Traps

The first area to cover is traps. Traps are generally not too complex a thing in Dungeons and Dragons or in your RPG. In a fantasy setting you have physical and magical traps that players can go into, and since I write these from the point of Dungeons and Dragons, we’ll work with that system.

When using a trap there are a few steps for creating something interesting. Though not every trap needs to be that interesting. It, instead, is able to be used to set expectations if you want. I create a trap in a room at the start of the dungeon, every player is going to check every room for traps. And I think there are good uses for that. But let’s talk about those steps.

• Type of Trap
• Finding Trap
• Disarming Trap
• Setting Off Trap

Type of Trap

Each of these is simple in it’s own right. But you need each of them to be there. Firstly, what type of trap is it goin to be. Physical, magical, and if it’s physical, pit trap, spike trap, poison trap. Or if it is magical, fire, water, changes room, teleport? There are a lot of fun things that you can do. But pick that and that is going to determine some other things as you go down.

Finding Trap

Next is how can the players find the trap. Even if it is arrows being shot off of a floor trigger when they step in a spot, there are signs. Or a magical trap, there might be a glyph that is triggered. But I think there are two worthwhile numbers coming up with. First, what is the difficulty for just passively perceiving the trap? If someone is very good with their passive perception can they just spot it? Or what is the perception check to see it. And then, what is an investigation if they are looking for a specific type of trap.

The second one shows up more if it’s a known trap. If in room one there is a pit trap, in room two they might look for a pit trap again. That is investigating to find something specific. So use both.

Disarming Trap

Next up is disarming a trap. Know kind of how this is going to work. Let players maybe brute force it, if you don’t have a rogue in the party. The Barbarian rips up the pressure plate on the floor, sure. But generally, rogue with thieves tools. Or if it’s a magical trap, do they need to dispel magic?

But this is again about creating that difficulty for the check. It might be a 12 for a rogue with thieves tools and slight of hand to be able to disarm it. It isn’t that complex a trap. But if you don’t have the rogue that day, or the barbarian gets there first, it might be a 18 strength/athletics check to rip it out of the ground. So know what numbers you want. But more so, know the ballpark. If you think they may come up with an alternative way know if you want that to be as easy as a normal way or harder.

Setting Off Trap

Finally, they might just set off the trap. Now, traps can be their own mini little puzzle in a game. What is going to happen if the whole party falls into a pit traps. Now they need to get out. Or maybe it is going to be timed event now for them to get through clouds of poison while taking damage?

Sometimes it is as simple as, a volley of arrows shoot and that is it. Or the player literally gets their foot stuck in a trap (or hand if they were disarming it). But think about how you want to use the trap and the trap affect to advance story or create interesting interactions if you want.

Bonus Dungeon Master Tool – Traps and Expecations

I talked about this a little but I knew I wanted to come back to it. What is the expectation when you create a trap in the first room of a dungeon? Well, the simple answer is, there are going to be more traps. In fact, there are going to be lots of traps. The player is going to check every room for traps.

Change Them Up

Now that the players are checking for traps there are a few things that you can do. Firstly, change up the traps. Not every room should have a trap, but when you set the expectation that there can be traps don’t waste your and the players time by only having one in the first room. But change up the traps, magical and non-magical in nature.

Only One

Or, do only have a single one. But make it so difficult and terrifying that most groups would immediately run in fear. Since a good adventuring party doesn’t have enough fear or brains to know to be afraid, they will just keep checking for traps. If you do that, though, make the rest of the dungeon a cake walk. All the energy was on the start of it, the rest is just empty hallways because no one ever gets through.

Develop History

Another thing, and last one I’ll talk about, is you can develop history. The history of the dungeon could be new traps are being created so it means that someone is still down there taking care of it. Or you might find adventurers who were killed before and the players gather pieces of history from them. Nothing like the first room and the adventurers see someone dead in a sprung trap. Now you immediately plant concern and can give them some history with the adventurers journal as to what they knew of this dungeon.

Puzzles

That is more on traps than I had expected. But I think that doing a great job with traps can make for an interesting campaign. And it is going to give the rogue something to do besides trying to steal everything that isn’t bolted to the ground.

But now we are onto puzzles. And puzzles, I think, offer three different routes to go. Though, the routes can overlap in some ways. But I want to firstly talk about who the puzzle is for, that is two of the routes. And then finally, what if there isn’t an answer.

Determining Who the Puzzle is For

This might sound odd. But there are two groups that the puzzle could be for. When you create a puzzle it is either for the characters in the game. Or it is for the players out of the game. Neither is a wrong way to create a puzzle and doing both can offer a lot of fun in the game for the players. But this is the first thing you want to determine when you create a puzzle, who it is for. Because that is going to change what you do.

Puzzles for the Characters

Puzzles for characters are going to be less of the cryptograms, jumbles, patterns, things like that. Instead, for the characters, a brain teaser or pieces of history and knowledge needed are the type of puzzle that you are going to create.

You go to the temple of the god of death, for example. Well, what is it that your characters know about the god of death? You create a puzzle where they need to know something about it. The players outside of the game don’t know this god of death unless you gave them a document with it all in there (don’t do this it’s a waste of your time). But the characters in the game sure do because it’s the god of death, they’d have heard of it at least.

So think about the checks that you want them to make. It might be an investigation to see if they can tell how someone beat the puzzle before. Or it might be a religion check to determine what they remember about the god of death. Again, it’s the god of death, the characters know of it for sure, but do they know the right detail.

So a puzzle for the characters is all about the checks that they do. And you decide how hard or easy you want it to be. But if you make it too hard, also have a way around it.

Example – The God of Death

So let’s run with this god of death example. There is a dungeon where they need to get down to the lowest level. They know that there is a secret passage called the River Styx that they can use to get down to the bottom. But they get there and it’s locked away behind a riddle.

“Bestow they worship upon me, pay the tolls once, twice, and three. Coins of death marked for their fate. Hours gone don’t tarry late.”

Solution

So, what is the answer to that riddle? The players need to provide the total value of the cost to cross the River Styx either three times or six times. Once, Twice, and Three could be 1+1+1 paying it three times. Or it could be 1+2+3, paying the set each time. I think I’d set this as an intelligence check of 10, pretty simple if they want both options.

But it is also a specific coin. What is a coin marked for death. Well that might be a soul coin from the hells. A soul given up to a devil would be interesting payment to get across the River Styx. This one is more of a religion check, and I think while people know of the god of death, it is taboo to worship them, so it’s less common. Make it a difficulty check of 15 for religion, so tougher.

What If They Fail

So what if in this case they all fail their religion rolls. They don’t know about the soul coins. But after feeding in a bunch of coins and nothing happening are they locked out of the dungeon? No, there is a longer path that is more dangerous for them. But if you need a roll to succeed to progress the story, always gives a different, harder way for them to go forward. If it is just a case of finding some treasure that would be nice. Sure, it is possible that they never figure it out. But if it is for anything related to story, give them that other option.

Puzzles for the Players

Next up, a puzzle can be for the players. This one I think is a bit simpler. Yes, you still might incorporate checks that the characters can do to give the players hints. But it is all about the players for this one. A cryptogram is a great example of this. You give them a little bit of a key and then let them get going on breaking the whole thing. It is something that all the players can take part in, but it isn’t part of the game and it isn’t meant for them to roleplay it out.

I am going to skip an example on this, but it can be a lot of different things. I made a room with gouts of flames that were being shot out. As I describe what the players watch, I kind of expect the players to take notes and solve the path. It isn’t something you do by trial and error but in that case, I also make it simple. And if the players aren’t solving it, I give them an intelligence roll and give some more details that make the puzzle simpler.

Puzzles with no Answer

The final thing is something that I think more Dungeon Masters should do. This is going to be the best Dungeon Master tip overall for traps and puzzles. It is simply, don’t create a solution. This is something that you can do with puzzles but also just with issues that arise. Throw the players a problem and see what happens.

Why wouldn’t you have a solution, though? The simple answer is, the players can come up with one. And this is something that can be done in character as well. You just wait until they try something that you think makes enough sense or is cool enough to work. When they suggest it or they try it, it can work as simple as that. And let’s face it, there is one of you and probably two to eight players, so more brains, more creative solutions.

This also can let you set a time for it. If you think, I want them to sweat a bit on this trap, give them ten minutes to discuss it and try different things, or maybe even longer if it’s supposed to be key and important. Or if it is supposed to be pretty trivial, make it that way, let the first cool or fun idea work.

Example from My Game

This came to be because I actually created one of these, kind of, last night in my game. The players were on a labyrinthian type floor of a tower, the main dungeon in the campaign. Every room was the same except for a few had plaques on the wall. The big thing is that they needed to get to the stairs for the next level. To do that they needed to go into rooms and figure out where to go.

In the rooms, and only a few of them, did I leave clues for the players. But the clues were fairly general. In the first room it said the following.

First Puzzle

“Beware – Zombies
Go this way.”

That was next to one of the four doors in the square room (one per wall). The players had to decide what that meant. But little did they know, and they messed this up in an interesting way, was that every room a character went into had more and stronger zombies. So if they fought, each time the zombies would get tougher and tougher and more and more.

Second Puzzle

So the player went the right direction, eventually, after one had done a loop to see how it would work and ramping up their difficulty. Eventually they got to another room with another plaque and a dead adventurer.

“Two Far
[down arrow]”

This meant head back two rooms and go south. Now going back is going to cause more zombies and harder zombies to appear. At this point, by the way, the zombies had +23 to hit and were dealing 1D6+21 damage.

The Real Puzzle

So the new puzzle was simpler but harder. How do we get through rooms without getting hit by the zombies. They had already spent a fair number of resources on a battle or two with the zombies. And I didn’t give them a solution. If they had gone the ideal route, it wouldn’t have been a major deal. But because they went further and created more zombies, it was way harder for them.

So two flight spells later and the Warforged character being disguised as a zombie the players got to the right room. But they needed to do it in a way where they weren’t taking 3-4 attacks of opportunity each, Because say it was three, all likely hit with a +23 to hit, and that’s a minimum of 66 damage, a lot for even a level 16 bard.

Final Dungeon Master Tools for Traps and Puzzles

This is the reminder that I give at the end of all of these Dungeon Master tools. Or if not at the end, sometime in there. But the point of everything is to create a great experience at the table. And that means progressing characters and stories as you go along. When you create a trap and a puzzle that should be in your mind as well. Because when you do that the most fu n is going to be had at the table for both you and your players.

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Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin

As we’ve talked about before, I like big epic campaign games, however, I have quite a number of them coming. I held off on Stormsunder for a few different reasons, first it was in between two big projects, Marvel United and Frosthaven, but also because it was by a company I wasn’t as familiar with, but I still couldn’t quite walk away from it.

What kept and keeps drawing me to it is that this is a deck building/deck construction game. So while in Gloomhaven you have your hand of cards, this one allows you to upgrade a changing hand of cards as your character levels up. In this one you’re adding those cards, and your character is growing and developing and unlocking new skills, and that system for leveling up your character just makes a lot of sense to me.

One thing that has kept me on the fence, besides the price, it’s a big campaign game so it’s going to be expensive, but also just the amount of game play. It boasts 300 hours of content, and that’s a lot. In fact, that might be too much. I love epic story campaign games, but when do I have too many that I won’t ever get to them all? Plus there are more coming out and more that I’m going to be talking about. I can play them solo, and I want to do that more, but if I play for two hours twice a week, let’s say, just Stormsunder: Heir of Ruins would take me 75 weeks to get through. Now, I could make that go faster, or I could take breaks, but it’s a lot of time.

So, no real excitement meter to do on this one. The pledge manager is opening up soon, theoretically, and I have to decide if this is one that I want to get the game or not. I’m looking at it and seeing so many things that sound cool that I really want to back it, but it isn’t cheap and there’s so much content. So, will I back it, that’s up in the air.

HEL: The Last Saga

I like games that have a bit of a dark feel to them. Tainted Grail is a great example of this, there’s something about a darker story that you just kind of feel, or at least I do, that I can get pulled more into the theme by the game itself. And this one has a Norse theme wrapped around it as you lead a second team into an unknown land to look for those who have gone before you, and no, I’m not talking about Tainted Grail again, though it does sound like it.

This game gives you more dice chucking, and almost randomness in the game play than Tainted Grail does, but still seems to be heavy with story. You go to various points on the map in the game and you find out what has happened to your clansmen who have gone before.

There were several things that drew me to the game besides the theme, first there is the religion mechanic. And different characters in your clan, they might be druidic, Norse, or Christian and depending on which they are, they can tap into their religion to unlock powers that you can use. I also like how the different member of the clans play differently. Not only do they have a different religion potentially but also they different powers beyond that.

I’m still really excited for this one. I can see it getting to the table pretty fast when it shows up. I like the theme, I like the setting, and the game play has looked good from what I’ve seen of it being demoed.

Excitement Meter: 8/10

Did you back either of these? What sold you or didn’t sell you on Stormsunder: Heir of Ruins? Should I back it when the pledge manager opens?

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I think that the criminal underworld is one of those things that is tricky to get right in a city. I find that it tends to go to one of two extremes. Either, there is little to none criminal activity in the city because you’re just supposed to shop there and not look for trouble or look beyond the surface of where you’re at, or everyone is involved in a conspiracy. Now, both have some issues, the main one being that it isn’t all that realistic. We know that organized crime and gangs exist in the real world, and they have throughout history, so why is a D&D town different? It shouldn’t be.

Let’s get back to Greenfang though, what sort of criminals are going to be there?

Outside of the town you’re definitely going to have a larger number of bandits than you would normally watching the roads because they are going to be trying to hit up caravans, or, more likely, they are going to try and deal with adventuring parties that come into town for the auctions on goods because they are going to be loaded with money and not yet have the gear that they want. Most likely there is going to be more organized group that is pretty specific on whom they hit. Then there will be a few who have split off from that group or who try and go it on their own from the start who end up having shorter careers as bandits.

The organized group of bandits, The Green Falcons, are going to know to avoid the merchant guild caravans because those are going to have better guards, and even if they don’t, the merchant guilds are going to hit back hard with their mercenaries if they lose a caravan. So, the Green Falcons are likely going to try and keep the random bandits down as well, like the merchant guilds would want, because the merchant guilds would crack down on all bandits if they lost a caravan. The Green Falcons would also have people in the city who are sending information back out to the bandit camp wherever that is located. It probably wouldn’t be someone in every guild, but there would probably be a couple around who are gathering information when a guild is going to send out mercenaries to crack down on the bandits.

Beyond that, I think Greenfang is going to be more focused on the white collar crimes. That’s what the guilds are going to crack down on but also what the cons that people are going to try and pull. You likely always have dirty money changers who are keeping some extra for themselves. The merchant guilds are probably going to consider that the cost of doing business and as long as it’s not too much, they won’t make a stink about it.

I think, also with so much money being in town you are going to find that there is gambling. I would suspect that there is some guild in town that all they do is run different fights, tournaments and stuff like that to keep people entertained, especially since it’s in the middle of no where. But that’s probably fairly tame and while someone might die, it probably doesn’t happen too often. So, most likely there is going to be something going on under the table, a secret gambling den either for fights, games or chance or possibly both. This is going to be ignored by the merchant guilds because it doesn’t take any money from their pockets, just the pockets of their employees.

So Greenfang is definitely going to have a criminal side to the town. There’s probably even a good amount of money to be made if you are careful about it, and at all points in time there is probably someone trying to get rich by scamming one of the guilds. In your game, that’s useful for your story because you can either have your adventuring party brought in to help stop it sometime. Your adventuring party, though, might be blamed for it if they have been in the town too long and because they are the “new” people. Also, a battle or two with bandits seems very likely since they aren’t probably going to be coming in with a caravan. Or it’s possible that the players are brought in to deal with some bandits as part of a larger crackdown and some extra bodies are needed. The thing with all of these story hooks is that they aren’t going to be your whole game, but a good bit of combat if you want something simpler and also a good way to get your players involved with the guilds if you need it for your story line.

Next, we’re going to talk about religion in the city as well as how the city might physically be laid out.

But the last big things about a Dungeons and Dragons town and with Greenfang is religion. Dungeons and Dragons has it baked into it’s core with Clerics and Paladins having divine magic, that means, it’s going to play an important part in any city that is built up, because people can just see this magic.

So what sort of religion is likely to have shown up in Greenfang?

You’re looking at three primary groups that would be there. While I’m sure that most dwarven and human deities would show up in a large city, especially one surrounding ore, there would be three more powerful ones for Greenfang.

First, you are going to have the temples for the god or goddess who protect people as they travel. There are several of these around the city with a larger central one by the guild halls. The merchants and mercenaries who travel stop by to drop off a coin or say a prayer at the smaller temples, but w hen a bigger group is heading out, there might be some pomp around it at the main temple. The traveler god/goddess gets worship or offerings from even those who might not believe fully in them, just out of the traditions of Greenfang. There is completely circumstantial evidence that if you give an offering that you’re more likely to have a safe trip. Even those who know that there is no connection still don’t want to risk it.

Then, the Dwarves have a strong presence simply because of the ore. That means you are getting temples to the dwarven deity for both safety in mining and also with the forge. There is a singular giant hall for this, but many come there. The dwarves have actually set-up a smaller one in the mines that only dwarves are allowed into, but for the larger groups and non-dwarves, there is the main location. Most all guilds give some sort of tithe there, even if they aren’t dwarves, again out of respect and tradition, but also because it keeps the dwarven workers happier to know that they are respecting their deity.

Finally, there are the deities of trade. Probably the second biggest after the god/goddess of travel, the deities of trade and money are also worshiped by many. While the other temples consider their role in the city to be one that is more serious as it is about the safety of the individuals who give an offering and pray there, the temples for trade and money host extravagant celebrations to keep the mood of the city good. Almost monthly there are different feasts, holidays, and festivals. They do it to show how much the deities are blessing the town as well as keeping morale up. There are temples throughout the city, and people have their preferred one to worship at. In fact, each guild will worship at a different one, just to show that their temple and their priests and priestesses are better than the others, hence so many celebrations demonstrating this fact. While the guilds might be loathe to give up money, they also want to attract the best workers, and by flouting their wealth through the temples, they are able to show their strength.

Now, there are many more deities that will show up. The master craftsmen who are making armor and weapons have deities that they have little shrines to for creativity and art. You can tell what part of the continent they come from based off of what the deity looks like. Plus there are deities for weather, crops, hunting, and other trades that are needed in the city that have popped up as well. And even deities that don’t tie into anything that’s done in Greenfang simply because they wanted to spread their word. But all of these pale in comparison to the big three. Whenever any of those three has a large event, Greenfang almost comes to a standstill as people celebrate.

We now have our economy, politics, crime, religion, and layout generally figure out. It would be easy to create a bunch of note cards with random NPC’s on them to fill out the town and to create the different wares that will be in some shops. I’m going to do that coming up here, but it won’t have to be specific to Greenfang, though it might be so I can continue building out the city.

I hope that this has been an interesting exercise. It has been interesting for me to think about as I’ve mainly built cities that are along the coast which definitely can have a different feel or cities that need to be more defensible. I hope to get Greenfang into a game soon.

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Alright, the article is done, you can all go home now.

No, let’s talk a bit more about it and start to talk about where and what this city is.

Greenfang, as a name, doesn’t imply this big sprawling metropolis with a lot of rich people who want a nice and comfortable life. I would put, and I think for the city, it out into the wilderness. Probably deep in the woods on a river. The reason that there’s a city there is a little bit limited. Greenfang is probably other a hub of trade, meaning that it has several different trade routes going into and out of it, or it’s a logging community that then sends everything down the river, or both.

For my city, Greenfang was a small trading post, but things changed when ore was found in one of the nearby mountains. Now, dwarves trade ore from the mountains with humans and elves and whomever is willing to buy. While shipping the ore down the river worked to reach some of their potential customers, other peddlers and the like started creating roads through the woods, and more powerful merchant guilds from neighboring lands have hired mercenaries to watch the forest routes. The forest routes are the most dangerous, but players want the ore and the armor/weapons that the dwarves are forging.

Greenfang, since it wasn’t much of a town until there was ore, so the name hasn’t been made fancy, and it’s probably more of a rough and tumble town. And it’s probably something where the city has spread out into the forest and to both sides of the river. I think that it’s more of a sprawling city, versus something that gets built up with tall buildings. These buildings are a bit more rustic and rough looking, most of them wood buildings with a few of the larger buildings being a combination of stone and wood, but there are no pure stone buildings or any buildings that stand more than two levels in height.

You can see what the name is able to imply. I’ll dig into some of the ideas that I’ve talked about here and how they are going to continue to to shape the idea for the city in the next article. In fact, the next article is going to dig into the trade aspect to see how the city might be set-up and spread out and how a city building up because of ore will look differently than other cities.

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So, we’ve talked about this a little bit. Greenfang is a town that doesn’t have much in terms of it’s own resources. It was instead built in the wilderness close enough to the mountains to be able to handle shipping of ore, and because of that, multiple different trade routes were started to get the ore heading out more directions than just down the river. And that, then made Greenfang into a town that has a lot of trade going through it and a good hub for secondary headquarters for merchant guilds.

So the town is really full of merchants and that’s where most of the money is changing hands. But because of the proximity to the mountains and ore, you’d have a few other businesses pop up. Obviously, you are going to need inns for the merchant guild members who are coming in to get the newest shipment of goods from their guild. Plus, people who are hunting for food or growing some food, though, that is most of what is shipped and brought back into Greenfang. That, and goods that are specific or well known from the cities at the end of the trade routes.

But there is another group that would have definitely moved into the area and probably into Greenfang, and that is master crafters who forge the ore. If they can buy it before it goes through a reseller, that means that they are getting it at a better value, and then they probably sell to multiple different guilds. In fact, since this is my city, they actually hold a monthly auction for these master worked weapons and armor and other things so that the guilds bid it up and the master crafters can get the best money. In Greenfang the auction day is basically a holiday that everyone attends. A non-guild member can buy items, but most of the items are sold in bulk because the master crafters have apprentices who are turning out things in bulk like pots, etc. which are cheaper to buy when they are made in Greenfang and shipped out, than raw ore shipped out and smelted elsewhere, though that still happens.

Now that we are seeing where the money is flowing through Greenfang, we can start to see who has power. I think that there is a high council in the town that is technically supposed to be neutral, but every seat is going to be attached to a guild and is probably a guild member or related to a guild member. The high council is going to be focused on what is best for keeping the business running strong for a long time. This can lead to some contentions when a new guild tries to get established and steal out a council seat from under another guild. It also can cause troubles when a guild needs something specific, but generally the guilds ideas all align because they care about keeping their guild making money by selling goods, so the ideals don’t diverge too much.

The merchant guilds are also going to be the ones in charge of protection. While there might be an official standing guard, they are basically used to split up disputes between squabbling merchant guilds, or to run new guilds out of town before they can be established if the new guild is bugging enough of the old merchant guilds. But the protection around the city, most of that is done by the merchant guilds who have a good number of mercenary soldiers. They keep them busy keeping the roads out of the town clear so that their caravans can stay safe. This means both dealing with bandits which tend to give Greenfang a wide birth, but also wild animals that might show up. Most everyone in Greenfang can deal with something like a rabid fox or maybe even a wolf, but for larger or more monstrous creatures, the merchant guilds send in the mercenaries.

Greenfang in general is fairly rough and tumble for being as large as city as it is. But it’s also in the middle of nowhere, so the faint of heart aren’t that apt to travel to it, and they also aren’t that apt to stay. So on the criminal side, while they crack down hard on things like stealing from the merchant guilds, other things that are technically not legal in the nation are allowed here. The city guard is kept somewhat busy busting up bar fights or dealing with drunks in the street. But stealing something is cracked down on hard, so that isn’t much of an issue. It’s more apt that someone will stab another person or a slight than someone would steal something.

We’ve made it into Greenfang a little bit, and we can start to see how the city is running. We can see why a city was built up there and how it’s running. Next time we’re going to look a bit at the criminal aspect and what other groups besides the merchant guilds and master crafters might be out there.

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There are two real ways that a city can grow, you can either grow up or you can grow out. And for a fantasy game, you really do have the option for either of those. With the use of magic, you’d be able to build a city that stands higher than it should. And, for places that need to be highly defensible, you are probably going to build higher up. Greenfang, however, is in the middle of nowhere and every nation that does trade with them might want to take it over, but they are going to be concerned about retaliation from multiple fronts.

So with Greenfang, it’s a city that has spread out. There aren’t hard edges defined as people can just cut down more trees to get more room to build houses. It’s grown out further on one side of the river where the first settlement was, but as it’s grown into a city, both sides of the river have houses and there are ferries that run often to shuttle people across. Compared to most cities of the size of Greenfang, it’s a much larger foot print as in giant forest, houses can spread out more. There were houses that were built outside of the town that is now part of the city proper, sometimes to the chagrin of their original owner.

Now that we know how it grew out, is there any rhyme or reason to how it grew?

There are a few areas that are probably worth noting. Near the river on the larger side you have the town hall and it’s the primary location for most of the guilds. From there are some shops that have popped up around there as one of the market locations. But further from the river and on the other side of the river there are more market locations. There are also random shops attached to houses, though, most of the business is done in the markets. The guild artisan smiths who came to get direct access to the ore have their own area of the town. In the center of that is a large open space where they hold their auctions.

There isn’t a ton more rhyme or reason to how Greenfang is laid out. There are inns, a few random shops, temples and churches throughout the town. As new places came, they built at the edge of town, pushing other business further in. Some of the inns a little bit into the town have gone out of business because the ones at the edges for convenience, or those nicer ones by the guild halls get most of the business. A fair number of the temples are just inns that have been updated some into a place or worship as a cheaper option than building a new place, plus, it helps keep them more centralized. That can be an interesting time as some of the temples have blood on the floor where it got stained when the place was still an inn.

Towards the outskirts on the downstream side of Greenfang is the slum neighborhoods. This is where those who weren’t able to hack it in the mine live. It’s rough living conditions because they can’t afford good building supplies, but they are actually fairly well fed because of proximity to fish in the river and creatures in the woods. In the slums, having a good bow and arrow is extremely important to your survival and is the possession that you keep in the best shape. As compared to other slums in other cities, especially those with nobles, it’s actually fairly nice. Compared to others, the people there are more competent since they were able to travel all the way out to Greenfang and survive.

There’s more for how a city would be laid out, but that is the general of what you need to start to create your town. Are there any places that you think that I should have talked about? This city really was founded on a population that would be there for a bit and then leave when new guild members came in, but it’s developed over time to be a much larger and booming city that does more business than just trading of ore and other goods.

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