The City in the Clouds [Archive] - Wizards Community

The City in the Clouds [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Tovec
11-08-07, 09:04 PM If this has already been addressed please give me a link. I am assuming it hasn't.

I am running a campaign and plan to introduce something called "The City in the Clouds" which is [gasp] a city that hides in a cloud. It is a city of technology of a branch of humans that long ago decided to focus on technology instead of magic. That being said they have had several thousands of years to perfect their tech and long ago sent their city into the sky. One of my problems is that I have very little reason why these sky-dwellers would want to create problems on land with people who barely know they exist. Land dwellers tell of a city in the clouds but most believe it to be a myth. A lot of their tech would mimic magical effects of the land.

I am really interested in running this game and I have several ideas for it but my main problem is that I can't think of a reason for the city to want to attack the people from below. Some of the reasons, which partially fit but not completely, I have so far are: genetic problems from thousands of years of in-breeding, desecration of a holy or historical site or even protecting their secret. If anyone has any suggestions please post them. I'll answer any questions I can about this campaign but many of my players check these boards and I can't give out some details.
Artifact
11-09-07, 08:36 AM Sounds interesting. I like your ideas so far. Here's a few of my own:

What can you find on land that you can't find naturally in a City in the Clouds? Animals and plants for sure (even birds return to land eventually). The sky-dwellers would have to transport all this stuff themselves (at least initially). Maybe after so many millennia, they need to return to re-stock their supplies (so to speak).

Maybe they will want to return in secrecy, a sort of massive covert mission? Or maybe, its time to reveal themselves to the wider world (for good or evil). Would the sky-dwellers bring with them advanced technology (akin to magic) and share it willingly with the world? Would we be ready?

Or, would they protect such secrets at all costs, tempting the less-advanced land-dwellers into rash action? In such an event, the once sky-dwellers would be forced to defend themselves and their once mythical city.

Maybe the City in the Clouds returns to land unwillingly, before they are ready. Perhaps the technology that powers the city is malfunctioning. Or is it sabotaged from within?

Perhaps over many centuries of virtual isolation the sky-dwellers don't think like humans do anymore. Maybe their mind-set has become so alien from our own, that some sort of conflict is all-but-unavoidable. How would you detail an alien mind-set?

A few ideas to (hopefully) get ya started ;).

/\ Art
Hochiu
11-09-07, 10:44 AM The elves in my campaign setting have gone to the sky some four thousand years prior to the current date, and while there, their culture has changed to be far less focused on "Being good in nature" that it traditionally is - they're specifically decadent and opulent, aggressive and arrogant, to the point where their courts are full of intrigue and danger now.

You may want to think about how the original philosophies of these people have been changed over the course of thousands of years of isolation. Whether it started hatred and distrust of the surface-races, or if it caused them to somehow twist the story around. For instance, my elves quite willingly went to the sky in their exodus, but now they regard it as a forced relocation in order to survive against mounting population pressures from non-elves.

Resources, religion, old grudges, a movement to "Return to the Earth" by off-centre youth, economic turmoil, etc. all make good reasons why they would want to make a sudden reappearance on the land below.
Tovec
11-09-07, 12:47 PM I like a few of those ideas, they got me started with this. If the sky-dwellers have expanded beyond their means it would be a major cause of alarm. They probably built their city so it could expand but the expansion can only go so far and now they must return to land so that their city doesn't come crashing down. Another couple things I have thought of are that the city has a disease, inert to the people of the city but to land-dwellers it is fatal.

I think that the city in the clouds did once have high morals but had problems with the magic races of the world and chose to take to the sky. There is only one city in the sky, full of inbred humans, with base technology that few know how to make or evolve so they just replicate it instead. That is to say that while they have anti-matter guns and can make more it doesn't mean that they know How the guns work.

I like the idea that they be aggressive but they would know they have to do it through technological ends not through sheer might. They would look like regular humans of my world except that over the years they have grown pale and sickly through their inbreeding. I am giving them the stat changes of -2con, +2int.

I like the idea of sabotage but I think in this society for this game it would have to be accidentally (or on purpose) caused by the party. That for me would relate to a ground-based, but hidden, power supply hub. I was working on the sky-dweller's ancient city located near one of my main cities. It would serve as a place where they could pick up the resources and even recharge the city itself. It could be this that the party finds and disrupts so that the cloud city starts to malfunction. Their old city would be defended by "droids" for lack of a better word, they would be constructs that have been set on patrol duty to keep all form of investigators away.

If I go with this method it still involves the party messing up and provoking the city's wrath. I'm not against it for that reason but I'm having a hard time justifying why a group of explorer's would be sent into a forest which no one comes back from. Meaning NO ONE, not villagers have gone missing, but anyone who goes in doesn't come out - so why would you go in? Also how do I then justify how they get out?

ps. Can you tell me what the sky-elves are called in these other settings?
Hochiu
11-09-07, 02:48 PM My sky elves are a homebrew name, so it's up to whatever the DM would want to call them.
Tovec
11-09-07, 03:06 PM My sky elves are a homebrew name, so it's up to whatever the DM would want to call them.

Oh, I misread. I thought that these elves were in a campaign setting, I didn't realize that the setting was yours. More information on them would be interesting as I'm sure there is much I can use for my own devices that I haven't begun to think of. In my world they are more then likely going to be human however, shorter life-spans.
Passivearmada
11-09-07, 03:41 PM I was thinking that they're mad at the world below for letting the smoke from their forges float up and pollute the city. So maybe they have turrets defending against anyone able even fly up there, by steed or ship.
And do you happen to get any of your inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki? If not, I think you should definitely look up some of his stuff- it is pure fantastic genius.
Tovec
11-12-07, 11:29 PM I was thinking that they're mad at the world below for letting the smoke from their forges float up and pollute the city. So maybe they have turrets defending against anyone able even fly up there, by steed or ship.
And do you happen to get any of your inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki? If not, I think you should definitely look up some of his stuff- it is pure fantastic genius.

Um, one at a time. First, the city is meant to be myth to anyone below. Second, pollution isn't much of a problem as my games are golden-lined adventure settings, few starve :P and there is no real pollution, at least nothing that goes up. Third, no one is flying into a storm-like cloud, well they shouldn't be but I'm not ruling out them doing it or it happening accidentally. Ie. Cause of the problems. Forth, I don't know who Hayao Miyazaki is, so no I didn't get inspired from him. Could you tell me some names of some of his work, I recognize his name and I think I have some access to his work. Does any of it deal with a high-fantasy setting meeting a high-tech (non-space) society?
Passivearmada
11-13-07, 06:34 PM Um, one at a time. First, the city is meant to be myth to anyone below. Second, pollution isn't much of a problem as my games are golden-lined adventure settings, few starve :P and there is no real pollution, at least nothing that goes up. Third, no one is flying into a storm-like cloud, well they shouldn't be but I'm not ruling out them doing it or it happening accidentally. Ie. Cause of the problems. Forth, I don't know who Hayao Miyazaki is, so no I didn't get inspired from him. Could you tell me some names of some of his work, I recognize his name and I think I have some access to his work. Does any of it deal with a high-fantasy setting meeting a high-tech (non-space) society?

Castle in the Sky
Spirited Away
Kiki's Delivery Service
Nausicaa: Valey of the Wind
Princess Mononoke
Howl's Moving Castle
Orchomenos
11-14-07, 11:11 AM A few ideas:

- I would see a secret land-dwelling society who's goal is to destroy evidences that the Cloud City is not a myth.

- What if an evil dragon (or other flying creature) discovered the Cloud City, seized a part of it for his lair, and now attack his land-dwelling hatred foes?

Another couple things I have thought of are that the city has a disease, inert to the people of the city but to land-dwellers it is fatal.
What about the reverse? Some disease that gives just a cold to land-dwelling creatures, but that gives the equivalent of Ebola to Cloud Citizen?

Also, I suggest you to take a look at the adventure Return to the Temple of the Frogs (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070223a), which could be enhanced by the Secrets of Xen'drik Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070219a) (just switch the Warforged factory for a droid/robot factory).
elondir
11-14-07, 01:06 PM Don't forget to populate the skies with weird floating creatures.
Tovec
11-14-07, 08:39 PM Castle in the Sky
Spirited Away
Kiki's Delivery Service
Nausicaa: Valey of the Wind
Princess Mononoke
Howl's Moving Castle

I have heard of some of those, in fact I think I've seen Princess Mononoke. I have a friend who has Howl's. I'll look into this thank you.

I like the idea of the land-dwellers having a disease that is harmful to the city in the clouds but that is once again another reason for them to stay away instead of trying to fight.

I had initially wanted to keep the city as a myth but more I think about it I want it only to be a myth only to the unknowing. A story told to children to scare them so they don't do bad things. A sarcastic warning given to a drunk as he leaves the tavern for the night. Some scholars would know of the city's existence but try to keep it quiet from the populace as it is something they do not understand and should be feared. Maybe some preparations have been made in the event that the city does show itself, maybe some seek it out to better understand it. In any case I still have to find an exciting incident that causes the city to want to fight the land-dwellers.
Anuvrix
11-16-07, 09:22 AM "OH MY F&#^ING GOD!!!! THE ENGINES GAVE OUT!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!----"

City returns to the ground somehat unceremoniously, casung a sudden mixture of the races. here is where the people's decisions come into play. If the gourd people halp, there may be some hope for the relationship, if they retaliate as if it was intentional......

"CHAAAAAAAAARGE!!!"
Tovec
11-16-07, 03:32 PM "OH MY F&#^ING GOD!!!! THE ENGINES GAVE OUT!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!----"

City returns to the ground somehat unceremoniously, casung a sudden mixture of the races. here is where the people's decisions come into play. If the gourd people halp, there may be some hope for the relationship, if they retaliate as if it was intentional......

"CHAAAAAAAAARGE!!!"

Not the worse idea I've heard. Its simple, its direct, I like it. I'm doing a bit of reshuffling of my world lately, trying to rearrange things to more closely bind them together. This could be yet another thing that just happens and just set it up like you said, city comes falling out of the sky, crashes into some farmland near the city they are staying, then say "now what?"
Space_Dragon
11-16-07, 04:06 PM I read a scifi series awhile ago-fairly mediocre, but with some very interesting technology ideas-that you might find useful. The series is called Atlantis, by Greg Donnegan. I bring it up because the bad guys (evil, degenerate, high tech humans) have a lot of equipment that I feel would match your concept well, as well as having motivations for causing trouble on the surface.

These guys have powered armor suits called "valkeryes" that let them fly without wings or jetpacks of any sort, and the armor makes them look like snow-white, naked, androgynous humanoids with no faces except for two red eyes (actually helmet lenses). The suits have blades that pop out of the wrists, and they sometimes carry ray guns too. They also have these little robots that they throw like grenades, that fly toward your head and dig into your brain, simultaneously killing you and extracting your memories and uploading them to a computer.

Aside from the powered armor infantry, they had big, sphere-shaped spaceship things that had hatches that could swallow a sailing vessel, and could move through water as well as the air. They need biological or psionic to power these ships, so they capture people and plug them into the generators, slowly killing them and using them as fuel.

Finally, they had various types of robots and bioengineered creatures that did their bidding, including beasts that resembled hydras, manticores, and krakens. You could have it so that some of the constructs and magical beasts in the MM were created by them.
Tovec
11-16-07, 04:19 PM I read a scifi series awhile ago-fairly mediocre, but with some very interesting technology ideas-that you might find useful. The series is called Atlantis, by Greg Donnegan. I bring it up because the bad guys (evil, degenerate, high tech humans) have a lot of equipment that I feel would match your concept well, as well as having motivations for causing trouble on the surface.

These guys have powered armor suits called "valkeryes" that let them fly without wings or jetpacks of any sort, and the armor makes them look like snow-white, naked, androgynous humanoids with no faces except for two red eyes (actually helmet lenses). The suits have blades that pop out of the wrists, and they sometimes carry ray guns too. They also have these little robots that they throw like grenades, that fly toward your head and dig into your brain, simultaneously killing you and extracting your memories and uploading them to a computer.

Aside from the powered armor infantry, they had big, sphere-shaped spaceship things that had hatches that could swallow a sailing vessel, and could move through water as well as the air. They need biological or psionic to power these ships, so they capture people and plug them into the generators, slowly killing them and using them as fuel.

Finally, they had various types of robots and bioengineered creatures that did their bidding, including beasts that resembled hydras, manticores, and krakens. You could have it so that some of the constructs and magical beasts in the MM were created by them.

That all sounds fantastic. Plus it introduces a reason why the sky people would need/want to contact the land-dwellers. They need their psionic energy to keep the city in the sky. I'll definitely need to check out this Atlantis thing.
Passivearmada
11-17-07, 08:30 AM I think it's just a crazy idea, but maybe the city was put up there because it contained some ancient beast or sickness, where no evil-doers could find it. If the PCs can't gather enough psions or crystals or whatever to get it back to the sky in time, then this bad thing will be released.
Just a thought.
Tovec
11-17-07, 04:29 PM I think it's just a crazy idea, but maybe the city was put up there because it contained some ancient beast or sickness, where no evil-doers could find it. If the PCs can't gather enough psions or crystals or whatever to get it back to the sky in time, then this bad thing will be released.
Just a thought.

I have already done 3 campaigns with this general theme of gather stuff (1 game) and stop the release of big bad (2 games). I think they are going to start resenting me if I keep up with it.
For right now I think I'm going to put this on the back-burner as I am working on my current campaign world after some updates from 4e and it is starting to change shape and I don't know how the City in the Clouds will fit into it.
HCL
11-17-07, 10:54 PM here is what I would do with this:

The denizens of the cloud city are gray elves (with big black eyes) from another planet somewhere. Their old civilization was made uninhabitable by say, nuclear war, or maybe changes in astronomical factors (evolution of the sun, supernova, rogue black hole throwing off gravitational equilibrium, take your pick), or pollution. Their ancestors built this thing hovering over the planet, and a computer has been generating infinite energy and stuff using cold fusion for the last 20 thousand years, but now there may be a change in gravitational forces, a threat from dragons/githyani, or the computer is running out of juice somehow and they will need to get to the ground to build a power plant.

So a gnome builds a flying machine and penetrated the field of invisibility, and found these guys way up high. They need to figure out a way to get down/ fight off the threat, but they are all level 1 aristocrats who dont know anything but have a bunch of magic guns (and regular ones that they have been instructed on how to keep rust free) and a computer with an intelligence score of 46 that will help them out.

Have them sell the PCs guns and the computer can tell them how to get the thing down, use the guns, set up a nuclear power plant in the underdark after clearing out the mind-flayer city, destroy the evil githyanki, whatever...

or just have them land on earth and start blasting people and asking where the plutonium is at.
Passivearmada
11-18-07, 02:48 PM I have already done 3 campaigns with this general theme of gather stuff (1 game) and stop the release of big bad (2 games). I think they are going to start resenting me if I keep up with it.
For right now I think I'm going to put this on the back-burner as I am working on my current campaign world after some updates from 4e and it is starting to change shape and I don't know how the City in the Clouds will fit into it.

Okay. :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tovec 11-08-07, 09:04 PM	If this has already been addressed please give me a link. I am assuming it hasn't. I am running a campaign and plan to introduce something called "The City in the Clouds" which is [gasp] a city that hides in a cloud. It is a city of technology of a branch of humans that long ago decided to focus on technology instead of magic. That being said they have had several thousands of years to perfect their tech and long ago sent their city into the sky. One of my problems is that I have very little reason why these sky-dwellers would want to create problems on land with people who barely know they exist. Land dwellers tell of a city in the clouds but most believe it to be a myth. A lot of their tech would mimic magical effects of the land. I am really interested in running this game and I have several ideas for it but my main problem is that I can't think of a reason for the city to want to attack the people from below. Some of the reasons, which partially fit but not completely, I have so far are: genetic problems from thousands of years of in-breeding, desecration of a holy or historical site or even protecting their secret. If anyone has any suggestions please post them. I'll answer any questions I can about this campaign but many of my players check these boards and I can't give out some details.
Artifact 11-09-07, 08:36 AM	Sounds interesting. I like your ideas so far. Here's a few of my own: What can you find on land that you can't find naturally in a City in the Clouds? Animals and plants for sure (even birds return to land eventually). The sky-dwellers would have to transport all this stuff themselves (at least initially). Maybe after so many millennia, they need to return to re-stock their supplies (so to speak). Maybe they will want to return in secrecy, a sort of massive covert mission? Or maybe, its time to reveal themselves to the wider world (for good or evil). Would the sky-dwellers bring with them advanced technology (akin to magic) and share it willingly with the world? Would we be ready? Or, would they protect such secrets at all costs, tempting the less-advanced land-dwellers into rash action? In such an event, the once sky-dwellers would be forced to defend themselves and their once mythical city. Maybe the City in the Clouds returns to land unwillingly, before they are ready. Perhaps the technology that powers the city is malfunctioning. Or is it sabotaged from within? Perhaps over many centuries of virtual isolation the sky-dwellers don't think like humans do anymore. Maybe their mind-set has become so alien from our own, that some sort of conflict is all-but-unavoidable. How would you detail an alien mind-set? A few ideas to (hopefully) get ya started ;). /\ Art
Hochiu 11-09-07, 10:44 AM	The elves in my campaign setting have gone to the sky some four thousand years prior to the current date, and while there, their culture has changed to be far less focused on "Being good in nature" that it traditionally is - they're specifically decadent and opulent, aggressive and arrogant, to the point where their courts are full of intrigue and danger now. You may want to think about how the original philosophies of these people have been changed over the course of thousands of years of isolation. Whether it started hatred and distrust of the surface-races, or if it caused them to somehow twist the story around. For instance, my elves quite willingly went to the sky in their exodus, but now they regard it as a forced relocation in order to survive against mounting population pressures from non-elves. Resources, religion, old grudges, a movement to "Return to the Earth" by off-centre youth, economic turmoil, etc. all make good reasons why they would want to make a sudden reappearance on the land below.
Tovec 11-09-07, 12:47 PM	I like a few of those ideas, they got me started with this. If the sky-dwellers have expanded beyond their means it would be a major cause of alarm. They probably built their city so it could expand but the expansion can only go so far and now they must return to land so that their city doesn't come crashing down. Another couple things I have thought of are that the city has a disease, inert to the people of the city but to land-dwellers it is fatal. I think that the city in the clouds did once have high morals but had problems with the magic races of the world and chose to take to the sky. There is only one city in the sky, full of inbred humans, with base technology that few know how to make or evolve so they just replicate it instead. That is to say that while they have anti-matter guns and can make more it doesn't mean that they know How the guns work. I like the idea that they be aggressive but they would know they have to do it through technological ends not through sheer might. They would look like regular humans of my world except that over the years they have grown pale and sickly through their inbreeding. I am giving them the stat changes of -2con, +2int. I like the idea of sabotage but I think in this society for this game it would have to be accidentally (or on purpose) caused by the party. That for me would relate to a ground-based, but hidden, power supply hub. I was working on the sky-dweller's ancient city located near one of my main cities. It would serve as a place where they could pick up the resources and even recharge the city itself. It could be this that the party finds and disrupts so that the cloud city starts to malfunction. Their old city would be defended by "droids" for lack of a better word, they would be constructs that have been set on patrol duty to keep all form of investigators away. If I go with this method it still involves the party messing up and provoking the city's wrath. I'm not against it for that reason but I'm having a hard time justifying why a group of explorer's would be sent into a forest which no one comes back from. Meaning NO ONE, not villagers have gone missing, but anyone who goes in doesn't come out - so why would you go in? Also how do I then justify how they get out? ps. Can you tell me what the sky-elves are called in these other settings?
Hochiu 11-09-07, 02:48 PM	My sky elves are a homebrew name, so it's up to whatever the DM would want to call them.
Tovec 11-09-07, 03:06 PM	My sky elves are a homebrew name, so it's up to whatever the DM would want to call them. Oh, I misread. I thought that these elves were in a campaign setting, I didn't realize that the setting was yours. More information on them would be interesting as I'm sure there is much I can use for my own devices that I haven't begun to think of. In my world they are more then likely going to be human however, shorter life-spans.
Passivearmada 11-09-07, 03:41 PM	I was thinking that they're mad at the world below for letting the smoke from their forges float up and pollute the city. So maybe they have turrets defending against anyone able even fly up there, by steed or ship. And do you happen to get any of your inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki? If not, I think you should definitely look up some of his stuff- it is pure fantastic genius.
Tovec 11-12-07, 11:29 PM	I was thinking that they're mad at the world below for letting the smoke from their forges float up and pollute the city. So maybe they have turrets defending against anyone able even fly up there, by steed or ship. And do you happen to get any of your inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki? If not, I think you should definitely look up some of his stuff- it is pure fantastic genius. Um, one at a time. First, the city is meant to be myth to anyone below. Second, pollution isn't much of a problem as my games are golden-lined adventure settings, few starve :P and there is no real pollution, at least nothing that goes up. Third, no one is flying into a storm-like cloud, well they shouldn't be but I'm not ruling out them doing it or it happening accidentally. Ie. Cause of the problems. Forth, I don't know who Hayao Miyazaki is, so no I didn't get inspired from him. Could you tell me some names of some of his work, I recognize his name and I think I have some access to his work. Does any of it deal with a high-fantasy setting meeting a high-tech (non-space) society?
Passivearmada 11-13-07, 06:34 PM	Um, one at a time. First, the city is meant to be myth to anyone below. Second, pollution isn't much of a problem as my games are golden-lined adventure settings, few starve :P and there is no real pollution, at least nothing that goes up. Third, no one is flying into a storm-like cloud, well they shouldn't be but I'm not ruling out them doing it or it happening accidentally. Ie. Cause of the problems. Forth, I don't know who Hayao Miyazaki is, so no I didn't get inspired from him. Could you tell me some names of some of his work, I recognize his name and I think I have some access to his work. Does any of it deal with a high-fantasy setting meeting a high-tech (non-space) society? Castle in the Sky Spirited Away Kiki's Delivery Service Nausicaa: Valey of the Wind Princess Mononoke Howl's Moving Castle
Orchomenos 11-14-07, 11:11 AM	A few ideas: - I would see a secret land-dwelling society who's goal is to destroy evidences that the Cloud City is not a myth. - What if an evil dragon (or other flying creature) discovered the Cloud City, seized a part of it for his lair, and now attack his land-dwelling hatred foes? Another couple things I have thought of are that the city has a disease, inert to the people of the city but to land-dwellers it is fatal. What about the reverse? Some disease that gives just a cold to land-dwelling creatures, but that gives the equivalent of Ebola to Cloud Citizen? Also, I suggest you to take a look at the adventure Return to the Temple of the Frogs (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070223a), which could be enhanced by the Secrets of Xen'drik Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070219a) (just switch the Warforged factory for a droid/robot factory).
elondir 11-14-07, 01:06 PM	Don't forget to populate the skies with weird floating creatures.
Tovec 11-14-07, 08:39 PM	Castle in the Sky Spirited Away Kiki's Delivery Service Nausicaa: Valey of the Wind Princess Mononoke Howl's Moving Castle I have heard of some of those, in fact I think I've seen Princess Mononoke. I have a friend who has Howl's. I'll look into this thank you. I like the idea of the land-dwellers having a disease that is harmful to the city in the clouds but that is once again another reason for them to stay away instead of trying to fight. I had initially wanted to keep the city as a myth but more I think about it I want it only to be a myth only to the unknowing. A story told to children to scare them so they don't do bad things. A sarcastic warning given to a drunk as he leaves the tavern for the night. Some scholars would know of the city's existence but try to keep it quiet from the populace as it is something they do not understand and should be feared. Maybe some preparations have been made in the event that the city does show itself, maybe some seek it out to better understand it. In any case I still have to find an exciting incident that causes the city to want to fight the land-dwellers.
Anuvrix 11-16-07, 09:22 AM	"OH MY F&#^ING GOD!!!! THE ENGINES GAVE OUT!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!----" City returns to the ground somehat unceremoniously, casung a sudden mixture of the races. here is where the people's decisions come into play. If the gourd people halp, there may be some hope for the relationship, if they retaliate as if it was intentional...... "CHAAAAAAAAARGE!!!"
Tovec 11-16-07, 03:32 PM	"OH MY F&#^ING GOD!!!! THE ENGINES GAVE OUT!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!----" City returns to the ground somehat unceremoniously, casung a sudden mixture of the races. here is where the people's decisions come into play. If the gourd people halp, there may be some hope for the relationship, if they retaliate as if it was intentional...... "CHAAAAAAAAARGE!!!" Not the worse idea I've heard. Its simple, its direct, I like it. I'm doing a bit of reshuffling of my world lately, trying to rearrange things to more closely bind them together. This could be yet another thing that just happens and just set it up like you said, city comes falling out of the sky, crashes into some farmland near the city they are staying, then say "now what?"
Space_Dragon 11-16-07, 04:06 PM	I read a scifi series awhile ago-fairly mediocre, but with some very interesting technology ideas-that you might find useful. The series is called Atlantis, by Greg Donnegan. I bring it up because the bad guys (evil, degenerate, high tech humans) have a lot of equipment that I feel would match your concept well, as well as having motivations for causing trouble on the surface. These guys have powered armor suits called "valkeryes" that let them fly without wings or jetpacks of any sort, and the armor makes them look like snow-white, naked, androgynous humanoids with no faces except for two red eyes (actually helmet lenses). The suits have blades that pop out of the wrists, and they sometimes carry ray guns too. They also have these little robots that they throw like grenades, that fly toward your head and dig into your brain, simultaneously killing you and extracting your memories and uploading them to a computer. Aside from the powered armor infantry, they had big, sphere-shaped spaceship things that had hatches that could swallow a sailing vessel, and could move through water as well as the air. They need biological or psionic to power these ships, so they capture people and plug them into the generators, slowly killing them and using them as fuel. Finally, they had various types of robots and bioengineered creatures that did their bidding, including beasts that resembled hydras, manticores, and krakens. You could have it so that some of the constructs and magical beasts in the MM were created by them.
Tovec 11-16-07, 04:19 PM	I read a scifi series awhile ago-fairly mediocre, but with some very interesting technology ideas-that you might find useful. The series is called Atlantis, by Greg Donnegan. I bring it up because the bad guys (evil, degenerate, high tech humans) have a lot of equipment that I feel would match your concept well, as well as having motivations for causing trouble on the surface. These guys have powered armor suits called "valkeryes" that let them fly without wings or jetpacks of any sort, and the armor makes them look like snow-white, naked, androgynous humanoids with no faces except for two red eyes (actually helmet lenses). The suits have blades that pop out of the wrists, and they sometimes carry ray guns too. They also have these little robots that they throw like grenades, that fly toward your head and dig into your brain, simultaneously killing you and extracting your memories and uploading them to a computer. Aside from the powered armor infantry, they had big, sphere-shaped spaceship things that had hatches that could swallow a sailing vessel, and could move through water as well as the air. They need biological or psionic to power these ships, so they capture people and plug them into the generators, slowly killing them and using them as fuel. Finally, they had various types of robots and bioengineered creatures that did their bidding, including beasts that resembled hydras, manticores, and krakens. You could have it so that some of the constructs and magical beasts in the MM were created by them. That all sounds fantastic. Plus it introduces a reason why the sky people would need/want to contact the land-dwellers. They need their psionic energy to keep the city in the sky. I'll definitely need to check out this Atlantis thing.
Passivearmada 11-17-07, 08:30 AM	I think it's just a crazy idea, but maybe the city was put up there because it contained some ancient beast or sickness, where no evil-doers could find it. If the PCs can't gather enough psions or crystals or whatever to get it back to the sky in time, then this bad thing will be released. Just a thought.
Tovec 11-17-07, 04:29 PM	I think it's just a crazy idea, but maybe the city was put up there because it contained some ancient beast or sickness, where no evil-doers could find it. If the PCs can't gather enough psions or crystals or whatever to get it back to the sky in time, then this bad thing will be released. Just a thought. I have already done 3 campaigns with this general theme of gather stuff (1 game) and stop the release of big bad (2 games). I think they are going to start resenting me if I keep up with it. For right now I think I'm going to put this on the back-burner as I am working on my current campaign world after some updates from 4e and it is starting to change shape and I don't know how the City in the Clouds will fit into it.
HCL 11-17-07, 10:54 PM	here is what I would do with this: The denizens of the cloud city are gray elves (with big black eyes) from another planet somewhere. Their old civilization was made uninhabitable by say, nuclear war, or maybe changes in astronomical factors (evolution of the sun, supernova, rogue black hole throwing off gravitational equilibrium, take your pick), or pollution. Their ancestors built this thing hovering over the planet, and a computer has been generating infinite energy and stuff using cold fusion for the last 20 thousand years, but now there may be a change in gravitational forces, a threat from dragons/githyani, or the computer is running out of juice somehow and they will need to get to the ground to build a power plant. So a gnome builds a flying machine and penetrated the field of invisibility, and found these guys way up high. They need to figure out a way to get down/ fight off the threat, but they are all level 1 aristocrats who dont know anything but have a bunch of magic guns (and regular ones that they have been instructed on how to keep rust free) and a computer with an intelligence score of 46 that will help them out. Have them sell the PCs guns and the computer can tell them how to get the thing down, use the guns, set up a nuclear power plant in the underdark after clearing out the mind-flayer city, destroy the evil githyanki, whatever... or just have them land on earth and start blasting people and asking where the plutonium is at.
Passivearmada 11-18-07, 02:48 PM	I have already done 3 campaigns with this general theme of gather stuff (1 game) and stop the release of big bad (2 games). I think they are going to start resenting me if I keep up with it. For right now I think I'm going to put this on the back-burner as I am working on my current campaign world after some updates from 4e and it is starting to change shape and I don't know how the City in the Clouds will fit into it. Okay. :)