason

for being located where it is. Perhaps the

city filled with sages came into being on that

mountaintop because a sacred item is wedg-

ed in a crack near the peak, and the sages

congregated in this location so they could

protect it. Perhaps a group of people discov-

ered some great treasure in the dormant

volcano and built a city there because they

considered it an omen that their people

should stay. And maybe the warlike tribe of

fighters lives in the stilt village because they

believe the place can be easily defended,

and they hope their enemies will fall into

the patches of quicksand that ring most of

their buildingsbut which the tribesmen,

Plains: Many farming communities

begin in areas of relatively flat, fertile

ground. These communities are usually

smaller than those found along waterways.

They are often close-knit, with the populace

having common concerns and goals. Other

cities rely on these communities to sell them

foodstuffs. In addition, sometimes towns

will develop in plains areas because the

location is a good stopping point on a trade

or travel route between two larger cities.

These in-between towns have a variety of

industries or livelihoods, frequently provid-

ing goods which are picked up by mer-

chants traveling between larger cities.

Climate: Weather conditions can have a

significant impact on the location of cities.

For example, it would not make sense to

locate a city with a population of 10,000 on a

polar icecap, or to put a farming community

in an area where rains are brief and infre-

quent. Many of the cities on a continent will

be found in temperate areas where the peo-

ple can live comfortablyespecially since

people in medieval-flavored fantasy worlds

do not have the modern-world advantages

of heating and insulation.

Mountains: Farming communities that

concentrate on herd animals such as goats

and sheep, and communities built around

hunting and forestry, can be found in

mountainous areas. Other industries such

as fishing (from mountain streams) and tex-

tile manufacturing (from goat hair and

wool) also thrive in mountain towns. In

addition, some mountain boom towns can

be found next to copper, silver, or gold

mines. These towns could be filled with a

mix of peoples and industries all dependent

on the success of the mines.

Proximity: The locations of cities also

affects where towns grow. For example,

small towns can be found around larger cit-

ies. The towns produce raw materials for

the large city to use in making more sophis-

ticated items; for instance, a town provides

hides and skins from livestock, which are

shipped to manufacturing plants in the city

and made into finished goods (boots, vests,

and so forth). Some of the smaller towns

around a city are usually farming communi-

ties that provide food for the citys popula-

tion. In turn, the city provides finished

goods and opportunities for entertainment

and employment to the townspeople.

Forests: Hunting and forestry industries

are among the prime reasons communities

develop in wooded areas. Like plains towns,

these towns are often small and close-knit,

and many of these towns also will be located

along a river or lake.

Deserts: Towns in these arid places are

few. Most of them develop around an oasis

and must rely on trade from other cities to

support them. However, towns in desert cli-

mates can develop industries, such as herd-

ing or selling animals native to the

landcamels, birds, and reptiles. In addi-

tion, some of these towns could have devel-

oped because they were stopping points

between larger cities.

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