"Guild" is one of those words thrown around carelessly, but people should realize it's essentially a business cartel. They control apprenticeships, divide contracts among themselves, and protect their city's market from any outside competition. Working a profession or trade without the guild's say so could be met with authority or even violence. A guild's leadership concentrated on a handful of members that are already member of the patrician class. There is no rivalry between guilds, as they all have the same goal - protecting the city from a shared enemy - outsiders.
Our capital city has a criminal underworld that keeps us in constant employment, the bounty hunting agency we work for always has some kind of target for us there. It's also set on top of a valley with several surrounding caves that contain the magical crystals that power its steampunk technology.
@@TheFantasyForge I mean they are kind of like Kyber crystals but in our setting they don't know how to properly harness electricity for power so the magic energy in these crystals is used to power generators and other technologies, the capital city of Kor is the richest area of the Elestrian Empire because of their large supply of these crystals. They're sort of the unobtainium of our setting.
Another great thing to incorporate is legends, especially if the city is older! The capital city I live in, while officially only 1100 years old, has been settled since the Iron Age, and there are enough legends to create several books. Probably the most well known is the legend of the ogre coming one night, seeing our peculiarly shaped castle, and flipping it over to use as a dining table. The Habsburg empress wasn´t happy to wake up to her home being shaken up the next morning especially in a fantasy setting, similar legends may be abundant, and some of them even true. This makes a great piece of interesting worldbuilding to work with to both add character, but maybe also tie it to the plot in creative ways
Same here just for me is not the capital that is really old but our second biggest city ... Being the oldest continuesly inhabited city in Europe ... It has malls over roman ruins... Lidls and Kauflands build over aqueducts and Roman roads crossing modern world Boulevards 😅😅 also having more than 6 types of cultural buildings from 6 different people groups .... Roman Tracian Old Bulgar renaissance modern and even some Egyptian and Persian 😅😅
One feature I like to add to capitals is transport. This doesn't need to be a main topic of oyur city, but it does help extending the immersion on several main topics - like culture, economy, geography, guilds/factions... In a city with water canals, it would be more obvious to travel by boat like in Venice. Are there 'taxis' and how much do they charge to cross the city? Maybe the boats owned by the locals have markings or are painted, distinguishing them so people know which belongs to who. Is the city instead very crowded and dirty, making it hard to traverse by cart? Maybe the more wealthy civilians travel by cable cars or human carried palanquins. Are the cable cars taxed by a single guild? Are the carriers actually slaves, instead of a regular commoner? This helped me a lot in campaigns where players are hopping from city to city, and in ones centered around a single city. On the first scenario, it helps to demonstrate the discrepancy between major cities - which will also help your players remember them better ("oh yeah, the city with the train pulled by a purple worm!"). On the second type of campaign, you can show your players, either through subtlety or big changes, how the city reacts to certain types of events ("The public transports are cut-off due to the factories explosion, we need a new route to get to X").
Welp... I got a 5. --- When I created the capital of the country we're currently playing, I was inspired in Mexico City. It's a centuries old city where you still can find buildings that used old aztec pyramids as building materials a long with modern skyscrappers. It's so chaotic how luxurious one zone can be and still be next to one that has buildings almost on top of one another and that has a market that hasn't changed that much in the last century. I loved your advices and thanks to the algorithm gods I have some guidance on how to build the capital of the magical kingdom we're moving to soon.
Please consider adding chapters to your videos, i think it would massively improve the viewability. You dont even have to spoil the points in the title of them, but if you just labelled where you talked about point 2, and point 3, etc, it would make for much easier reference
I'll second this request. I have returned to your videos several times as I plan my sessions or work on parts of my world. It would Def be helpful to be able to narrow in on the subject I wanted to return to/review again.
@@TheFantasyForge - I'm also a big fan of chapters. Sometimes something later in the video makes me want to jump back to an earlier section, and a chapter break helps me find that quickly.
2:45 "If it's near a forest well obviously there's not gonna be any water." I believe this is a bit poorly phrased. Just because it's a forest it doesn't mean there aren't any water sources. Streams, rivers and even lakes would/could be present.
Got me there! I think I could have phrased it better but I also think the point is still clear :) It's about the resources available to you in the area.
In my setting there’s a nation with two capital cities next to each other. The first was constructed long ago mostly for symbolic purposes on one side of a massive river-ravine that represents the split between the North and South of the country, it was meant to maintain the domination of the nation’s faith over the south after a holy war to remove a heretical sect from the land (accordingly, its centerpiece is the headquarters of the faith). Recently, however, within the last few centuries, a second city has been constructed on the other side to meet the demands of the burgeoning population and usher in a new era of progress and a larger government (the centerpiece of the city literally being the governmental palace where the new, more powerful government is meant to reside). Recent world events, however, have caused some of the old city’s nobility (especially the clergy) to feel threatened by the growing power of the state, and the bridge between the two cities seems shakier day-by-day
In my campaign I have a lot of City States so a lot of de-facto capitals. One of my favorites is a City built around a giant lance-like mountain. Think the Giants Lance from Game of Thrones. In the days of old, astrologers, divination wizards and those kinds of people built their temples and libraries and laboratories atop the mountain to be closer to the Stars. Over time the mages became quite strong and formed a few noble houses. People came to the Mountain to seek aid and protection and erected a 3-layered fortress on the mountains base and a city around it. Then walls around that city. It kept expanding so now there's 3 circles of walls with a fourth in construction. It becomes less clear and organized as you get closer to the original settlement around the mountain. It's now ruled by twin brother and sister of the royal family after their father died. They co-rule and treat each others claim as equal and their children will inherit based on who is the oldest regardless of whoms kid it is. The city is heavily focused on providing and protecting its people, divining the future and natural disasters and being a place of learning where all kinds of people come to. Legend has it that the lone Mountain was erected by the dragons (in my setting dragons are the elemental gods) as a hatchery for their eggs and if the legends are to be believed, there might still be an Egg hidden away in the Cavers, waiting for the blood of dragons (the Dragonborn) to find it to be reborn.
This helps a lot. I’m writing a story and a homebrew world rn and cities are hard for me. One of my main cities was a town started on a floating continent by refugees who were running from war that destroyed their territories. A few artificers discovered flight via geodes which could when forged, and this is the very very short version, use magic to manipulate magnetism to create lift. Valsyre grew rapidly from not only refugees, but trade that came from being able to fly safely to any location not over water or iron. It was about 50 years before flight became common so Valsyre got a head start financially and scientifically. Making advances in magic and agriculture due to having no wars or conflicts with the people far below them. So I guess the shape of my city would be rapidly changed to accommodate the influx of people and rapid growth.
Great video but I feel like the title is deceptive. It's uses the phrase capital city in it but this video is broadly just about cities in general. When I hear the phrase capital city I think of a city that exerts power over other cities and lands nearby. The place that is in charge of an empire or kingdom, the video had plenty of useful information but it lacked the role of a capital within a grander society that I feel could have added a lot to the video.
Indeed. A capital city is going to be an administrative hub. There will be buildings to house a class of bureaucrats, merchant halls, religious halls. There may be significant overlap between these.
Rolled a 15. I liked how you talked about the gangsters in a city and how it corrupts law enforcement. Definitely will incorporate this for future sessions.
Im trying to do a generational campaign that is a continuation of the previous game, this is gonna help a bunch and I'm gonna have quarters inspired by the players previous characters.
For being at my dice making desk, it took an embarrassing amount of time to find a d20 to roll. That being said, I rolled a 12. I love the ideas you presented about capitol cities, they help kickstart my imagination
7. We are heading to a major sea-port city (capital of its country, but not capital to the nation) that has been purposefully kept in the image of the "old world" through strategies deployed via the monarchy of the nations capital, despite the technological and magical advancements in the world around them. It's a somewhat seedy underbelly city, predominantly anchored in a time just before a magi-tech industrial revolution, and has become the worlds cradle for black markets, among other things. The city has many secrets, and soon the intrepid heroes may discover that such places are necessary to begin leveling their playing fields. And I'm gonna pitch the idea of it becoming a hub city for them. A base of operations type deal. Might get to watch them struggle to slowly influence the city toward more noble goals. Might watch them burn it all to the ground. Love your videos. :)
Our city is started as a monastery on the coast that found a strange substance in a cave. The substance at least from what i know so far is just more colorful/light refracting oil. Because of it, the city grew very quickly and the monastery got pretty powerful. Our party are inquisitors sent to investigate this now secretive monastery
I rolled a 5 :( I really liked the point about a city's skyline. It's an immediate visual cue to its identity, so to speak. Modern metropolitan trade centers have tall skyscrapers filled with offices (in my country they're mostly empty but still new office buildings keep getting built!), in a lot of colonial towns I visited in Latin America there's a church at the highest point in town (especially if it's built on a mountainside), and a central plaza with a distinct town hall you might recognize a few blocks away. And of course it ties into the broader architectural styles of the city as you walk in the streets. Great video as always! got me thinking about my major cities in a more cohesive way
My capital city was named after its legendary founder. And although we don't quite know the details, it was over 2000 years ago after all, he was famous for his sharp mind. Thus, the capital city prides itself on knowledge, wisdom and creativity.
Could definitely see magic settings whre there are regions defined ,largely by aspected energy saturation. where they mostly elemental type citys. and those locations with strong aspects are highly defensive to specialists of the same while providing significant disadvantages to opposing aspects. Like Fire mana at high density due to either meteor crater, volcano., desert. Plus certain energys have defined subcatagorys that are mixes of two or more mana types.
The capital city in my world is a steampunk/air powered cliff utopia called zephyros. It is the major trade hub on the continent, and is split up into different districts and provinces. The people that life higher up on the cliff are usually richer and more in tune with machines, while people down the mountains usually just practice their magic and don’t interfere with the capital city
My way is fairly similar to yours, i start with what made it the capital to begin with, then i like to consider where yhe cities income comes from, then what outsiders think about when they think of the city, then what people from the kingdom think of the city, since outsiders and locals might have very different ideas, for example, a lot of outsiders think london is very impressive, while a lot of english people think it just all around sucks as a destination, i also like to give each city at least one major attraction and possibly a couple minor ones to act as hooks and thinks that people remember when they leave, these can be related to the other things like income and history, or be recent additions to the city
I rolled a 1 on Arcana so...that's a tasty donut? The skyline idea is inspired, a really nice bit of worldbuilding I hadn't considered. I'm working on an underground capital city built as part of a dungeon, so I need to find an equivalent to a skyline that could be used.
My homebrew uses gates in order to visit all the different planets the races originated from. So I used to play a session of Civ 6 with some adjustments and custom maps. In addition to creating more believable nations and cities by leaving some factions on random in the game lobby I can end up with interesting exceptions. Like peaceful religious orcs and political focused and intriguing halflings
19 on my very plain red w/ black d20. It's a magic die or something, rolls higher now than it did when I first bought it in '96. I think it has absorbed the dice karma energy from all those I've gamed with at a table since then... 🤔
Rolled 16. I'm a fan of a good set of scenery, but I definitely feel I should think more about the story of a city more. I can sure make them look pretty, but the smaller details of individual families and industries that came and went... Hmm.
i got a 10, so into the portal, with the tanks first. an obelisk covered in ravens stands in the middle of the capital. there is long white sand beaches covered in the skeletons of crustacean aberrations small to large size. There is the occasional ship with rotten planks beached randomly near the tide. the walls facing the sea are covered in ballista, archers and guard houses, especially on the river being trawled with hooked nets.
I would love to be updated on the Tobias Situation My D-20 roll is a 19!!! 👀😦❤️ (That my 1st ever roll of my DnD dice; I’m a Rookie who hasn’t started playing yet, and just bought dice to prepare my journey❤️)
I feel like one thing missed in most videos like this is that if you want a believable city for the era that these games take inspiration from? Look at your Guards. Guards were NOT Cops. They were not Law Enforcement. Private Individuals who wanted added security for property and wares weren't getting that subsidized by Cities or States. People who did Law Enforcement were few and when they needed people arrested? Small groups of people, normally those who knew the person, were tasked with it
This can also be used to really highlight cities that have become more Burgher driven or more industrialized, as suddenly, look at that Modern Style Police
I rolled a Nat 18 but IDK my modifiers DM please help 😭 Also, love the advice! The idea of spires and the skyline actually did stir a part of my brain I wasn't expecting and it's helping me map out the city and some key locations I would love them to see, and the idea of old roman walls appearing in structures are definitely gonna be in my campaign
That's the first time a video asked me for a dice roll... I am more of a rogue or bard, but i rolled high and got a 19. Prolly have some Int in my stat block considering I devour world building content... so dirty 20+?
the capital city in my campaign is these grouping of mountains with flying islands connected by bridges and the islands change with the wind so parts of the city change every time the party comes back( the mail service is wyvern riders thought it would add the unique touch the city needed) Ps. got a 17
i think the biggest thing that gets overlooked is that conflict will happen, either internally or externally. what scars would be left behind if a peasant revolt occured and ran rampant through a city before being quashed, a war that fell upon the doorstep or marched through the city and razed or ransacked it, gangs or guilds infighting with different factions and spills over. Whats the atmosphere like and such. sure the bbeg's city is dark and imposing, but commerce is bustling and while theres the occassional public execution, people get on well in spite of their evil overlord and should he succeed well there's some pride in it for all the merchant contracts and trade that'll be protected since of course the overlord's going to protect his own. that sort of idea in world building.
I've never really played DnD. I've created worlds and I'm making my first map as I watch this video but I've never actually seen a session of DnD. I think I'll try one after I'm finished fleshing out my current world Rolled a 13
Dice gods blessed me with 20 on first roll so guess gonna share my city. At this point in story, its less of a capital and more of REALLY oversized trade port placed in middle of pretty big lake (kinda like Caspian Sea), originally founded by merchants of surrounding states as sort of neutral trading grounds and growing to look kinda like Venice with canals serving as arteries and various barges and cable cars serving to connect various more far-off sections. Due to land being limited resource and tight merchant control entire layout was planned and individual housing was seen as peak of luxury, afforded only to richest houses with top 3 of them owning entire mini-islands as their manors and arsenals where they base their private armies and navies, with actual workers (and slaves) living in public houses, barracks and the like. Now, all of this is before what i call Era of Empires, so time when surrounding nations are properly centralizing and growing increasingly big as technological progress is exploding, so pretty much good old Victorian Era. City is no longer fully independent, surrounding nations had decided that they want slice of the pie turning it in to modern (for player's) Legation City with representatives of said nations controling various districts and quietly fighting over influence. City's layout is no longer planned as technology brought methods to make both stable anchored on water and flying structures, but technology also brought downfall of the city due to increasing speed and range of boats there's no longer need for stopping anywhere, nor are there hundreds of smaller nations but only few bigger ones that are much less interested in trading with their potential rivals. All of this caused city to be slowly abandoned by big players who left only a small presence to make sure that no one else establishes dominance to use city as launch board for invasions, and leaving this patchwork of styles to fend for itself. This power vacuum attracted various more free-thinking types, criminals, adventurers, mad scientists, explorers, cannibals, mercenaries, taking a turn in to one alley might lead you to Imperial outpost while taking next one might cause you to end up in cult territory and be sacrificed to depths. So come all to City of Dreams, welcome to Legaton, the city that consumes.
Un 12. Algo que pienso para construir mis pueblos o ciudades es la idiosincracia de sus habitantes. Pensar en cómo se relacionan entre sí y cómo tratan a ciertas razas en particular me ayuda a entender y a elaborar su cosmovisión. Sus creencias, por supuesto, son cruciales a la hora de desarrollar el comportamiento de los habitantes.
Honestly the thing that bugs me the most about fantasy cities is how small and dense historical cities were, and that people don’t really understand that. Casually throwing out numbers like 150,000 residents or something. That would make it one of if not the largest city in Europe during the Medieval Warm period and have more than twice the population of Cologne (the largest city in Europe at the time) after the Black Death. And although I can understand “oh it’s fantasy and magic yadda yadda” this isn’t really something that can be explained with magic. City planning and government were simply too disorganized at this time period to maintain the logistics of having a city that large with ease. Not to mention that roughly 80% of the population would be living in the countryside and they would HAVE TO BE THERE as crop yields were simply not large and dependable enough to allow for a rise in urban settlement. So unless you put in your lore that potatoes are native to this world, that crop rotations and the heavy plow were invented centuries prior to when they were, that all your kings are tyrants and have absolute power (somehow) and that plagues simply never happen, just keep the population at around 60-70k for your capitals.
Magic affects crop yields. A well organized religion would have an annual cycle of blessing the crops of its lay-members; this happens in real life and it's certainly a standard spell in many RPGs. Thanks to other blessings, along with alchemy, magical apothecaries and hedge-witches, life expectancy could increase. Rome's population peaked at over a million, so the "logistics" for large cities could exist in a pre-industrial world. The black death was devastating to cities, it took centuries for the numbers to recover.
@@davidmorgan6896 Short response: Rome is a moot point. Long response: Rome had the resources of all the land west of the Rhine and South of the Danube at their disposal (Save scotland and Ireland), an organized logistics system, common law, centralized government, and the breadbasket of Egypt. So obviously the population of the city reached the millions. It still applies to the rules I mentioned prior - it's just that the country that the rules are now applying to is so vast that the city will also become equally vast. I'm not talking about having issue with a government like Rome having an urban population in the millions. I am having a problem with a Kingdom similar to the HRE or France in 1300 having a population in the millions. As for magical blessings... eh... seems sort of like a cop out. I would need to see some after-affect of that such as the biomancer guild having extreme power in government and regularly threatening to starve kingdoms that don't stay in line.
DM : "At last, I've finished to craft my perfectly tailored capital city, I can't wait for the players to be amazed by its deep history and marvel how alive it feel" "I CAST NUKE !" *roll nat20 "lmao aawww yes !" "what were we supposed to do already in this city ?"
Correction about Baercelona: It was not founded by the romans. The name of the first people living there we know for sure were the Laietani, later it became a greek settlement, the Carthaginians under Hanibal Barka concuered the city and that's where it's name comes from.
I rolled a 1, that portal seems as any other portal that you can imagine. I hear the whispers. The portal wants me. Is calling me. From all people, why would have it appeared in front of me if I weren't chosen by the Portal Deity? I am its paladin, and I have do do what my deity commands.
Now I want to start a new campaign set entirely in a city that I'm currently making up, that begins with the players being framed for the public murder of an important noble. _sigh_ Back to the other campaign... now is not the time to start a new game!
"Guild" is one of those words thrown around carelessly, but people should realize it's essentially a business cartel. They control apprenticeships, divide contracts among themselves, and protect their city's market from any outside competition. Working a profession or trade without the guild's say so could be met with authority or even violence.
A guild's leadership concentrated on a handful of members that are already member of the patrician class. There is no rivalry between guilds, as they all have the same goal - protecting the city from a shared enemy - outsiders.
Yeah! I watched a medieval documentary and learned about that and I was so fascinated!
Moreover, It freezes inovation.
On the other hand guilds created regulations and quality standarts, which we today take for granted.
Our capital city has a criminal underworld that keeps us in constant employment, the bounty hunting agency we work for always has some kind of target for us there. It's also set on top of a valley with several surrounding caves that contain the magical crystals that power its steampunk technology.
Oh that's super cool! I love the idea of a cave system! Gives me kind of Star Wars vibes in a way
@@TheFantasyForge I mean they are kind of like Kyber crystals but in our setting they don't know how to properly harness electricity for power so the magic energy in these crystals is used to power generators and other technologies, the capital city of Kor is the richest area of the Elestrian Empire because of their large supply of these crystals. They're sort of the unobtainium of our setting.
@@brennonlewis so a room Temperatur superconducter? You can do a Lot of cool stuff with those
@@RmkDhehh In a way I suppose so, although currently those crystals aren't doing us much good because the city was recently bombed by the BBEGs army
That sounds terrible
Another great thing to incorporate is legends, especially if the city is older! The capital city I live in, while officially only 1100 years old, has been settled since the Iron Age, and there are enough legends to create several books. Probably the most well known is the legend of the ogre coming one night, seeing our peculiarly shaped castle, and flipping it over to use as a dining table. The Habsburg empress wasn´t happy to wake up to her home being shaken up the next morning
especially in a fantasy setting, similar legends may be abundant, and some of them even true. This makes a great piece of interesting worldbuilding to work with to both add character, but maybe also tie it to the plot in creative ways
huge tip! Love this so much, definitely want to think about history/legends
What in the world does your skyline look like to inspire the idea of a castle flipped over?
@@sorrowandsufferin924 google Bratislava, Slovakia and you will see 😂 square castle on the hill and UFO bridge under it
Same here just for me is not the capital that is really old but our second biggest city ... Being the oldest continuesly inhabited city in Europe ... It has malls over roman ruins... Lidls and Kauflands build over aqueducts and Roman roads crossing modern world Boulevards 😅😅 also having more than 6 types of cultural buildings from 6 different people groups .... Roman Tracian Old Bulgar renaissance modern and even some Egyptian and Persian 😅😅
@@sorrowandsufferin924 maybe it's a low lying castle with four towers?
Try confining a session to just one neighborhood of a city. It really helps flesh out people and places better than hopping around an entire region.
One feature I like to add to capitals is transport. This doesn't need to be a main topic of oyur city, but it does help extending the immersion on several main topics - like culture, economy, geography, guilds/factions...
In a city with water canals, it would be more obvious to travel by boat like in Venice. Are there 'taxis' and how much do they charge to cross the city? Maybe the boats owned by the locals have markings or are painted, distinguishing them so people know which belongs to who.
Is the city instead very crowded and dirty, making it hard to traverse by cart? Maybe the more wealthy civilians travel by cable cars or human carried palanquins. Are the cable cars taxed by a single guild? Are the carriers actually slaves, instead of a regular commoner?
This helped me a lot in campaigns where players are hopping from city to city, and in ones centered around a single city.
On the first scenario, it helps to demonstrate the discrepancy between major cities - which will also help your players remember them better ("oh yeah, the city with the train pulled by a purple worm!").
On the second type of campaign, you can show your players, either through subtlety or big changes, how the city reacts to certain types of events ("The public transports are cut-off due to the factories explosion, we need a new route to get to X").
Welp... I got a 5.
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When I created the capital of the country we're currently playing, I was inspired in Mexico City. It's a centuries old city where you still can find buildings that used old aztec pyramids as building materials a long with modern skyscrappers. It's so chaotic how luxurious one zone can be and still be next to one that has buildings almost on top of one another and that has a market that hasn't changed that much in the last century. I loved your advices and thanks to the algorithm gods I have some guidance on how to build the capital of the magical kingdom we're moving to soon.
massive clashing of cultures and I love it
Please consider adding chapters to your videos, i think it would massively improve the viewability. You dont even have to spoil the points in the title of them, but if you just labelled where you talked about point 2, and point 3, etc, it would make for much easier reference
good to know! I'll try to do that, wasn't sure if people really wanted it or not so I stopped doing it haha
I'll second this request. I have returned to your videos several times as I plan my sessions or work on parts of my world. It would Def be helpful to be able to narrow in on the subject I wanted to return to/review again.
@@TheFantasyForge for what it's worth, it is ALWAYS appreciated regardless of content or style
@@TheFantasyForge - I'm also a big fan of chapters. Sometimes something later in the video makes me want to jump back to an earlier section, and a chapter break helps me find that quickly.
It will tank his viewing time. Then people will only watch bits they are interested in not the full video
2:45 "If it's near a forest well obviously there's not gonna be any water." I believe this is a bit poorly phrased. Just because it's a forest it doesn't mean there aren't any water sources. Streams, rivers and even lakes would/could be present.
Got me there! I think I could have phrased it better but I also think the point is still clear :) It's about the resources available to you in the area.
In my setting there’s a nation with two capital cities next to each other. The first was constructed long ago mostly for symbolic purposes on one side of a massive river-ravine that represents the split between the North and South of the country, it was meant to maintain the domination of the nation’s faith over the south after a holy war to remove a heretical sect from the land (accordingly, its centerpiece is the headquarters of the faith). Recently, however, within the last few centuries, a second city has been constructed on the other side to meet the demands of the burgeoning population and usher in a new era of progress and a larger government (the centerpiece of the city literally being the governmental palace where the new, more powerful government is meant to reside). Recent world events, however, have caused some of the old city’s nobility (especially the clergy) to feel threatened by the growing power of the state, and the bridge between the two cities seems shakier day-by-day
Rolled a 16- thanks for good tips, especially skyline one- i think it will help keep my cities more focused.
In my campaign I have a lot of City States so a lot of de-facto capitals. One of my favorites is a City built around a giant lance-like mountain. Think the Giants Lance from Game of Thrones. In the days of old, astrologers, divination wizards and those kinds of people built their temples and libraries and laboratories atop the mountain to be closer to the Stars. Over time the mages became quite strong and formed a few noble houses. People came to the Mountain to seek aid and protection and erected a 3-layered fortress on the mountains base and a city around it. Then walls around that city. It kept expanding so now there's 3 circles of walls with a fourth in construction. It becomes less clear and organized as you get closer to the original settlement around the mountain.
It's now ruled by twin brother and sister of the royal family after their father died. They co-rule and treat each others claim as equal and their children will inherit based on who is the oldest regardless of whoms kid it is.
The city is heavily focused on providing and protecting its people, divining the future and natural disasters and being a place of learning where all kinds of people come to.
Legend has it that the lone Mountain was erected by the dragons (in my setting dragons are the elemental gods) as a hatchery for their eggs and if the legends are to be believed, there might still be an Egg hidden away in the Cavers, waiting for the blood of dragons (the Dragonborn) to find it to be reborn.
"The skyline is very important! It needs to stand out!"
Me having towers of kilometers high, floating islands and flying spaceships: "true".
LOL "....taller...."
If you're looking to write a dangerous, dirty, exciting city built on digging for treasure, you could do a lot worse than model it on Johannesburg.
This helps a lot. I’m writing a story and a homebrew world rn and cities are hard for me.
One of my main cities was a town started on a floating continent by refugees who were running from war that destroyed their territories.
A few artificers discovered flight via geodes which could when forged, and this is the very very short version, use magic to manipulate magnetism to create lift. Valsyre grew rapidly from not only refugees, but trade that came from being able to fly safely to any location not over water or iron. It was about 50 years before flight became common so Valsyre got a head start financially and scientifically. Making advances in magic and agriculture due to having no wars or conflicts with the people far below them.
So I guess the shape of my city would be rapidly changed to accommodate the influx of people and rapid growth.
Just discovered your channel for the first time and I love your content and style. Easiest subscription in quite a while! :)
aw thank you for taking the time to say that, I really appreciate that 🥺
Great video but I feel like the title is deceptive. It's uses the phrase capital city in it but this video is broadly just about cities in general. When I hear the phrase capital city I think of a city that exerts power over other cities and lands nearby. The place that is in charge of an empire or kingdom, the video had plenty of useful information but it lacked the role of a capital within a grander society that I feel could have added a lot to the video.
Really appreciate the response! I can totally see that :) I'll have to do an update/part 2
Indeed. A capital city is going to be an administrative hub. There will be buildings to house a class of bureaucrats, merchant halls, religious halls. There may be significant overlap between these.
Rolled a 15.
I liked how you talked about the gangsters in a city and how it corrupts law enforcement. Definitely will incorporate this for future sessions.
yay 15! And thanks for the kind words
Im trying to do a generational campaign that is a continuation of the previous game, this is gonna help a bunch and I'm gonna have quarters inspired by the players previous characters.
For being at my dice making desk, it took an embarrassing amount of time to find a d20 to roll. That being said, I rolled a 12. I love the ideas you presented about capitol cities, they help kickstart my imagination
dice making!? That sounds awesome, and 12 is solid!
7.
We are heading to a major sea-port city (capital of its country, but not capital to the nation) that has been purposefully kept in the image of the "old world" through strategies deployed via the monarchy of the nations capital, despite the technological and magical advancements in the world around them. It's a somewhat seedy underbelly city, predominantly anchored in a time just before a magi-tech industrial revolution, and has become the worlds cradle for black markets, among other things. The city has many secrets, and soon the intrepid heroes may discover that such places are necessary to begin leveling their playing fields.
And I'm gonna pitch the idea of it becoming a hub city for them. A base of operations type deal. Might get to watch them struggle to slowly influence the city toward more noble goals. Might watch them burn it all to the ground.
Love your videos. :)
Our city is started as a monastery on the coast that found a strange substance in a cave. The substance at least from what i know so far is just more colorful/light refracting oil. Because of it, the city grew very quickly and the monastery got pretty powerful. Our party are inquisitors sent to investigate this now secretive monastery
definitely an alien symbiote, watch out
14.
Thanks for the tips. Working on a new campaign after our current one wraps up. Our Forever DM will finally get to be a player!
Definitely going to be using these in my campaign. Rolled a 14, not too bad.
14 is great!
Beautiful video, great ideas and also inspiring reflection. Best wishes to you!!
I rolled a 5 :(
I really liked the point about a city's skyline. It's an immediate visual cue to its identity, so to speak. Modern metropolitan trade centers have tall skyscrapers filled with offices (in my country they're mostly empty but still new office buildings keep getting built!), in a lot of colonial towns I visited in Latin America there's a church at the highest point in town (especially if it's built on a mountainside), and a central plaza with a distinct town hall you might recognize a few blocks away. And of course it ties into the broader architectural styles of the city as you walk in the streets.
Great video as always! got me thinking about my major cities in a more cohesive way
aw shucks thanks for the love! And a 5 is still better than a 0 haha
I don't make dnd campain but as a (hopefully) futur game designer it is really usefull and interesting
15 for a total of 16! Love the content, and great for my city of mist game
My capital city was named after its legendary founder. And although we don't quite know the details, it was over 2000 years ago after all, he was famous for his sharp mind. Thus, the capital city prides itself on knowledge, wisdom and creativity.
Not a capital city for my campaign, but I am developing a city-state, so this will still come in handy.
Could definitely see magic settings whre there are regions defined ,largely by aspected energy saturation. where they mostly elemental type citys. and those locations with strong aspects are highly defensive to specialists of the same while providing significant disadvantages to opposing aspects. Like Fire mana at high density due to either meteor crater, volcano., desert. Plus certain energys have defined subcatagorys that are mixes of two or more mana types.
The capital city in my world is a steampunk/air powered cliff utopia called zephyros. It is the major trade hub on the continent, and is split up into different districts and provinces. The people that life higher up on the cliff are usually richer and more in tune with machines, while people down the mountains usually just practice their magic and don’t interfere with the capital city
My way is fairly similar to yours, i start with what made it the capital to begin with, then i like to consider where yhe cities income comes from, then what outsiders think about when they think of the city, then what people from the kingdom think of the city, since outsiders and locals might have very different ideas, for example, a lot of outsiders think london is very impressive, while a lot of english people think it just all around sucks as a destination, i also like to give each city at least one major attraction and possibly a couple minor ones to act as hooks and thinks that people remember when they leave, these can be related to the other things like income and history, or be recent additions to the city
I rolled a 1 on Arcana so...that's a tasty donut?
The skyline idea is inspired, a really nice bit of worldbuilding I hadn't considered. I'm working on an underground capital city built as part of a dungeon, so I need to find an equivalent to a skyline that could be used.
8:26 where is this clip from? im curious case it looks pretty cool :o
@AdamSmeowsher it's from an old movie, g*yn*gers from outer space. I'm not joking, look it up
My homebrew uses gates in order to visit all the different planets the races originated from. So I used to play a session of Civ 6 with some adjustments and custom maps.
In addition to creating more believable nations and cities by leaving some factions on random in the game lobby I can end up with interesting exceptions. Like peaceful religious orcs and political focused and intriguing halflings
19 on my very plain red w/ black d20. It's a magic die or something, rolls higher now than it did when I first bought it in '96. I think it has absorbed the dice karma energy from all those I've gamed with at a table since then... 🤔
Rolled 16.
I'm a fan of a good set of scenery, but I definitely feel I should think more about the story of a city more. I can sure make them look pretty, but the smaller details of individual families and industries that came and went... Hmm.
I rolled a 16, I'm gonna try writing up some city factions when I have some more down time.
16 is good!
i got a 10, so into the portal, with the tanks first.
an obelisk covered in ravens stands in the middle of the capital. there is long white sand beaches covered in the skeletons of crustacean aberrations small to large size. There is the occasional ship with rotten planks beached randomly near the tide. the walls facing the sea are covered in ballista, archers and guard houses, especially on the river being trawled with hooked nets.
07:47
That's a very interesting looking London.
Where exactly is it from?
@@garrethb6261 The Golden Compass movie
I would love to be updated on the Tobias Situation
My D-20 roll is a 19!!! 👀😦❤️
(That my 1st ever roll of my DnD dice; I’m a Rookie who hasn’t started playing yet, and just bought dice to prepare my journey❤️)
I just made a post over on my Patreon! I'll be doing a fun live stream, THE BATTLE FOR TOBIAS! More to come soon!
Bro, your content is awesome! But you better work a little bit on a previews on your videos to get more attention to it❤❤
Cause bro, my heart is breaking when i see yo get not the kind of attention you deserve
I feel like one thing missed in most videos like this is that if you want a believable city for the era that these games take inspiration from? Look at your Guards.
Guards were NOT Cops. They were not Law Enforcement. Private Individuals who wanted added security for property and wares weren't getting that subsidized by Cities or States. People who did Law Enforcement were few and when they needed people arrested? Small groups of people, normally those who knew the person, were tasked with it
This can also be used to really highlight cities that have become more Burgher driven or more industrialized, as suddenly, look at that Modern Style Police
Good info
I rolled a Nat 18 but IDK my modifiers DM please help 😭
Also, love the advice! The idea of spires and the skyline actually did stir a part of my brain I wasn't expecting and it's helping me map out the city and some key locations I would love them to see, and the idea of old roman walls appearing in structures are definitely gonna be in my campaign
18 is solid! We'll call it a 20 because I'm a generous DM haha.
Glad the video helped! Appreciate the love
Will definitely incorporate some of this into my city building. Rolled a 2 :(
I rolled a 15.
Good video btw!
I got a 14
This is the first time seeing this channel and I loved the video
aw thanks for the love, and welcome!
14 is good btw 😎
That's the first time a video asked me for a dice roll...
I am more of a rogue or bard, but i rolled high and got a 19. Prolly have some Int in my stat block considering I devour world building content...
so dirty 20+?
lovely video!
Thanks for the kind words!
the capital city in my campaign is these grouping of mountains with flying islands connected by bridges and the islands change with the wind so parts of the city change every time the party comes back( the mail service is wyvern riders thought it would add the unique touch the city needed) Ps. got a 17
Rolled an 11. Stellar video as always.
thanks for the love! 11 is good!
i think the biggest thing that gets overlooked is that conflict will happen, either internally or externally. what scars would be left behind if a peasant revolt occured and ran rampant through a city before being quashed, a war that fell upon the doorstep or marched through the city and razed or ransacked it, gangs or guilds infighting with different factions and spills over. Whats the atmosphere like and such. sure the bbeg's city is dark and imposing, but commerce is bustling and while theres the occassional public execution, people get on well in spite of their evil overlord and should he succeed well there's some pride in it for all the merchant contracts and trade that'll be protected since of course the overlord's going to protect his own. that sort of idea in world building.
I've never really played DnD. I've created worlds and I'm making my first map as I watch this video but I've never actually seen a session of DnD. I think I'll try one after I'm finished fleshing out my current world
Rolled a 13
Rolled a 24 arcana (18 without modifiers), so uh, what's up with that portal thingy?
Daaang nice! Looks to go to another plane ;) The faewild specifically
One of my Capital cities is a Dwarf Hold, in a mountain, so no skyline. But there is a mechanical tramway.
I think in place of a skyline, a defining feature is just as good haha
Shout out to the 2 crew!
Dice gods blessed me with 20 on first roll so guess gonna share my city.
At this point in story, its less of a capital and more of REALLY oversized trade port placed in middle of pretty big lake (kinda like Caspian Sea), originally founded by merchants of surrounding states as sort of neutral trading grounds and growing to look kinda like Venice with canals serving as arteries and various barges and cable cars serving to connect various more far-off sections.
Due to land being limited resource and tight merchant control entire layout was planned and individual housing was seen as peak of luxury, afforded only to richest houses with top 3 of them owning entire mini-islands as their manors and arsenals where they base their private armies and navies, with actual workers (and slaves) living in public houses, barracks and the like.
Now, all of this is before what i call Era of Empires, so time when surrounding nations are properly centralizing and growing increasingly big as technological progress is exploding, so pretty much good old Victorian Era.
City is no longer fully independent, surrounding nations had decided that they want slice of the pie turning it in to modern (for player's) Legation City with representatives of said nations controling various districts and quietly fighting over influence. City's layout is no longer planned as technology brought methods to make both stable anchored on water and flying structures, but technology also brought downfall of the city due to increasing speed and range of boats there's no longer need for stopping anywhere, nor are there hundreds of smaller nations but only few bigger ones that are much less interested in trading with their potential rivals. All of this caused city to be slowly abandoned by big players who left only a small presence to make sure that no one else establishes dominance to use city as launch board for invasions, and leaving this patchwork of styles to fend for itself.
This power vacuum attracted various more free-thinking types, criminals, adventurers, mad scientists, explorers, cannibals, mercenaries, taking a turn in to one alley might lead you to Imperial outpost while taking next one might cause you to end up in cult territory and be sacrificed to depths.
So come all to City of Dreams, welcome to Legaton, the city that consumes.
Thank you as always for your videos, i rolled a 10
Un 12.
Algo que pienso para construir mis pueblos o ciudades es la idiosincracia de sus habitantes. Pensar en cómo se relacionan entre sí y cómo tratan a ciertas razas en particular me ayuda a entender y a elaborar su cosmovisión.
Sus creencias, por supuesto, son cruciales a la hora de desarrollar el comportamiento de los habitantes.
19 let’s go!
Thx it hellped 😅😊
Thanks for the love!
Natural 1: Oh, pretty shiny Circle!
hey it's the thought that counts haha
Good video. 16 by the way.
thanks for the love! And 16 is good! 😎
I got a nat 1. This portal seems completely safe.
it'll be fiiiine, what could happen?
I was so sure in these dice and they gave me a natty 1 D:
The arcana check fries my brain.
Got a 4 on my Arcana roll unfortunately.
4 is better than 0!
Honestly the thing that bugs me the most about fantasy cities is how small and dense historical cities were, and that people don’t really understand that. Casually throwing out numbers like 150,000 residents or something.
That would make it one of if not the largest city in Europe during the Medieval Warm period and have more than twice the population of Cologne (the largest city in Europe at the time) after the Black Death.
And although I can understand “oh it’s fantasy and magic yadda yadda” this isn’t really something that can be explained with magic. City planning and government were simply too disorganized at this time period to maintain the logistics of having a city that large with ease. Not to mention that roughly 80% of the population would be living in the countryside and they would HAVE TO BE THERE as crop yields were simply not large and dependable enough to allow for a rise in urban settlement. So unless you put in your lore that potatoes are native to this world, that crop rotations and the heavy plow were invented centuries prior to when they were, that all your kings are tyrants and have absolute power (somehow) and that plagues simply never happen, just keep the population at around 60-70k for your capitals.
Magic affects crop yields. A well organized religion would have an annual cycle of blessing the crops of its lay-members; this happens in real life and it's certainly a standard spell in many RPGs. Thanks to other blessings, along with alchemy, magical apothecaries and hedge-witches, life expectancy could increase. Rome's population peaked at over a million, so the "logistics" for large cities could exist in a pre-industrial world.
The black death was devastating to cities, it took centuries for the numbers to recover.
@@davidmorgan6896 Short response: Rome is a moot point.
Long response: Rome had the resources of all the land west of the Rhine and South of the Danube at their disposal (Save scotland and Ireland), an organized logistics system, common law, centralized government, and the breadbasket of Egypt. So obviously the population of the city reached the millions. It still applies to the rules I mentioned prior - it's just that the country that the rules are now applying to is so vast that the city will also become equally vast. I'm not talking about having issue with a government like Rome having an urban population in the millions. I am having a problem with a Kingdom similar to the HRE or France in 1300 having a population in the millions.
As for magical blessings... eh... seems sort of like a cop out. I would need to see some after-affect of that such as the biomancer guild having extreme power in government and regularly threatening to starve kingdoms that don't stay in line.
DM : "At last, I've finished to craft my perfectly tailored capital city, I can't wait for the players to be amazed by its deep history and marvel how alive it feel"
"I CAST NUKE !"
*roll nat20
"lmao aawww yes !"
"what were we supposed to do already in this city ?"
accurate lmao
Also, FYI, I'm jumping in that portal. My Arcana is weak and my wisdom is LOW.
I rolled a 13 for Arcana. I may or may not have seen something.
oooh, nice a 17
Wasn't Barcelona founded by the Barcid family from Carthage? You know, the family of Hannibal Barca?
You're right! Someone else pointed that out too! I'll do better next time 😔
@@TheFantasyForge I mean it's just a cool tidbit that can be included when you are writing the history of a city!
I rolled a 14 on my arcana!
that's a decent roll!
Correction about Baercelona: It was not founded by the romans.
The name of the first people living there we know for sure were the Laietani, later it became a greek settlement, the Carthaginians under Hanibal Barka concuered the city and that's where it's name comes from.
11 - what would you expect xD
That's all well and good but barcelona isn't actually Madrid :)
Oops did I misspeak? Good thing this isn't a history video lol
I rolled a 1, that portal seems as any other portal that you can imagine. I hear the whispers. The portal wants me. Is calling me. From all people, why would have it appeared in front of me if I weren't chosen by the Portal Deity? I am its paladin, and I have do do what my deity commands.
I rolled a 15. But I have proficiency in arcana.
15 is solid! Definitely add the proficiency!
I got a 15 on Arcana.
Nice! Big win haha
Rolled a 5. Don't matter....I'm going in anyway
Let's goooo
14 lets gooo
17 baby
I rolled a 15!
15 ftw 😝
Um…I rolled a Nat’ 1.
Well… I got a 4 I think I messed up
I rolled a 6 :(
Now I want to start a new campaign set entirely in a city that I'm currently making up, that begins with the players being framed for the public murder of an important noble.
_sigh_ Back to the other campaign... now is not the time to start a new game!
Youre like the Lord of Frenzied Flame but blackflame
That's my brother! Jk....maybe?
👍🏻
13 +1 arcana check
Me: *watching to the end* okay I'll roll, its not im going to get a D20 roll...
*I GOT A BLOODY NAT D20* 😂
eyoooo, you're over here carrying the team
Oof. I got a 9.
Arcana isn't really my thing. Let me know when you've got something that needs hitting.
2nd!!
6.
LOL it's the thought that counts
3...
10 🙃
8
BARCELONAAA, ESPAÑAAAAAAAAA, PAELLA, EL CORTE INGLES, FUTBOL, LA SIESTAAAAA
a comment for the algo