Discussions/TheImperialCity
After participating in the great communal project called TheNexusProject, which is about to finish it's first PDF on the City of a Million Lice, I had the idea to start other Communal Projects, quite similiar to the project dealing with Nexus. I like the idea of fleshing out important places in Creation (and beyond), we only have little or no information on (hope the FiveCornersDigest starts soon).
In short, I thought about starting an Imperial City Project first (I think, projects detailing Stygia and Yu-Shan might follow), as I think that this big and beautiful city might be of great importance for dynasty-based games.
However, I need your help to organize and plan it. I thought of using the same format as the Nexus Project, which means, that the City is devided up into a number of "districts" (we use another term). Now I need ideas for various districts. The only district which is already canon is the Imperial Manse which is dealt with in an extra section.
I hope the project grows as the Nexus Project so that it might be able to link the two projects. By this, I mean that actually someone dealt with in the Imperial City Project could have contacts to someone living in Nexus.
So here you go, offer me your ideas, please, so we can start the project.
I don't have any extraordinarily bright ideas right now, but I wanted to make sure this didn't get lost.
The Imperial Palace is one. Perhaps one for the Deliberative, with the main compound in the middle, and various offices around it, and assorted fine restaurants and the like catering to the Senators. A trade/market area, much like the Nexus District. A military area, housing and entertaining the legions, and including the sanctuaries for crippled/retired legionnaires.
And not to forget the district including the slums, homes of the refugees from other countries. I agree, that the Delibarative should have it's own district and that this could easily be the cultural district, too. I also had the idea of the Imperial Palace beeing similiar to what is the Forbidden City in Peking - that it is seperated from the rest of the city in some way. And I'd like the idea of having the city build according to the elements and their directions: - West (Water, Delibarative and bureaucracy district) - North (Wind, INSERT DISTRICT HERE) - South (Fire, military district) - East (Wood, trade/market district) - Earth (Middle, Imperial Palace) Every district should contain at least one Immaculate Temple and I like the idea of having one mighty First Age Artifact Weapon in each major district (the Slums have none).
Thank you, Kalisara for participating. Further ideas, anyone..?
Yes, me again. ;)
Industry? The Realm's economy is mostly agricultural/trade-based, but they must have some heavy industry - the legions need their armour and weapons forged, there are printing presses, heliographs, various other devices. Both magitech (the Houses probably handle this in their own territories, but the Empress presumably has a source or two of her own) and mundane. That could be North, possibly mixed in with something else if it wouldn't take up a full district. Or switch North and South - the elemental associations might work better that way. The slums would most likely be scattered around, in sub-districts fallen into disrepair or outside the city proper.
Combining the temples and the weapons, perhaps each district has a temple devoted to the Dragon of that direction, and each temple guards an ancient weapon.
Now this is great. I think it would be better to put the military section to the North (if I understand the core rulebook properly, Mela's name is some kind of battle cry for realm soldiers). And Fire makes great for the industrial area. I like the idea of having a lot of temples in the Imperial City but only five great ones, that, as you said, guard one ancient weapon. Okay, according to Kalisara's ideas, the city is build up the following way:
- West (Water, Delibarative and bureaucracy district) - North (Wind, military district) - South (Fire, industrial district) - East (Wood, trade/market district) - Earth (Middle, Imperial Palace)
Anyone else? I thought this discussion would get more attention.
There are two reasons that I can see, both of which were why I chose Nexus rather than the Imperial City:
- The Imperial City is not very friendly to non-DB characters. If you're there as a Lunar or a Sidereal or a Solar you need to play it really quietly, while DBs gets to stomp more-or-less as they please, this restricts the kind of stories you can really run there.
- We know almost nothing about it. As alluded to above there isn't even a framework of districts to hang things from, only a few named streets IIRC. While the Imperial City being tabula rasa means that nothing you write can contradict published canon there is no real context to apply to it.
Those are my opinions, anyway. - Moxiane
Maybe you're right, we do not know much about it, but I do not think that White Wolf will publish anything about it soon, so we can make our guesses, right. It is the biggest city in whole Creation - I'd like to work it out and as it is so vast, it would make for an excellent CommunalProject. And I intended the project for the use in "dynasty-based games", although it might be useful for mortal characters (I hope there are actually people who play mortal characters) or God-Blooded. And if you have to play your Celestial Exalted quietly in the Imperial City, what's the big deal about it? But I see the point - we might get into conflict with the canon, if there will be a sourcebook about the city and we have to invest much work in it's construction.
It could be a better idea to start with a Stygia Project, as it is detailed in a sourcebook (Book of Bone and Ebony) and the city itself works much like Nexus in the case of possible stories (well, there might be little chance to actually play, say, a Lunar in this place, but if the Deathlords have Sidereal servants, why should it be impossible to play a Solar in the Underworld (No Essence-Regeneration? There is a Fan-Charm to deal with that.) Jiba
- A Stygia project would be great, but problem is that, unlike Nexus which had all its districts described in full, Stygia has only had half of them described, along with their subsequent leaders. Trying to do a topic on one on the "unknown" districts could create a conflict of intrest on what that particular district represents - Paladinltd
- Hey, c'mon... All creative work on this Wiki is optional. If I do not like something about the Nexus Project, for example, I do not use it or I change it. Same goes with the fan-made Deathlords and so on. This is not much of a problem I think. If the community discusses the districts not detailed yet, we'll come to a good conclusion. Jiba
- Hey, I'm not shooting the idea down, just pointing out a potential sticking point. - Paladinltd
- Actually, all the Stygian Districts have been detailed, along with their leaders. Each one has a paragraph or so on pp. 52-53 of the Abyssal book. I believe you are thinking of the Book of Bone and Ebony, in which five districts are looked at more in depth. There are fourteen total, however: * Monarch's Way
- Water Runs Red
- Little Shoe (further detailed in BoBaE)
- The District of the Bone Lanterns (further detailed in BoBaE)
- V'ijea
- The District of Whispering Streets (further detailed in BoBaE)
- Twinborn's Death
- The Street of Swords (further detailed in BoBaE)
- Soul's Lost
- Icelord's Heart
- The Wailing Wall
- The District Where Shadows Walk (further detailed in BoBaE)
- Sunborn's Last Stand
- Coward's Way
-- OhJames who thinks the doomed feel of Stygia would make for an awesome communal project
- Oh I'm well aware of the stuff in the Abyssal book. The problem is that they're mentioned, but not detailed in full like they were in BoB&E or Scavenger Sons, and some of the leaders weren't even mentioned, like in Sunborn's Last Stand. So if anything was to be done in Stygia, we as a community would have to detail the 'other' districts and leaders ourselves - Paladinltd
- Enh. I think we have enough. We know all the leaders, save for Sunborn's Last Stand and Water Runs Red, and leadership can, and does, change quite often. I say, why not? -- OhJames
- Okay, I think we should start both projects at the same time. I like the idea of detailing the Imperial City and Stygia, so why not simply do it. If Moxiane does not mind, I'll use the structure of TheNexusProject. It'll make it easier for other wiki-users to participate as the format is already known. Jiba definitly starting both projects soon
- Was Stygia a dark mirror of the Imperial City or of Meru? If it was a dark mirror of the Imperial City, I think we might have some hints as to the layout of the Imperial City and its districts, no? notsoangrydave who might just be contributing uselessly
