On a vital resupply point along an ancient trade route.
7
At the intersection of two major rivers.
8
On the shore of a sprawling lake - in fact built a ways onto the lake itself, on floating platforms.
9
Atop a seaside cliff, trailing down to a natural harbour.
10
It straddles a strait between two continents.
D10
What is the legend of this city’s founding?
1
Two armies met on the battlefield and laid down their arms, choosing to live together rather than kill each other on behalf of distant masters.
2
A great monster was slain on its site, and the city was built up around its corpse to butcher it.
3
A fool that endeared himself to the lord of the genies wished for it to be built in a night.
4
A child was born able to walk right out of the womb. An awed crowd followed that child to the site of the city-that-would-be, where the child transformed into a tree that stands proud to this day.
5
Is that it was originally the abode of a pantheon of gods long since vanished from the world.
6
A priest tricked a mighty demon into making a bet to carry a great weight on its back, then had the city built atop the demon to hold it in place.
7
A guild of jobless masons sought to create demand for their work by creating the city as a demonstration of their full capabilities.
8
A philosopher and their students left their corrupt home to create a new society based on enlightened principles.
9
A persecuted people fled from far afield, following a waltzing star, settling at the spot it shone above.
10
A seed fell from the heavens, spreading its roots as the city's flagstones, its sprouting stump the keep at the city’s core. Its first inhabitants were astounded astronomers.
D10
Who rules this city?
1
A line of queen-mothers who hold the patron god of the city within themselves in fetal incarnation. It's prophesied that the city will fall if the god is ever born.
2
A constitutional monarchy - the reigning monarch's power is limited by a congress of the haunting ghosts of past monarchs, a measure intended in part to discourage regicide.
3
A cabal of plutocrats, once a party of great adventurers who purchased influence over the city with their hoarded loot. Though at first they were forward-thinking, competent rulers, time and indulgence have softened them into squabbling, decadent despots.
4
A sleeping dragon, who is kept asleep and posed the conditions and questions of governance by an elite fraternity of hypnotists. In its dreams the dragon is made unsure of its own identity, so that its rulings are (at least theoretically) fair to every citizen.
5
An assembly of the oldest members of every family that calls it home.
6
A parliament of gladiators who debate by duelling, putting their lives on the line for policy proposals.
7
A sapient grimoire, the creation of a famed archmage, who distributes its spells to favoured servants.
8
A narcocrat who alone holds the catalyst to distill the highly addictive drug which is doled out like grain would be elsewhere.
9
A circle of blind crones who read oracular edicts in the warp and weft of the tapestry woven by an automatic loom.
10
A secret senate, their policies enforced by a secret police force. Their membership, even the surety of their existence at all, are unknown.
D10
How is this city defended?
1
Legions of hooting apes. The things are thieving pests in peacetime, but are rallied to territorial, dominance-display violence by beast-masters in flanged masks should the city fall under attack.
2
Poisonous gas siphoned from an underground lake beneath the city, stored in reservoirs in the walls and strategically-placed towers. The gas is released on invaders as waves of roiling, invisible death.
3
Battalions of myconid mercenaries wielding stipe-wood pikes, and paid with the city's corpses for their compost-heaps. Evading this macabre tribute is a dire crime.
4
Citizen-militias recruited from each neighbourhood, each specializing in their own weapon and tactical role.
5
Phalanxes of hoplites drawn from the city's propertied men. The lengths of their spears are proportional to the size of the property they own.
6
Staggered lines of fortifications and siege engines.
7
Giant janissaries taken as children from orphanages and the families of criminals and fed alchemically-derived hormones.
8
Waves of berserker shock-troopers inured to pain and exhaustion.
9
Colossal bronze bull-headed statues which have stood there since before the city was founded. When fed the blood of children they’ll rise to roaring life and destroy the city’s enemies.
10
Gimmick-warriors and clown-guards mounted on a diverse menagerie of beasts, too varied for any doctrine to be effective against them all.
D10
What's this city's architecture like?
1
Crowded, with streets and alleys nigh-indistinguishable, and murals designed to guide traffic.
2
It's got a lot of fluked and spiraled towers
3
Radiating out in angular shapes from its core.
4
Stocky and hexagonal.
5
Hyper-elaborate gothic.
6
Organic, integrated with gardens, groves, and pastures.
7
Garishly-painted, with lots of swooping lines.
8
Archaic brutalism, concrete piled haphazardly.
9
An attempt to force rural manors into a compressed space.
10
Stacked wood-and-brick ziggurats.
D10
What’s a common sight in the streets of this city?
1
Big masses of fluff rolling around like tumbleweeds - shed by the ubiquitous and floccose feral cats.
2
Old ladies selling homebrew from handcarts.
3
Braziers packed with smouldering sweet-scented herbs to cover up urban stenches.
4
Stylites meditating in hammocks strung between the upper storeys of buildings.
5
Palanquins paraded about bearing illustrated signboards promoting public morals.
6
Waystone-idols crusted with candles, meant to guide the lost dead back home.
7
Relays of criers hollering messages to each other rapidly across the city.
8
Children and drunks playing a sport which involves bouncing a dried gourd off walls while whacking each other with switches.
9
Dancers in lewd and ludicrous costumes performing by shopfronts and the residences of the wealthy.
10
Street-corner preachers siccing their micro-cults on each other.
D10
What is the popular fashion of this city?
1
Foot-high platform clogs, nested in by colourful breeds of termite. The cultivation of exclusive new shades has become a matter of life and death in the city.
2
The back of the head is shaved and painted like a skull - it’s said to keep an eye out for your death sneaking up from behind.
3
A cape dense with pockets and folds, each fold a different swatch of fabric. Experienced wearers can rearrange the thing in a moment, showing the outside world only the fabrics which suit their relative station in regard to sumptuary laws.
4
A corrugated choker which channels and amplifies the sound of its wearer’s heartbeat, accompanying them with a personal bass rhythm.
5
To go about atop a tiny chariot pulled by cats, ducks, or similarly-sized critters.
6
Puke-yellow tattoos put upon you by your greatest enemy. The more hideous the tattoos, the greater your enemy’s hate for you must be, and the more fearsome you’re considered to be to have earned that hate.
7
A chain of mummified sword-hands cut from those you’ve defeated in honourable duels.
8
Little fruiting gardens carried in urns atop the head.
9
Skintight designs of feathers and tar, painfully scraped off when they become too dry to move in.
10
To be accompanied by a sort of lapdog bred for indolence and outrageous deformity. The more obvious effort it takes to keep the thing alive, the more prestigious it is.
D10
What's the signature dish of this city?
1
Fertilized birds' eggs, boiled and mashed into a paste then scooped up with flatbread.
2
Pastries filled with fermented fruit jams.
3
Sour pickle dumplings.
4
Deep-fried lamb trotters.
5
Smoked otter sausage.
6
Nuts boiled in mulled wine.
7
Raw shellfish in a vinegar sauce.
8
Roasted brain-and-marrow pudding.
9
Mixed and salted rinds of pork and citrus.
10
A spicy noodle soup made with spiders, toads, and serpents.
D10
What’s troubling this city from within?
1
A warlock mafia making ill-advised magic deals with a devil, securing an unstable and grating position in the city's underworld.
2
Pigeons that have learned how to hollow out and dopily operate the bodies of its destitute dead (at least until the pigeons fill them up with too much poop to continue) - typically just to steal seeds & other such feed.
3
A mass movement of proles aiming to overthrow the existing government and replace it with a democracy.
4
A league of assassins employed to resolve conflicts among the city's upper class is jacking up its prices.
5
A necromancer has barricaded herself in the city's catacombs, with an expanding army of the undead.
6
Scholar-squids have taken over its sewers and canals, clouding its waters with the ink of their arguments.
7
A mysterious party is sabotaging the preparations for an upcoming festival - and they're escalating from mere mischief to poisoning the wine, and who knows what next.
8
Crews of sleepwalkers tearing up basements and plazas trying to dig down to something.
9
An arsonist is striking buildings seemingly at random - in truth they are burning a sigil to open a gateway to the elemental plane of fire.
10
A serial killer stalking its streets, committing murders that should be impossible.
D10
What’s troubling this city from without?
1
An apocalyptic storm is approaching - the instrument of divine wrath.
2
A small army of inquisitors chasing down a heresiarch rumoured to be in the city.
3
Crusaders on the march, supposedly aligned with the city, pillaging and running riot.
4
A plague growing throughout the countryside.
5
A hobgoblin warlord aiming to set his throne in the city.
6
A spreading peasant rebellion gradually cutting it off from outside supply lines.
7
The balance of power among its allies is shifting, and once-trusted neighbours are becoming potential enemies.
8
A wind-lord of the upper air who wants to subject the city as their satrapy.
9
A drought is causing the price of food to skyrocket.
10
A horde of were-locusts extorting the stock of their granaries.
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