In my setting, dwarves perform sky burials; they leave the bodies of the deceased on the mountaintops, where the carrion birds and the elements strip the flesh away. When just the bones remain, the dwarves gather the bones back up and set them aside. Then, once a year, there is a pilgrimage in which the collected bones of all who have died in the past year are transported to Kal’eron Kavir, the City of the Dead, which is a gigantic ossuary. (I'm toying with the idea that dwarven necromancers will temporarily reanimate the skeletons so they can walk themselves there.) Almost all the structures at Kal’eron Kavir are made of stacked bones - and you can't really tell which ones aren't because the stone structures are covered in bones too. While the stacking of bones may seem random to outsiders, the dwarves organize the bones very specifically based on clan, and the patterns created by the bones have religious and cultural significance too.
The only permanent residents of Kal’eron Kavir are a small group of clerics (Grave domain, obviously) and their students, who maintain the grounds and guard it against grave robbers; though there is no money or treasure at the site, such a large source of skeletons would obviously be attractive to less ethical necromancers. Additionally, it's expected that every religiously observant dwarf will spend at least a couple months or a year of their life working as an attendant, groundskeeper, or guard there - although some especially pious individuals spend more time, and nonobservant dwarves abstain altogether.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I've always liked having the cities or kingdoms having a unique culture. I've often played around with the idea of culture that commonly uses masks in public, or perhaps in certain areas. But it can't end there. If the citizens wear mask it may have been for a specific reason, but as a result the society at large still felt it was important to be able to identify people, as a result laws were passed so that individuals (or family lines, houses, or clans) had specific designs/patterns registered to them. This in turn resulted in society feeling that the greatest crime was to impersonate someone, or go as a "blank mask". Greater than robbery or even murder was the idea of theft of someone's identity.
Regarding crime I had a world where the worst thing you could do was break a deal or an oath. How you sealed that deal was with a pinky-swear. As a result if it was ever proven that you broke an oath that was sealed with a pinky swear, a justicar would show up and remove said pinky finger. This resulted in some interesting cultural situations. In mainstream society a missing finger might mean you'd miss out on business opportunities because people would think of you as less than trustworthy. Maybe wearing gloves becomes a fashionable style choice because its easier to hide a missing pinky with a gloved hand. For big high pressure or underworld deals maybe having one pinky would make you slightly more trust worthy because the perception is that you're willing to risk your last pinky on a pinky swear. Would hard core criminals actually remove both their pinky fingers as a status symbol to show that they're a no good rotten scoundrel and proud of it?
I've got a game coming up that has a cultural development due to technology. In this particular town they have a unique way of taking care of the daily garbage. Like many towns in a medieval setting they just dump their garbage into the street over the course of the day. The unique technology is that this town has street features that look like storm drains with metal grates covering the holes. These aren't for handling rain water, instead these grates lead to breeding pits for fire beetles. The grates are there to allow only the smaller immature beetles to escape to street level, small but still toy dog size or smaller. At night when it gets dark, and any street lights are extinguished the fire beetle surface to eat all the refuse. When they grow too large they can no longer make it out to feed, but must instead fight it out in the breeding pits to cannibalize other beetles in the hopes of becoming large and tough enough to breed. This results in two interesting cultural things. 1) people who are able always have a small lamp on at the base of there door to keep the fire beetle away, and to keep the smallest fire beetles from slipping under their door and finding a place within the darkened home or shop to nest. 2) as a result PCs will find young street kids called torchmen hanging out at pubs, restaurants, and inns. The street kids wear steel toed boots, and have 10-foot poles with a mirror hooded lanterns attached to it. For a copper piece they will escort the PCs to their next location in the evening to scatter the fire beetles from their path dues to the light.
Also a thing I always like to include in my fantasy towns are a few good street gangs. We're not talking CR 1 or CR 2 thugs, we're talking street kids. Just bing search 19th century or early 20th century street gangs, think the movie the Warriors but in a fantasy setting. They can make for some great story hooks.
I've always liked having the cities or kingdoms having a unique culture. I've often played around with the idea of culture that commonly uses masks in public, or perhaps in certain areas. But it can't end there. If the citizens wear mask it may have been for a specific reason, but as a result the society at large still felt it was important to be able to identify people, as a result laws were passed so that individuals (or family lines, houses, or clans) had specific designs/patterns registered to them. This in turn resulted in society feeling that the greatest crime was to impersonate someone, or go as a "blank mask". Greater than robbery or even murder was the idea of theft of someone's identity.
You may want to check out the book Hoodtown by Christa Faust. She conceived of masked lucha libre as a distinct and fully developed culture; in "hood" culture, literally everyone wears a mask at virtually all times - they even have lightweight "sleeping masks" for nighttime. Barbers are afforded great cultural respect, bordering on a sacredness, because they're the only ones who see hoods' bare faces (while shaving hoods' heads). She also touches on the idea of impersonating someone else using their mask design, or even going maskless - something that's met with revulsion by hoods.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I have a city run / owned by a golden dragon. The citizens abide by certain rules set out by the dragon, and give an offering at certain points in the year. In return, the dragon protects the city.
This also leads to the area being very favorable for trade- since it's well protected by a dragon who is rather difficult to bribe. This conceptually you can take in a couple directions, and I have used it as a plot hook for my players.
Another thing to consider is the games people of an area play
I have a city run / owned by a golden dragon. The citizens abide by certain rules set out by the dragon, and give an offering at certain points in the year. In return, the dragon protects the city.
This also leads to the area being very favorable for trade- since it's well protected by a dragon who is rather difficult to bribe.
If he's regularly given gifts and offerings, what's tiki differentiate between that and bribes?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I have a city run / owned by a golden dragon. The citizens abide by certain rules set out by the dragon, and give an offering at certain points in the year. In return, the dragon protects the city.
This also leads to the area being very favorable for trade- since it's well protected by a dragon who is rather difficult to bribe.
If he's regularly given gifts and offerings, what's tiki differentiate between that and bribes?
The offerings are scheduled, and because of the amount of wealth he has as a dragon, the amount any individual could offer him in return for a service is insignificant to him
In my world, there's an entire floating continent that gnomes made (It's really the size of a large country, but it's still huge), so even though gnomes are elsewhere, I love the idea that gnomes live in the most impractical and most interesting places and make it practical.
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In my setting, dwarves perform sky burials; they leave the bodies of the deceased on the mountaintops, where the carrion birds and the elements strip the flesh away. When just the bones remain, the dwarves gather the bones back up and set them aside. Then, once a year, there is a pilgrimage in which the collected bones of all who have died in the past year are transported to Kal’eron Kavir, the City of the Dead, which is a gigantic ossuary. (I'm toying with the idea that dwarven necromancers will temporarily reanimate the skeletons so they can walk themselves there.) Almost all the structures at Kal’eron Kavir are made of stacked bones - and you can't really tell which ones aren't because the stone structures are covered in bones too. While the stacking of bones may seem random to outsiders, the dwarves organize the bones very specifically based on clan, and the patterns created by the bones have religious and cultural significance too.
The only permanent residents of Kal’eron Kavir are a small group of clerics (Grave domain, obviously) and their students, who maintain the grounds and guard it against grave robbers; though there is no money or treasure at the site, such a large source of skeletons would obviously be attractive to less ethical necromancers. Additionally, it's expected that every religiously observant dwarf will spend at least a couple months or a year of their life working as an attendant, groundskeeper, or guard there - although some especially pious individuals spend more time, and nonobservant dwarves abstain altogether.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I've always liked having the cities or kingdoms having a unique culture. I've often played around with the idea of culture that commonly uses masks in public, or perhaps in certain areas. But it can't end there. If the citizens wear mask it may have been for a specific reason, but as a result the society at large still felt it was important to be able to identify people, as a result laws were passed so that individuals (or family lines, houses, or clans) had specific designs/patterns registered to them. This in turn resulted in society feeling that the greatest crime was to impersonate someone, or go as a "blank mask". Greater than robbery or even murder was the idea of theft of someone's identity.
Regarding crime I had a world where the worst thing you could do was break a deal or an oath. How you sealed that deal was with a pinky-swear. As a result if it was ever proven that you broke an oath that was sealed with a pinky swear, a justicar would show up and remove said pinky finger. This resulted in some interesting cultural situations. In mainstream society a missing finger might mean you'd miss out on business opportunities because people would think of you as less than trustworthy. Maybe wearing gloves becomes a fashionable style choice because its easier to hide a missing pinky with a gloved hand. For big high pressure or underworld deals maybe having one pinky would make you slightly more trust worthy because the perception is that you're willing to risk your last pinky on a pinky swear. Would hard core criminals actually remove both their pinky fingers as a status symbol to show that they're a no good rotten scoundrel and proud of it?
I've got a game coming up that has a cultural development due to technology. In this particular town they have a unique way of taking care of the daily garbage. Like many towns in a medieval setting they just dump their garbage into the street over the course of the day. The unique technology is that this town has street features that look like storm drains with metal grates covering the holes. These aren't for handling rain water, instead these grates lead to breeding pits for fire beetles. The grates are there to allow only the smaller immature beetles to escape to street level, small but still toy dog size or smaller. At night when it gets dark, and any street lights are extinguished the fire beetle surface to eat all the refuse. When they grow too large they can no longer make it out to feed, but must instead fight it out in the breeding pits to cannibalize other beetles in the hopes of becoming large and tough enough to breed. This results in two interesting cultural things. 1) people who are able always have a small lamp on at the base of there door to keep the fire beetle away, and to keep the smallest fire beetles from slipping under their door and finding a place within the darkened home or shop to nest. 2) as a result PCs will find young street kids called torchmen hanging out at pubs, restaurants, and inns. The street kids wear steel toed boots, and have 10-foot poles with a mirror hooded lanterns attached to it. For a copper piece they will escort the PCs to their next location in the evening to scatter the fire beetles from their path dues to the light.
Also a thing I always like to include in my fantasy towns are a few good street gangs. We're not talking CR 1 or CR 2 thugs, we're talking street kids. Just bing search 19th century or early 20th century street gangs, think the movie the Warriors but in a fantasy setting. They can make for some great story hooks.
You may want to check out the book Hoodtown by Christa Faust. She conceived of masked lucha libre as a distinct and fully developed culture; in "hood" culture, literally everyone wears a mask at virtually all times - they even have lightweight "sleeping masks" for nighttime. Barbers are afforded great cultural respect, bordering on a sacredness, because they're the only ones who see hoods' bare faces (while shaving hoods' heads). She also touches on the idea of impersonating someone else using their mask design, or even going maskless - something that's met with revulsion by hoods.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I have a city run / owned by a golden dragon. The citizens abide by certain rules set out by the dragon, and give an offering at certain points in the year. In return, the dragon protects the city.
This also leads to the area being very favorable for trade- since it's well protected by a dragon who is rather difficult to bribe. This conceptually you can take in a couple directions, and I have used it as a plot hook for my players.
Another thing to consider is the games people of an area play
If he's regularly given gifts and offerings, what's tiki differentiate between that and bribes?
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The offerings are scheduled, and because of the amount of wealth he has as a dragon, the amount any individual could offer him in return for a service is insignificant to him
In my world, there's an entire floating continent that gnomes made (It's really the size of a large country, but it's still huge), so even though gnomes are elsewhere, I love the idea that gnomes live in the most impractical and most interesting places and make it practical.