Making a town. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 3p1t4ph Dec 25, 2008 15:42:47	I have a d20 project I want to make that uses a town for its setting in a sort of adventure site/game. I'm using rounded off stats for the town based on my real hometown (Ware, MA). Area: 6 sqare miles Population: 6,000 Terrain: Forest Here's a brief rundown of the town. Show It will be sent in winter, in an unnamed town in my alternate-world in a setting similar to New England, including like-named flora and fauna and a language that acts as an English analogue to the nation this place is in. The Theatre of Operations is the town itself and the area of woodland surrounding it, which creates a 16 square mile region with only one paved road in or out of the town (a little-used highway running through town in a North-South direction), a self-reliant town with no real apartment complexes or industrial sections of the town, and a downtown business area with shops, local businesses and a few chain stores (including a mall) built around the highway in the center of town. A small lake with a park surrounding it is on the north side of town, and a few hotels, bars and restaurants mark the north side, mainly for tourists but locals in the north end often use them as well. The town's cemetary, a large patch of land in the woods north of town near the park, is where nearly every native resident of the town has been buried since its formation 200 years ago. Water and power are run by other towns (though wells and a river outside of town have drinkable water and some homes and businesses have generators), their supply lines mainly coming from the south, though the north end has power from another plant to the north. Mountains line the Theater to the West, and there is a hill on the outskirts of the east end of town that used to be a copper mine, but is now hollowed out and abandoned, the entrances boarded up and access prohibited by the town police force, though the fire department has been called numerous times to find or rescue teens and kids who have broken into the mines and gotten lost or hurt. Suprisingly, there are very few deaths due to these incidents. The town has no hospital, and uses one in the city to the south in emergencies. It does, however, have a local doctor's office which acts as a miniature hospital in desperate times or when there's an emergency that requires immediate medical attention. It has a local fire department and police department, both acting from one building downtown. It is well known in the surrounding area for the massive church in the geographical center of the town, where the largely protestant community has its religious services and is also used as a town hall. It would take at least an hour to drive from this town to any other town in the area, due to several mountains, winding roads and hazardous terrain enforcing a slow speed limit just as well as an on-duty traffic cop might, which one usually is on either side of the highway just inside the ToO of the game map.
#2 3p1t4ph Dec 25, 2008 15:57:42	For those interested: The current situation for the town is this. Inside the town, there is no trace of what happened, save dried blood, animal corpses in a few places that are mostly reduced to a few feathers and skeletons, and the mass grave of partially-preserved corpses inside the mines, which is now an unmarked giant crypt of sorts. Some windows are broken, others cracked, others fine. Some doors may be kicked in, ripped apart or knocked off their hinges, while others may be locked and in place or just swinging open. Other than the people removed from where they fell, everything else is where it was when the massacre was found, including used nooses, bloodied butcher knives in the walls or left on the floor, a few cars out of their driveways crashed, broken down or simply abandoned, though none of the vehicles in the town seem to work for some reason, and all vehicles that enter the town itself or the surrounding area that is the site map break down and won't function under any circumstance. The generators in town still work, however, and individual car parts all work normally. Vehicles simply stall without moving or seemingly choose not to function, their lights and radios still fine. GPS and other satellite tracking systems fail here, however, and the only devices other than generator-operated systems that still function in town are battery-operated like flashlights and pocket radios. However, all radios, televisions, and other functional devices receive no broadcasts from outside the site's borders, leaving the town completely isolated and communications reduced to short-range broadcast, cell-phone and walkie talkie communications from inside town. The internet is also disconnected, and no wireless broadcasts seem to function except for local networks. A few bodies, both missed during investigations (which are essentially skeletons by now) and from those who entered town out of curiosity (torn open, partially eaten, and showing varying levels of decay) may be found in a few places, and the bodies in the sealed mines are in the early stages of mummification, the cold and dry air inside making decay take a disturbingly long time. Aside from crows, rats, and bugs (which are a rare sight) there are no signs of living animals either, all plants in the town seemingly dead and preserved in a constant state of mild decay. The cause of the massacre and depopulation of almost all life? I'll leave that to the imagination for now. ;)
#3 nclanceman Dec 27, 2008 1:23:49	What I need now is an excuse for why the town isn't under military quarantine, isn't regarded by local or national governments as anything more than a ghost town after an unexplained killing spree, and why nobody save the occasional curious entity might enter the area, never to return and presumed dead, but never searched for. The town itself is a literal X-File. Deep in the J. Edgar Hoover building is an unsolved file of this town... and that's about it. The thin "outcome" of the investigation was the US Department of Agriculture ruling this an incident of 'mass hysteria due to groundwater contamination', which sounds less likely to anyone who's seen the town than 'swamp gas refracting the light of Venus'. What ever really happened in this town is the kind of secret that doesn't lend itself to investigation, and someone somewhere just want's it gone. The town itself has been removed from all major maps, the roadsigns have been removed, and all major publications about the area have had all reference to this town removed. The town lives on in memory only as the occasional post in AboveTopSecret.com and other sites, where it's gained some interest as the largest unsolved incident in US History. Every now and then an ex-FBI, CDC, Sheriff or other authority will come out with some "breakthrough", eventually leading nowhere. Official policy regarding the place is to treat the town like any other stretch of highway, however the local officials policing the place often abandon missing persons investigations the minute it appears they went to town out of fear and unspoken superstition. That work?
#4 3p1t4ph Dec 27, 2008 20:23:37	The town itself is a literal X-File. Deep in the J. Edgar Hoover building is an unsolved file of this town... and that's about it. The thin "outcome" of the investigation was the US Department of Agriculture ruling this an incident of 'mass hysteria due to groundwater contamination', which sounds less likely to anyone who's seen the town than 'swamp gas refracting the light of Venus'. What ever really happened in this town is the kind of secret that doesn't lend itself to investigation, and someone somewhere just want's it gone. The town itself has been removed from all major maps, the roadsigns have been removed, and all major publications about the area have had all reference to this town removed. The town lives on in memory only as the occasional post in AboveTopSecret.com and other sites, where it's gained some interest as the largest unsolved incident in US History. Every now and then an ex-FBI, CDC, Sheriff or other authority will come out with some "breakthrough", eventually leading nowhere. Official policy regarding the place is to treat the town like any other stretch of highway, however the local officials policing the place often abandon missing persons investigations the minute it appears they went to town out of fear and unspoken superstition. That work? Very well, thank you. :O
#5 AnimeSniper Dec 27, 2008 21:44:15	Just some ideas that hit me while reading the previous posts Depending on how you want the party to discover this town here are a few ideas. Show 1. PC or NPC discovers the town mentioned in an off the boards conspiracy chat room 2. Member discovers old files or journal from the investigation while moving documents and file boxes out of an old warehouse... the old paper documentations before everything was transfered to digital. 3. PC's have dream/memories of the events in the town before gathering there. 4.Maybe the PC's are the newborn children that disappeared on the night of the event. 5.The group all recieve the same e-mail/phone call badly garbled with merely the location of the town, 6. The group all attempted a shortcut through the town cause their GPS said to.
#6 nclanceman Dec 27, 2008 21:55:53	Very well, thank you. :O Glad to be of service!
#7 etarnon Dec 28, 2008 7:36:07	I'd suggest that this incident just happened, or there is some larger overwhelming factor in the collapse of the government nationwide such that this is a minor incident in the overall picture. Of course, for story reasons, it's just a haunted town. But I definitely would think military perimeter, etc, etc. Maybe play that angle up somehow? PCs and a military team escorting them explore the place.
#8 AnimeSniper Dec 29, 2008 17:39:36	I'd suggest that this incident just happened, or there is some larger overwhelming factor in the collapse of the government nationwide such that this is a minor incident in the overall picture. Of course, for story reasons, it's just a haunted town. But I definitely would think military perimeter, etc, etc. Maybe play that angle up somehow? PCs and a military team escorting them explore the place. YEs a secret millitary observation unti would work that have a camouflaged base somewhere nearby and intercept the PC's before a certain time and then something happened as they were leaving.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

3p1t4ph

Dec 25, 2008 15:42:47

I have a d20 project I want to make that uses a town for its setting in a sort of adventure site/game.

I'm using rounded off stats for the town based on my real hometown (Ware, MA).

Area: 6 sqare miles
Population: 6,000
Terrain: Forest

Here's a brief rundown of the town.

Show

It will be sent in winter, in an unnamed town in my alternate-world in a setting similar to New England, including like-named flora and fauna and a language that acts as an English analogue to the nation this place is in. The Theatre of Operations is the town itself and the area of woodland surrounding it, which creates a 16 square mile region with only one paved road in or out of the town (a little-used highway running through town in a North-South direction), a self-reliant town with no real apartment complexes or industrial sections of the town, and a downtown business area with shops, local businesses and a few chain stores (including a mall) built around the highway in the center of town.
A small lake with a park surrounding it is on the north side of town, and a few hotels, bars and restaurants mark the north side, mainly for tourists but locals in the north end often use them as well. The town's cemetary, a large patch of land in the woods north of town near the park, is where nearly every native resident of the town has been buried since its formation 200 years ago.
Water and power are run by other towns (though wells and a river outside of town have drinkable water and some homes and businesses have generators), their supply lines mainly coming from the south, though the north end has power from another plant to the north.
Mountains line the Theater to the West, and there is a hill on the outskirts of the east end of town that used to be a copper mine, but is now hollowed out and abandoned, the entrances boarded up and access prohibited by the town police force, though the fire department has been called numerous times to find or rescue teens and kids who have broken into the mines and gotten lost or hurt. Suprisingly, there are very few deaths due to these incidents.
The town has no hospital, and uses one in the city to the south in emergencies. It does, however, have a local doctor's office which acts as a miniature hospital in desperate times or when there's an emergency that requires immediate medical attention. It has a local fire department and police department, both acting from one building downtown. It is well known in the surrounding area for the massive church in the geographical center of the town, where the largely protestant community has its religious services and is also used as a town hall.
It would take at least an hour to drive from this town to any other town in the area, due to several mountains, winding roads and hazardous terrain enforcing a slow speed limit just as well as an on-duty traffic cop might, which one usually is on either side of the highway just inside the ToO of the game map.

3p1t4ph

Dec 25, 2008 15:57:42

For those interested: The current situation for the town is this.

Inside the town, there is no trace of what happened, save dried blood, animal corpses in a few places that are mostly reduced to a few feathers and skeletons, and the mass grave of partially-preserved corpses inside the mines, which is now an unmarked giant crypt of sorts. Some windows are broken, others cracked, others fine. Some doors may be kicked in, ripped apart or knocked off their hinges, while others may be locked and in place or just swinging open.
Other than the people removed from where they fell, everything else is where it was when the massacre was found, including used nooses, bloodied butcher knives in the walls or left on the floor, a few cars out of their driveways crashed, broken down or simply abandoned, though none of the vehicles in the town seem to work for some reason, and all vehicles that enter the town itself or the surrounding area that is the site map break down and won't function under any circumstance.
The generators in town still work, however, and individual car parts all work normally. Vehicles simply stall without moving or seemingly choose not to function, their lights and radios still fine. GPS and other satellite tracking systems fail here, however, and the only devices other than generator-operated systems that still function in town are battery-operated like flashlights and pocket radios. However, all radios, televisions, and other functional devices receive no broadcasts from outside the site's borders, leaving the town completely isolated and communications reduced to short-range broadcast, cell-phone and walkie talkie communications from inside town. The internet is also disconnected, and no wireless broadcasts seem to function except for local networks.
A few bodies, both missed during investigations (which are essentially skeletons by now) and from those who entered town out of curiosity (torn open, partially eaten, and showing varying levels of decay) may be found in a few places, and the bodies in the sealed mines are in the early stages of mummification, the cold and dry air inside making decay take a disturbingly long time. Aside from crows, rats, and bugs (which are a rare sight) there are no signs of living animals either, all plants in the town seemingly dead and preserved in a constant state of mild decay.

The cause of the massacre and depopulation of almost all life? I'll leave that to the imagination for now. ;)

nclanceman

Dec 27, 2008 1:23:49

What I need now is an excuse for why the town isn't under military quarantine, isn't regarded by local or national governments as anything more than a ghost town after an unexplained killing spree, and why nobody save the occasional curious entity might enter the area, never to return and presumed dead, but never searched for.

The town itself is a literal X-File. Deep in the J. Edgar Hoover building is an unsolved file of this town... and that's about it. The thin "outcome" of the investigation was the US Department of Agriculture ruling this an incident of 'mass hysteria due to groundwater contamination', which sounds less likely to anyone who's seen the town than 'swamp gas refracting the light of Venus'. What ever really happened in this town is the kind of secret that doesn't lend itself to investigation, and someone somewhere just want's it gone. The town itself has been removed from all major maps, the roadsigns have been removed, and all major publications about the area have had all reference to this town removed.

The town lives on in memory only as the occasional post in AboveTopSecret.com and other sites, where it's gained some interest as the largest unsolved incident in US History. Every now and then an ex-FBI, CDC, Sheriff or other authority will come out with some "breakthrough", eventually leading nowhere. Official policy regarding the place is to treat the town like any other stretch of highway, however the local officials policing the place often abandon missing persons investigations the minute it appears they went to town out of fear and unspoken superstition.

That work?

3p1t4ph

Dec 27, 2008 20:23:37

The town itself is a literal X-File. Deep in the J. Edgar Hoover building is an unsolved file of this town... and that's about it. The thin "outcome" of the investigation was the US Department of Agriculture ruling this an incident of 'mass hysteria due to groundwater contamination', which sounds less likely to anyone who's seen the town than 'swamp gas refracting the light of Venus'. What ever really happened in this town is the kind of secret that doesn't lend itself to investigation, and someone somewhere just want's it gone. The town itself has been removed from all major maps, the roadsigns have been removed, and all major publications about the area have had all reference to this town removed.

The town lives on in memory only as the occasional post in AboveTopSecret.com and other sites, where it's gained some interest as the largest unsolved incident in US History. Every now and then an ex-FBI, CDC, Sheriff or other authority will come out with some "breakthrough", eventually leading nowhere. Official policy regarding the place is to treat the town like any other stretch of highway, however the local officials policing the place often abandon missing persons investigations the minute it appears they went to town out of fear and unspoken superstition.

That work?

Very well, thank you. :O

AnimeSniper

Dec 27, 2008 21:44:15

Just some ideas that hit me while reading the previous posts

Depending on how you want the party to discover this town here are a few ideas.

Show

1. PC or NPC discovers the town mentioned in an off the boards conspiracy chat room
2. Member discovers old files or journal from the investigation while moving documents and file boxes out of an old warehouse... the old paper documentations before everything was transfered to digital.
3. PC's have dream/memories of the events in the town before gathering there.
4.Maybe the PC's are the newborn children that disappeared on the night of the event.
5.The group all recieve the same e-mail/phone call badly garbled with merely the location of the town,
6. The group all attempted a shortcut through the town cause their GPS said to.

nclanceman

Dec 27, 2008 21:55:53

Very well, thank you. :O

Glad to be of service!

etarnon

Dec 28, 2008 7:36:07

I'd suggest that this incident just happened, or there is some larger overwhelming factor in the collapse of the government nationwide such that this is a minor incident in the overall picture.

Of course, for story reasons, it's just a haunted town. But I definitely would think military perimeter, etc, etc.

Maybe play that angle up somehow?

PCs and a military team escorting them explore the place.

AnimeSniper

Dec 29, 2008 17:39:36

I'd suggest that this incident just happened, or there is some larger overwhelming factor in the collapse of the government nationwide such that this is a minor incident in the overall picture.

Of course, for story reasons, it's just a haunted town. But I definitely would think military perimeter, etc, etc.

Maybe play that angle up somehow?

PCs and a military team escorting them explore the place.

YEs a secret millitary observation unti would work that have a camouflaged base somewhere nearby and intercept the PC's before a certain time and then something happened as they were leaving.