City / town sourcebook recommendations

CKDad · Post by **CKDad** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:04 pm

I was intending to create as much as possible for my current campaign from scratch, but I recently landed a gig that will eat up the time I'd have devoted to the detailed world-building. Hence, I find myself in need of recommendations for good city and town sourcebooks.

I do own UB4 (Dro Madras: The Free West) and the CZ: Yggsburgh book. I'm definitely going to incorporate stuff from these at some point, but UB4 doesn't fit in the area my players currently are, and Yggsburgh, while well done, doesn't mesh well with my overall setting - I'm shooting for a more "early medieval" feel than the cusp-of-Renaissance vibe I get from Yggsburgh. I also own A1-A5 and understand Botkinburg might make a good setting, but I'm also playing in a Blacktooth campaign and don't want to spoil that experience.

I'm looking for at least one decent-sized city and a couple of towns. What's out there that is worth the coin?
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:16 pm

Well, if you can find them, Lost City of Barakus and Cities and Settlements. Both published by TLG. Lost City of Barakus has a nice city placed at the end of a river mouth on a big body of water and is a major trade city and has tons of adventure ideas written within it, plus it has the dungeon delve of Barakus. I think the PDF is available from Necromancer Games on RPGNow.

Cities and Settlements is just that. A bunch of these things with basic maps and ideas and even some NPC's written up for each. A excellent generic starter/resource for such things.

Plus, even though it is written for Harn, you really, really, really should look at lythia.com and read over the many excellent write ups they have there for free.

I have been hyping lythia.com for a couple of years now, and I have been doing so because it is a fantastic resource of very well done fan materials with plenty of use for a D&D game. Somewhere on there they even tell you how to do rough conversions to a D&D/level based game. I think its take their highest percentage score in a combat or spell casting skill, subtract 20% from it, then divide the rest by 5, and you have their equivalent level for D&D/C&C. I find dividing their attribute scores by 5 works real well for general attributes. Most ot the NPC's have fallen in the 4th to 8th level range, and the highest I have converted was 11th.

So do yourself a HUGE favor and check out the PDF's at lythia.com, they are excellent, and there are a lot of manors, towns, etc... there for you to use.
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:22 pm

Cities by Midkemia Press, if you can find it for a good price. A shame SG2: Engineering Cities is not done yet, or I'd say that one.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:55 pm

Here is the PDF for LCoB:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... rers_id=18

Heck, I should buy it at that price. Thats with me already having two print copies.
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:55 pm

I like Seven Cities by Atlas Games. You can go to Lythia.com and check out some maps of cities, as someone already mentioned - they're pretty decent. Here's an example of what can be found there - http://www.lythia.com/download-manager.php?id=176. Finally you can try Profantasy Software's gallery . If you don't own the program, you can download the CC map viewer and printer here.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:59 pm

Bards Gate is another good one, and your familiar with the author, he write the "Haunted Highlands" series.
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... rers_id=18

City State of the Invincible Overlord is another good one to get. Either the version by Necromancer Games, or the original. Get your hands on both if you can.
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Julian Grimm · Post by **Julian Grimm** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:40 pm

serleran wrote:
Cities by Midkemia Press, if you can find it for a good price. A shame SG2: Engineering Cities is not done yet, or I'd say that one.

Are there any more engineering titles in the works?
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jamesmishler · Post by **jamesmishler** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:43 pm

Tell Qa is designed for use with Castles & Crusades, and can be placed in just about any campaign setting.

It's available in the above print format or as a PDF.

NB: I am the author and publisher of Tell Qa...

You can also get the aforementioned City State of the Invincible Overlord in PDF:
Original Judges Guild Version
Necromancer Games Version

If you are going to get the Necromancer version, you might as well get the Compleat Wilderlands Bundle, which is currently available at an incredibly low price of only $60! That's more than 60% off the normal price! Adn with that, you get a whole world of adventure...
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seskis281 · Post by **seskis281** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:47 pm

I'll second Tell Qa.

I transfered it to my Aihrde campaign and it worked very nicely.

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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:03 pm

Yes, Tel Qa is well done as well. Too darn many products to remember!
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danbuter · Post by **danbuter** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:38 pm

http://www.lythia.com/category/downloads/settlements/

There are a number of free towns and stuff at this site. They are set in Harn, which is very much early medieval.
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dunbruha · Post by **dunbruha** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 2:07 am

Lankhmar: City of Adventure (by TSR) is worth checking out.

Hrolfgar · Post by **Hrolfgar** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 2:39 am

Carse and Tulan of the Isles ,now out of print were also done by Midkemia press then reprinted by Chaosium were good medieval cities as well. The Cities supplement is a great resource but would still have to create the town or city.

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:58 am

Quote:
Are there any more engineering titles in the works?

Yes, at least one more -- possibly another, but that's not really my call. I might not write the others, either, so its all up to Steve as usual.
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CKDad · Post by **CKDad** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:36 pm

Thanks for the many recommendations! And you know, I kick myself occasionally for not having bought City-State of the Invincible Overlord way back when.
Snarfing up a few things, pondering some others. Took a brief glance at Lythia and you're right, that's quite the treasure trove.
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Julian Grimm · Post by **Julian Grimm** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:43 am

If I may be a voice of dissent, I wasn't impressed with the Necro CSIO. I found it painfully boring and the map was a scattered mess. YMMV of course but it is more than likely going into my next sell pile.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:26 am

Julian Grimm wrote:
If I may be a voice of dissent, I wasn't impressed with the Necro CSIO. I found it painfully boring and the map was a scattered mess. YMMV of course but it is more than likely going into my next sell pile.

If so let me know.
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Julian Grimm · Post by **Julian Grimm** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:41 am

Understood.
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:45 pm

There was an old series by Flying Buffalo Inc. called Citybooks. They were system neutral sourcebooks that came in modular pieces to insert and fill out any town setting. Each volume was grouped by theme (port towns, sideshows, etc.)

I'd also recommend Cityworks by Fantasy Flight Games. It is part of their Legends & Lairs series of d20 supplements and has enough random tables to generate an entire city with great detail.
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:46 pm

I recommend the old City of Ravens Bluff material. It is what I am using as the base of operations for my current C&C campaign. Lots of good stuff. I think you can still get a free PDF copy of the City book from the WotC Download Archives. The other Ravens Bluff modules are available for purchase as PDFs from Paizo and RPGNow.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:28 pm

Aladar wrote:
I recommend the old City of Ravens Bluff material. It is what I am using as the base of operations for my current C&C campaign. Lots of good stuff. I think you can still get a free PDF copy of the City book from the WotC Download Archives. The other Ravens Bluff modules are available for purchase as PDFs from Paizo and RPGNow.

Yep. Its right here on this web page.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads
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