Monday, July 16, 2012

Things you should know about Wintoncester

So I'm starting to gear up for a new Wessex-based D&D outing.  This time I'm going to set the game and the dungeon in/under Wintoncester, the biggest and oldest city on the map.  Here are some initial notes on the city.

  • No one knows how many people live there, even though everyone generally agrees Wintoncester is second only to London as far as English cities go.  When the Domesday Book was being prepared Wintoncester and its environs were one of the many places not included in the census.
  • There are no good maps of the place.  Non-natives should expect to be lost much of the time.  Even natives sometimes get lost in the maze of twisted streets, as the medieval and Roman streets are laid out in contradictory grids.  The problem is further exacerbated by by the unpleasantry of 1141 AD, when the forces of King Stephen and Empress Matilda fought within the city and much of it was burned down.  Rebuilding has been haphazard and without much central planning, while many blocks still feature one or more burned-out ruins.
  • The city has been continuously occupied going back to the Anglish, for whom it served as the capitol of the kingdom of Wessex, to the Romans, to the Belgae and the prehistoric Celts.  This being a D&D type campaign, all those people built tunnels of various sorts under the city.
  • The foremost lure for the adventurers are the underground Tombs of the Wessex Kings, where gold and magic await the daring.
  • One of the biggest buildings in the campaign is St. Swithun's Cathedral, right in the heart of the city.  The cathedral is the nominal headquarters of the ruler of the city, the Bishop of Winton, Henry of Blois.  Do not mess with this cat.  He is often call the King Without A Throne and is reputedly the richest man in England.  You don't achieve accolades like that by being a nice guy.
  • Wintoncester has services and institutions not found elsewhere on the campaign hexmap: a hospital, skilled craftsmen, an alchemist or two, a grumpy old sage, an Assassin's Guild and even a semi-secret order of magic-users one can attempt to join.  It's not quite Waterdeep or the Free City of Greyhawk, but for crapsack 12th century fake England it has a lot of possibilities.
  • There are nineteen different establishments that will sell you as many drinks as you can afford.


16 comments:

  1. Are there any controls (social, political, religious, etc.) on the who what when where why and how of the whole plundering the tombs thing?

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    1. Yes, that will be in a follow-up post.

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  2. Mental note: Be nice to cats.

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  3. Only 19? Are these Englishmen tee-totallers? :-)

    (ISTR that at one time there was a privately-owned tavern INSIDE the Tower of London.)

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    1. At this period the public house is still in its infancy as an institution. Also, I have this d20 table in mind and I want one spot open.

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  4. Jeff. I love running city games, but I tend to be a bit neurotic about maps. (thanks for introducing me to hexographer btw). Sadly, mapping cities is beast of an undertaking and not something I actually enjoy. I'd love to read your thoughts of city based gaming without a map, or limited maps.

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    1. I think Zak's Urbancrawl rules (found in Vornheim and his blog) may be what I use.

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    2. As much as I deeply respect Zak's ideas, it is often difficult to bridge the gap in out styles. Your style, one some levels, tends to do that. Perhaps I should look at Vornheim again.

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  5. Jeff take your own advice. You know what your crapsack Wintoncester needs? Giants made out of sharks and elephants, lurking in a haunted house in the clouds, ready to jump out of cyclopean shadows and murder your PCs right in their stupid faces. ;)

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  6. Awesome. By the way, I'm looking forward to Broodmother Sky Fortress.

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  7. Anonymous10:01 AM

    Assuming the Carousing Rules will be in effect (will they be?), any chance you could develop a Charity Table for those goody goodies who simply drink tea and want to give money or time to help the poor widows and orphans, instead of being wastrel adventurers. Only to have a Charity mishap and anger the Beggar's guild, leading to constant pick-pocketing and robbery, getting a prostitute out of the business only to anger the a minor official who was a regular, or perhaps support is mistakenly given to a demon-cult leader and now the goody is connected to them and hunted by the Church.

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    1. Don't forget getting beaten and robbed!

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    2. I could work on such a thing.

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  8. I really wish I was in this campaign.

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