The Campaign Builder's Guild

which also begs another question - what would make a more interesting setting, a world in perpetual night or a world totally underground?

Perpetual night is just so hard to sustain that my vote is for underground.

yeah, that's what I was leaning too as well.

here's some fluff about the tentative central city's market.

The Bazaar A spherical natural cavern more than a mile across, the bazaar sits within the base of the Spire [nickname for the city, as it's yet unnamed.] Held aloft by twelve natural pillars of stone, the great expanse of the bazaar is the proverbial heart of [City], pumping lifeblood throughout the city and the surrounding Dusk-Lit Kingdoms.

A cacophony of sights, smells, and sounds, many an caver has been stopped in their tracks by the sheer wave of sensations that bombard it's threshold. The fragrance of decadent spices, fried fish, sharpened metal, and woodsmoke mingle with a thousand other scents. Flickering light from countless candles, glimmer-moss, and ember-slugs lamps fill the thick air with a warm glow, illuminating a myriad of colored tents, fabrics, wears, and peoples. Hawkers and vendors shout over the pounding of anvils, the hissing of oils and coals, the songs and poems of street performers. Pickpockets rub shoulders with cheap fortune tellers, weary traders, and flirty courtesans. The bladed buildings of the bazaar loom over narrow streets that are constantly crowded with the traffic of customers, merchants, steed-spiders and pack-beetles.

Above the city of canvas stalls, crowded buildings, and narrow alleys rise the great merchant houses of the Twelve Pillars as soft light of multiple hues shine from hundreds of carved windows. The lords of gold and greed watch the movements of the bazaar from their great carved pillar-towers as they scheme and plot the rise and fall of allies and enemies. Thieves of skill and luck race across the razored roofs while agents of ill motives sulk in the shadows. From the roof the of the cavern, the delicate pleasure houses of silk and rope sway and rustle, suspended like giant paper lanterns. Blind birds and bats flutter in the smoky haze, barely discernible over the quite roar of the markets.  

Within the bazaar, one can find anything if they look hard enough. Slaves, weapons, poisons, and other debaucheries are tolerated and thrive along side more domestic and docile services and goods. Many a fool has fallen victim to a silent shiv within the warrens of alleys. A meeting place far all things of the deep places, the Spires bazaar is it's own creature - living, breathing, and feeding.

I like where this is going.  A bit of nitpicking, though, if I may?

Where are you getting wood?  Or fuel for fire?  You can't refine metal without fire.

Where's the oxygen coming from?  Living things AND fungus both consume oxygen -- if you're connected to the above ground, clearly it can't be all that endemic to life, could it?  Also, you would have to have a LOT of moss to make up for even 100 breathing things.

Other than that, it sounds enticing.  I once considered an underground campaign, but it was decidedly more tribal than feudal.  

M.

yeah, I've thought about all that stuff too - food supply, ventilation, vitamin D, etc., and frankly, I have no logical explanations for all those - enter magic. Maybe magic fungus that just spews out oxygen or tree-sized mushrooms that for all intensive purposes are trees sans leaves? Coal or some kind of magic rock could be used for smelting.

As for ventilation, I thought an old, rusty system of magically operated man-sized fans and air shafts would weave themselves throughout the carved-stalagmite city.

overall, it will be a magically infused setting - giving me leeway to do impossible and implausible things (read - I'm lazy ;))

If the cavern is high enough, maybe some magicians maintain some kind of cloud arrangement, allowing pollutants to be collected, re-earthed and wind to take place?

M.

hmmm, I feel like that may take away some of the "undergroundness" of the setting, but having a magical gardeners guild or something along those lines, now that would be neat.

I was thinking of having a Dead-Collector Guild which would buy corpses for cheap and use them for all sorts of things - candles, fertilizer, velum, etc. Waste not right?

Irza, the Spire City

At the heart of the deep realms sits the city of Irza - more commonly known as the Spire. An immense stalagmite that rises from the dark depths of a great lake, the Spire's base is more than two miles across and it rises nearly a mile, high into the reaches of a vast cavern. Even at the edge of this cavern the Spire can be seen, a shimmering tower of a thousand points of light.

A mile-long bridge connects the city to the lake's shore. The span ends in a foreboding fortress-gate that has become the hub of a small town in it's own right. The town is called Pike, and is a mess of ramshackle huts and travelers tents huddled against the iron and stone fortress called the Cage. Nearly everything that goes in or out of the city crosses the bridge - also called the Arm - as the waters of the lake, while fresh and clean, are home to dangerous beasts of the deep.

The Spire was once a natural stalagmite, but now after countless centuries of habitation, no unworked stone remains. The entire length of the Spire has been carved into the city it is today. The architecture of Irza is unique. The city was made with height in mind, and as such, buildings, streets, everything really, are made higher than what would seem necessary and not quite wide enough. Window slits, doors, and archways are tall and narrow. Long, subtle curves punctuated by sudden angles mark the style of the carvings. Motifs of spiders, fish, and strange designs are common throughout the Spire. Many functional parts of the city - columns, pillars, stairs, doors - have been artfully carved into gargoyles and statues.

Iron is also common throughout the Spire as buttresses, fences, grates, doors, and shutters. Those buildings exposed to the open cavern are topped with large graceful blades and razors - as an attack from above is just as likely as one through the front gates. These roof-blades are often forged to resemble birds and other winged beasts.The entirety of the city is lit in a hazy warm light, provided by candles, magic lanterns, and the ubiquitous ember-slug, a slow moving creature, roughly the size of ones thumb, that dot the roofs and ceiling of the city and emit a pale orange glow. This light also allows for the growth of various mosses and lichens within the city that are used for a multitude of things.

The Spire is divided vertically into seven districts or wards, like coins stacked into a column. In ascending order, there is the dark and maze-like Warrens, the diverse Pilgrim's Ward, the bustling and crowded Bazaar, the foundries and iron-works of the Cinder Ward, the administration and libraries of the Magister's Ward, the affluent Arcade, and lastly the mysterious and guarded Mother's Ward. A wide, paved boulevard - the Promenade - winds it's way around the outside of the city, connecting all the wards. In addition to the Promenade, countless stairways, alleys, tunnels, and air shafts connect the parts of the city from inside.  

The Warrens By far the largest and most populous ward, the Warrens is the bottommost of the city's wards. A maze of half-lit slums, corridors, pitfalls, and tenements, the Warrens are home to the Spire's poor, destitute, criminal, and mad. A lawless and dirty place, criminal syndicates, dark cabals, slaver rings, and dark cults all vie for power in a never ending vendetta of deceit and violence.

The Warrens are also the home of the Dead-Collectors Guild - more commonly referred to as the Bone-Buyers - who headquarter themselves in a great mortuary-factory in a section of ward referred to as the Skull. The Bone-Buyers travel across the Spire, offering to buy off the recently deceased for a small price. It is also common for them to buy corpses en mass, often with no questions asked. This has created quite the niche for opportunistic and amoral denizens of the Warrens. The Bone-Buyers then take the corpses to their mortuary-factory and turn the bodies into all sorts of mundane items - candles, velum, fertilizer. This practice is accepted in the city, and while not considered tasteful, is a necessity, as it both keeps the city clean and keeps "resources" within the Spire. Their are rumors whispered that they also sell human meat to the less reputable pubs and bars of the Spire.

Important areas within the Warrens include the aforementioned Skull, the gathering-courtyard of Gallows Square, the seedy "pleasure houses" of Red-Wine Way, the shops of Pock Street, and the trash pits of Rag-Pickers Pit.

Pilgrim's Ward A dynamic ward of temples and taverns, the Pilgrim's Ward is popular amongst travelers and the faithful of the deep realms. The vibe of this ward is one of openness and movement, as roughly half the people found at anytime are merely on their way through. Those who make this ward their permanent residence often work for the myriad of inns and taverns or for the dozens of temples that share the high arched streets. At the center of ward is the God's Square, a red-paved arcade with a carved ceiling depicting numerous gods. The inns that surround the square are among the most popular, and inn-hawkers compete with prophets and missionaries in a contest of voices. Other important areas include the grand House of Echoes, the churches of Temple Way, and shady alleys of Zealots Run.


More to come.