City of 100 Gods 4/10: The Last Ladders

These are the final wards of The Ladders, the City of a Hundred Gods' warren of slums lying beyond its perimeter walls. Movement through the district is brought to life by day and night encounter tables in this post. Initial thoughts for abstracting the map and navigating the city are here, but this is up for revision. 

The setting assumes PCs are outcast hunting gatherers visiting a Neolithic proto-city, but this could easily be re-skinned for an antediluvian/weird bronze age sword-and-sorcery game

The walls of Ichan-Qаl’а, Khiva, Uzbekistan

 31. The Kite-Flyer (Cloud Temple)

City of a Hundred Gods pt 3/10: further along the Ladders

We return to the Ladders, the slum dwellings on the immediate interior of the City of a Hundred Gods. Day and night encounters are rolled on a 1d20 table found in the post linked below and repeated at the foot of this one.
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/12/city-of-hundred-gods-part-210-remaining.html

The whole city is divided into wards, each one possessing a local spirit elevated to the status of god by those who worship it, both within and without the city. Each ward possess a handful of unique day and night encounters and additional details concerning the god's followers and priests—as well as others living and working in these streets.

Anselm Kiefer, Die fruchtbare Halbmond (The Fertile Crescent)

The Ladders refers  for both the high incidence of ladders to access the irregularly stacked mudbrick housing, but also for the tiny lanes intersecting the two parallel orbital avenues like the rungs of a ladder. It is a tightly packed slum rife with dirt, disease and regular fires.Though the Lord of the Dead treads the clay-tiled streets without fear this is also a place that expresses the wild, complex beauty of human life in all its glorious diversity. The Ladders provide an explosion of colour, scent and sound to rival the most potent entheogenic experience.

CW: animal slaughter, cannibalism

Navigating the City of a Hundred Gods—Another Approach to the City

In ancient times a man named Patrick Stuart shared a post about wrapping a dungeon around a die to create a non-Euclidean adventure site: http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2011/09/did-i-invent-this.html

I think about it a lot, and have been playing with multiple iterations of the concept for a number of years... but only recently did I consider it an interesting way to approach the "city crawl", specifically the settlement slowly being described in the City of a Hundred Gods series of posts. 

A hex map of a city, repeating endlessly.

CITY OF A HUNDRED GODS: Part 2/10... the remaining gates and the Ladders

The Sea of Tents, the Black River and Dusk Gate have previously been described, alongside their patron deities the Shit-Beetle, the Goddess of the Lime-Slake and more. Have a look at that post before coming back here:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/02/city-of-hundred-gods-part-110-city.html

Actually, read THIS post and come back here. The Bad Doctor shared this just as I was writing my slightly undercooked entry for the RPG Blog carnival, and I had to postpone reading it until I'd finished it, lest I gave up entirely. I'm glad I did: this is damn fine. Excellently selection of augmenting images, too:

https://wasitlikely.blogspot.com/2024/12/gods-of-stolen-world.html

Oh and then read THIS post, too, because Shuttered Room has come up with something very, very good for Secret Santicore: an ice age (past? present? future? it'll work as each of those) settlement, partly inspired by module B4. Another great example of minimalist worldbuilding:

https://shutteredroom.blogspot.com/2024/12/no-holidays-this-season-secret.html.

Sometimes it's hard not to feel like the ugly sister to Cinderella when stood beside such luminaries. I don't know if you ever get similar feelings but—assuming that you also have an RPG blog, which is likely—whenever I do I try to be thankful that I'm at least at the ball. 

Anyway, here's some more of my own gods, native to a sprawling Neolithic proto-city.

Ruins of Çatalhöyük—which could be the title of YOUR next adventure, couldn't it?

CITY OF A HUNDRED GODS: Part 1/10 City Limits

Jewel at the Foot of the Mountain. The Bridge Over the Great River. City of Many Stairs. Gateway to the Sun and Heavens. The Endless village. The city has nearly as many names as the number of deities to whom its inhabitants pray... and it is this peculiar feature that grants its most familiar name: the City of a Hundred Gods.

Was going to use this as the cover for PARIAH volume 2 then remembered...
...we ripped it off Assassin's Creed...

To outsiders these "gods" are hungry, capricious demons that thrive on that unique misery endemic to urbanised societies... but to those born within sight of the city's incredible walls, they are entities worthy of their devotion. The myriad cults venerating these one hundred deities each work in synergy to make the metropolis greater than the sum of its parts.

So come then, let us explore each district via the "gods" venerated there, starting with the outskirts of the city and of course its walls.

Exploring Space: Procedure in Different RPG Environments (Part 2)

Part 1 of this 2-part post special can be read here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/01/exploring-space-procedure-in-different.html

In a previous post I look at play procedures in different environments, in the hope that this might somehow "unlock" the secret to running a city encounter. For many readers I'm trying to solve a problem that isn't there, and I'm not going to argue with you: I think this is probably about my own obsession with cities and what they mean. Hopefully something good can come out of it.

Lilith, Anselm Kiefer

Before digging into the urban environment I want to examine the final play procedure: delving. In producing this text it occurred to me that my issues with cities in RPGs is that they can offer the same high risk/high reward scenario that dungeons and other discrete locations can offer, but the procedure for exploring such sites is entirely unsuited for the majority of play within a city.

Anyway, here's my breakdown of dungeoneering. Again: this is not didactic, merely how I interpret old-school style play at my table, ymmv:

Exploring Space: Procedure in Different RPG Environments (Part 1)

Constant's New Babylon Nord. It is upside down, courtesy the internet.

Work for PARIAH VOLUME 2: CITY OF GHOSTS continues apace. There is no way I am going to be able to have this ready for Zine Quest 3  unfortunately, but I have at least settled on a format. The nature of the space is closer to a dungeon crawl than a city crawl, so there will be a somewhat granular approach to the space... by which I suppose I mean a keyed map with defined locations and routes around.

However, I'm still thinking about a bigger, more urban setting for another project, but feel the need to really define the procedure for exploring an urban environment, as it's the least defined in old school play. To get there I'm first going to have a look at some traditional play procedures with additional commentary regarding how this manifests in PARIAH.

More Neolithic Settlements—City of Ghosts/PARIAH

 A confluence of currents, including but not limited to...

• ...a third national lockdown in the UK and a slow economy...
• ...the imminence of ZINE QUEST 3...
• ...discord discussion about cities & settlements...
• ...revisiting the Others, a fantasy precursor civilisation with a cool generator: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-others-pariah-city-of-ghosts.html

...has lead me back to this idea that cities and settlements could do more (or at least could feel more interesting) in the implied PARIAH setting.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this 9,000 year old Neolithic dwelling is better than my house.

So: using (and augmenting) the tables in this post:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2020/05/neolithic-settlements.html

....I've assembled a generator for four different types of settlement: RURAL (the kind that should number in the dozens-per-agricultural-hex), MAJOR SETTLEMENT (the home of a chieftain or regional leader) SACRED SITE (what it says on the tin) and the CITY.

NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENTS

Though pariahs roam out in the wilderness and come from hunter-gatherer societies, the world they inhabit is Neolithic. It is a world of agriculture, trade and permanent settlements—even burgeoning cities. The people of those settlements represent potential trade partners, sources of  rumours, possible allied or even enemies.

I've made a Neolithic settlement generator which you can access here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/01/more-neolithic-settlementscity-of.html

The Spectral City

This is not a mirage, though it is seen in the desert when one is desperate and weak.

Inspired by The Pilgrims in Jack Vance's Eyes of the Overworld.
Contains paraphrased passages and quotes from that work, not cited. Fair use etc.

First it comes for those on watch, whose eyes become uncontrollably heavy. They will close them - only for  a second - but that is long enough. When they open them again, they see that the desert is quite different from how they remember it.

EZRA

The second in a series of city posts, begun with Nahemot.

For adherents of the New Temple faith, Nahemot is the most holy of cities: it was the site of his birth, and today houses his tomb. But the city that bears his name, Ezra, is home to far more of his followers, struggling to make his centuries old ideology in a changing world.

It is a fortified city with a strong military tradition. It stands at the crossroads of two major trade routes. It was once known as the city of 100 names. To foreigners it is known only as the city of noise, for it is a city without written language. To its inhabitants it has only one name, and that name is EZRA.

FIRST LOOK

The whiteness of it is blinding, especially on the southernmost side, where the albido effect has led to many a tired navigator ploughing his vessel into the whitewashed walls. They rise up to almost one hundred feet in places, even on the sides of the city facing the Inoko river.

The City of Nahemot

Pixelart on reddit by u/IRudim ...
(Kyrans aren't ersatz arabs, but until I draw a cityscape myself, this evokes the right kind of atmosphere)

A glistening white sliver on the narrow horizon - hugging the lip of the deep, still waters of the Ezran Oasis - comes into view. As the boat draws closer, the air is thick with the scent of shelfish and roses. An uncommon mix, but one that is redolent of Nahemot, the most Holy City of the Kyrans. These tall, dark-skinned men and women wrap themselves in robes of brilliant white, the bleaching of which keeps a whole quarter of the city gainfully employed. The rich and proud among them adorn their bodies with gold jewellery, while the poorer - whether man or woman - ornament themselves with fresh flowers.

Occasionally, the black-robed followers  of Belphegor, lord of the dead, might be witnessed among the crowded concourses at the harbour, pushing dung carts or collecting rotting fish. Perhaps more rarely, a bold young Thrane might eschew the fashion conventions for the colourful robes of their ancestors. The Thranes number as many as the Kyrans, but for the most part they have adopted the sartorial habits of their cousins.

So, here is Nahemot: where the flower sellers, herbalists, fruiterers and perfumiers of the local region congregate to sell their wares, and merchants from the west come to stock up before returning to their more affluent cities. But amongst the hustle and bustle of brisk commerce is a steady flow of pilgrims, travelling to what is also the most holy of cities.