The Gaming Den

The simplest solution is to just instate a "sense power level" effect that everyone in Finality just gets, and say that people typically don't pick on the kiddies.

Not necessarily satisfying, but it'd work.

Prak_Anima wrote:a "sense power level" effect

You can do that with Sense Motive. It's in... DMG2 I think? It's an opposed check against Bluff.

virgil wrote: Another demographic question, power level. When it comes to random encounters, we don't want 1st level players to have to seriously worry about being involved in any conflict that includes a glabrezu. I don't think going the way of old-school dungeons and having each district have a level is the way to go, but I'm at a loss how to properly represent this.

As long as there was a way for the 1st level characters to get out of the situation, it doesn't matter that they could run into opposition that they cannot possibly prevail against. Maybe Raise Dead is covered under the city's EMT services and offered on credit and billed to the character (or the party responsible for wrongful death if one is willing or able to pursue the legal angle)? Maybe there's a strong civic culture of saving face, and even the most bloodthirsty demon will likely not eviscerate someone that performs the proper supplications? Maybe the likelihood of encountering a glabrezu is balanced by the possible proximity of a planetar? Maybe there's a compelling reason for most citizens (including the PCs) to refrain from outright murder in the city limits?

If I pick up a kitchen knife and bring it with me when I walk out into the streets of my city, I will be an overwhelming and lethal threat to about 90% of the people I will see, because they do not have kitchen knives. Somehow, this scenario does not end with me threatening to stab them to death over political or religious differences.

schpeelah wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:a "sense power level" effect

You can do that with Sense Motive. It's in... DMG2 I think? It's an opposed check against Bluff.

I remember that from Complete Adventurer.

Chamomile wrote:If I pick up a kitchen knife and bring it with me when I walk out into the streets of my city, I will be an overwhelming and lethal threat to about 90% of the people I will see, because they do not have kitchen knives. Somehow, this scenario does not end with me threatening to stab them to death over political or religious differences.

Except you are a muggle, in a world of muggles, and live a muggle lifestyle. As an adventurer in Finality, your life will be more like Jessica Fletcher's, and drive-by swordings will be a facet of your daily life. While there's going to be some WSoD just for that, we don't need to stretch it more than we have to by having everything just happen to be within the party's power level without any effort on their part; rough level ranges can work to an extent, but it'd be nice to be redundant.

To a certain extent, the sheer crushing weight of random crazy stuff in town keeps random violence down. You could be in town for a year and meet a new species of person every single day. You don't know what random people you meet are capable of, so running around on a rampage is going to seem like a pretty terrible idea. There are like Mariliths and shit out there.

Now that being said, I actually think that higher level neighborhoods is a good idea. Not in the sense that there would be neighborhoods that would have a level minimum to enter - but that there would be neighborhoods where the doors and apartments were built for people who were six meters tall, or constantly on fire, or both. And while there might not be any official discrimination policy against people with 3 hit dice and less in TitanTown, I can't imagine that a lot of people would be willing to pay the rents there if they don't have a compelling reason to.

Higher level adventurers would naturally gravitate to the flophouses in higher tier neighborhoods. Places that are already marketing themselves to Fire Giants and Gelugons would also find it economical to offer services that such powerful creatures would be willing to pay for - such as rooms protected against scrying or teleportation. And higher level adventurers would be interested in those things for the same reasons. Stores would spring up that catered to the tastes and needs of Cornugons and Barbezu and powerful wizards would have the wealth and the interest for the same things for the same reasons.

The reality is that there are probably not a lot of places that a Colossal Dragon can really go in the city. Sure they can fit through the gates of the palaces and museums and such, but they probably can't like use the bathroom in those places. Only a handful of neighborhoods have hospitality services or shopping experiences lined up for such massive beasts. And places that do that kind of thing would also cater to Pit Fiends and Demi-Liches. Because: why not? In for a copper, in for an astral diamond at that point.

Basically, I see several tiers of neighborhood. Just based on size alone a neighborhood for Ogers and Trolls could serve the needs of Ettins and Frost Giants, but not Cloud Giants.

-Username17

This may be my favorite Den project yet. Already.
A couple of thoughts, in no particular order:

- the Not-God tree of reverse psychology might work well with the temple of silence. Roughly, gods don't need worship, but they do need acknowledgement. If you can get enough people to refuse to acknowledge a god, it will shrivel up and fade away. If you're really clever, you can grab it halfway through the process and stuff it in a pokeball. The Godless have done that, more than once. The temple of silence is a temple to profane achievement, all surrounding an enormous oak tree. That tree is planted on top of some number of shriveled gods, all of whom are "not quite dead." The tree taps the remnants of their power to grant divine spells.
Unfortunately, all it would take to wake any of the cthonic gods would be a very small group saying their name. The Godless try really, really hard to make sure that never happens. They are extremely interested in old books, monuments, and creatures, both to find new victims and to eliminate any possible reference to old ones.
Worse, over time the tree has grouped its ersatz constituents into a pseudo-pantheon. "worshipping" the tree, even intellectually acknowledging it as divine, empowers the Repothietic, so the Godless have schooled themselves against even this.
This probably left them a vast trove of (censored) documents and histories, which, because the redactions are so specific, are nearly perfect.

- when you're writing factions, it's jarring of you write that they are objectively wrong, or ignorant. In the white spider for example, don't say they want to protect their own positions, say that (e.g.) they believe that different people have different levels of ability, that everyone rises or sinks to their level, and that it's wasteful to allow a talented individual to be dragged down and cruel to set someone untalented up for failure. (that also lets them have weirdly good relationships with unions, where they have a romantasized view of the nobility manual labor, even if they would never do it themselves)
Or whatever; the point is, everything should be perfectly sensible in a faction description, if you accept their premises.
- Traditionalism by itself is rarely an appealing philosophy. Populism almost always beats it. But! In a city which survives by scrupilously maintaining some weird rituals, traditionalism is going tone a lot more popular. It might be worth giving Frank's first faction control of the god-B-gone ritual to explain their popularity and power, and also why it keeps getting done.
- I approve of the "leave Spelljamming until later" plan. The gates-as-nodes map works great for that. It probably works even better if a few of the more central nodes are hellholes that you would really rather avoid. That leads to adventure hooks too.
- if you're worried about demons in finality, treaty or god-B-gone them away.

FrankTrollman wrote:Basically, I see several tiers of neighborhood. Just based on size alone a neighborhood for Ogers and Trolls could serve the needs of Ettins and Frost Giants, but not Cloud Giants.

Not so much "tiers" as "you must have this property to enter". Some neighborhoods will be on average nastier than others, but they're still pretty variable. The residents of the incorpoeal neighbourhood, for example, range from the CR3 Allip to the CR9 Caller in Shadow and the CR11 Dread Wraith, plus the ghosts of arbitrarily-powerful creatures and characters. Same with the "everybody is on fire all the time" neighbourhood and the "fear effect all the time" neighbourhood.

Huh. There will be fewer of these neighbourhoods than I thought there'd be. I mean, beyond the basic sizes and environments (water, light vulnerability, etc). There really aren't that many intelligent monsters with obnoxious always-on area effects.

I make mention of the natural segregation earlier, but I was looking to make certain others could agree with that, as I was uncertain. Completely excising the fiends is a non-starter for a city like Finality.

I've attempted to edit out the White Spider slamming. Designing factions is new to me, so I appreciate the input there.

That is an excellent outline for the Temple of Silence, fectin. I presume you are calling dibs on fleshing it out a bit more evocatively?

I've a couple ideas for making certain each district has its use for adventuring in. At minimum, there has to be a bit on each of the three landmarks. We need either a robust random encounter generator or a list titled "High Adventure in...Little Nishrek." Might be able to combine, and include the equivalent of a subtable/mad-libs for each of the entries.

Could we have the Effect Neighbourhoods overlap somehow with the various factions? For example, if we have a smithing/metalworking faction, they'd probably hang out in or right next to the "always on fire" neighbourhood because it would help them keep their metal hot.

Another idea - the neighbourhoods aren't just organic; they are in part enforced by zoning requirements that are designed to put useful magical effects near each other. For example, if Finality is industrial or has steampunk, then it might be drawing a significant portion of its power from a set of giant steam turbines that run off a heat differential between the adjacent "always on fire" and "always freezing everything" neighbourhoods.

I like that new justification for the White Spider faction much better.

Anyone else is welcome to write up the Temple of Silence however they like. If no-one else does, I will eventually. I haven't had nearly as much free time lately though, so it might be a long while.

One last thought: just because a faction "controls" an institution doesn't mean they're the only folks there. There's plenty of opportunity for subcontracting, e.g.The Herald newspaper might easily hire a Speaker of the Dead for obituaries, etc. Many institutions are also plenty large enough for more than one faction to control them. It's entirely possible for the sewers to be run by more than one faction, with territorial fighting along the boundaries, and competition for district contracts.

Unnecessary.

-Username17

The ones that should certainly see some numbers, that I can think of...

• Worgs & Barghests (with that many goblins, I hope so)
  Hags
  Dragons
  Blink Dogs, Krenshar, Yeth Hounds, etc
  Nightmares
  Doppelgangers
  Gargoyles
  Naga

"We are well past mere damned lies."

• Human: 600,000
• Hobgoblin: 450,000
• Dwarf: 450,000
• Planetouched: 400,000
• Goblin: 350,000
  • Goblin, No Caveats: 210,000
  • Forestkith: 40,000
  • Goblin, Other: 100,000
• Orc: 300,000
• Undead: 240,000
  • Corporeal, Sapient, Non-Vampiric: 150,000
  • Vampiric: 30,000
  • Incorporeal: 25,000
  • Other: 35,000
• Infernal: 220,000
  • Fire Imp: 20,000
  • Kyton: 20,000
  • Filth Imp: 15,000
  • Bloodbag Imp: 12,000
  • Euphoric Imp: 8,000
  • Imp (Other or Decline to State): 50,000
  • Not Otherwise Stated: 95,000
• Elf: 200,000
  • High: 100,000 (includes Grey, Sun, Moon, etc.)
  • Drow: 60,000 (includes Dark, Ghost, Deep, etc.)
  • Sylvan: 40,000 (includes Wood, Wild, Frost, etc.)
• Kobold: 175,000
• Formian: 170,000
  • Worker Caste: 120,000
  • Warrior Caste (includes Winged Warriors and Armadons): 35,000
  • Administrative Caste (includes Taskmasters and Observers): 15,000
  • Queen: 3
• Mephit: 160,000
• Halfling: 150,000
• Abyssal: 140,000
  • Quasit: 50,000
  • Maw: 20,000
  • Skulker: 15,000
  • Other/Not Specified: 75,000
• Baatezu: 120,000
  • Least (includes Spinagon, Barbazon) : 60,000
  • Lesser (includes Erinyes, Hamatula): 58,000
  • Greater (includes Cornugon, Gelugon): 2,000
  • High (includes Pit Fiend, Paeliryoth): 200
• Maug: 110,000
• Modron: 105,000
• Bugbear: 100,000
• Gnoll: 100,000
• Lizardfolk: 100,000
  • Poison Dusk: 2000
  • Black Scale: 4,000
  • Other/Unspecified: 94,000
• Gnome: 100,000
• Gith: 100,000
  • -yanki: 60,000
  • -zerai: 40,000
• Myconid: 90,000
• Elemental: 90,000
• Kenku: 80,000
• Troglodyte: 80,000
• Abeil: 80,000
• Archon: 75,000
• Ogre: 75,000
• Grimlock: 65,000
• True Giant: 65,000
  • Hill Giant: 14,000
  • Bog Giant: 8,000
  • Fog Giant: 6,000
  • Stone Giant: 5,000
  • Frost Giant: 4,000
  • Fire Giant: 4,000
  • Sand Giant: 3,000
  • Sun Giant: 3,000
  • Cloud Giant: 1,000
  • Storm Giant: 300
  • Eldritch Giant: 300
  • Forest Giant: 300
  • Death Giant: 200
  • Shadow Giant: 100
  • Mountain Giant: 2
  • Other/Not Specified: 13,000
• Yuan-ti: 60,000
• Yugoloth: 60,000
  • Microloth: 48,000
  • Mezzoloth: 12,000
  • Hyperloth: 60
• Minotaur: 60,000
• Tanar'ri: 60,000
  • Least Demons (Includes Dretch & Rutterkin): 35,000
  • Lesser Demons (includes Babau & Uridezu): 15,000
  • Type I Demons (includes Vrock & Zovvut): 5,000
  • Type II Demons (includes Hezrou & Wastrilith): 3,000
  • Type III Demons (includes Glabrezu & Jarilith): 1,500
  • Type IV Demons (includes Nalfeshne & Alkilith): 500
  • Type V Demons (includes Marilith & Kelvezu): 100
  • Type VI Demons (includes Balor & Klurichir): 20
• Mercane: 50,000
• Azer: 50,000
• Troll: 50,000
• Guardinal: 45,000
• Goatfolk: 45,000
• Bladeling: 40,000
• Dark Ones: 40,000
  • Creeper: 37,000
  • Slayer: 2,000
  • Stalker: 1,000
• Lycanthrope: 40,000
• Mongrelfolk: 40,000
• Warforged: 35,000
• Harssaf: 35,000
• Xorn: 30,000
• Vanara: 30,000
• Barghest: 30,000
• Shifter: 30,000
• Salamander: 30,000
• Shadar-Kai: 28,000
• Gargoyle: 27,000
• Thri-Kreen: 26,000
• Bariaur: 25,000
• Spiritfolk: 25,000
• Armand: 25,000
• Gulgar: 20,000
• Yakfolk: 20,000
• Demodand: 20,000
• Bullywug: 20,000
• Harpy: 18,000
• Inevitable: 15,000
• Changeling: 15,000
• Maelephant: 14,000
• Visilight: 13,000
• Xill: 12,000
• Angel: 12,000
• Beholderkin: 12,000
  • Floating Eye: 8,000
  • Gauth: 3,000
  • Eye Tyrant: 1,000
  • Hive Mother: 2
• Slaad: 12,000
• Marrash: 11,000
• Ettin: 11,000
• Jann: 10,000
• Ophidian: 10,000
• Boggle: 10,000
• Jermlaine: 10,000
• Satyr: 9,000
• Sprite: 9,000
• Fire Newt: 9,000
• Lamia: 8,000
• Giff: 8,000
• Lumi: 8,000
• Rakshasa: 8,000
• Needlefolk: 7,000
• Aarakocra: 7,000
• Dao: 6,000
• Baccha: 6,000
• Doppleganger: 5,000
• Neogi: 5,000
• Neraph: 5,000
• Raptoran: 5,000
• Efreet: 4,000
• Centaur: 4,000
• Loxxo: 4,000
• Grippli: 4,000
• Goliath: 3,000
• Khaasta: 3,000
• Chraal: 3,000
• Sylph: 3,000
• Red Caps: 3,000
• Fomor: 3,000
• Desmodu: 3,000
• Sahuagin: 2,500
• Nycter: 2,500
• Eladrin: 2,000
• Medusa: 2,000
• Djinn: 2,000
• Keeper: 2,000
• Kuo-Toa: 2,000
• Kaorti: 2,000
• Firbolg: 2,000
• Sarkrith: 2,000
• Magmin: 1,000
• Thorn: 1,000
• Hag: 1,000
• Nerra: 1,000
• Marid: 1,000
• Immoth: 1,000
• Justicator: 1,000
• Cyclops: 1,000
• Ethereal Filcher: 900
• Sirine: 800
• Mind Flayer: 600
• Ahuizotl: 600
• Vegepygmy: 500
• Phoelarch: 500
• Oread: 500
• Nymph: 400
• Vaporighu: 400
• Ethergaunt: 300
• Varrangoin: 300
• Drider: 300
• Skulk: 200
• Braxat: 200
• Dracotaur: 200
• Spriggan: 150
• Astral Stalker: 100
• Rot Reaver: 100
• Doppelgangerkin: 100
  • Ethereal Doppelganger: 20
  • Greater Doppelganger: 10
  • Protean Scourge 15
  • Other/Unspecified: 55
• Liliend: 80
• Dryad: 50
• Quaraphon: 50
• Invisible Stalker: 50
• Rukarazyll: 40
• Selkie: 40
• Dune Stalker: 40
• Athach: 40
• Aranea: 30
• Galeb Duhr: 30
• Fossegrim: 20
• Vermin Lord: 20
• Spellweaver: 20
• Rage Walker: 12
• Splinterwaif: 11
• Skin Dancer: 10
• Glaistig: 10
• Odopi: 8
• Geriviar: 7
• Elemental Weird: 6
• Witchknife: 4
• Titan: 3

Total: 7 Million
To appear on the census of “people” in Finality, a creature must exhibit three traits: it must be intelligent, it must be in control of its own choices, and it must have hands. A Worg or a Cloaker is certainly intelligent and able to speak for itself, but cannot engage in commerce or open doors and are considered to be beasts. A Dreadguard or an Ice Assassin may be wholly intelligent and able to manipulate objects, but they are under the command of their creator and considered to be tools. A Rampager or Choker can open doors with their thumbs and their destiny is their own, but they are not thinking creatures and considered to be monsters. There is something of a gray area when it comes to Beholders and Ahuizotls. The Ahuizotl only has a single hand at the end of their tail, and the Beholder's “hands” are actually telekinetic force that they project from their eye. Nevertheless, this is considered “good enough” for inclusion in the census.

There are probably another million non-residents in town at any given time. Creatures from other worlds on short stays whose composition varies more often than the tides.

"Someone once said the number of rats outnumbers them all, but according to the Cranial Rat High Council there are no more than six million rats of various species in the city, as they face considerable conflict over living space and resources with osquip, jermin, and a number of other intrusive vermin species."

I wonder how closely Finality's demographics reflect the overall demographics of walking, talking things with hands in the entire planescape. If it has sufficiently high connectivity, the variance in difficult to get there should be pretty low and it should be pretty close. On the other hand, some places might have unusually high or low barriers to exit, or might not travel as much, leading them to be underrepresented in Finality. Or Finality might just be not connected well enough for this to be entirely the case. Anything useful from that?

too many witchknives

Vebyast wrote:I wonder how closely Finality's demographics reflect the overall demographics of walking, talking things with hands in the entire planescape. If it has sufficiently high connectivity, the variance in difficult to get there should be pretty low and it should be pretty close. On the other hand, some places might have unusually high or low barriers to exit, or might not travel as much, leading them to be underrepresented in Finality. Or Finality might just be not connected well enough for this to be entirely the case. Anything useful from that?

Well, Finality's demographics are biased toward Acheronian creatures. If you moved away from Clangor, I would expect to see less Hobgoblins, less Dwarves, less Baatezu (and less Infernals generally), less Formians, less Modrons, less Maug, and so on.

-Username17

Are the census the equivalent of citizenship? If the hands rule keeps naga and worgs (and I presume dragons), why are incorporeal undead on the list? This does remind me, we need to handle the Ethereal Finality, for the ghosts alone.

"Birds of a feather."

The average Precinct of Finality has over three hundred and fifty thousand permanent residents and another fifty thousand transients in it at any given time. And so it is perhaps unsurprising that every Precinct is further divided up into neighborhoods by the residents within them. After all, even a tenth of any Precinct would by itself constitute a metropolis on many worlds with low civilization levels. Some neighborhoods have direct connections via portal to one or more other worlds, and their close proximity to these other worlds often influence culture, economics, and population makeup in those neighborhoods. It is important to remember though that a majority of neighborhoods do not have their own portals, and that most portals in finality are located in and around Portal Pentagon.

Many neighborhoods are noticeable because of something reasonably mundane – a level of wealth, an architectural style, or a common language perhaps. But Finality has neighborhoods that have properties that are supernatural or beyond the understanding of mortal dirt farmers. Some of the more exotic or important neighborhoods are listed below:

"Winter is a place."
Shaped vaguely like a peanut or a figure eight, the neighborhood of Utgard is essentially the area around two gateways, narrowing to just two blocks in between. It is cold in Utgard. Many of the walls are made of blue ice and public squares have frost fountains. Even on the hottest day of the year, temperatures in Utgard never rise above zero. When the rain falls on Finality, it is frozen into hail before it strikes the slippery streets of Utgard. Most of the city's frost-dwelling denizens live here, and citizens include Chraal, Immoth, Frost Giants, Gelugons and Frost Fiends in roughly equal numbers to the less obviously powerful Frost Elves and Ice Goblins. The two polyps of Utgard each contain a portal: one to the world of Jotunheim and one to the world of Cocytos. The will of the Frost Giants is strong in the area surrounding the first, and public decorum is set by the Ice Devils in the second. Political power is not easily shared between the two and Utgard does not have a central government building. One thing that the rival councils agree upon however is scale, and the doors, tables, and ceilings in Utgard are made for people who are large in size. A 3 meter tall person would be considered short compared to the people for whom the doorknobs are placed in this neighborhood.

The Ice Houses: Finality's preservative trait keeps fruit and meat good for long periods of time, but only so long as they are kept on Clangor. For perishables that are slated for long travel or storage times once they leave through a portal, it is often useful to freeze the goods solid before transport. The Ice Houses are warehouses where the temperatures are considerably below zero. They range in sophistication from simply leaving carts and crates in low temperature environments until the contents are covered with frost to elaborate operations where goods are wrapped or jarred before being frozen and shipped. There are constantly goods being sent to the Ice Houses for frozen storage before being sent off to the Portal Pentagon for shipment around the multiverse.
The XXX Distillery: Fruits and grains do not ferment in Finality, and alcohol is difficult to make. However, the easy access to extremes of cold in Utgard power a number of processes by which large amounts of beer, cider, and wine can be transformed into much smaller amount of brandy, whiskey, and other hard liquors. Many XXX bottles are shipped off world, but a considerable amount is manufactured for consumption within Finality as well.

"A creepy place with hundreds of people and thousands of souls."
Everything is gray and looks dusty and ill-used in Ghost Town. Everything is made to be tangible to the intangible, and those walls and doors that are not made of ghostwood or astral driftmetal are soaked in ectoplasm until the wandering spirits who make their home here can interact with them. Even curtains and silverware in restaurants is soaked in ectoplasm until ghosts can move them. The result is that everything is slightly sticky and quickly accumulates a layer of dust. While most of the residents of Ghost Town are some form of incorporeal undead, it is not overtly hostile to the “bodied”.

The Life Line: Nominally an “all ages” pub, The Life Line is the premier watering hole for the spirits of the departed in the known multiverse. The proprietor is a Dread Wraith and has access to bottles of void milk – a psychic toxin that gets spirits drunk in a similar way to how alcohol affects mortals. It's not generally known where he gets it, though of course there are theories. The Life Line also serves food and drink for the bodied, just make sure any seat is actually empty before you sit in it.

"A maelstrom of darkness and emptiness broken only by howling and terror."
The Vault appears to be an empty cube more than a kilometer on a side underneath Precinct 16. To a corporeal observer, that meter-thick iron doors at the base of the Vault Shaft appear to hold in nothing more than darkness and the whistling and howling of air currents. However, to an incorporeal observer, The Vault is full of intricate architecture. Vast Escherian staircases connect walls to floors and ceilings, chairs, tables, doors, and sculptures appear at odd angles, and it is all crafted out of etherstone, solid air, and pure arcane force. The Vault is a three dimensional arcology built for incorporeal creatures by incorporeal creatures. The population is virtually completely made of spectral and ethereal beings with just the odd air elemental floating through. Residents of The Vault mostly keep to themselves, the architecture of the place is constantly being added to, and the insides are quite a maze – though many of the structural pieces are intangible (and all are invisible) to physical beings.

The Labyrinth: To an ethereal observer, the entirety of The Vault is an intricate collection of stairs, doors, and barriers – a labyrinth as it were. But that is merely a coincidence of constant construction by hundreds of architects who likely as not don't share a language, let alone a vision. But there is a portion that is actually designed to be confusing, and that is “The Labyrinth”. It's a prison where those incorporeal creatures too crazy and dangerous for specters and wraiths to deal with are held. Intangible monsters from a hundred worlds are held indefinitely in this phantom prison, and it is very difficult to discover exactly who in imprisoned there or to contact them once they are. Jailbreaks from The Labyrinth are not unheard of, but they are the sort of thing you talk about in a whisper lest you frighten everyone in earshot.

"A thorn by any other name."
Some centuries ago, an avatar of nature from another world invaded Finality over some cross-world insult and was brought down in what is now known as the Splinterbriars. The land in which the being fell has become incredibly fertile, though twisted and horrible in its own way. Plants brought into the neighborhood grow with incredible speed, though they become knotted and deformed in doing so. Even splinters of green wood can be grown quickly into trees, though such trees are bent over themselves and choked by their own branches. Plant creatures heal rapidly while in the Splinterbriars, but they also grow bolls and tumors that must be cut out of their bodies on a daily basis lest they become sick and deformed. The Splinterbriars are home to many of the city's “wood dwelling” creatures, though a majority of the population are either Elves or Abeils. The buildings that used to be in this neighborhood have been shredded by vines and roots and are now merely ruins and rubble suspended in the grasp of brambles and trees. The wood produced in the Splinterbriars is hopelessly knotted and twisted, and requires magic to be warped and shaped before it can be used for much beyond fuel and pulp. Nevertheless, the druids and Abeil Queens of the Splinterbriars produce a considerable amount of wood for construction and industry in Finality.

The Dark Heart: The actual crater where the avatar fell long ago is surrounded by a dome of near impenetrable thorns and briars. But according to diviners and clarvoyants, within that barrier is a clearing. And within that clearing is a pulsing black heart. The older accounts describe it as being somewhat smaller than more recent accounts do.
The Paper Mill: By far the most noxious smelling thing in the Splinterbriars is the Paper Mill. Workers gather vegetation from around the neighborhood, and mulch it down into paper for use throughout the city and beyond. It smells terrible, and those residents who don't work for it almost universally despise it.

virgil wrote:Are the census the equivalent of citizenship? If the hands rule keeps naga and worgs (and I presume dragons), why are incorporeal undead on the list? This does remind me, we need to handle the Ethereal Finality, for the ghosts alone.

In 3.5 there's a feat that lets incorporeal undead manipulate solid objects. Ectoplasm could also let incorporeal and corporeal creatures trade the same goods. Sentient incorporeal undead of the kind that don't just attack everything that comes near sometimes have telekinesis that would suffice.

Now I want to run a campaign set in Finality with the players as members of a special investigative branch of the City Guard handling bizarre crimes. It'd be a fantasy police procedural, kind of like Powers but with fantastic creatures and magic instead of superheroes.

Dammit, that could be an RPG all by itself and I would buy that shit.

"Metal doesn't burn. It melts."
Rust is a neighborhood which is nearly constantly on fire. The walls, the benches, and even the streets themselves are made of metal, and they are hot often to the point of glowing red. The dull reddish light that permeates the alleys cast the metal walls in tarnished color and give the streets a “rusty” look and the neighborhood its name. The residents are almost all creatures of fire and they like it this way. Much of the population are Azers and Fire Newts, though there are no small number of Fire Elementals as well. Braziers leak burning oil onto the streets, and fountains shoot fuel and sparks into the smoke choked air. Rust is a densely populated neighborhood, and boasts a population in the fifty thousand range. Iron lofts and warrens are welded to each other haphazardly, giving minimal head room to even the short and stocky population that lives there.

The Foundry: While the “public” face of the Foundry opens onto Upper Plinth of the neighborhood of the same name, the back end of that monstrosity has connections to Rust. Thousands of Azer are employed in the city's largest and most famous foundry, and all major casting and assembly jobs are done there. It makes bells, gates, and siege engines. And the Azer are allowed to take scrap home with them to use as building materials.
Lava Pit: Several of Rust's fire fountains are fed by the Lava Pit – an enchanted pool of lava that never cools. It's used as a heat source, and metal rods and beams conduct heat throughout the neighborhood. It's not always obvious whether a piece of engineering has a direct connection to the Lava Pool, and some pieces of wall are much hotter than others.

"The baleful light of Avalas cannot reach you now."
Every street in The Shades has a roof over it. Windows do not face the outside. This compact neighborhood is constructed to keep light away from the dark-loving inhabitants. The confounding warren was built up over generations, with new construction built directly on top of old. In places, the heap reaches five or six stories, with ownership of each room or floor being a separate – and often contested – concern. Creatures who dwell in The Shades run the range from those who are harmed by sunlight such as Vampires to those who are simply blind and don't mind the lack of illumination. While the area does cater to the needs of light sensitive creatures such as Drow, Orcs, and Kobolds, most such creatures try to move out as quickly as possible. Crime is endemic in The Shades, living space is cramped, and there are not many good jobs. All in all, The Shades are pretty much a horrible ghetto that people avoid.

The Weasel Holes: Deep in The Shades, a Kobold gang has set up a gladitorial combat ring. The usual contestants are Dire Weasels, but dog and cock fighting occurs as well. On weekend evenings, people box or wrestle other people or monsters for the amusement of crowds. Gambling is sometimes intense at such exhibitions, and deaths are not as infrequent as they should be. High rollers and the bloodthirsty can be led through the warrens to the location of each night's fights. But beware pickpockets and robbers even so.
The Roof: For most residents of The Shades, the ceiling is the end of the world. But for those who know where the service exits are, the roofs are accessible. It's supposed to be for maintenance and construction, but it can also be a shortcut for those who don't want to navigate the neighborhood's hallways/alleys. The roof isn't empty by any means: great urns collect rainwater to be piped down into the bowels of The Shades for drinking and cleaning.

"This place smells like a dead possum."
Possum is a landfill. It's a crevice in the ground, which the city of Finality dumps waste into. It is also a neighborhood with tens of thousands of people living in it. It is incapacitatingly terrible smelling to begin with, and residents often as not smell even worse. Things do not rot or mulch in most of Finality, but they do in Possum, where strange time magic has made things go sour and decompose. Much like they would on the soil of most worlds, but for whatever reason the process smells much worse here. Creatures living here are either incapable of smelling anything, smell bad enough themselves that they are essentially banished to Possum, or just sincerely love wallowing in filth. Troglodytes are most of the population, but there are many Filth Imps and Undead making up the other two types of residents. Many residents get work in the Tanning Vats, though they are not actually in Possum, but elsewhere in Precinct 20 where things smell somewhat less horrid.

"What matter the affairs of the small?"
While it has few residents, Titan Town is physically very large, because it is made for very large people. Only three actual Titans live in Titan Town, with the rest of the residents being “mere” giants. Still, the smallest adult resident is well over 6 meters tall, and the construction is engineered with that in mind. A grown human man can't even reach the average door knob without a ladder. There is some serious wealth in Titan Town, with many Cloud Giants boasting their own chateaus that would rival the palaces of many kingdoms even if they were scaled down to human scale. But for all the grandeur, only about a thousand people actually live here. Which is not to say that there are only 1,000 people in Titan Town, far from it. Maintaining a colossal home for a colossal lord take a lot of manpower, and maintenance staff of many an estate rivals the resident population of the entire neighborhood. The Giants hire mostly winged servants such as Raptorans, Aarakokra, and Harpies from surrounding neighborhoods to perform cleaning functions as they are physically capable of reaching the absurdly vaulted ceilings of their mansions.

The Squat: Maintaining an estate in Titan Town is not cheap, and more than one Giant has had to abandon a residence because of a lack of funds. Usually these estates do not sit as empty ruins for long, because purchasing an abandoned chateau at auction is generally cheaper than having a new cloud palace built from scratch and there are always Giants trying to stand a little bit taller somewhere in the multiverse. However, in one case a Storm Giant's former demesne stayed unoccupied long enough for an artist's commune of Dwarves to simply start using it as their residence and studio. The official residents of Titan Town are livid, and the response has ranged from simply declaring the building and its grounds to no longer be in the neighborhood to attempting legal action to have the artists removed.

FrankTrollman wrote:The Squat:However, in one case a Storm Giant's former demesne stayed unoccupied long enough for an artist's commune of Dwarves to simply start using it as their residence and studio.

...Don't Giants and Dwarves have some general animosity to the point of getting racial bonuses against each other in combat? In other words, isn't this the biggest "fuck you" ever from Finality's Dwarven population? If so, that's awesome and hilarious.

FrankTrollman wrote:Plant creatures heal rapidly while in the Splinterbriars, but they also grow bolls and tumors that must be cut out of their bodies on a daily basis lest they become sick and deformed.

Reminds me of the cancer formulation of the Positive Elemental Plane.

Overall, I quite like. Red_Rob is right when he says that this would be a great setting for a "Weirdness Detective" plotline; given that that's what Finality is supposed to be, I think that that's an indication that this is going in the right direction.