The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: SteerpikeSouls of the damned - more a descriptive phrase than an ontological statement.  The Hells aren't afterlives, but this is the way the city presents the wall.

Ah, makes sense.

QuoteBut I wasn't aware of the Wall of the Faithless.  I may have to tweak/remove that, now.

Well, what did you think of the moat idea? Alternatively, it could be a more liquid-y moat, a fosse filled with boiling oil or pitch, in which the hexed corpses are submerged, prodded and stirred by hookspear-weilding Malebranche-figures. Basically for the worst of criminals, they 'sew the soul' up in the corpse so that it feels pain such that not even death can release them. Or maybe cursed to wade in moats of excrement. Basically, a twist on the Ten Bolgias of Malebolge.

QuoteThinking about the economy - I'll detail more on the city's micro-economies, but I see tithing/protection-rackets as being the main source of funds (so, basically, you have merchants paying taxes to their cult/protectors).

This makes sense, but only insofar as there numerous merchants making/trading/selling 'stuff'. New Pandemonium seems to lack any named product or two of mercantile value, unlike say industrial Somnambulon, Skein's silk and clockwork and ur-bones, Moroi's factories and nectar, Erebh's miasma-harvesting and mineral mines, Gristle's livestocks and slaughterhouses, etc.

Do they make great weapons that other cities want to buy? Is the city nearby some mines or location that holds worthwhile commodities? For example, massive battlefields akin to the Shatters and/or Etiolation?

I think paper mills, book-binding and boneblock printing would be industries suitable for New Pandemonium. Apothecaries dealing in salves and elixirs might also be approriate. Also materials needed for ritual purposes such as incense, ainointment oils and embalming fluids.

Although printing industries might make perfect sense for an internal economy, I think the site needs an industry that lends itself to exporting. Assuming the distances between cities are similarly distant and incredibly dangerous (a modest assumption given that this is CE), the product(s) or service(s) needs to be something quite special.

For example, Moroi also has printing presses, but what draws merchants to travel from and to the Gaunt City above all is nectar. The Resin Guild is the big fish in the mercantile pool of the city. In Skein, there are plenty of businesses in the wards, but the silk, clockwork, and fossils make its market and merchants unique and tempting enough to travel the Slaughterlands.

If the city is land-locked, all the more reason for such a product or commodity. But even if it borders a river or sea (e.g., do any of the other cities besides Gristle rest on the River Cruor or Swelter?), I think the place still needs a special commodity prized by non-diabolists. Beyond making the place more 'believable', doing so opens up plot-hooks for adventures and travels to/from the city apart from diabolism. 

Love the additions of Fleshwell, Delirium's End, and the Void Croix.

I'm fascinated by the tantalizing hint you dropped in the description of Mara - "dream-magic and other forms of sorcery". What are these other forms of magic, and what  purposes do they serve - are they the means by which the transformation of male into drude is accomplished? Do they slow the sinking of the city's foundations? Hold back the brinegasts and gloomsquids (very evocative names - any chance that more detail might be forthcoming?) and nameless horrors?

On which note, if "certain" nameless horrors are active in the tunnel, does that imply that the remainder are still down in the heart of the Flooded City? And if the rule of the Crones is so based upon the fear of their somnomantic retribution, then why is the Gibbous Quarter and the trade in illegal protections it offers allowed to continue existing? (unless talismans and charms don't actually work at all).

Also, just putting it out there, Verdigris is incredibly cool and creepily inventive as a concept. But what exactly is a Murderfog...?

Mara is next on my list to expand.

Murderfog is a form of self-replicating nanoswarm that creates new nanobots by consuming organic matter.  It looks like pinkish mist, and most people don't realize that it's actually a collection of tiny machines. It used to be a form of weaponry but now it pretty much regards everyone as hostile, unless you have a Nanomancer to tame the swarm.

Some of the older swarms are so old they've evolved sapience and adopted personalities but most are just feral swarms of imbecilic eating machines.

(It also may or may not be a "cousin" of Rotmist on the other continent)

Cool info on the Murderfog. They remind me of a mix between Numenara's nano storms and your space-dandy's setting with its nano-legion. That some have evolved sapience and personality is just extra unique coolness.

I look forward to seeing more on Mara.

Quote from: Steerpike
Murderfog is a form of self-replicating nanoswarm that creates new nanobots by consuming organic matter.  It looks like pinkish mist, and most people don't realize that it's actually a collection of tiny machines. It used to be a form of weaponry but now it pretty much regards everyone as hostile, unless you have a Nanomancer to tame the swarm.

That is frankly terrifying, and not just in the please-don't-let-my-character-meet-one kind of way but also the please-please-don't-let-science-figure-out-how-to-make-one kind of way.