Rural Communities

You stroll into town... or, at least, you think this is the town. A few old and battered store fronts line the single street, with houses dotting the landscape here and there, miles apart. An old Rural man nods at you from a rocking chair on the general store's porch, sod crumbling to the ground from his wrinkling forehead... Welcome to Bavingdon. Or is it Perstoke? Or Tursham? Or Hanwer-on-Wirth? Who can tell? All these small farming communities are basically the same, so they will all come together for this single post on Rural Communities.

Honestly, I really need to organize my ideas better. For months, I've been talking and writing about the three Rural communities that surround the City: Bavingdon, Perstoke, and Mestloath. Then, in preparation for today's post, I took a look at my map of the Realm of Lives, and saw that there was another, one Sathed, down in the southeast of the map, where I had apparently decided it was too large a blank region to be without a town. So. Yeah. What do I do? Do I trust my initial instinct, which was to have three towns -- or the me that put the map together, and add in a fourth one? Damn it, Past Me's, communicate with me better! Anyway, after a bit of cogitation, I decided two things: First, that Mapmaker-me was right, we need a fourth town, or that part of the map will be noticeably and bizarrely empty; and second, that Sathed is a terrible name. Combine that with the continual irritation I've had every time I have to use "Mestloath" [It sounds like meatloaf. What was I thinking?], I headed to my name generator.

For those who are interested, I use a marvelous random name generator for most of my "foreign language" names (as opposed to those that are based on real words, like Dead-Blooded or Sky-Carver). It's called The Everchanging Book of Names, and you can find it here. It randomizes results from lists of real names, deriving new names that "sound right" by using the same structure, letter combinations, and common prefixes/suffixes that occur in that culture. It's awesome, and the free demo version is remarkably powerful (I just registered it myself, so I'll report back in later on how much improved it is). 

The EBoN gave me a mess of names to choose from in creating my two missing villages. Here are some of the better ones (the ones I considered using), derived from the "English Place Names" EBoNEBoN created for me just now: Uckmon, Searilsouth, Wastead-Frirnorth-Chirby, Brabourn, Chrintmere, Tostlam, Edgothfer, Hackbourne, and Cadgimpstone. When I looked at the original output, I noticed one that really appealed to me, except for one little bit: Hanwer-an-Math. Obviously based on the "Blank-on-blank" nomenclature convention that shows up in English place names, but with a different vowel in the middle. I could easily change it back to "on" and have a good name... but "math" is a word, and not one I want associated with the town -- these farmers can hardly count, much less higher mathematics. A while later, I ended up with "Wirth" and thought that would be a nice suffix to replace "math." The other one I almost went with... another "w" name that has vanished from my files, but decided I didn't want two "w" names, so decided Regitursham was cool, but too long and hard to pronounce... so I hacked off the first two syllables. Voila! Hanwer-on-Wirth and Tursham, the other two villages that, along with Bavingdon and Perstoke, will make up the Rurals' centers of "civilization." name library... Well, that's nice. I somehow deleted my castoffs. Okay, well, here are a few names

These four towns have a combined population of perhaps a few thousand people, and serve as small bastions of "civilization" in the rugged areas outside the City. I don't think they need a full ARTTBavingdon -- the most interesting, as it stands definitively within Crasher territory, and close to the border of Dead Tribes territory, so is always getting raided by one group or the other. Hence, it's a bit tougher than the other villages, and also holds the distinction of being the hometown of the only Rural rich enough to buy his way onto the City of Lives' High Council. treatment. However, I've established a little about

House Solfidley
Description: The home of the only Rural rich enough to buy his way into politics.
Threat: Solfidley intends to destroy the Council and its “corruption.”
Aspect: Secret Vendettas, Hated Wealth
Face: Arbron Solfidley — Rich Rural Revolutionary Working From Within 

This Arbron Solfidley has become a favorite NPC in the playtest game, where his "Southern Gentleman" persona, seen by the players as a mix between Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn, has earned him the nickname "Cockburn Fuckhorn." So... yeah.

Tomorrow we go off-Realm, as we begin examining the various universes that connect to the City of Lives. We'll begin with Niontia Unprime 236, one of the colonies of the 2-dimensional living shadows The Niontians. See you here!

A Newbie's Primer -- and The Julian Plains

Welcome back. We've spent the last few posts on mechanics with the Universal Conflict System, but this blog is mostly about setting, so now we're going to head back to the City of Lives. I imagine we have a lot of newbies here, after Mike Olson and Johnn Four's kind words on their blogs. Hence, before we jump back into the campaign world of The City of Lives, I'll give a brief rundown of the setting as we've explored so far:

• The world is a cross-dimensional high fantasy setting centered around the devious political maneuvering and class warfare of the titular City of Lives.
• The City is at a pre-industrial revolution, vaguely 18th-century level of technology -- but most of its industry is based around its particular form of magic known as Crafting.
• Though creatures from many, many world (known as Realms) inhabit the City, it is dominated by ten Bloodlines. Each of these Bloodlines are essentially human, but have heritage from a variety of sources, from animals to magical clones to the undead.
• The City of Lives is at the center of a crossroad of realities, but, more mundanely, also sits at the confluence of two rivers, on the fertile Julian Plains.

Our first extended series from Sylvennis to The Lost District was on the City's districts. This time, we're going to head outside the city into the Realm of Lives and its wilderness. The key landmarks we're going to look at and ARTT out include:

• The Julian Plains
• Bavingdon
• Mestloath
• Perstoke
• The Wilderwoods
• The Addix
• The Vulgar Morass
• The Mountains of Mourning
• The Heliotrope Cliffs

Let's begin with the most important piece of support for the City: the agricultural community that is the Julian Plains. This is where the City gets its food and trade goods, the support of the massive entity that is the City.

Archetype: The small farming communities beset by bandits and marauding monsters is a staple of the fantasy genre, and this is where the Julian Plains fit in. A place for PCs to call home, a safe place but also a place of constant adventure. Tristram, the Shire, West Harbor -- these are the inspirations for the locales of the Julian Plains.

Real-Life Inspiration: The Julian Plains are, in my mind, based heavily on the rolling hills of the Palouse (eastern Washington state), where I grew up. You may know the image -- it was the default desktop background image for Windows XP. Wheat and barley cover low hills, with the occasional sheep, horse, or cattle ranch dotting the landscape. The populace is made up of simple farmers, uninterested in higher education, complex art, or politics.

Theme: Both practically and thematically, the Julian Plains are the support structure for the City. The City relies on grain and meat from the Plains in order to survive. The Plains provide the City with necessities both directly and indirectly, as the City trades the Plains' goods to other Realms. The Julian Plains also rely on the City  -- for protection and government, [more here]. Like every infrastructure, literal and metaphorical, the Plains are solid, dependable, and unremarkable. They have no need for fancy art or complicated magic -- but without the Plains, the City would be unable to have these things.

Twist: The seemingly idyllic Plains have got to hide a secret -- but what kind? Perhaps an underground revolution is slowly coming to boil as some of the Rural peasants wonder what they really get out of their association with the City, and want to gain their independence. Revolutionaries have always turned their farming implements into weapons of war -- and since the farmers on the Plains use magic to control animals and plants directly... well, I'm scared.

Locations

Wells Ranch

Description: A small homestead outside of Bavingdon, constantly attacked by bandits.

Theme: Stability threatened by chaotic forces 

Aspect: Peaceful Plantation Beset By Bandits 

Face: Plenton Wells -- Desperate and Paranoid Cowboy Protecting His Property

Brintall Dam

Description: A dam blocking off a small tributary of the River Actetas. It creates Brintall Lake.

Threat: Local Crasher raiders are targeting the dam for destruction, threatening the nearby farms.

Aspect: You'll Need More Than a Finger to Plug This Dike

Face(s): Brakk -- Kipman Raider Itching To Cause Some Chaos

               Orton -- Rural community Leader With His Head in the Sand

Passel Mill

Description: A small mill that provides grain to the local community.

Threat: The owner smuggles herbal drugs to the City 

Aspect: Simple Beauty Hides A Filthy Underside

Face: Dowen -- Miller With a Terrible Secret


All right. Come back next time to take a look at the dark, mysterious Wilderwoods...