The Fabulous Unknown City - Foundational Document

So I'm getting ready to run a new game come April! It's exciting. I found a bunch of players all champing at the bit and I'm going to run the Fabulous Unknown City.

I always start with the people, places and things - try to come up with static locales and people to inhabit them - and then from there - evolve motivations and plan interactions. So this is the main design document for this game. To be manipulated and referenced in an ongoing way. Fun.

The Zeros - (AKA - NPCs and PC draw-pool)
The unaffiliated, shipwrecked & exiled.
The Lost & Never Found
- New arrivals in the F.U.C. They're possibly available to join the PCs - Not sure if they'll be made up - depending on my desire to put together pathfinder characters they'll be statted and created.

Unorganized pockets of contemporaries- those who've been sent to the Fabulous Unknown City in recent memory

Main Locale – The Botanic Gardens & Bazaars – greenhouses & the abandoned easy to access places, easy to enter simple to maintain, porous and impossible to defend. And as well all the places in between, the unclaimed nothing-places. - I guess that the Botanic Garden, one of them, will be the 'spawn point' where the players appear for the first time in the F.U.C.

Notables -


3W – The Iron Tree Proficient – Man on the Mission (Expert/Rogue? Some devised class)
2C – The Mission-Man – the Rescue operator – here for his lady-love & lost (Paladin/Crusader?)
10C – Perfect Hero – the Kingtycoon – who's come to see for himself (Barbarian/?)
2W – Cartographer – The one who tries to measure the bounds (probably another Iron Tree guy)
PW – The Revolutionary in Exile – trying to organize (Three Family Village Represent)
AS – The Summoner of Birds and Lightning – the Singer of Best Songs (Trudo? Can I bring back old NPCs? He's pretty swell)

Alchemists of Execution
Experiementers – Mad Physicians, Capturers & Surgeons of Terrifying Surgeries


Remnant Inheritors of some forsaken science mission. They hunt those who are here to experiment upon – hideously. Renniasance physician masks – crows & ravens (HUGS!)


Main Locale – The Hanging Plaza, the Meathook Forest, the flaying grounds. Abbattoirs – impromptu & dedicated as well.

Notables -
QC – The Gentle Lady, The Nurse With the Wound, the Anaesthetic Angel

2S – The Healer of the Mind's Torments – the Lobotomist

3S – The Weeping Man, the Ceaseless crying scalpel man
AC – The Master of Blood – the Bleeding King
AW – The Man on Fire
8W – The Nerve-Man, the synaptic ninja, the quickest snicker-snack man


Cemetery Queens
Mistresses of Corpses, Ghoul Mothers, Flesh-eaters **

The carrion-eaters of the anthive cannibal mother, descendents of the most hopeless and outcaste – the real remnants of the foundational proles. Tribunicians of the Dead.

Main Locales – The Boneyard, the quiet grove, the still-still cemetery – the Necropolis or the family tomb.

Notables -
KC – Houseboat of the Feaster on the drowned
HS – The Sleeping King's Valet

5S – The Defeated Man, Crucified and wailing, the failure messiah

KW – The One Who Refashions the Ancient World. My Avatar, the Pradeheharadim
KP – The Subway Captain



The Faerie Titans
The old-guard, the elementals and the spirits, the kings and queens of prehistory, the remannt djinni summoned once and trapped forever

They were brought by the will of ancient people and moulder here still, governed by ideas and ideals, they guard the ancient notions

Main Locales – The field of honor, the old courthouses & arenas, the places of high ideals and judgment, the police station.



Notables -
PC – The lady in the lake

8S – The man with no arms
5S – The chaotic man who attempts

KS – The wild huntsman

4W – the great architect – the Urban Planner

Sons of the Kannyltines
Descendants of the ancient crusades, the lost company, the brigadooners

Weird orthodoxy of the ancient imperial schools, they are obsessed with the soldier's vice of gambling.

Main Locales – The casino, the gambling lands, the houses of chance & folly. The brokedown log fort

Notables -
QS – The kite-flyer
10S – The Desolater, the Breaker, the old campaigner & destroyer

9S – The Defeater – the Conqueror, the brutal, angry warrior
4P – The Winner, the Winner of the Games, the Contender
KS – The Blimp Commander

SW – The Champion, The ruler of the Games of Chance, the old Champ

Torture Priests
The Haters of Gods, the Temple defilers, the madman god-kings of a lost and fallen age.

Whatever ruling classes once governed the city are now the most degenerate of the powers of the city, the most wicked and hateful.

Main Locales – Dungeons. The underworks, the basement, under your bed.

Notables -
PS – The Howling Wind Woman, the Screaming Lady in the tunnel

2P – The Rebuilder, the helpful hand, the house-elf
AP – The God in the Basement, the dusty man, the Earth Elemental

10W – The capturer, the enslaver, the Tyrant God
KS – The Howling Commander – the lightning striker, the Thunder
9P – The Dragon, the man in the vault



Homesteaders in the Ruins
The Hopeful, the escapees, the hopeful ones, the wishers of humble wishes

Castoffs of the more extreme sects, they just want to get by, they just want to make the city live again. They are devotees of the city, their loyalty lies with it.

Main Locales – The fallen palaces, the broken towers, the shattered remains. They huddle in once grand places.

Notables -
QP – The Kindly mother, the plow mistress
6P – The Successful Man
3P – The Hard Working Man
3C – The Cornucopia lady
KC – The man who controls the Dam
7C – The faker – the one who pretends to have all of the success but has none


Cable-Car Riders
They ride the cables, they govern the city as raiders and ruiners, they're the madman berserkers that ride the cars and spread the ruin of the city.

Madmen who've grown the most dysfunctional and have lost all sense of sense, they're ruthless barbarians with no agenda beyond destruction, no ideology beyond the brotherhood of ruckus

Main Locales – the transit stations, the power-house, the radiant center-of-the-plex. The energy & cables, the transmission of all force through the city.

Notables -
PP – The Warrior of the Echoing Hills Station
8P – The Wise Warrior, the Sage tactician
5P – The brokedown rider, the cable-cutter
5C – The dissolute addict, the drug-fueled maniac
KW – The rider on the burning destroyed cable-car
9W – The Ogre Goliath


Warriors of the Seasons
The Hermetic Warrior Gangs, Earth, Wind, Water & Fire – the abundant turf-seekers. The bile-armies

Gangsters and go-betweens, they rule the streets, and master over the coming and going between the wards, they boss and bully the others they rule and protect & wreck.

Main Locales – The 4 Gates, the 4 Seasonal Centers, the Sundials

Notables -
10P – The Miner King, the Moleman Dragon
7P – The one who has it all and nothing
8C – The dam breaker, the acid rainer
6C – The Happy man, the cackling madman
7W – The Fireman

The Secret King
The Unknown Ancient Master The One who lost it all who ruined everything and remains as punishment

He and his cohort linger at the pleasure palaces, they swing on the abandoned swingsets, they go down the slides. They care nothing for anything, their dreams were crazed and their realizations have stunned them.

Main Locales – The playgrounds, the abandoned disneyland, the holodeck

Notables -
QW – The Burning City Queen
6S – The one who made it happen, the great mind
9C – The Glad, Rich Man
4C – The Video-Game Player
5W – The shit-stirrer

(no subject)

It's all just gotten too much. What exactly - I can't point to. And I'm not especially busy - except, you know, with self-appointed projects. I'm knee deep in campaign planning now - that's always a reward, and I'm perpetually working on this project - I don't know - I think it's kind of ambitious - magic spells and like, crafts - for the Plainswoman. Something personal and ephemeral, not to be documented. But! I'll be happier looking back on this entry, years and years from now, to know that that was occupying me, and that's also the reason I was behind.

oh, and a book - I got one of those to work on. Tests and skill training, shoot, work - I got that all day long and it's getting frustrating. Thwartedness and frustration - those are the feelings just now, maybe - not frustration, but I can sense that there's some antagonism in the world, some animosity somewhere building up against me - does that sound weird? I can tell. Curses don't work on me fools. Cause they don't work - not really. At least not how you think.

But yes, there's a thinness to things and a weariness that sits heavy on my back. Today it was bright and almost beautiful, so I walked a goodly way home up through the backstreets of Little Italy - which is a comfort regardless of whether it's just a tourist trap - it's still an old-timey neighborhood and I could stand a bit of old-timey now. A cheap bar to linger in after work instead of hiding home in the dark all money-free and anxious.