Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 VampyresThrenody Mar 30, 2008 12:17:52	The stickied city thread is awesome and on a similiar note I was looking for some help crafting a small town that my players will be using. I should note that this is a simulationist endeavor because I find it interesting writing up short descriptions for everyone in the villages/cities/towns that players will be using repeatedly. With that said: I need help expanding the town. I have a small portion of it figured out but most of the populace is bare. I was using the Medieval Demographics Made Easy articles to figure out the number of shops and craftsmen in the village but we lack a substantial majority of the populace! Can you figure out what to do with the rest that can present/support a [fantastically] realistic village? The town's statistics: Name: Tuseilles, part of the Corday Province in the country of Westire Population: 750; 730 human, 13 dwarves, 5 halflings, 2 dragonborn [If anyone comes up with ideas requiring a higher pop of halflings this can be done easily. A few more dwarves could be allocated also from the 750] Primary trade: Lumber Currency: Use of copper/silver and barter Government: 5 Pop Show Town Hall: The town is led by the Marquis Andre Reiulles. He is the head of a noble family consisting of only himself, his wife (Magdalena Reiulles) and their daughter (Elizabeth Reiulles). The Reiulles family has held the mayorship of the town for the past fifty years being passed dwon from the Marquis’s grandfather. They have managed to stay in power in the past because of the low taxes and generally genial attitude toward the commoners. Recently they have submitted to the tariffs to be paid to a nearby bandit lord called simply, 'The General’ in the formerly abandoned Fort Siev. The family lives in a large, 6 room house near the center of town beside the larger town hall. Town hall needs a Treasurer and an assistant/secretary for the Mayor.
#2 smerg Mar 30, 2008 14:01:57	One tip is when watching movies, TV, or plays keep a sheet of paper nearby (or whatever you are most comfortable using if you are more of a database user type). Look for characters that have something memorable that makes you remember who they are and what they are. For example, if I mention Pirates of the Carribean and Cotton then you will likely recall a Mute sailor that has a Parot that talks for him. Build a list of these one or two line NPCs. When it comes time to populate your town, you can fit the person into the new role in your town and instantly recall how this character will look and play. When you are trying to make a town come to life, you need a good cast of these quick characters that you can pull out to make players from looking at the local town bars and thinking 'Gee it is bar X, like bar Y in the last town'. The next thing to do to bring a town to life is to use the yellow pages of your own town or local big city. Flip through the pages and look for several different businesses and a selection of bars and resteraunts. Look for businesses with different themes and types of goods. Note how the different resteraunts might have different looks or themes. If possible, go and visit a few of these places by looking in the door and seeing how the tables and buildings are arranged. Look for things that stand out like fountains in the lobby or a large scale fake ship on top of a seafood restaurant (we have that in our town). Once you have the basic stock of variety of businesses then you need to only think of what changes need to be made to transfer the business into your game setting. Krazy Kellies Computer Parts store might be Kellarnies Magical Ingredients shop in your game world. I hope that pair of suggestions helps.
#3 VampyresThrenody Mar 30, 2008 17:15:30	Thanks for the tips! I especially like the idea of aspects of businesses from the city for my village.
#4 VampyresThrenody Mar 31, 2008 6:18:33	History: Show The small village of Tuseilles was found as a partial ruin after the End of Days during the first forays into Westire to attempt to re-establish a nation. The nearby forest and several already built stone buildings provided an excellent place to begin a lumber operation. The Reiulles family was then simply a merchant family that was working for the Corday noble family. They brought in lumberjacks, cooks, masons, carpenters and other workers and began a small lumber camp. Merchants would travel to the village in order to get huge orders of lumber for outlaying areas in the Lauer province that did not have access to wood. Slowly the village grew but to this day continues to rely upon the lumber trade for livelihood.
#5 smerg Mar 31, 2008 13:13:24	Tip 3 The internet is your friend when designing history for a town or village. Most towns and villages have historical societies that have a home page dedicated to the local history of the town or village. It will also indicate some important monuments or sites within the town. All you have to do is choose a town of a roughly correct size in roughly right location (google maps can help here if it is a major country that does not ban google maping of their country). Then look at either the city hall listing for the town or the historical society page to get a listing of the basic history of settlement or major events in the town or villages history. You then need to do a bit of renaming of events and monuments to fit your campaign world. Presto, a detailed history that makes sense with interesting stories for the players to pick up in the local taverns, monuments to visit, even important churches can be located in the town with a history of when they came into the town or city.
#6 VampyresThrenody Mar 31, 2008 13:42:41	Hmm having some difficulty finding events/history. Did great with the monuments/parks though: Monuments Show Tussen Monument: A stone statue in the town center with the inscription Tussen Reiulles on the base. Tussen was the first Reiulles to step foot inside the ruins at Tuseilles. The town is also named after him. The statue depicts him standing with a hand on a tree trunk and an axe in the other. Porit Log: This wooden statue of a tree is made from a piece of the largest tree ever cut down in Tuseilles. The tree was approximately 5 feet wide. The statue can be found near the north entrance to the village where the lumber caravans come into the town.
#7 smerg Mar 31, 2008 23:09:26	Not sure what specifically you are looking for in history or events but here are four town histories of various types. http://www.southernoregon.com/eaglepoint/index.html http://www.ptguide.com/history/index.html http://www.ci.camas.wa.us/community/history.htm http://www.ci.washington.mo.us/index.asp?Type=GALLERY&SEC=%7BB41495A4-825D-4FA8-98E2-1EDBF6D5E35A%7D Pick and choose some base material to give your own town some story depth.
#8 VampyresThrenody Apr 01, 2008 8:13:17	I managed to build a fairly extensive history beginning in the year 21 where the expedition first discovered the Gelic ruins to 109 when the Battle for the Aena occurred during the Succession War. The current year is 120 so I need to do the history for when the bandit lord came to the area and the events surrounding that. For a tiny village on the outskirts of civilization I think it's pretty well detailed! I have mysterious ruins, a burnt flour mill, a long-standing enemy (harpies), racial associations [halflings & dwarves], along with some town rituals [one yearly sacrifice, one parade and one celebration].
#9 holy_beholder Apr 03, 2008 19:23:32	You might want to add in a few more celebrations, and establish how trade works there.
#10 VampyresThrenody Apr 03, 2008 19:27:49	I'm putting a hold on expanding Tuseilles for the moment because i don't know if I'll be moving to use someone else's campaign world (and thus having to alter some things about the town to make it fit) But I'm always building something (see my elven tribe thread!) More of interest though, what types of celebrations to you reccomend? Off the top of my head I can think of making one historic event, a religious ritual to the god, perhaps a harvest festival...but what else? And what do you mean by how trade works? I don't know much about mercantile network/trade. I figured merchant A comes in from Docten and purchases Lumber B,C and D. Or is it more advanced then that? I suppose I could specify what types of goods are typically traded and whether it is currency or not..hmm
#11 Dreamstryder Apr 03, 2008 20:40:44	Festivals, etc.: Sounds like a good start, but you left out those weekly and circumstantial festivals, like the weekend market in the warmer months hosted by the temple of ___, or the holy day, or the day when people don't hold weddings or start new ventures because it's bad luck, or the custom of widows and widowers to light a candle at the east window at the winter solstice, or to hang a purifying herb over the mantle when someone's died in the house, or paint the door a fortuitous color when there's been a marriage. I don't know what 4e rituals entail, but you could add some charms to the commoner's lips too. When you mention something bad, spit between your fingers! That's a ward against the evil eye from Eastern Europe, for instance. Some are based on my town's festivals. Some I just made up or forgot whence they came. PS: Trade: Tuseilles's chief export is lumber. What's their chief import, and who gives it to them? The name of a trade partner or two outside and in which direction each lays is all that's really needed at first. Now how: Perhaps the caravans trek between Docten and Tuseilles for this purpose, and Tuseilles's export is bartered directly for the import, which the lumberers in turn barter for their needs. Another possibility is that Docten trades coinage for lumber, which the citizens of Tuseilles use to pay a third party for the town's import. Maybe this is how the town came to use silver and copper in addition to its bartering, and lumberers are recognized by the fact they carry a larger purse for such coinage (and so the PCs may be mistaken for lumberers, perhaps).
#12 VampyresThrenody Apr 04, 2008 11:09:00	Ooh I love those ideas. Where they come from is not as important. I'll have to go through and definately add marriage rituals, death rituals and specific market day affairs. As for tradign I like the idea that many merchants pay in coin which is in turn used to obtain large supplies of iron + copper and food (the map has a few hills but none are being mined for iron).
#13 smerg Apr 06, 2008 9:22:03	Festivals, etc.: Sounds like a good start, but you left out those weekly and circumstantial festivals, like the weekend market in the warmer months hosted by the temple of ___, or the holy day, or the day when people don't hold weddings or start new ventures because it's bad luck, or the custom of widows and widowers to light a candle at the east window at the winter solstice, or to hang a purifying herb over the mantle when someone's died in the house, or paint the door a fortuitous color when there's been a marriage. I don't know what 4e rituals entail, but you could add some charms to the commoner's lips too. When you mention something bad, spit between your fingers! That's a ward against the evil eye from Eastern Europe, for instance. Some are based on my town's festivals. Some I just made up or forgot whence they came. PS: Trade: Tuseilles's chief export is lumber. What's their chief import, and who gives it to them? The name of a trade partner or two outside and in which direction each lays is all that's really needed at first. Now how: Perhaps the caravans trek between Docten and Tuseilles for this purpose, and Tuseilles's export is bartered directly for the import, which the lumberers in turn barter for their needs. Another possibility is that Docten trades coinage for lumber, which the citizens of Tuseilles use to pay a third party for the town's import. Maybe this is how the town came to use silver and copper in addition to its bartering, and lumberers are recognized by the fact they carry a larger purse for such coinage (and so the PCs may be mistaken for lumberers, perhaps). Instead of metal coinage, you could play up the wood and lumber angle. You could either have wood chits that the mayor designates certain craftspeople to make and conform to a basic pattern with some special distinctive markings (a person with wood crafting skill or appraise should be able to spot a forgery verses a real chit). Another option is that in the long winter nights when there is less lumber work going on, people make up small wood carved figurines. People in the community assign values to the carvings during an annual fair. The figurines are then traded or saved as currency within the community. Either of these suggestions should make any sort of pay out for work or receipt of change in the community interesting for the players. Player: I gave you two gold for the cost of the room and board. Innkeeper: Yes, and you can choose either the wood antelope or the wood bear as your change.
#14 holy_beholder Apr 08, 2008 11:22:37	That would be awesome.
#15 mercenary_pen Apr 08, 2008 16:25:19	Just a couple of thoughts: 1- would they also be importing masonry-grade stone, so that some of the buildings wouldn't actually burn down? (For example, the town hall, the marquis' residence and one or more of the temples might be stone-built rather than wooden) 2- common surnames: it was common for craftsmen to have a surname that related to their ancestral craft, so- with lumber as the primary export- surnames such as cooper (barrelmaker), carver and whittle might be common, amongst others that had to do with other, smaller local businesses. For example, one innkeeping family might have a surname like Tapps, Brewer or Still. 3- traditional small-scale crafts: I suspect that your town will function better if there are people making and selling everyday essentials, ranging from beeswax candles (with a sideline selling honey), to herbs (and herbal medicines- effects both proven and unproven) and even making cheap local pottery to sell. Use whichever of these suggestions suits the town. Also, consider the possibility that the barbers might in fact be a barber surgeon, and would be the people drafted in to remove stuff from wounds before the clerics healed your PC's (assuming that at least one of your temples provides healing magics), because most D&D temples, in my experience, tend to be all healing power with little stomach for removing gravel/arrowheads/shreds of cloth from wounds.
#16 orpheusmasterofstrings Apr 11, 2008 21:30:57	i was actually in the process of making a villiage for my first 4th ed campaign when it comes out and I think this way of doing it is allot cooler than mine. Where can I find the medieval demographics calculator and such articles?
#17 VampyresThrenody Apr 12, 2008 15:06:12	I simply used google and searched for Medieval Demographics Made Easy. I also found this checklist which is a good reminder of things to implement into a fully fleshed out culture/town.
#18 mercenary_pen Apr 14, 2008 11:36:47	Bear in mind that you are translating medieval society into a fantasy setting, so some of these things will need tailoring to fit.