Evil Machinations

No scenario survives contact with the PCs … No system survives contact with the GM

City Creation: Hospitality

Jade | June 29, 2009

According to our demographics , Meadowbrook has two inns and ten restaurants/taverns/pubs and one of the innkeepers is a retired adventurer.
Let’s start with our inns.
The Inns
The most obvious choice would be to place one inn in Littletun and one in Bigtun. But since inns generally aren’t used by locals, and the river docks are in [...]

City Creation: Religion

Jade | June 26, 2009

The next entry on our list of Notable People is “Clerics of the local shrines”. While these would, indeed, be notable people (the head priest/ess of the largest shrines would likely have considerable influence), religions differ greatly from one game system to the next and one campaign to the next. So much so, in fact, [...]

City Creation: Thieves Guild

Jade | June 25, 2009

What would a fantasy game town be without a thieves guild? Whether the PCs work with it or oppose it, the local thieves guild frequently provides many opportunities for adventure.
Meadowbrook’s thieves guild is extremely small: 10 members. Until the recent trade boom, Meadowbrook had no thieves guild — there simply weren’t enough thieves in town. [...]

Quiz: What Metallic Dragon Are You?

Jade | June 23, 2009

I’m away from the computer today, so here’s a fun quiz. Back to Meadowbrook tomorrow!

Which Dungeons and Dragons Metallic Dragon Are You?
BTW, I got Bronze

City Creation: The Town Guard

Jade | June 22, 2009

Town Guard are not employees of Meadowbrook. A guild in their own right, they’re employed by the town council. Each guild tithes a small percentage of their annual income directly to the Town Guard, in return the Guard protects the other guilds from dangers local and foreign. But how many town guard members are there? [...]

What D&D Character are You?

Jade | June 19, 2009

A quick break from city development. Time for a quiz!
What D&D character are you?
The first time I took the quiz, I was a Chaotic Neutral Half-Elven Bard. Taking it again today, I’m a True Neutral Elven Bard.
Given the fact that three quarters of the D&D characters I’ve ever played have been bards, I’d [...]

City Creation: The Fix-it Guild

Jade | June 18, 2009

Continuing our description of Meadowbrook’s notable citizens, we come to Barsus Tinner, the head of the fix-it guild.
The Fix-It Guild
First off, let’s give the fix-it guild an official name. As low-level arcanists, I can see the guild trying to give themselves a greater sense of status with a lofty-sounding name, something like: “The Noble Brotherhood [...]

City Creation: Character Class Demographics

Jade | June 15, 2009

Generally, I don’t detail numbers for the NPCs of my games. Unless I expect the PCs to pick a fight with one of them, I don’t even created stat blocks. I look at the NPC’s history, role in the game, personality and profession to decide what they can do, which is generally I need them [...]

City Creation: Guilds and Guild Politics

Jade | June 9, 2009

Now that we know what kinds and how many of each type of business Meadowbrook has, we can work out how powerful each of those guilds are, how they relate to each other, what part they play in Meadowbrook politics.
We’ve already postulated a split of the town council between the merchant guilds and the craft [...]

City Creation: Buisness Demographics

Jade | June 8, 2009

Okay, now we’ve got an idea of the kinds of business Meadowbrook might have, how many of each are likely to be there? S. John Ross has an article called Medieval Demographics Made Easy, which lists a number of medieval businesses. He gives each of them a “Support Value” — that is, the number of [...]

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