Non Standard Home Town

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'm putting some time for my new 4E setting which is a revamp of my old Inverted Underdark from back 3.0 days.

So the characters will be playing in the Underdark, where all of the old "surface races" have ended up now that the Drow and other nasty things have taken control of the surface (there's more to it than that but I'm being concise).

I'm working on building a town for the PCs to use as their starting homebase and I want it to be a strange place. It's one of the gathered outposts the surface beings have managed to create in the ten years since their flight underground and lies in a sort of middle ground, not too close to the surface and not to deep into the pits.

It's a borderline "hive of scum and villainy" because the last ten years have made everybody a little fend-for-yourself-ish. The outpost isn't really a town because it has little authority, it only exists because people seek protection behind it's walls.

I'm looking for advise on unusal groups and individuals to populate the town and I thought the odd minds here could help supply some. There will also be three other major adventuring parties in the town, who I have not yet defined. The heroes will be 6th level and NPCs should be enough of a threat that they won't be able to just attack them. The underlying idea is to make a place where the PCs won't be sure of their footing.

[rayner23]

Have art be the primary form of commodity. Everything is artwork. If that is too much, then downplay it to the ruling class happens to be the artists. Artistic punishments for criminals, etc.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I like art as a commodity, especially since there's no way they'd be minting coins at the moment.

A higher class of artistic rulers also sounds interesting. Maybe some Eladrin who managed to get their hands on some powerful (and artistic) item that lets them control the outpost, making them defacto leaders.

[dragonshaos]

Have the currency be drugs.  That way any alchemists are really really rich.  That, and you can have it where people are always hallucinating and come up with funny things that don't actually happen.

[clockworkjoe]

The currency should be sunstones. Temporary natural sunlight is useful and addicting for surface races in the dark.

Street gangs based on common lifestyles held above ground. All the artisans in one gang, all the farmers in another gang, and so on.

Everything is a hodgepodge of readily available materials. Petrified fungus, rocks, even bones. Wood is harder and harder to come by.

Expeditions to loot stones and masonry from nearby dungeons to improve the walls.

Load bearing pillars are protected 24/7 by guards. Anyone who threatens the stability of the town is lynched immediately.

Zealots who preach that the sinful ways of the past caused them to be stuck in the underdark. People are starting to listen.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Excellent. I was working on ideas for the PCs to alter the outpost and eventually society.

One of the themes I wanted to work on was the surface dwellers becoming like the Drow or other "evil races", slowly (or quickly) growing bitter, nasty, and self focused.

The lead bearing pillars thing is amazing, I hadn't thought of that at all.

[Setherick]

Base it on Kaymakli or similar outpost cities. Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymaklı_Underground_City

http://www.cappadociaonline.com/kaymakli.html

http://gcje.net/ancient_underground_cities_in_turkey.htm

http://zakijalil.blogspot.com/2007/12/turkey-kaymakli-underground-city.html

[Tadanori Oyama]

Base it on Kaymakli or similar outpost cities. Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymaklı_Underground_City

http://www.cappadociaonline.com/kaymakli.html

http://gcje.net/ancient_underground_cities_in_turkey.htm

http://zakijalil.blogspot.com/2007/12/turkey-kaymakli-underground-city.html

That's some good information.

Now I need to do some NPC work. I like the idea of a low human setting, everybody is one the run and seeing more than a few of any race is a odd. Genasi, Shifters, Goliaths, and Dwarves (among others) would probably be better suited to the area and have taken some control using their advantages.

[dragonshaos]

Have Gnomes be the most powerful financially and politically in the place.  That's sure to throw everyone off.  And you can introduce some racial tension between the tall races (dragonborn, goliaths) and the really short ones (gnome, halflings, dwarves) just for fun.  I dunno.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I already promised the return of something from the 3.0 version related to Gnomes. It was the Gnomish Information Booth (GIB).

It was an unassuming, small booth with one shuttered window at a human's waist height. You put a coin down infront the shutter and ask a question. A gnome, one of many inside, throws open the shutters, grabs the coin, answers your question with a length based on the value of the single coin, and then slams the shutters closed again.

In this version of the setting they won't take coins but the general idea remains.

[Setherick]

In this 19C hollow earth utopia I had to read this semester, the "internal" race is a short race, but they can do amazing acts of physical strength including lifting 3-4 times what a human can or jumping twenty to thirty feet in one bound. We tend to think of underground races being degenerate, but you might mix things up on your players and create a race that has evolved underground for some reason to be ridiculously athletic.

[Maze]

Make it in the region (4-5 miles radius) in which their starting in, people start having dark patch appear on their skin, especially happening for the elderly and children of the humanoids races. The disappear quickly after a short exposure to direct sunlight. That way, you could make the sunstones become immensely valuable and the players could pursue the economic sides of this if they wish to. (Sun barons )

The dark patch comes back after they disappear if they don't see the sun at least once every 2-3 years.

If they don't treat it, well.... they look like cows. They don't get sick but they sure look ridiculous. (Or you can make elves turn into drows and humans into... hm... something not racially offensive.)

[clockworkjoe]

Base it on Kaymakli or similar outpost cities. Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymaklı_Underground_City

http://www.cappadociaonline.com/kaymakli.html

http://gcje.net/ancient_underground_cities_in_turkey.htm

http://zakijalil.blogspot.com/2007/12/turkey-kaymakli-underground-city.html

That's some good information.

Now I need to do some NPC work. I like the idea of a low human setting, everybody is one the run and seeing more than a few of any race is a odd. Genasi, Shifters, Goliaths, and Dwarves (among others) would probably be better suited to the area and have taken some control using their advantages.

Bat herder. Eccentric ranger who herds a vast horde of bats, harvesting them for food and guano.

A free willed undead who poses as a human. Lived here before the surface dwellers showed up and is terrified of being found out. Evil but not excessively so. Can't leave area due to curse and is quite desperate.

Dwarf mason who teaches others how to build and mine underground in exchange for food and beer. Was exiled from dwarven community but won't reveal this unless necessary.

OH SHIT NINJAS

[codered]

I love the lore of The underdark from  3.5 expecially in forgotten realms.. I can't wait to see how you game turns out.

[klaatu]

If you want to go with the tall-vs-short race thing, there's solid reasoning behind it.  It's more work for the experts (e.g., dwarves) to dig out hallways and rooms for the tall folk.

As for oddities, a lot of people are going to be depressed -- this means listless, short tempered, more frequently sick -- so one person who would be really weird would be a genuinely cheerful and helpful individual.  (This only works if you establish some paranoia with your players first, so they keep wondering what this person's angle is.)