Fleshing Out The Campaign World

As a GM, you always have to keep in mind that your players won't necessarily do what you plan on them doing - especially in a city, which lacks the GM-friendly constraints of your average dungeon.  In such cases, you will have to improvise.  It can be tricky to come up with something at the spur of the moment, but having a fully-realized and fleshed-out game world really helps out with that sort of thing.  If you have established the history and culture of your city, not only will it feel very real for your players, but it will be so real for you that you will have very little trouble improvising within it.

For example:

I ran one campaign which was set in or around the city of Naxidos, a sprawling, opulent city and capital of an ancient empire with even older roots.  Naxidos was based very heavily on medieval Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.  I feel it is important to ground your fictitious countries in real cultures so that the player can more easily grasp the culture and feel of the setting.

In order to establish the character of the city and the empire which it ruled, I plotted out the basic history:

• Naxidos rose to power after the fall of a pseudo-Roman Empire, claims to be its successor but never really reclaims its ancient glory.  
• Threatened by powerful desert warriors from the south (maybe genies?)
• Stagnated and split in half by civil war, only to be invaded by a dwarven empire.
• Eventually reunited, but the empire continues to stagnate under corrupt, decadent, and ineffectual leaders.

Then I flesh out that basic outline.  I include a lot of references to names of leaders, of geographical features, of wars, and of neighboring countries.  For the most part, these are made up specifically for the purposes of this history.  Once you have a handful of leader names and wars, it is very easy to scatter monuments around your city.  Once you have the names of ancient rival kingdoms, you can very easily decide what kinds of ruins will be common in the surrounding countryside (and what kind of undead the party might encounter - a dwarf skeleton with a gold and lapis facemask and a bronze great axe is much more memorable than a room full of generic skeletons).  Remember, these names lend character to your world - establish this sort of stuff beforehand and you will be prepared if and when a character asks about it.  Even if they never ask, it can colour and influence your world in such a way that the history bleeds through into the game.

• Claims to be a direct heir to the defunct Amnoran Empire, considered the greatest human empire the world has ever seen and the forerunner of modern civilization.  In the waning days of Amnor, after Emperor Peridosius and his son were killed by a barbarian army, the Exarch of Naxidos (Hyrstantius, bastard son of Peridosius) declared himself to be the new Emperor.  With the help of the Patriarch of Naxidos, spiritual leader of the western quarter of the Empire, Hyrstantius consolidated his power in the west but was never able to establish himself as emperor of all Amnor.  
• The emperors of Naxidos spent the next several centuries attempting to re-take the lands of the Amnoran Empire, but their gains were always short lived.  The Elfwaste, the blighted landscape which marks the path of the great hobgoblin horde that brought ruin to the elves millennia ago, formed a natural barrier between Naxidos and the new barbarian kingdoms in the north. 
• To the arid south, the former Amnoran satrapies gave way to independent sultanates and kingdoms.  Hyrstantius’ successors lost many armies in battle against Malik Ashqal, the terrible efreeti despot of the Brass Mamlaka. 
• The fruitless attempts to rekindle the Amnoran Empire died down with the end of the Hyrstantian Dynasty (when Terridus II was assassinated by his brother-in-law Deimnos Kontropos).  The Hyrstantian Dynasty lasted 230 years, ending in the 157^th year after the fall of Amnor (although scholars in the Naxidian Empire still use the dating system established by the Amnoran Empire, which measures the years from the founding of the city of Amnor). 
• The Deimnotic Dynasty ruled the Empire until 308 ab exidio Amnoris (1246 ab Amnore condita).  The short-lived Aeluvian Dynasty (308-361 EA) saw the division of the Empire between the north and south.  The southern Naxidian Empire was ruled by the Jax Dynasty (313-387 EA) until it was conquered by the dwarven Varrakh Empire.  In the north, the Aeluvian Dynasty gave way to the Propontian Dynasty (361 EA to the present) which retook the south from the dwarves in the final Varrakh War (420-427), built up the Naxidian navy in response to increasing attacks by Valsc raiders, and rebuilt The Goldway, an ancient trade road which passes through the Elfwaste to the lands of the Circle Sea, beyond the Cloudpeaks.
• In the present day (834 EA, 1772 AC) the Propontian Dynasty is in its death-throes.  Emperor Alexios Propontos XIV is widely known as Alexios the Doddering.  The Late Propontian emperors are noted for their corruption and decadence, as well as their ongoing but ineffectual power struggle with the Patriarchs of Naxidos, who have been exerting more and more control over the administration of the realm. 

Bam! History! If you ever need inspiration for your world's history, steal shamelessly from real-world history - there's plenty of interesting stuff available.

You should try to work out what kind of PC races will be common in your lands and what sort of culture they have.  I decided that gnomes would be the original nomadic settlers of the region, now mostly confined to the hills as goatherds.  Halfling fishing villages are common along the coast.  Dwarves are generally of Varrakh descent, swarthy and bearded inhabitants of the ziggurats of the muddy planes of Akkashor (I thought I was really clever for coming up with pseudo-Babylonian dwarves until I realized I had cribbed it wholesale from the Chaos Dwarves of the Warhammer world...).  Genie kin (sylphs, ifrits, etc.) are common in the south, where there is greater contact with the desert peoples.  Elves are very rare in my campaign setting, for reasons I may touch on in another blogpost, so I don't really need to find a place for them here.

Figuring all this stuff out will help your players decide what kind of character they want to be.

From here, you can start to work out the various cultures and ethnicities your civilization is influenced by.  In the case of Naxidos, they have deep roots in pseudo-ancient-Greece (which I have called Hyksaean).  This will be the predominant culture of Naxidos, so I expect there to be lots of playwrights and philosophers in the cultural mileau.  But Naxidos also has a strong pseudo-Roman influence (Amnor), which means lots of grand monuments, great generals, and bloodsports.  Because the empire is based on the Byzantines, there should be a treacherous web of bureaucracy and a strong tradition of treachery and power-grabs in the government of the city, and there should be plenty of great temples and government buildings.

Putting all this together, I decide I need a small list of philosophers, playwrights (and plays), and public buildings to give my city life:

Plays and playwrites:
Xanisto - Paragon and the Beholder, a tale about a great hero who must defeat a terrifying Eye Tyrant.
             - Twelve Against the Sea, wherein the suitor Tytomenes and his band of heroes attempt to rescue the princess Adriamnocha, who has been turned into a pearl by the jealous King of the Sea.  
Ariophilus - Descent of the Elder Gods, a theological history play about the cleansing of the earth by the first gods.
Xenocrassus - The Islands, a comedy about a shepherd who fights the king of the six-armed giants

Philosophers:
Kykreon - Believed that true enlightenment comes from renunciation of comfort and wealth.
Oeoclios - Anthropogenic theist, believed the gods are just high-level adventurers.
Garganto - Sought greater understanding of the universe through a greater understanding of magic.

Buildings:

The Hippodrome – This long stadium extends from the Imperial Palace into the neighboring Merchant’s District.  Horse races, chariot races, and imperial displays of pageantry are held here.

The Totillan Arena – This ovoid arena is the site of gladiatorial matches, animal hunts, and other bloodsports. 

The Aquatheater – This amphitheater is dug into the ground so that water can be directed into it for mock naval battles, aquatic bloodsports, and other water-based pageantry. 

The Ampitheater of Hariklon – this is the main amphitheater of Naxidos for plays and circus acts

The Temple of Basileos – This Hyksaean-style temple at the base of the statue of Basileos, on the Imperial side of the Auzrani, is where offering and prayers are made in veneration of the Emperor.  It is not often visited these days.  The statue itself stands 30 meters high, carved of stone and adorned with precious metals and ivory.  It depicts a male figure in classical Amnoran Imperial garb –a bronze breastplate, a cloak, and a diadem.  In his left hand he holds the sword fastened at his belt, in his outstretched right hand he holds a torch, blazing with fire.  A cleverly concealed passageway within the statue allows priests to fill and light the torch every evening.

The Temple of Naxidea – A twin to the Temple of Basileos on the other side of the river.  Naxidea is depicted with her left hand outstretched, holding a torch.  In her right, she holds a globe representing Naxidos’ domination of the world.  One of her breasts is bared, a symbol of the fertility of the city and its lands.  Sailors commonly refer to it as the Great Teat. 

The Maximillian Column – This tall column depicts scenes of the Emperor Maximillian’s defeat of the Dwarven Varrakh Empire, which had conquered the southern half of the Empire under the previous dynasty.  It stands outside the Hippodrome.  

The Imperial College of Magic – This stout round tower houses the Imperial Wizards, a small organization of wizards under official Imperial auspices.  It features an observatory, a mechanical orrery, a library, and many secrets. 

Castle Janaerian – Centuries ago, before the city of Naxidos extended to the south bank of the Auzrani, this castle was the only fortification on that bank.  It was built around the tomb of the Emperor Janaerian, who died on campaign west of the Cloudpeaks. 

Now that the city is filled with buildings and the culture is fleshed out a bit, I can draw on any of the things I have listed and expand upon them at leisure during a game.  This greatly helped me when the players were exploring the city on their own devices.  Having such foundations which you can build upon really makes a campaign setting come together during play.  

-your historically-minded d20 despot