Need Outside Thinkers

[Mourngrymn]

Ok. After much thought and deliberation I have begun a new game. Outside of the norm I decided to use a printed module which quickly turned into my own design. Pretty much am only using the main NPCs and loose basics of the story. Now what I plan on doing is taking the beginning of this module and then throwing my players into Hellgate.

A wonderful idea I think however. I am at a loss. What to put in Hellgate? I already have a list of antagonists with the 13 Tribes detailed in the Hellgate sub but what I am looking for is help with giving Hellgate some life.. I need to turn Hellgate itself into a living NPC of its own and am coming up blank. What to put it it? Do I separate the entire underground metropolis of a city into sections? Zones? Districts? By what they were used for in it's life before its destruction or do I separate them into areas that have now changed? Perhaps I'm over thinking. Just needing a bit of a push to get me moving. The players are not near going to Hellgate as of yet but knowing them they will throw me a curve ball and it will be sooner than I want.

[Mourngrymn]

So far Hellgate has emerged thus. Will be brining more soon. Any help oradvice would be appreciated.

1) district 1 : a typical destroyed section of the city. Approximately fourteen city blocks of rubble and debris. Tilted shattered walls and large chunks of statues litter the few walk able paths. Due to the chaotic half hazard order of the destruction there are few clear paths on the ground, with most paths meandering over large slabs of walls that have fallen.

2) district 2 : this section is highly unique in that while nearly being untouched the entire zone is upside down. The buildings, streets, even a water fountain that somehow still seems to be functioning, all rest on the ceiling. the magical forces that destroyed the city also caused unstable effects to occur And when walking into the area one notices quickly this as they rush to the ceiling as if falling up. Apparently the unstable magic has caused the gravity to shift in this area.

3) district 3 : almost entirely covered with some form of water. The outer fringe of the zone looks more like a edge of a marsh with underground flora clinging to the shallow, mineral enriched waters. On entering the water peaks of building tops protrude from the surface declaring the watery graveyard of what lays below the surface. It is not a complete dead area though. Most of the buildings made of stone are still in tact and have large pockets of air trapped within making shelter possible under the watery surface. With the unstable vents beneath the water prevalent constant air is pumped into the water keeping it at a slow lazy churn as well as keeping air trapped in the intact buildings.

[Scrasamax]

Not being familiar with Hellgate I dont know where to start offering help.

But if you are wanting the city of Hellgate to be functionally an NPC, you would need to start characterizing it. Give it moods, you can reflect this from architecture, or in non-combat encounters. What sort of character would Hellgate be if it was a person? 

[Mourngrymn]

Hellgate is..... hell. To put it mildly. It is, or was, a metropolis that was destroyed by the gods because of their hubris. However due to the magical influence of the city it wasn't destroyed completely. Instead it was thrust under the earth where survivors peck out a meger life as best they can, degrading into basic instinctual urges and segregating into different tribal societies where crazy and insane are the norm.

It is far more complicated than that however. In a nutshell it's a place that gives life to those who are strong enough to take it yet is constantly trying to cull the weak.

I am wanting each area to have its own life. It's own moral compass that fails to point north, or even south for that matter. I think I am wanting to push this into a more horror filled nightmare instead of a dungeon crawl/ hack and slash.

[Silveressa]

One thing I would suggest is picking up the Kult rpg books either dead tree of .pdf (I can help with assisting you obtaining them in .pdf format  just drop me a PM)

Kult at it's core has a vast  forgotten city condemned by the gods (called Metropolis) and is quite detailed in the Metropolis source book; so would give you a lot of ideas on how to present a city of purgatory and it's denizens.

[Mourngrymn]

Ill look into it. Im looking to make a place where each tribe can call their own home and it is unique to each, more like multiple cities within a single city. So unfortunately I will need to detail at least 13 zones... yay me. BTW I found the Kult stuff Ill look into it.

[Forganthus]

DC comics has a traveling, appearance-changing, sort of multidimensional street.  I can imagine it being scaled up to a whole city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_the_street

[Chaosmark]

Were you intending for it to be at least partially an urban-crawl? If so, you might check out Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. It contains some truly excellent resources for dynamically generating a city, its inhabitants, and its events. On-the-fly building creation rules (literally taking 10 seconds to generate a basic floorplan), organic street generation (especially nice for chase scenes), etc.

Now that I think of it, Hellgate as an underground urban-crawl could probably be run using mostly rules from said kit. The two are extremely similar in my imagination.

[Aramax]

How about you create an NPC that is the living embodiment of the city . Only w/a twist
first of all theres hundreds of them ,what one knows they all know and look alike,act alike
1) an old wino,pukes belches and yells.He wants praise and adoration,one is differant,he will actively thwart any plan that will make the city look bad
2) or a street urchin that will churlishly ask questions,hes there to be abused
3)Fat matronly busy body always telling peoples plans and sticking her nose in
4) Fine Dandy seeking adventure and death
5)demon that acts and talks like a puppy,will follow until something shine Catches its eye

[Gossamer]

If it's hell, why not loosely base some districts off the 7 deadly sins. Greed is obviously going to be a rich area with banks and manors, lust is red lights district, jealousy is riddled with theft, wrath could have an arena etc. Make the whole city a downward spiral, literally, with the worst sins at the bottom. Maybe a tad obvious, but you can always tone it down.

[caesar193]

You could have the moods of the city be reflected by the weather pattern. Like if its feeling vengeful, or angry, or something, there could be lightning, or if its feeling mysterious, fog. And then you could have encounters for the players based on those weather patterns. Like in the lightning one, you could have some flaming balrog thing attack, or some other monster or event that reflects the mood. Like have it be sunny and then give the players a helpful occurrence.

And you could work in the bad mood weathers into the cultures and traditions of the tribe. Like each tribe is scared of lightning, only with a good reason. And then the players could see if Hellgate particularly likes them or not, based on their weather. And then you could be justified in giving each PC their own personal rain cloud! ("It's not me that hates you, it's Hellgate!")

Has this advice arrived too late? Have the PCs hit Hellgate yet? And if they have, did the die?

[Murometz]

Has this advice arrived too late? Have the PCs hit Hellgate yet? And if they have, did the die?

Not sure about his PCs, but Mourngrymn has written up http://strolen.com/viewing/Hellgate_Prison

[Murometz]

If it's hell, why not loosely base some districts off the 7 deadly sins.

I think we have one of those actually on the main site, but the name of the sub escapes me unfortunately