Creating a Fantasy Town in Dungeons & Dragons 5e 

"If you're gonna name your town Mountaincliff, it probably shouldn't be in the middle of a field" Me: *writes an entire backstory as to why the village of Mountaincliff is in the middle of a field*

6:53 Historian here. Before the invention of the automobile, travel was so slow that nearly every town needed an inn on its main street. (Travelers would also find lodging at monasteries, so you might consider something similar, but that was driven by people on pilgrimages to cathedrals and other holy sites.) Travelers would bunk 2 to 4 to a room, sometimes with strangers, often two to a bed. And every town & village would have multiple tavern/pub/alehouses. These were often “public houses” in the literal sense: a family's house with a big room, where you could get ale & beer & usually food, not to mention music & jokes from the locals. Meeting & events were often held at pubs & inns, so the PCs might roll up on a wedding in progress.

Monty's idea on population limiting the maximum value of an item sold in a town is freaking brilliant!

Worldbuilding from the Dudes? I clicked so fast, this is a video series I need right here. The creative aspect of D&D is so much more interesting to me than optimization

A replacement for an Inn could be a monastery with a hospital; where they offer shelter for pilgrims and other travellers. This might well be outside the town or city walls, and contains all the usual NPCs, but with a monastic theme. Also, for an Enlightenment era D&D game, Coffee Shops offer a different atmosphere.

You could rewrite this: Kelly and Monty Explain every Town in Skyrim.

One classic place to stay the night in a foreign town used to be in medieval times was to sleep at the *home* of someone of equal status as you. A lord might rest by the local baron's keep, a peasant at almost any peasant hovel, and a merchant at the merchant's house. So for adventurers, I'd really feel it would be a cool place to form a base would be a quest-giving ex-adventurer: an old druid, a veteran of three wars, a mage's tower, or even the mayor who gives out the quests.

A good way to make magic NPCs without actual class levels or the MM statblocks is with the magic initiate feat. My small town priests are often commoners with Magic Initiate: Cleric, and I usually pick Guidance, Thaumaturgy and Ceremony, which are the perfect magic for a town priest

Kelly: you dont need to go into the depths of the trading mechanics Me: uh ok (crumbling the 80 page treatise on Mountaincliffs wheat conglomerate and futures market)

I know that map well - Phandalin! My players in Tyranny of Dragons fought hard to save it!

One of my core cities is Limenia - actually Latin for "thresholds" though, lore-wise, it means "crossroads" in a number of racial languages. It is situated on a fjord which enters a moderately-sized bay, forming a natural harbor, with major roads heading inland in three other directions. As a major trading hub, it has grown considerably over the years: ~ Portsmouth: The actual ring of docks and warehouses encircling and encroaching the bay, backed by a canal for smaller river craft. ~ The Hardpoint: A large solid wall built between islets, rising thirty feet above the water. Originally a smaller breakwater, it was enlarged and strengthened to provide limited outside access to the harbor; features reinforced defensive towers flanking the one major entrance, and machicolated battlements above the two minor entrances. ~ Olde Towne: Variegated terrain higher than and surrounding Portsmouth, roughly the same elevation as the top of Hardpoint. Originally the heart of Limenia, it's now the closest thing to slums the city has - very few residents are truly poor, but its age and general proximity to the noise and smells of the harbor makes the area less desirable to those who view themselves as 'having status'. ~ Limenia (proper): Six interconnected plateaus rising roughly fifty feet above sea level on the harbor side and ground-level along the outer ring. They were originally rocky outcroppings until stones were cut from the high points to build retaining walls along the river and three main roads which lead to the harbor, the remaining spaces backfilled to provide more flat land to build upon. A wide range of lifts flank these roads to raise imported goods to the various production/crafting houses and lower finished goods for export. ~ Street of Flames: More of a large irregularly-shaped plaza than an actual street, this central area is surrounded by blacksmiths, potters, bakeries, and all other manner of production houses. Direct access (via four tall gatehouses) is limited to the local soldiery and public officials - indirect access via assorted lifts, and by the connected storefronts on the Street of Scales. ~ Street of Scales: Encircling the central production area, this broad street is the main commercial hub of the city. The inner side is lined with storefronts for the numerous production houses while the outer side features clothiers, jewelers, whitesmiths, enchanters, and other crafts of a less-industrious nature. More than a dozen thoroughfares radiate outwards, connecting this area with the rest of Limenia. ~ Surrounding these areas are seven plazas (each roughly midway along a direct thoroughfare connecting a perimeter gate to the Street of Scales); each featuring a small park-like area, notable inns (with stables) and taverns, and various smaller business affairs. Each also features an inconspicuous constabulary with only the emblem of the Limenian Guard (a shield bearing a sword crossed with a large key) to indicate its presence. (These also serve as civic offices for smaller affairs like permits, paying taxes, etc.) ~ Limenia's outer perimeter is a curtain wall roughly twenty-six feet tall - featuring seven 'local' gatehouses, three 'major' gatehouses (one for each major road), and a series of portcullises which can barricade the river (in an emergency). ~ The Imperium: The civic/administrative portion of Limenia which abuts the eastern (seaward) side of the Street of Scales (also has its own direct access to the Street of Flames). All-in-all, around 23,000 people call Limenia home - ±17,000 of them residing in the main area, another ±3800 crammed into Olde Towne, and ±2200 in the farms and communities beyond the curtain wall. While the Hardpoint and curtain wall are imposing structures, the city's reputation as neutral territory for commerce and passage is a far more formidable defense. Only once, amid the War of Shadows (over a century past), was any major force fool enough to assault Limenia - four of the other six belligerents immediately called a truce and rallied together to annihilate the invading force; shortly after, they united fully to form the Kingdom of Gaelwoode. The Tavern of the Gray Dog (main hub) sits atop a slight promontory in Olde Towne, overlooking the harbor. As such, it is favored by sailors and dockworkers - they can kick back with their friends, enjoying some ale and swapping stories, while keeping a clear view of boat traffic so they know when they need to head back to meet an incoming vessel or their own ships are preparing to sail.

Having a reason for a town's existence in the town really helps with the believability of a town or village. Is it a farming town? If its on the frontier, is it a trapper/skinner's check point? Are there local mines? Do they tan furs here? Is it a way point on a caravan route? Not only does this give your players more of a sense of the place being real, but now its become part of the world with connections to other places and also the iconic sense of that sort of a locale - people generally have the sense of what a quaint farming town, or a rough miner's town, etc. etc.. The iron being mined here gets caravanned off some where, the wheat harvest is sent to the Lord's Keep/Town as the yearly taxes. Etc. Etc. Etc.

when they started talking about the town guards I started to have so many Skyrim memes start popping back to mind.

I have a port city that is governed by a changeling that is also the thieves guild leader. The queen of the area is a gold dragon. Taxes are added to her hoard.

You guys, Hello Future Me, and Artifexian are my favorites when it comes to worldbuilding stuff, just wanna put that out there. I absolutely love watching you guys make things!

The town with the dragon skeleton gives me an idea. IDEA:. The skeleton is from an ancient battle between a wizard and the dragon. Due the the wizard's hatred of dragons he cursed the dragons body into a dracolich, and forcing the body to attack any dragon that comes near the body and then return to it's final resting place. People in the past may have witnessed one of these battles take place and followed the undead dragon back to it's grave and observed it. Eventually someone brave/stupid approached the dracolich and nothing happens. They observe for many weeks until another dragon comes near and the dracolich animates and surges up to strike down the other dragon, then returns to it's resting spot. Those observing decide this could be a benifit to a town, a protector against the bane of dragons, so they try to have the skeleton moved. Due the the mystical nature of the curse, the dragon attacks those who touch it and the goes back to rest. Those in power then decide to build a small town near the dracolich, to test, forbidding all from approaching the remains for fear of death. The experiment works as the dracolich animates and attacks a new dragon in. The area and returns to the same resting place. Eventually the town grows into a large city, ever protected from dragon's from this ancient dracolich cursed to remain and fight dragons for eternity.

"This is a game, not a simulator" Maybe an underrated line as many player don't really get it.

For anyone out there into worldbuilding, there's a reason all of Europe and the eastern slice of North America have bunches of small towns 10-20miles from each other and major cities are surrounded by such small towns/villages and that's because depending on terrain, that was the distance of a day trip 'to town and back' for the rural folks to sell their goods/produce. Lumber, agriculture, wild game, minerals, waterway trade hubs, what have you, flavoring up these small towns always helps me flesh out my capital cities. And the crisscrossing of small roads and major highways gives you excuses galore for expanding your worlds with a wonderful variety of towns, villages, and cities all with their own flavors. And of course nearby conflicts to be resolved by your players! Though with dwarf/elf regions I go with different layouts Great topic, Dudes! I could blather on all day 8>D

Your content is so good. I've been playing for 30 years and dming for 8 years and such a great resource. Makes me wonder when my players tell me I run really good games who they played with before because I have learned so much to include in my games that there is no way they've been great before. Lol. Anyways thank you again for the great videos...

13:14 Maybe not noblemen (they lived in a keep in a castle surrounded by a city) but certainly a lord (gentry, not noble), who lived in a manor house next to a town, was the principle local landowner, & would make most of the administrative decisions for a town, usually thru his bailiff or the local reeve. Town mayor was a later development.

Regarding Inns, it can be quite amusing to inform your players that there aren't any Inns in town, but instead suggest they ask around for lodging instead. Regarding Raise Dead and associated spells, 500gp might not seem like a lot to a player, but when the average NPC makes 1-2.5gp a day, with lifestyle costs ranging from .1-10gp, really puts into perspective how wealthy the average starting adventurer is. Regarding Town Militas, unlike modern times, in medieval times EVERY HOUSEHOLD was expected to provide at least 1 Man equipped to the standard of that town, typically a Gambeson (Padded Armor), a Spear and Shield, though occasionally even more expensive things such as Mail, Swords, or even Crossbows. Now typically such houses might included one's grandparents, and more often than not one tended to have about half it's size in children, ie, 4 children 4 adults, usually more the more rural it was. But assuming at least 8 to a household that would still be 125 militamen ready and capable of taking on most foes.

Here's a wonderful things that DMs can and should use to help with NPC building. Sidekick classes. Seriously, Take the 'standard' guard monster from the books, and apply the warrior sidekick class to it if you need something akin to the 'elite' squad or the "Swat" steam of the town. Conversely, doing the same with the caster lets you have someone who can do magic, but keep them restrained in comparison to some of the stronger caster creatures. I could absolutely see the guards of a town being the "Guard" stat block with 1 level of warrior to give then a tiny bit more without making them beyond reasonable expectation. Seriously, the Sidekick system from Tasha's is a wonderful gift and I wish more DMs would realize it. it's there to give you NPCs with stats ready to use if they end up needing stats.

Welcome back! I noticed the DD logo on the screen under the broadcast of what could be considered a competitor’s online campaign. You have really hit the big leagues. I am so happy for you all.

I'm a veteran DM, so none of this is new for me, however, I save your videos because it's so easy to overlook basic stuff, and you lay it out very straightforwardly

23:12 no no no, do exactly that."Mountaincliff" is a town in the middle of the open plains. Why is it called "Mountaincliff" you ask? Nobody knows for sure but the locals believe it was moved by a powerful wizard hundreds of years ago... (you can make the reality something mundane like "the founder just liked the name" or make the wizard tale true..) you can have a side quest for the party to find the truth.

I love thinking of the effect simple wondrous items like the decanter of endless water can have on the world. Imagine a cave system with a river that feeds into the local watershed. All of a sudden the water levels drop by half and the people downstream have no idea why. When the party goes to investigate, they find the cave system and discover it holds the entrance to an ancient tomb of some kind. The party has to solve a relatively simple puzzle that involves a set of guardian statues holding the decanters. A party member could take one or more of the decanters, but that would have a lasting impact on the environment and the town. A cool little starter quest I think 😁

This video came at a perfect time, just started my own campaign and this will definitely help with expanding what I’ve already got written down!

I am writing a fantasy story. I have been using your advice to help organize the world it takes place in. Love the content. Keep up the good work.

Found your channel somewhat recently (about 2 months or so ago) and loved it, even backed the KS despite not generally using settings. And now, as I am freshly burned out of ideas to world build, you bring the perfect video in time for me to get back to work. Thanks!

i really genuinely respect how well these videos are structured and put together. thanks for the summary at the end, the intro, the examples and counter examples for each point. I find a lot of dnd resources are quite off the cuff, I respect the hell out of the polish on these videos.

3 and 3.5 DMG had a town builder section that had gold piece limit on items and available coin in the populace for what items would be available for purchase or for the PCs to sell. Great job guys. Thank you

Perfect timing, I'm about to get started on my first home brew and the very first set piece is a decently sized port town. I've been stressing about putting it together and this helps a lot, thanks guys.

One of your best videos yet guys! I’ve been dming for about a year now. Just running things like Phandelver and Strahd, but I’m gearing up for that big home brew campaign. This got my brain going like never before. Tight, organized video with clear steps and brilliant examples. It’s not often I comment on a video, but this earned high marks from me. Thanks guys!

In playing Icespire some of the best roll play moments took place in the inn- I have been amazed how much fun my players had tormenting the in keeper with bizarre breakfast requests.

You said that you avoid mage as a spellcastibg NPC, there's the apprentice wizard that works pretty well for this

It’s uncanny how often you dudes put out videos on the exact topics I’m struggling with at the moment I need them most! I am forever grateful 🙏🏼

Right as i feel like im in over my head designing my own campaign as it progresses, i get a video like this to help me out.

I am starting a starfinder campaign and this has helped so much! It has helped with the story, npcs, places for players and way to let the party have a safe space. I love your content and thank you so much!

This is one of my favourite types of videos other than the sub class rankings/ class guides. LOVE hearing about your worldbuilding ideas. I struggle with this particular topic IMMENSELY!

thank you for the thorough breakdown of some really good questions to ask as putting together a town/village/city/etc. on a side note - someone from the team should prob check the kickstarter page comments. just saying.

I recently started DMing for the first time. To make it easier on myself, I decided to start with existing stuff, so I'm using Eberron setting (Q'Barra, to have sufficient wiggle room) and the first adventure is a modified version of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh' first adventure. The way I built my first town was taking the map of Saltmarsh, and list of locations within, and simply going down the list and modifying anything I felt like didn't belong in the setting, plus adding a couple hooks relevant to my players' individual quests, should they choose to pursue them. That became my version of Adderport. I ended up creating way more NPCs, and dynamic between them, than I originally intended. The world just started forming in front of me. Maybe it's a personal thing, and won't help everyone, but for me, creative work is infinitely easier when I have a hook to start from, even if the result ends up being unrecognizable from the source.

This was awesome timing, I appreciate what you guys do you got me into running a game for my family.

I built one city map that had _four_ taverns for just a few thousand residents, but it was full of people on their way somewhere else, as it straddled the only river in a desert and pretty much anyone traveling would follow the river. I was setting up a "get the Macguffin" type adventure where the party had the discretion to acquire the item any way they saw fit -- buy it, steal it, mug the owner, seduce the owner, convince someone near the owner to steal it for them, all the options were on the table -- and the party was all bards, traveling as a touring band. The four taverns worked out well -- I only added one more piece of info about them, which was the owner's feelings about the other taverns, and why. Two of them were owned by the separate halves of a divorced couple and although there was no open hostility, there was obviously a lot of rivalry. The party leaned heavily on the band front, so I designed many of the locations around scenes from _The Blues Brothers._

"If you got a large town, you can design 3 but really you can get away with one." I dont know why, but my first responding thought was "but wouldn't a large travel-hub naturally lead to more then one being made". To which my mind answered: "The one inn operates as an illegal monopoly, whenever a rival starts an inn or BNB they have their goons sabotage them, in subtle ways first, escalating until they eventually just burn the whole place down. Now the party gets hired by a goblin who wants to figure out why their B&B is failing". So, i want to thank you for providing my next story-hook.

I've watched dozens of your videos now, and I think this is the most impressive. Fantastic video, gents.

Thank you. I didn't realize how badly I needed this information. Keep up the great work.

The 3.5 DMG had a lot of good information about this sort of thing. I've used it for a number of cities I've built for games in the past.

wow, this might be my favorite video of your all’s i’ve watched. good stuff in here i could feel my creativity getting unlocked

as always, great video. Backed the Kickstarter and I can't wait for shipping!

in a dnd world where adventurers are somewhat common, it might be also more common for small towns to have a inn that always has 3 rooms for adventureres that pass by. if the town is very isolated, let them roleplay their way to find a suitable resting place ;)

Backed the Kickstarter. Can't wait for the PDF and Hardcover!!

28:32 - Building a defensive wall in the middle of nowhere is generally exorbitantly expensive and thoroughly impractical...? Huh, who could have ever foreseen *_that?!?_*

I would love to see a series in this vein for more worldbuilding tips! This is excellently formatted and easy to follow with a comprehensive checklist at the end to help ensure all fronts are covered!

I will point out that in small towns, certain weapons that are metal intensive, and metal intensive armors will typically be rare (taking more skill, time, and expensive ore to make). Frontier or forestry focused towns will tend to stock axes, bows, and arrows, as well as leather and cloth armors. Mining towns will have more picks, crossbows and bolts, and studded armor will be common. Farming towns will favor spears, javelins, shields and cloth armor.

One may add that sometimes the name of a town doesn't make any sense. For example.. "Goldberg" german for gold(en) mountain. In the middle of the flat land without a bit of gold in sight. It's also known as the city of three lies. "No gold. No mountain. Not a city." Or that whatever the reason for a town was, may change. The mines running dry ect

-Reason for towns existence (nearby mine, good farmland, good grazing, strategic importance etc.). Why do people live here? -How do the the people live here? All the townsfolk need the basic necessities; food, shelter, clothing, and tools/means to make a living. -What is the local government like? Local council, a mayor or bergermeister appointed by a ruler, a democratically elected official? -How does the local government operate and enforce the law?

The town of Vander. A town on the coast of a Marsh. Popular fishing and trade port, with its major export being rum. That’s my first and only town lol

Thank you very much for this video. it had a lot of very useful information, guidelines, and tips for a situation I struggle with.

Great advice here, as always in your videos! i start first with establishing the practicalities of food supply, water, refuse disposal, etc ... and then next i certainly would follow your outline here for presenting the town in terms of what the PCs will want to do. at least for me, i start first with the practicalities, and then i know how to adjust for whatever the PCs will end up doing

"Dragon's End? Naw, that's up the road a-ways. This here's Dragon's Front."

Love the feeder villages part. Really helps to expand the focus beyond just the town itself. Outside of the town there’d be an entire support network providing food, raw materials, supplies and income.

Just as I was sitting down to think about this very topic. Love it

First time viewer. Really liked this. Organized, no unnecessary tangents. This video respects that I’m a busy DM who wants answers now. So, you get to the point. Well done! ✨💎✨

Worldbuilding is one of the things I would love to see brought forward to 5e. Cityscape and Deities & Demigods were a couple of my favorite sourcebooks in the 3.5e era. Even now, they're still fantastic resources; while a bit might be system specific, a good chunk of those books are just about worldbuilding in general.

One has to also consider the governmental/social structure of the wider realm to determine the local authority structure as well. For example, a feudal kingdom will have a small town effectively run by a baron or landed knight (influences from the church and any relevant trade guilds would also be pertinent).

To the population and the housing...Remember that your usual town and even village will have people who will not be well off enough to own a house. So you will have your streets or outskirts with tents or ramshackle buildings. In addition this can be used as insight how well the town is run for your group and even work as an adventure hook.

Happy to have seen this so fast. Bummer I missed the Kickstarter.

The ancient tradition was hospitality. The local owner was expected to host travellers as if they were friends. To do otherwise was to risk sin or the wrath of the gods. Hosting travellers turned out to be popular and lucrative. Inns were founded early on, funded by wealthy investors such as feudal lords, religious orders, and wealthy merchants. Inns were often public houses, offering basic food, drink and shelter to everyone as a charity which was considered an obligation (i.e. hospitality). Better fare, accommodations, and an extended stay were for paying patrons. Even the poor that ate for free were expected to compensate the host with services or goods in kind. So, every respectable household was an inn, if there were no better accomodations.

Thanks, this was VERY helpful!

Thank you for doing these videos, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D

The central village (story-wise) in my homebrew is the small town of Nevermore. Governed by a council of closeted wereravens. The primary arc of the campaign centers around the blacksmith, who's wife saved the town from the plague, then died in childbirth, and his young son, who will eventually turn heel and become the big bad. This vid was really well timed.

Fantastic video guys! It gave me lots of helpful ideas.

Your videos are so fun to watch and amazingly enough have been a huge inspiration for me as I carve out my own little corner of the starwars universe. For Starwars their city is a space station that is part museum part three ring circus and part safe house. It could be a lot of fun to flush things out a bit further and transform this into our very own cloud city type station.

i read the advanced fighting fantasy book "blacksand" this had an in depth discussion on how to creat a town.

This is a fantastic framework gents, thank you!

I always overthink this. I also tend to deal with two other questions: 1. Is this location contested? (Politically, culturally, or is it in terrain under conflict for resources) 2. What does the town do with their dead? Graveyard? Burn? Crypts below town or in a cave? These often lead to other hooks. If a town is in a frontier (as Adventurers tend to foray outward), why is this town not walled? Does it lack resources to make a palisade, is it under the protection of another force, or has its leadership formed an agreement with local peoples? (Orcs, goblins, elves, etc). Answering this can say a lot about a towns "feel". Players who wander into a town expecting one thing to be surprised by the Goblin barkeep or Elvish temple is a source of storytelling. What's the origin story of the community, and is this contested? When it comes to names, humanity tends to mash names into quicker bites over time. "Darren Town" might become "Darrenton", then "Darnton". Also, how other cultures and faiths name is important. Consider Constantinople/Istanbul. Who conquers may rename communities. Or a community might have two names. To humanity, it's "Darnton", but to the elves who resent the Invasion of their local woods, they may call it "Cutters Haven".

While thinking of my character's hometown, I got to thinking as to what it's called with the problems you mentioned; there's a lot to look into. Here are some key examples with the resources: 1. Mines with regenerating ore veins (takes 50 years to do so) as long as the heart stone remains undisturbed 2. Farmlands that are more fertile than a drow priestess during "mating time" 3. Water from an underground source that never runs dry In other words, the land is so vibrant that it's basically self-sustaining due to magical properties (possibly blessed by good gods/goddesses) and I just don't know what to call it

Just started making my first town a couple days ago, perfect timing, guys;

You can't necessarily compare it to real world villages and towns, because they wouldn't have had roving monsters, bandits and adventurers, but it does depend on the world you've built. The less safe the world, the more likely the town has a good weapons shop. A village/ town could have sprung up near a dungeon, mostly to supply adventurers.

FWIW: The word for a river crossing is a ford. So, the city that grew up on the crossing of the river Rom is called Romford and the one on the Chelmer river is called Chelmsford

Starting a new campaign and just sent this to the player who’s taken on the cartographer role. As DM, I’m excited to learn about the players home village after she creates it.

Only 3 min in and I can say this in a great video. You can use base town as the beginning if any and all campaigns. Great stuff here!

I would really like to see an episode when you talk about what books, movies, tv series inspire you when creating campaigns. Really like your channel so much

if the village is off the beaten track then there probably is not an inn, what might be present are a few empty unused buildings that visitors can use to lodge in. There might be a tavern but consider a small village might not even have a tavern they might congregate around the house of the brewer.

I was actually so intimidated by towns that I’m running my first campaign with a Hamlet, so I could justify fleshing out like one major shop and a single tavern.

Something to remember about medieval style towns, for every person in the town there will be 4 to 5 people living in the immediate vicinity (but not the town) engaged in farming (i.e. serfs). A town of 100 people will have 4-500 farmers living "outside" of the town, a town of 500 people will have 2,000 - 2,500 farmers in the area. They will live in small hamlets, (typically two to five homes, surrounded by farmable fields) that don't have any retail establishments -- no taverns, no inns, no general stores, no blacksmiths (although there may be a forge used by a travelling black-smith who comes by every few weeks for a couple of days), etc. There will be a web of roads / tracks that link these hamlets with the town, there will not be a lot of travel on these paths, except on market day. The people in these hamlets are going to be dirt-poor and will be very wary of strangers. This holds true for larger town and even cities, although as the town or city gets bigger, some of the hamlets will get big enough to be classed as villages or even towns in their own right. And another thought, since families will have lots of children, (families having 8 or more kids will be the norm), upwards of half of the population will be children or young-teenagers.

Great stuff guys, very inspiring.

We love you guys!!!! Great content!

As an alternative to saying "there's a caravan/peddler who'll buy the loot that the locals can't afford," you can simply make an adventure out of going to a place that's rich enough to buy the loot. In one case, my players recovered a beautiful gem called St. Martalia's Tear, and I made it clear that they could unload it locally if they wanted to, but if they wanted to get its full value, they'd have to go to the Dwarven Empire. Getting the gem was one adventure, but getting to the Dwarven Empire to sell it was about four adventures, and they'd leveled up twice by the time they got there.

Man you guys have gotten pro over the years. That outro was slick as they come.

This is a superb, information and tip filled video, the best I've seen on this subject and creation overall. I could not stop taking notes. If someone wants to see an example of the troubles in a town with two resources/industries as the basis for the troubles, see the film "Yojimobo" with the conflict between the silk merchant and the Sake brewer, and also get to see a 20th level Fighter Samurai at work. This is full of great NPC ideas and situations and plot hooks.

Love this video,I'm heading to incarnate and world anvil to start working

Nice work on the video!

Regarding the magic users in small town: I'm running a high magic campaign. Around 50 % of people in my setting have some sort of magic, but majority of "magic users" have just one or two spells not higher than 2nd level. The spell usually pertains to their occupation or history. The local guard has Zone of Truth, which helps them solving crimes. Local noble has Prestidigitation keeping their presentation spotless. Local cleric can Cure Wounds but like one time a day so they don't blast it left and right. I like a lot of fantasy in my fantasy and magic helps my world seem less like the world I live in. :)

I wish this was around for my first 'town' I made a monster of a city, using the premise of Krenkos Way from Ravnica as the first major quest and introduction to the city. Changed names of districts and organizations to make things feel more like my own, as well as added a few aspects that didn't exist orignally. I had 5 districts in this metropolis, each one standing for a different thing. And the city had about 3000 People, but was (in hind site) far to large for that population. I had a labyrinthine sewer system that I didn't put enough thought into, I had whole areas of the city that were totally abandoned because at no point did my players go there. The first few session went okay, but after those it quickly went down hill with one player doing something I wasn't ready for. And looking back, I see I railroaded this group way to hard. ^^' So, thanks Dudes for making this. Hopefully the next time i try my hand and DMing, these tips will help me make something far more manageable and just as interesting.

The red hand of doom was a amazing adventure back in the day. I think I still have my copy in storage

27:30 The justice of the peace was empowered to restrain drunks and whatnot via a constable using watchmen, who might amount to just a couple men during the day and a couple at night for a town of 1000. At night, watchmen would arrest and hold any stranger until morning. A sheriff (shire-reeve) was in charge of legal business for a whole shire, but lords might well have their bailiff hang a prisoner without involving the sheriff. Bandits and other outlaws would be hunted by the sheriff and a posse comitatus (group of men willing to hunt and fight outlaws for a few days).

About your blacksmithing commentary I would like to add that all half decent smiths knew how to make knives, spears, axes, and arrows. Swords were a little specialized but longer knives for cutting away weeds and the like were a common thing to find. Farriers were not as common and nails were expensive only used by high end carpenters and for heavy wood doors. Castles were amazing for blacksmiths. A family of smiths would end up very wealthy after being involved in a castle construction. So smiths could make just about anything when asked. These people were smart enough to create and design new tools.

While it is true that most settlements in a preindustrial, European inspired, society wouldn't have an inn or tavern, most settlements that a party visits would. This is because inns pip up along major trade routes, and near important or large settlements that would expect a regular of visitors. These visitors bring problems, and the large populations create problems, problems which the party are looking to solve, and interesting areas are interesting.

Yes, different centers of power can do wonders for a town: history, roleplay, quests based on rivalries, etc. Rare resurrection magic makes sense for small towns. It makes sense for the reasons you state, especially in low magic situations. If one were to go high magic, there is a different question: why ISN'T everyone living for a long time if this magic is common?