#175: Fantasy Cities Volume 1

I. Dear Reader

Around a year ago, I published a series looking at city settings from various fantasy games. I looked at 7 cities including Doskvol, Spire, Eversink, The City from a|state, Into the Cess and Citadel, Infinigrad, and Endon from Magical Industrial Revolution. I’ve now taken those 7 essays and expanded and improved them, added 2 more essays on Lankhmar from DCC’s boxed set and Freeport, a Pathfinder 1e city from Green Ronin. This PDF, Fantasy Cities Vol 1, is available now on my patreon.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction

In the history of the fantasy genre, cities have an interesting place. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which created so much of what we consider generic about fantasy, doesn't really care for cities. Which makes sense because the books themselves feel like an elegy for a time before industrialization, a love letter to the countryside - to woods and streams and the sands below your feet. The cities of Middle Earth are, at their best, noble and static, and at their worst, corrupt and fallen to the hubris of man.

The earliest thriving fantasy cities are probably in the sword and sorcery of writers like Fritz Lieber or Michael Moorcock. These stories were influenced by, among other things, the machismo of pulp magazine stories. The cities reflect this. At their best, they're a canvas for male bravado and havens for debauchery and dissolution. At their worst, they're predatory and authoritarian.

In modern fantasy, the city is ascendant. The old tropes withered under post-modernism's sarcastic glare. Now, you get Ankh-Morpork and Bas Lag and many more that capture the contradictions, potential, and romance of cities as places to spend your lives. But what about games? A city in a novel has to be interesting on the page. A city in a game has to be interesting at the table, it has to bear the weight of the imagination of 3-5 people over a shitty internet connection. That's where I started the series affectionately known (by me) as WWTAWWTAC (pronounced whatawhatac), i.e. What We Talk About When We Talk About Cities.

And here’s an excerpt from the new entry on Lankhmar:

Creating a roleplaying game supplement for an existing fantasy city is tricky. It's trickier when it's a place as famous as Lankhmar, the City of the Black Toga, the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. Not only are the stories well-loved, the city is an inspiration for other well-loved cities, notably Discworld's Ankh-Morpork which started out as a loving pastiche before evolving into something deeper. (Even the word "ankh" comes from Lankhmar). This means that you have to walk the line between giving fans what they want and making it a useful, usable supplement. Basically, DCC's approach is to not invent any new lore whatsoever - as far as I can see. They lay out what Leiber's originally stories say about Lankhmar and then give themselves permission to colour within the lines with small, inoffensive details. The end result isn't radical or surprising but it does seem genuinely quite good.

I’ve titled it Volume 1 because if we hit the patreon drive’s goal, I’ll do a Volume 2. Maybe I can finally tackle Waterdeep or Ptolus. Maybe I can expand to cities in novels and actually compare them to cities in games directly. Maybe I can look at cities in video games. Where does Dunwall from Dishonored end and Duskwall begin? There’s lots of things to explore!

Thanks to the 30+ folks who signed up last week, we’re currently at 94 out of 150. So if you’re doing okay and able to support, please head over to patreon and subscribe!

Yours gratefully,

Thomas

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And now we return to your regular newsletter…

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II. Media of the Week

• LegalKimchi, a youtuber who has made lots of videos about thorny subjects in D&D, made a video about fantasy religions this week. It’s one hour long so for those who don’t have that kind of time, the central argument is that a setting like Forgotten Realms in D&D seems to be polytheistic (a religious system with multiple gods) but it’s quite normal for a character to worship say Pelor and nobody else — with the implication that worshipping anyone else would be blasphemous. This is not really how polytheism works in the main world — you might have a main god but you probably worship all of them. The highlight of the video is Ed Greenwood, the original creator of the setting, showing up to say that was how the Forgotten Realms was always supposed to work and WOTC basically didn’t care to keep it that way.

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III. Links of the Week

• If you’ve ever heard the word “blorb” or “blorbo” and been confused, this explains it and links to further context.

• The Soloist has a solo gaming gift guide with some solid recommendations.

• On Polygon, various contributors share the best game they played in 2023, including Linda Codega shouting out the lush storytelling game City of Winter.

• Layla Adelman aka Pandatheist blogs about recent games they’ve read with typically sharp takes on Fabula Ultima and more.

• Deeper in the Game recommends Hexroll App 2e, a sandbox generator that can make a generic old-school D&D hexcrawl in a click.

• There’s a TTRPG for that recommends Western-style games with a fantasy or scifi twist and also political intrigue games with a fantasy twist.

• Peach Garden Games that organizes the annual Solo But Not Alone bundle whose proceeds go to mentla health charities is soliciting submissions for the next one.

• Over on GameTek, a talk and essay about how boardgames design “cardboard AI” so you can play them solo. Plus, the process of making a solo boardgame that can respond to your strategy and become harder.

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IV. Small Ads

All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.

• Beyond the Pale is an adventure inspired by Jewish folklore and mysticism. The adventure takes places in tight-knit but divided religious community, facing its efforts to fight the march of progress.

• Perfect World is a Free Cyberpunk RPG. The setting tells how AI, once humanity’s ally, became a tool of corporate subjugation. Rules-light with unique hacking mechanics integrated into the main gameplay.

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• Almost everything from Free League’s catalogue in a bundle: Mutant Year Zero, Dragonbane, Vaesen, Forbidden Lands, Twilight 2000.

• The Mongoose Traveller 2e bundle returns with corebook and supplements

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!