| Author |
Message |
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:45 pm
The Adventurer's Guide to Obsidian Bay
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
After spending way too many years working on it, I've finally completed an "Adventurer's Guide to Obsidian Bay". Old-timers may remember Obsidian Bay as the home town of the infamous Blackrazor Guild. It's located on the southern edge of the Pomarj, and amazingly, the city is *still* standing after all these years.
You can check out the guide here:
http://www.nuketown.com/griff/guides/obsidianbay/
It has an overview of the city, its histories, its layout, its factions and its demographics. It also has something I've wanted for a very long time: a full map of the city (many thanks to Nate Udell for drawing it).
Now that the Adventurer's Guide is done, I'm putting together a City Book that lists just about every location in the city. You can check out that here:
http://www.nuketown.com/griff/guides/citybook/
It's only about 1/4 of the way done (maybe only 1/8; it's a really big city).
Ken Newquist
|
|
|
Journeyman Greytalker
Joined: May 13, 2004
Posts: 200
From: MS Gulf Coast
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:35 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
Great comprehensive info, Nuke. I've been to The Griffin's Crier a few times over the years and recognized mention of the Blackrazors instantly.  I really loved the breakdown of the population's professions as well as the guild roster. The map is fantastic!
I absolutely love Strange Quarter and the referral to 'trafficking charms, potions and related quackery.'
I'll be certain to keep up with the City Book.
_________________
Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:14 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| Tedra wrote: |
| Great comprehensive info, Nuke. I've been to The Griffin's Crier a few times over the years and recognized mention of the Blackrazors instantly. I really loved the breakdown of the population's professions as well as the guild roster. The map is fantastic! |
Thanks -- I created those using Expeditious Retreats' tools in A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (scroll down to see the entry).
I strongly recommend getting that book if you're doing any serious city building; it address all sorts of issues that you'd never thing to delve into, and allows you to figure out exactly how many candlemakers you've got in the city. Sure, this level of detail may appear to be very Realms-ish, but then again if you're running a city-based campaign (as I am right now) it provides fodder for dozens of adventure ideas.
| Tedra wrote: |
| I absolutely love Strange Quarter and the referral to 'trafficking charms, potions and related quackery.' |
lol. Yeah, the Strange Quarter is pretty amusing. The latest addition there is the "Dragon's Chicken Inn", an in frequented by wizards, sorcerers and other magical-minded folks.
I should note for those unfamiliar with Obsidian Bay that it is very much an adventurers' town, and as such, tends to be a little more high powered than the rest of Greyhawk. That said, I am also very stingy when it comes to magic items, so it isn't *that* much more powerful -- it's just that there are more adventurers per capita than in other areas.
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 28, 2004
Posts: 84
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 1:54 pm
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
Some great work there Nuke. I hadnt hit your site before but is been added now.
Maraudar
|
|
|
Journeyman Greytalker
Joined: May 13, 2004
Posts: 200
From: MS Gulf Coast
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 5:20 pm
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| nuke wrote: |
| Thanks -- I created those using Expeditious Retreats' tools in A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (scroll down to see the entry). |
Thanks for the link, Nuke. I've been trying to find a source like that for quite some time!
_________________
Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:22 pm
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| Tedra wrote: |
| Thanks for the link, Nuke. I've been trying to find a source like that for quite some time! |
You're welcome. As far as I'm concerned, a Magical Medieval Society is an essential book for all DMs; it should be there on the shelf right next to the PHB and DMG.
For those who don't play d20-based Greyhawk, the book is still hugely useful. Although ostensibly for d20 D&D, the amount of d20 content in the book is minimal. Unlike many third party, there are no feats, no prestige classes, and no skills. There are a few references to the city-creation guidelines in the 3.0/3.5 DMG, but that's about it. I'll have to check, but I think those city elements are covered in the System Resource Document, so you may not even need the DMG.
The web site's "Resources" section includes a couple of downloadable spreadsheets that automate the book's charts. Simply input your site's population, and it calculates everything else.
Hmmm. I think I'm going to have to post a short review of this book else where on the site; I think it's worthy of its own subject line.
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:24 pm
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| Maraudar wrote: |
| Some great work there Nuke. I hadnt hit your site before but is been added now. |
Thanks -- it's been a lot of work, but it's now an essential part of my campaign. During the game I always have the GriffCrier up on my laptop so I can quickly reference everything in Obsidian Bay; it's right up there alongside the Hypertext d20 SRD (a fully-hyperlinked version of the fantasy d20 rules).
Ken
|
|
|
Grandmaster Greytalker
Joined: Aug 05, 2004
Posts: 1446
Send private message
|
Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:58 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
This is great work! I was unfamiliar with this website. I particularly like the way the city is laid out. Thanks for the heads-up. 
_________________
GVD
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Wed Apr 06, 2005 7:29 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| GVDammerung wrote: |
| This is great work! I was unfamiliar with this website. I particularly like the way the city is laid out. Thanks for the heads-up. |
That would be Setanta's most excellent drafting skills at work. He did a map of Blue too, but I haven't added it to the site yet. (I'm not sure if he's posted it around here).
One of my upcoming challenges is to figure out a way of hyperlinking the map to its individual location entries without going mad programming it all. :)
|
|
|
Journeyman Greytalker
Joined: Aug 12, 2001
Posts: 188
From: Hanover Park
Send private message
|
Thu Apr 07, 2005 10:58 am
Similar resource?
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
I'd be interested in a comparison of "Magical Medieval Society" with the free online article "Medieval Demographics Made Easy." How much overlap is there?
~Scott C.
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Feb 13, 2005
Posts: 20
Send private message
|
Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:40 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
Hi Nuke! Great to see you and Obsidian Bay here! I'm still using the material I found on your site in my campaign. Thanks for putting it on the net, it really saved me a lot of time when my players suddenly wanted to play in a 3E Greyhawk-type campaign. I'm eager to see what new bits you've come up, with just as soon as I find the bandwidth and the disk space. :)
A Magical Medieval Society is a great book, in my opinion, full of lots of information. I have both the softcover book and the PDF.
I do have some problems with it concerning how much land it says is necessary to support one person, but that's a tiny complication that's easily adjusted for according to individual opinion.
It uses the same data found in "Medieval Demographics Made Easy," but then expands upon it:
Chapter One: On Those Who Toil
Chapter Two: Generating Manors
Chapter Three: On the Magical Medieval City
Chapter Four: Generating Towns and Cities
Chapter Five: Economic Simulator
Chapter Six: On Those Who Pray
Chapter Seven: On Those Who Rule
Chapter Eight: Generating Kingdoms and Aristocracy
Written by Suzi Yee and Joseph Browning--I'm not sure about Suzi Yee, but jgbrowning posts frequently on ENWorld. You can also visit them at their own messageboard (the link to which Nuke gave, above).
If you're interested, rpgnow seems to still be offering the sample chapter of it as a free download: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1678&
|
|
|
Apprentice Greytalker
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 19
From: Easton
Send private message
|
Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:52 am
|
REPLY
QUOTE
TOP
|
|
| Algolei wrote: |
| Hi Nuke! Great to see you and Obsidian Bay here! I'm still using the material I found on your site in my campaign. Thanks for putting it on the net, it really saved me a lot of time when my players suddenly wanted to play in a 3E Greyhawk-type campaign. I'm eager to see what new bits you've come up, with just as soon as I find the bandwidth and the disk space. :) |
I'm glad to hear you're able to use it!
One of the nice things about our current "urban" campaign is that it allows us to flesh out all the fine details of the city. Not a session goes by now that we aren't adding some new organization, site or NPC to the database, and the *really* cool thing is that players end up contributing as much as I do as we spend 5 minutes brainstorming some new business or church. So there should be a lot of new content showing up on the Crier for quite some time. :)
|
|
|
|
