The Campaign Builder's Guild

I'm trying to build a gormenghast-like city/castle for my setting, Aertica. I wouldn't mind some help

Rävenhel
Built upon the ancient ruins of an abandoned city, Rävenhel is a sprawling fortress on the border of the Kingdom of Ausservia and the Argheid Empire. It was created as it stands by a dragged out war with the antiquated Aurathian Empire and the newly forming Arghied Empire. Both armies occupied the ruins of the ancient city and began reshaping the once ruinous landscape into a series of fortresses, tunnels, trenches, keeps and towers designed to fortify each empire's holdings and undermine the opposing forces position. Soon, as sappers and architects tried to build ever more ingenious ways of breaching the enemies portion of the fortress, tunnels, hallways and rooftops became the theatre of warfare.

The ruinous mess is  currently split into two distinct areas, that held by retainers of the Ausservian King and that held by an Argheid Marshal. Battles between the two competing forces are frequent and bloody. Within this overarching conflict, Rävenhel's basalt walls hold a number of smaller associated and independent factions that fight for power and supremacy within its walls. Most of the soldiers, creatures and men within the crumbling chaos have lived there all their lives. What has resulted is a very insular and inbred population who have developed a very strong hereditary attachment to the basalt expanse of Rävenhel and the war being waged within.

Weir

Natatorium
Water covers much of what would be the groundfloor of western Rävenhel. Those portions (much of the East and Northwest) that remain dry are kept so by the use of wooden cataracts and dams that divert the water into what has become an underground river that runs diagonally through the southweastern portion of the fortress to a massive waterfall in the northern portion of Rävenhel that empties into the black lake. Behind the cataracts, dams and spillways, little floating communities have formed known as the Weir. These small, yet incredibly interconnected floating thorps fish the unnatural ponds, dive for sunken items and maintain the complex system that keeps the eastern portion of Rävenhel dry down to the third and in some places fourth level of its "basement". Surprisingly, both sides have recognized the necessity of keeping the floodwaters at bay and the surface of the water, including the cataracts and dams are considered neutral ground.

Waterhall (90-100)
The hall of the Weir's leader, Lord Bant and the second largest population of Weir, Waterhall has hosted a number of peace agreements between the warring factions. Bant ruthlessly enforces his neutrality with the aid of a number of Weir warriors and a cadre of feared "Fish" who serve as frighteningly effective assassins as they know the flooded ground floors better than any. Waterhall is the only dry-land possession of the Weir and is one of the few standalone buildings in Rävenhel, built on what used to be the Argheid plaza.

The cataracts
A series of locks designed to allow skiffs and a few larger craft to travel between the Weir villages at different levels. The whole system is run by a series of waterwheels and pumps which are surprisingly efficient and well maintained.

Stilldock (186)
Largest Weir village in Rävenhel, Stilldock straddles the largest of the dams (Long Dam) and the first Lock. It is the primary village in the upper Natatorium and is only roughly an eighth of a mile from Waterhall. There are two kinds of homes in Stilldock, the standard Sways (floating home of wood, scraps, marsh reed etc.) and what they call the Hangs (houses with struts and pieces of the structure built off the dam). Stilldock has a large percentage of women compared to other villages (around 60%) in part due to the whores of Viltter's Painted House.

The Wheelwater (23)
An area dominated by the squat, ivy consumed stone edifice which houses the greatest engineering acheivement of the Weir, a set of water wheel turbines that power the pump for the locks below. This structure is connected to a series of tunnels and empty sluice outlets which have developed into a strange maze that empties out at various points throughout the Weir domain and some think, beyond.Lord Bant's servant, Bonecrow and and a retinue of soldiers maintain the Wheelwater house and work to map out some of the more compromising areas of the maze below, mostly to reinforce the buildings precarious foundation and clear out an infestation of Undercroft dwellers.

Weir Characters

Lord Bant
Male Human Warlock 8/ Rogue 5

Leader of the Weir peoples both inside and outside the fortress of Rävenhel, Lord Bant is one of the most powerful men within Rävenhel's walls. Five years ago Bant and his personal retinue of 'Fish' emerged from the 'wilds' of  Rävenhel to violently take over leadership of the Weir peoples. Drowning his predecessor and mysteriously disposing of opposed clan heads, Bant consolidated his power among the Weir and began forming the core of what is now a formidable force of soldiers. In what many considered a strange move, Bant moved his seat of power and many of his supporters away from the largest Weir village of Stilldock to Waterhall, a previously ceremonial building for the Weir. Since then, many Weir have followed and made Waterhall the second largest Weir settlement (roughly 90) in  Rävenhel.

Viltter
Male Human Rogue 3/Fighter 2

Of questionable Argheid descent, Viltter is an entrepeneur and owner of three brothels in Rävenhel. Strangely enough, he is  considered a casanova of sorts and keeps himself immaculately clean and in vogue with the latest styles of the Argheid commanders (with whom he has developed a certain understanding). Viltter, despite his soft appearance, spent his youth as a cutthroat and a thief in the damp hallways of the Undercroft. He currently spies for Bant on the movements and assesses the general temperaments of most of the Argheid unit commanders.

Fish(Pike, Ridgehead, Sturgeon and Warmouth)
(4) Male Human Ftr 5/Rog 2

The Fish are Lord Bant's personal guards, emissaries and principal advisors. These mysterious servants are unquestionably loyal and are diversely skilled. They can all read and write exceptionally well, dive to almost inhuman depths, swim miles without tiring and wield blades with frightening skill. Each one of them is only ever seen in their strange uniform, which consists of form fitting sharkskin leather reinforced by bronze scale in vital areas. Each has a long knife with intrucate customized handles and stylized helms depicting fish. Their faces are hidden by bronze masks of a woman's face (though they are decidedly male)

Bonecrow
Male Human Rogue 5

Bonecrow came as a petitioner to Lord Bant from out of the wilds of Rävenhel and found himself quickly employed as one of Bant's more important agents. He is a wiry, yet powerfully muscled man covered in crude tattoos depicting various methods of murder. His large backpiece, however, is that of a crow clutching to a still dripping bone. His one eye peers from under his tattered top hat into darkness with unnatural clarity, a skill he has used to great effect in skirmishes with Undercroft dwellers and occasional ousiders. He dispatches his enemies with either his strangely out-of-place tulwar or his twin modified wheelock guns that he has refitted to act more like blunderbuss pistols and lovingly named "Bück" and "Dich"

Sounds awesome, what exactly is it that you need help with though?

Buildings, people, organizations...what kind of weapons and tactics would they develop for this special environment. make a room, a building...anything really, just keep in mind that it should be relatively low magic, a magic artifact or effect is extremely rare. There are only about 6 spellcasters in the entire complex (a high amount for Aertica)and 4 of them are below 3rd level

For ideas on how they might fight you could look into urban warfare tactics. That sort of thing is so vastly different from the standard battlefield.

Quote from: FurorSurprisingly, both sides have recognized the necessity of keeping the floodwaters at bay and the surface of the water, including the cataracts and dams are considered neutral ground.

How come? I would think at least some people would want to expand the flood waters so that the territory can expand to other parts of the castle?


Love this idea by the way. I need to sit down and watch Gormenghast.

Well, a point I know I have not clarified above, but Ravenhel is surrounded by marsh, Weir villages, a series of trenches and small wooden palisade fortresses stretch for a few miles to the west. This marsh is the reason for the flooding (and is a recent development of the last 50 years) as it has steadily risen for quite some time. The structural integrity of most of ravenhel is weak and most understand that a sudden flash flood would topple both their and their enemies structures and hurt both sides evenly. The Weir are allowed to remain neutral under the assumption that they will maintain the dams and sluices, a right that they reinforce with their own standing militia of boatmen and "fish" (so called because their unique helms are different stylized fish, not to mention they are all expert swimmers and divers)

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for explaining.

Quote from: RavenspathLove this idea by the way. I need to sit down and watch Gormenghast.

Funny, I need to sit down and read it. Watched it back when it was on TV, but I've never read the books, although my dad's always raved to me about how good they are... well, I say "always"... whenever it came up in conversation...

i think the first book was by far the best, the second was still good, but the third....i dunno, wasn't as striking or as inspirational to me

I read somewhere that China Mieville said "don't believe people when they tell you the last book's disappointing"

So I don't believe you. Or at least, I won't until I've read it and made up my own mind.

The last book is strikingly different than the other two: it doesn't take place in Gormenghast at all, and the setting seems much more modern.  The BBC miniseries (which I like very much, though my vision of the books is much more gothic and gloomy) only covers the first two.  I would say that in some ways Titus Groan is a more tightly plotted or neatly structured novel, but I the second book is in some ways a much richer text - some of the most gorgeous writing I've ever read, and the development of Steerpike and Titus is brilliant.

Really like Ravenhel, though... I'll try and think of some suggestions.

wow, that is likely one of the most unpleasant battlefields i can imagine. one important question: does your world have balckpowder? i skimmed your wiki entry but found no mention of its absence or presence. now, how to fight there...

broken landscape and a war that has already taken far to long, makes me imagine squads of almost feral fighters clad in piecemeal armour and scavenged or handmade dirty clothing. only a scrap of coloured fabric here and there to denote rank or allegiance. everyone is loaded down with equipment in bagpacks (that can be cut loose or unbuckled in a second) and webbing belts and all carry improvised or customized weapons. examples could be: pickaxes, shovels or spades filed to a point/edge, polearms with cut down handles, shortswords with one edge turned into a serrated saw (to double as a tool), brass knuckles for the few ranged combatants (if you do it right, you can wear them and shoot a crossbow), depending on your level of technology long- or bastard swords with shortened blades, or (if blackpowder was invented) sawn-off rifles or blunderbusses and handmade grenades.

fighting:  
- fire: in a city made mostly from basalt, fire is your best weapon. it scares the enemy and lets you kill them with only little damage to the terrain you want to capture. in our world, flamethrower-like devices have been around for some two thousand years or more, starting with blowguns filled with flammable liquids and powders blown through a torch. also firebombs, burning oil poured over attackers or down a hallway makes for a nice and deadly surprise that can be made with medieval technology.

- trap-laying. loads and loads of spiked pit traps, deadfalls, collapsible walls/ceilings, floodable corridors, etc. when you have wizards in your army, you can even use things like symbols of X, ghoul/explosive runes, phantasmal terrain and a thousand other spells to ambush the enemy.

- snipers. be it with a bow, crossbow or rifle, the sniper is the king of the urban battlefield (to sound a bit more martial). the grunts hate them more than almost anything else, because you only notice good snipers when your mates start dropping with arrows through the neck or your squad leader gets his head blown off. snipers are a rare breed, because they need good equipment, training and support, all of which is hard to come by in the scenario you describe.

- melee. this is where most of the actions happens. urban terrain, especially in houses or underground leaves little room for chivalry or tactics. cramped conditions exclude the use of horses or large scale infantry formations (a phalanx with overturned tables for shields might be effective), so most fighting will be bloody chaos, in the dark of underground passages, where the ceiling is too low to bring a longsword to bear and where armour becomes a joke, because when you are face to face, it's easy to slip a dagger under the enemies armpit or through his visor. you should really play up the mindless brutality in this kind of fighting, where even a guy you just ran through with a blade can still kill you by cutting your hamstrings as you stumble over him.

-siege weapons. depending again on the tech level, a city is an open invitation to mortars and other indirect fire weapons. when you have no gunpowder available, this becomes much harder, because things like trebuchets are a nightmare to set up on uneven ground and an even bigger nightmare to correctly sight in. light torsion weapons, especially scorpios would make up the largest part of the heavy weapons, due to their relative ease of manufacture, the ability to transport them with only two men and the wide variety of ammunition they can fire (firepots, spears, bundles of crossbow bolts).

hope that helps. :)

To address the question of tech level, the Argheid Empire is in the process of completely retooling the factories of the Sahlz Valley to create its first full line of matchlock muskets (so yes, gunpowder is actually pretty common, if expensive)Though the vast number of soldiers in the Empire make it difficult to modernize most units. Many still use the bow, as its high rate of fire is still the more effective means of long-range unit warfare. Every sizeable force will contain at least a corps of Arquebusiers and often an artillery piece.

how do you like this:
dramatis persona
Kalos the Mad Huntsman
Human Wizard 4/ Ranger 4/ Arcane Sniper (Archer)4
A gaunt and dirty man appears before you, seemingly out of thin air. His crossbow points at your throat and with his free hand, he signals you to be quiet.

The Mad Huntsman is a bit of a lengend among the soldiers fighting in Ravenhel. He has been around for over a decade and has been proclaimed dead more than a dozen times, but he always pops back up somewhere. Story has it that he was a performer at a circus in the Argheid Empire, where he entertained the crowd with magical illusions and handmade fireworks. That combination of magical and alchemical knowledge got him an irrefusable offer to join the military, together with a load of youths from the circus and the village where they had set up camp.
After two weeks of basic training, Kalos, who had never taken to flashy combat spells, and his comrades where shipped to Ravenhel. Over the following months, his regiment was whittled down; one by one, he watched his friends and comrades die the most horrible deaths he could have imagined. After a while, he learned that offensive magic was a sure way to get a bullet in the head or, much worse, have his unit be targeted by artillery. So more and more, he took to using a rifle, supplanting what he lacked in skill with his magic and undestanding of pyrotechnics. He trained his remaining comrades in stealth and acrobatics, which accidentally made them prime choices for rooftop raids and nightly sabotage missions. After less than a year of constant fighting, he buried the last member of his regiment under a small pile of rubble and was for the first time in his life completely alone. No one knows what exactly happened to him, but something must have broken in his head. He deserted his army and became a loner, a ghostly stalker of the rooftops who used his illusion magic and a custom jezzail to hunt officers of both armies for sport. Only when his supplies began to ran out, did he begin to take money for planned kills. Today, it is said that both armies pay a monthly protection fee of supplies or money to keep their leadership safe.

Appearance: The Mad Huntsman his of average height, but so thin he is almost skeletal. His face has a dark greyish tinge due to years of being rubbed with homemade camouflage paint. Kalos has fashioned his hair and beard into matted dreadlocks that reach between his shoulderblades. he wears several layers of clothing in shades of grey and brown and always carries a light crossbow, seveal knives, an axe and his most prized possession: a handmade jezzail fitted with a crude scope. all decorative surfaces are made of bone, yellowed with age and worn smooth with use.

Use in Game: Kalos' knowledge of Ravenhel's rooftop is second to none, so players seeking a fast and stealthy route to somewhere within the city an find no better guide.
Alternatively, they could purchase his services as a master sniper to take out an enemy, or try and talk him into training them some of his skills. Of course, whatever they want from him, it comes with a hefty price tag. Kalos doesn't like to take money, but prefers high-quality gunpowder, spare parts for his weapons or medial supplies. All this presupposes, that they are able to find him, of course.

Note: i don't know what your stance towards prestige classes is and i'm pretty sure that the arcane archer is only for, well, archers, but kalos could be the inventor of this particular brand of magic, which would make him even more a valuable resource for players.

Awesome! thanks, I like Kalos. My only thing would be to change wizard to sorceror (i've done away with the wizard class), replace arcane archer with more ranger levels or maybe some rogue levels too. I kind of see him having adopted an orphan or something too, to help work as part of a sniper team. A silent child who follows him everywhere and guards him while he sleeps etc.

I like the idea of him being specialized in a certain "sniper magic" though. In Aertica, spells are usually learned from those who developed them themselves, some are considered almost universal, but most spells are taught apprentice style like a guru would teach meditation. He could have his own unique set of spells that focus on this (Launch Bolt [MoF], Arrow Mind [CAdv], Guided Shot [CAdv], Sniper's Shot [CAdv], Marked Man [DR 325])