How to Make A Fantasy City in Dungeons & Dragons 5e 

Honestly tried making a fantasy city as the centerpiece for a campaign I was working on. It’s pretty hard, this video honestly helped out a lot

9:36 you guys forgot the hex map! I was quite intrigued by that!

You really went to town with this one!

One thing I have found really add flavor to a city is also its local cuisine. A couple of dishes that are special to this city. It adds a lot.

Your mention of districts, docks, etc. made me think of the city of San Francisco, particularly around the early 20th century. Finding a map of that city with its districts from that era might serve as a good starting point for creating a fantasy city.

A lot of great points here. One more I'd add I heard from a teacher once just observing how things changed in modern times in terms of city dwelling. They were thinking about Mexican cities as that was their background but they said that back in the day rich people used to live close to city center as a means of safety for not just crime and stuff but also for like disasters and fires. If your house is in the city center and the fire department needs to put it out, it's easier if you're close by. If you are less well-off you lived further and ran greater risk of dying in some kind of disaster like that. It really gives a lot of food for thought about how life has changed.

When you're thinking about the old town district remember it's not always a rich/good area. Some of the oldest areas of Cairo are also some of the poorest. And Sumerian cities often ended up on hills, because they literally built right on top of older stuff, forming a mound. The old town could be literally under the new.

I'm really glad you brought up the distinction between drinking water lines and wastewater sewers. As an extra detail, while most wastewater sewers in the past were combined sewers (sanitary sewer and stormwater sewer), a city could have a more modern system with separate stormwater and sanitary systems, in which case the sewers your characters might actually be able to walk through would probably just be stormwater sewers, which are still pretty gross but not as gross. On the otherhand, if you do stick with a more historical combined sewer system, you could have problems arise like combined sewer overflows, where a large storm event floods the sewers and all the nastiness starts flowing out of the sewer and into the streets.

Something to add to that list of amazing cities: Piltover and Zaun. Arcane is a masterclass of how to do a city setting in anything, including rpgs

I like to draw inspiration of looking at university campuses. I remember looking at a campus map and thinking it looked like a small town map for D&D. If you want a bigger map for a bigger city, just change the scale and maybe add a few sections.

I've started three separate cities: Stavros, Redgarden, and Anvil. The City of Anvil was never completed on Nerdarchy's site, but I still have all of the notes. A Dwarven-majority city, it was intended to be setting neutral, and have some custom playable races as well as new villains for the players to face.

The current idea I have for a city is that it is basically a giant layered ziggurat. The base layers basically is an undercity that contain the sewers and other utilities but also act as a slum. Above that you have a working/middle class residential area, common inns, smaller shops. The foundation of the next level has many of the bureaucratic and social services that commoners might need access to. The surface above that one is a more opulent market district with more imported and rare goods but also entertainment like theaters and gambling. The foundation of the next base has a gladiatorial arena like the Colosseum. Above that is the acropolis district where nobles and the wealthy reside. The final base and layer is the palace proper.

Ravinica from Magic is a really good large high fantasy city to steal from with its guilds as districts. Added bonus there is a ton of free assets available.

So helpful thank you. One thing I would add is be sure to name your districts, it adds flavor and let's you reuse the same districts over without PCs knowing it. Sure every city has the slums, but this city has The glucht, and the last one had Beggars Hill. The docks named Kings Port is very different then The Moore.

Great timing. I have been working on a human/Dwarven city in the Underdark where all the various races gather to trade and negotiation treaties. The elevator pitch was Babylon 5 meets the Underdark. I like the concept of having trader and delegation from normally hostile races wandering around the town while trying to get a leg up on each other.

The book, "Vornheim" is a great tool for building any fantasy city. So easy and innovative.

Another thing to consider is that, while in a town there may be one or two events (civil and religious festivals, fairs, etc), in a big enough city it would be possible to have an event basically every other week. They won't be attended by everyone (there may be a few that will), but every group of people (class, race, job, religion) would have their own important dates: the religious festivities of different religions and gods, pilgrimages to the city temples, trade fairs and specialized once-in-a-year markets, agriculture festivities (such as harvest or spring festival), royal events such as the monarch's birthday... And also one-off events are more common, such as the opening of a new place (temple, theater, arena), or even coronations and other coming-of-age ceremonies of nobles. On top of that, we could also think how those events could have evolved over time. For instance, the spring festivity could have worked as some kind of coming-of-age ceremony for the common people because it was the first time they gathered outside after the winter, and now it's basically a festival when people go to the park, eat outdoors, and have a party at night with music & dance where young people have their first "adult event", even having some kind of symbology associating the spring with youth. So, someone saying "yeah, I met my wife in our springer" is understood by everyone they interact with.

One of my all time favorite fantasy cities is Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms campaign. Also, a cool and complicated addition to a fantasy city could be a Hall of The Door leading to Sigil. Another would be a Spelljammer port. This would be an amazing way to bring in other player character races like tie flings. Or, Gods forbid, Tinker Gnomes to your campaign.

Great advice points. Im currently in the world building states of my next grand campaign and I don’t want to leave ANYTHING out. We’ve just started our next campaign so I know I have at least a year to plan this thing. These tips will definitely help speed up the city building process greatly when that comes time, currently I have 4 large cities, 7 medium sized cities and several towns to design and shape and world build. Wish me luck. Will not stop binging these videos in the background

Evert visit Rothenburg ob der Tauber? It's a walled medieval city in Germany. There aren't districts, it's just stuff wherever someone built it. Kinda silly having a "Tavern district". "Well, I'd like a beer but don't feel like walking all the way to the Tavern distric across townt." If you are going to have districts, a better idea would be populate them each with a little of everything, i.e., taverns, inns, leatherworkers, banks, churches/temples, etc..

My players are currently operating out of Colna, the city of craftsmen. My biggest draw was a magic item auction that happens once every couple years. But they mostly just stay in the adventure district

One iconic thing. For sure. I remember running the City-State of the Invincible Overlord some decades ago, and while I won't spoil it, the actual origin of that one was one heck of an iconic feature! Well said, indeed!

This is a very fortunate coincidence. I run a campaign with my students at a high school and they just leveled up to 6. They're about to enter the main city of the campaign and I needed ideas for crafting. Thank you!

I live and breathe for the world building guides! I'm so excited to watch this that I'm going to wait until I'm home with a cup of coffee

I made a city in my world called Eternity. It's built under an enormous mountain, and has five towns within it. It doesn't have a docking district, underground and all, but it's illuminated by a large hallowed-out area on one side of the mountain. It has most everything D&D inside it that any player or DM could want.

Incredible timing as my players just started traveling and are going to visit their first large-ish city literally next session! Currently developing that city, Helbreth Keep, plus the capital of the kingdom which they'll visit soon after, and this video was super helpful. Helbreth Keep (named after its ruling noble family's castle) is known for its ale and mining, due to a giant crystal formation in the lake at the edge of town that has become the center of a network of mine shafts to extract gems. Hoping it feels unique and memorable!

This was awesome guys--well timed as I'm literally working on my homebrew world cities this week! Great springboards.

So glad to hear you give Civ VI a shoutout! Two years ago when I went to make my first city I used Civilization VI's Worldbuilder because I had played the game so much and that was the way I thought about cities. Humankind needs to allow district and building placement in its map maker

Creating a campaign for the first time. It feels good to have made a town and already done everything I am seeing in videos like these. Even if I have already done these things, it's still helpful from a confidence aspect since I've only done like 4 sessions of D&D and decided to start making my own homebrew campaign out of excitement.

Good timing. I've been working on some prep for a city-based game (Barbarians of Lemuria, not D&D, but the principles are the same). Thanks for the advice. Some good stuff. I'm planning to have my campaign centered primarily around a single neighborhood, inspired by Ponte Vecchio in Florence, though it's possible that occasionally they'll have to travel beyond.

I'm currently involved in a home-brew campaign set in a home-brew continent, so this is a nice look at how they went to figure out!

As always, your videos give me lots of ideas! Since most dieties have more than one domain, it would make sense if there were temples dedicated to the different domains of each god. A temple of Light might look very different from a temple of Life or Order. Lesser deities might only have one temple, but multiple orders of priests based upon different domains. Thanks guys!

In my Lovecraftian weird western I have the city of Carcosa situated on the coast of the continent. It's verging on becoming a mega city complete w many different industries, especially as it swallows up smaller cities and towns as it expands. I also have the same city in the same setting some 70 years later where I have a whole intra-city baseball league and have created nine different teams and each team w it's own history and a handful of legendary or notorious players too

So fun to hear the Civ 6 call-out! I play that and D&D but had never thought to use inspiration from Civ in my D&D world-building. Hmm I wonder how religious pressure, loyalty, citizen happiness, and some of those other mechanics could translate or influence D&D

I have a city for an outlandish tribe of monstrous humanoids atop a laccolithic butte (i.e. Devil's Tower or Masada). The tribe is flight capable and the surrounding area is very inhospitable and only the strong survive it!

Watching this and the Fantasy Town video gave me an idea for a funny setting. A city of well over 1000 people that exists within a single building. Basically its a large room with about 2 dozen doors. Each door leads to a demiplane that has anything from a whole city district to a small classroom. The city is governed by a high-council of mages, and everyone old enough to work has the title of x-mage depending on their trade. A foodmage spends their day casting goodberry or create food and water. A cleanmage spends their day using prestidigitation to dispose of waste and clean garments. The city creates mostly mundane magical objects which they trade for rare materials used in their spells or books, scrolls and tomes to expand their library. Well I've got the homebrew bug again.

One of the best cities I ever made was called "Afterwall" because its settlers found a giant seemingly empty wall that they built a city inside of/around.

I break the "city's business" into four stages: 1) outside raw materials, such as lumber, bulk coal, bales of cotton or silk. These are gathered, mined, harvested etc by groups outside the city, that send what they have to the city, such as bulk grain, cows, bulk fish, metal ore, logs, etc. Generally, no one can use these as is. 2) Guilds, manufacturing -- large scale processing, such as turning logs into 2x4s, sheets of wood, bolts and rolls of fabric, bulk grapes, turns cows to leather and meat, pickled, sorted, processed, bulk refined metal. Grapes are fermented May be used "as is," but usually beyond common buyers. 3) These take the large goods above and turn them into smaller, manageable products, but may or may not be ready to use. Guilds, finer craftsmen, refined processing, such as blacksmith, butcher, tailor, specific procuts like doors, signs, Assemble meat, vegetables bread into sandwiches, meals. Wine is in put bottles, casks (and the barrels are another industry). 4) in a large city, the actual shops, restaurants to sell these may be separate from 1-3 above, such as shops or those that offer further refinement, bakers, deset shops, clothing stores, the general store, All these are "ready to use" for individual customers, commoners, but none of the shops make these items. --> In smaller towns and for some products, less steps are needed. --> Between all these steps, almost every stage needs time and transport, warehouses, and a vast support network of other to support them, and maybe guards.

I'm in the .1% that went back and rewatched the town creation video... now watching the city building video and WISHING you guys did more videos like this

I designed the broad districts of one of my cities around elements (attack on Titan level city). Earth-agricultural, Water- Docks, Fire- Military, Air- Culture+Learning wealthier area, Light-High Nobility, Dark-Crime. (Not the actual names of the districts) Then I planned based on how these elements mixed when next to eachother. So as the “Fire district” meets the “Earth district” you get the more industrial area etc. This leads up to the main military area toward the edge of the city and as you progress higher through the city you get to the estates of military generals and then eventually after a massive wall into the nobility area. Similarly as the “water district” meets the “air district” you find areas inhabited by the upper middle class who have earned their wealth through trade from the docks. The central point where fire, water, air and earth mix is the main market area where food, manufactured goods/weapons/ supplies from the docks are brought and sold. The “dark” area is hidden, stretching under the whole city (to reflect the fact that people from all classes/ walks of life are equally capable of criminality). While the Light/Stars district, at the highest point in the city largely desperate and looking down on those below, houses the highest Nobility/ Major religious & magical authorities. (Very classist society) This helps with improvisation as I can easily decide what’s kind of NPCs or locations the players will find depending on the district + the element theme helps with off the cuff descriptions/ imagery.

When you were describing the castle you reminded me so much my home town of Edinburgh 🥰

Great video for sparking the imagination!

I've divided my city, Molious, into four regions, each is adjusted to another PC in the group: The southern region is the center for festivals and other community activities. It has very few houses to actually live in, but it is full of inns and dormitories. (for the Bard) The northern region is where all the historians, magicians, inventors, and other science people live. You can find libraries, shops for writing materials, gear for craftwork, and lots of historical information in that region. (for the Wizard) The eastern region has all of the gear and craft materials for adventurers, including places to spend the nights, much like the southern region. (for the Ranger and maybe the Monk) The western region is where religious people live. There are churches, temples and shrines for religious people. (for the Cleric)

One simple thing I do with cities is: what changes about the city between day and night? A simple thing as giving the city a night market with eccentric shop owners goes a long way.

These ideas have been really helpful. I'm currently trying to create the capital of a desert country. The capital is known for its luster and secrets. It's also unique in that there is no guard system. If people kill or steal, it's up to themselves to deal with things because the only way the city generates income is by selling themselves out as mercenaries or selling jewelry. It's also nearby to the main temple of the goddess of prophecies. Sadly there is much to still finish but this gives me some ideas

Haven't made anything for DnD, but I have made 2 for the setting of a story of mine I started making long before I got into DnD, which is quite heavily centered around necromancy and undead. The first is a city of necromancer and other dark magic, called Scholomance (after the mythical dark magic school in Romania). It's basically the capital of black magic in my world, known for its school of dark magic, undead armies, and for being were most tomes and such about dark magic actually came from. It's ruled by the deathlord, who is basically a king, but is elected, and is not allowed to rule for more than a century. Right beneath them is a counsel of liches who serve the deathlord as advisors. The idea is that a change of leadership is healthy for the city, and the liches offer their ancient knowledge and wisdom to still give some of the advantage they would have had if the king was an eternal lich king. The second city is a city of vampires, located deep in a forest of eternal night, and ruled by a vampire queen who created the city to serve as a safe haven for her kind. Vampires aren't universally evil in my world, and this city serve as a place where they can live in peace, and still have some semblance of their old lives back. In order to be this safe haven, the existance of the city is largely secret, and most who have heard of it believe it's just a myth. To sustain themselves, they use a spell that turns water into blood, and grow this strange fruit that is filled with blood. They need both because the fruit takes time to grow, and blood created from that spell is basically artifical, and so they can't survive off of that alone. This fake blood also can't be used to power blood magic of any kind, but can still be targeted by the kind of blood magic that manipulates blood (like blood bending from Avatar, for example).

You dudes read my mind, I was just about to look this topic up! XP

My favorite fantasy city was called Dusk Thorn it was a massive capital built in a forward thinking fashion to maximize defense and withstand seiges by ruled by a immortal vampire family with 3 major fortifications a ginormous octagon wall with fields and farms on the outside and shanty towns that poped up around the gate house inside the octagon wall was a calculated farming circle where certain crops and livestock rotated delegated by the royal house as this was to feed the major population and is cycled around season by season to keeps the fields fresh. Then a large hexagon wall which where on the gate house had massive fortifications where the guard-army recruites would train inside the hex was a dense markets of housing and large thick cloth canopy even at high noon made the streets feel like Dusk and here is were the players had there first in depth interactions with the guard-army they were all tall wearing bronze or gold gilded armor that looked like it was forged directly further instead of being standard issues usually weilding a large pole arms but they all wore large hoods sometimes with a Conquistador style helmet on top and had zero exposed skin then comes to the inner square wall the waterways circled it and inside was a handful of small fancy estates along the outer wall and storehouses and on a central man-made island stood a massive castle that was easily 3 times as tall as the walls and on the top middle stood a dome of multi-colored stained glass as inside was the throne room were the vampire queen rested. Note all the guard-army were vampires. Vampires in my world come in a scale of power as the purebloods are ageless and immune to radient and sunlight and time affects them more the less pure there blood is. And in the city the humans know and understand they are only a few steps above cattle in a time of crisis as blood banks exsist for people who volunteer to lose a amount of there blood for coin.

Favorite city I've ever made had basically a secret second city underneath it with a bunch of underdark creatures and an intricate criminal syndicate running it. Got my inspiration from the Kowloon Walled City and was a blast to run at the table

I'm in the very very very early stages of soloing D&D 5e with the Mythic GME .. got all my books and now trying to work out how to make it all work.

Thanks guys for this videos. I currently create a huge metropole for my homebrew. Personally, I have use Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica, Dementlieu and this video to create Köningberg : heart of the my kingdom Vereingöth. I can't wait to reveal my work to my players this summer :P

great advice !

Districts won't always be divided by economic specialty. Some of them will be former independent towns that were absorbed into the city as it grew -- think Islington and Hounslow in London, or Greenwich Village in New York City. Since they were real towns once, they have, or once had, everything a town needs: town hall, marketplace, bakeries, butcher shops, temples, water source, etc. Some of that may have changed when the town was absorbed -- maybe the armorers found that their helmets sold better in the main city marketplace than their own -- but the locals would probably still rather draw water at the local well than schlep all the way to the river and back. The town hall, of course, will have been repurposed or abandoned, and abandoned buildings always make interesting adventure sites. Another useful type of district is the ghetto. As distinct from the slum, the ghetto is a place where a certain class of people (originally, Jews in medieval Italy) are forced to reside regardless of their economic class. Thus, while most of the residents are often be poor because of discrimination, there will be a few rich buildings and a tighter sense of community, because even members of the minority who have "made good" in business, medicine, sorcery, or the like are not allowed to live elsewhere, so they'll build nice homes right in the ghetto, and will usually be treated with great respect and admiration by their own community. Some "ghetto" districts may actually be very prosperous, like the old European quarters in Canton, China or Nagasaki, Japan, where the Dutch and English got very rich even though the locals considered them "barbarians" and would not let them roam the rest of the city. Last, beware of the concept of the "residential district." The idea of commuting to work is very modern, and wasn't usually possible in cities with narrow, winding, unpaved streets and no transport but horse-drawn wagons -- think what rush hour would look like! Artisans, tavern keepers, clergy, grocers, and suchlike city residents typically lived and worked in the same building. Even nobles' servants usually lived right in the castle or manor house where they worked; in really "Dark Age" type settings, like a Norse longhouse, the servants might even live in the same room as the lord and his family, with the lords' privilege being mainly to sleep closer to the fireplace. A few people might live in one district and work in another, but not enough to define any one district as "residential."

Video idea - show off the best reference books for DM’s to run different types of games. Hundreds of books have been written for multiple games, editions, campaign settings.

You make a good point about where upscale-vs-slum neighborhoods are located, but you need to consider the technology of the place as well. City I live in used to be a major industrial center until all the mills closed up in the 70s, and the worst neighborhoods are downtown near where the industry used to be. The rich neighborhoods are up in the hills, but before automobiles it was exactly the opposite because everyone had to walk to their jobs, and the professional offices were all downtown. Fantasy scenarios are probably going to more closely reflect that technology level.

The next time you run a Kickstarter please make one of the milestone rewards a one-shot adventure of gladiatorial battles set in a fantasy SkyDome. Because I need that in my life ASAP!

I have several cities I'm proud of. Some more things to consider: Its important to also think about historic buildings vs those very recently built and to have variety based on the building materials, techniques, purposes, budgets and people who built them. In a multicultural city are there huge trees with houses that is the Elven embassy and part of town that contrasts with the Dwarven embassy more of a art deco + Brutalism and leading below ground and the crystalline spires of the Wizard School and the ancient alabaster and marble edifice of the ancient castle the city was founded around, the brick stone and timber houses of Humans and the rounded houses that lead underground preferred by Halflings and Dragonborn the halflings of the city building the doorways larger as they share this city with 'big folk'. Use racial/Ancestry Lore from THIS world to help build the city itself. If a Species is rare vs common, etc. What real world architectural styles can you take inspiration from and why? Think about accommodations for Different ancestries/Races. Multicultural effects on the culture, districts, architecture. Laws, heros and statuary: Modesty laws will effect things as will anything that has been outlawed. Maybe a statue was replaced recently when worship of the dragons was outlawed? etc. Shortages effect things as do excess? Ask if an important trade good is abundant or rare? Why? How does this effect things in the city? Local wildlife and Pets. What common pets are around? Do the wealthy have a special plant/animal? Is food gardening common do people have livestock? (Such as vegetable gardens and egg laying hens, etc.)? How are basic services people need done: Ex: Baths (bathhouse vs in home), Laundry, cooking, baking, mill, clothing, brewery, etc. Is there graffiti? What does it mean? Who is making it and why? Sources of corruption and conflict that can/will effect the PCs: who? How can the PCS help? Who would hire them to help and why? Intrigue and warring factions. Magic item shop. Who sells magic? Where are they? How easy is it to find/get in to the shop? Shop security. Players will 100% want to go where magic items are being sold! Always plan this out its almost never a 'waste of time'! Anyways I tried to summarize hope its helpful and not confusing.

I'd also add - What trade does the city have, what are they depended on from outside import - how linked are the ruling body and the criminal?

The Dungeon Dudes always have the best Kickstarter sponsors.

I love that this video was basically just "we played civ 6 recently. Here are the types of district in that game" haha. You really can draw inspiration from anywhere, its a model that translates beautifully.

Thanks.

So question: how does one go about building a super city? I'm revising (now that I've seen this video) a lot of structure for this super city and I'm wondering what to keep in mind...

Whenever I think about creating a city for a campaign, I always think of Athkatla from BG2 and the districts there.

Paused to watch the other video - Kelly's beard is trimmed more and Monty's is trimmed less. That's my observation for the day. Love your content, as always.

If somebody is looking for inspiration for medieval cities look up city maps from european cities. The older parts of many european cities was planned at medieval times and the structure can still be seen.

Does a city necisarily have to have an industrial district? The city I am currently working on is the capital city of a large and powerful kingdom and it's lakeside location makes it a hub for trade and travel. Since it acts as both the kingdom's the seat of power as well as it's premiere hub of travel and commerce, does it necisairly have to have it's own unique export that comes directly from within the city?

Nobles would have country house/farm/vineyard/estate and a townhouse in the city. Being noble didn’t guarantee wealth often arranging marriages with Nuevo rich trading prestige, position, title for infusion of cash to pursue politics, gambling, new family businesses. A title often kept one from a murder trial, poor house,

Quick note: cities start at about 40,000 people, not 10,000. Districts are easy for a DM to make, but they are far from the only way cities are organized... and indeed heavily district-based cities tend to be extremely modern. Like, they didn't really start to become standard until the 20th century with the introduction of some extremely racist policies, and now city planners realize how terrible such a design is and are moving away from it. This isn't to say districts aren't extremely old. Tanneries have an awful stench, and so generally got their own district. The waterfront is obviously going to be where the water is. There may be certain wealth disparities between neighbourhoods. And if there's a palace that's obviously going to change the character of the surrounding city. In most historical cities, businesses tended to be attached to households. Which were usually multi-family dwellings. In addition to or instead of this, various neighbourhoods also often had warehouses and workshops held in common, which may or may not later develop into something like a guild hall or other more private enterprise. Temples could also often be centers of industry (by pulling double duty as warehouses or workshops, either held in common or owned by the clergy), with the temples in Babylon being the first to invent standardized, branded, packaging for goods. The idea here is that in most cities, people are going to live within easy walking distance of all the goods and services they're likely to need, to the extent possible. Suburbs in particular are very recent, as are roads designed primarily for vehicular traffic. More likely your districts are going to be something more akin to the modern notion of the American Chinatown, where people of different ethnic or cultural groups tend to live near each other in their own neighbourhoods, which are likely to be structured like relatively independent towns in their own rights, including having their own neighbourhood governments that the central city government (if such a thing exists) is likely to mostly leave be. And these different neighbourhoods may well end up having different specialties that result in something vaguely resembling the array of districts outlined in the video. Another thing to consider is which forms of systemic domination exist in your city. The three main ones possible are: 1. Sovereignty (control of violence, and often space through violence (think police, standing armies, taxes (which only exist where standing armies do), and defensive fortifications)). 2. Bureaucracy (control of information, especially esoteric information of relatively little practical use that may regardless have social significance, which usually serves to gatekeep the levers of power (think how in our society we need to demonstrate knowledge of things like poetry and trigonometry in order to graduate high school and get a good job)). 3. Political theater (control through charisma and contests (especially popularity contests) of no significance in terms of policy that nevertheless determine who has power, such as elections or tourneys/sports). Cities have existed with any combination of these, including none at all, and indeed having all three existing together is quite a recent thing, only showing up 6-700 years ago in what we call the modern state. Your standard Feudal Medieval Europe or Shang Dynasty China analogue probably does sovereignty and political theater but not bureaucracy, Rome and Ancient Egypt and Feudal Japan and Qin Dynasty China skipped political theater but did sovereignty and bureaucracy very well, the Trojans only really did political theater, the Mayans did political theater and bureaucracy but skipped sovereignty, and Teotihuacan did none of the above. The presence or absence of these systems of domination are going to do a lot to dictate the government and social fabric of your city, and I strongly encourage everyone to play around with different social structures than we're used to in modern society. Also, if your society uses 2 systems of domination, the third is extremely likely to be the domain of the gods (which keeps it from unduly influencing mortal life and making the government even more oppressive). So if you're making your own pantheon after creating a society, or creating a society/city that worships a particular pantheon you've already made (and iff you want a society with 2 systems of domination; there's no similar strong tendency for societies with different numbers of systems of domination), you should now have a pretty solid starting point to work from.

One key mistake some city-makers commit is overinvest in one particular district they deem to be "all there is to it" in terms of fun to be had, and ignoring other districts. If they go that way, they really should've just made it a separate town. In more than one published adventure even, I've seen cases like that, where I see an entire large city with districts I feel interested in based on their overview, only for the adventure itself to only concern itself with just one district without any real justification as to why. Either permit players to interact with other districts, or create compelling reasons as to why the campaign only visits one, instead of "well, the plot railroad only leads here".

Thank you for saying Menzoberranzan so I know now that I am pronouncing it correctly.

and for bards. the "_____' light district.

Here's the first thing my payers read in campaign one (we're in campaign 3): Argos, the City of Smoke Welcome to Argos, The City of Smoke. A lower city is full of smugglers making their way through the myriad of alleyways crisscrossing the city. A city choked in acidic smoke arising from Old Smokey, the local's name for the volcano that shares the name of the city. It’s rocky, southern shores and reefs are too treacherous for large vessels to navigate, the water blackened with ash that the southern winds drive into the Boiling Sea. The Twelve Districts of Argos are situated like the hour hands of a clock around the volcano, from the fertile First District in the North to the smoky docks of the Sixth District. The Twelfth District is built on the northern side of the Volcano, close to the Caldera. There the heat of the volcano combined with a clear mountain lake creates a paradise of hot springs and freshwater that criss-crosses the entire district. The Twelfth District has roads built of burnished bronze, with many houses also accepting a stylised bronze coat; a tribute to the vast excess copper and tin mined from Old Smokey.

I'm looking at Chichen Itza and Ang,kor Wat

Umm… Arora isn’t launched yet. Great video dudes!

Cool video! But food for thought--I think this vision of the different parts of a city is a very Western, capitalist, industrialized version of a city. I wonder if we might be able to avoid some of the more pernicious aspects of this kind of design by thinking outside the box on this. For example, instead of slums, what if your city has a public housing district? Might still be lower-income, might still be where less wholesome stuff goes down, but a "commie block" calls to mind a very different feeling than a "shantytown." Magic could also complicate this. Your town doesn't need docks, for example, if it's got a central teleportation hub, or a eyrie of hippogriffs to transport goods. EDIT: Wrote this before I made it to the end of the video, oops. ;^_^

Man...you guys are talkin about stuff I've been implementing in my world for decades lol

9:40 no visual?

We just learned Monty is easier to charm than Kelly cos Kelly has wisdom saves.

Planning on creating a city in my dnd campaign created and run by 5 very high level wizards. I am wondering what subclasses people think they should be?

One thing I think you should have stressed is not to make dwarf town 'dwarf town' name it after a dwarven city or country. Fantasy races aren't monoliths. Maybe call it Little Ammarindar, fill it with lots of other short statured races (who benefit from things being 'normal size') and maybe some other non-humans. TBH you could do a whole video on this !

Nord Games excellent Spectacular Settlements, all you will ever need to create a fantasy village all way up to the capital city.

One mistake I think that almost every fantasy city designer makes (including major publishers like Paizo and Wizards) is grossly underestimating the population that cities should have. Like, Tian Xia (the China analog) in Golarion for Pathfinder has a total population of around 2,000,000 total people of all PC races in the entire empire. In comparison, in the year 1300 CE, the city of Huangzhou in real-world China had 1,500,000 by itself. The capital of Tian Xia is Zetang, and it has a population of 26,000 by official published material. This is an insanely, absurdly, ridiculously, indefensibly small population for what is supposed to be the most important city of a massive empire. Heck, Rome had a population of 800,000 people in 200 CE. Uruk had an estimated population of 75,000 n 1500 BCE. A city of 26,000 people in a setting imitating a Medieval age would be a relative backwater, maybe a regional trading center that accumulated agricultural goods for trade elsewhere, or a capital of a country on the edge of civilization. It wouldn't be a huge cultural and political center for a major nation.

Is this video about D&D or SimCity?

markets were decentralized. every burrow in a medieval town had their own market square. Specialised commerce can be centralized Same with religion. instead of one big temple make it monasteries where acolytes are trained. the biggest temple should be in old town or noble district. This is where faith can show off. Finally districts solely for residents is a very modern phenomenon reliant on fast travel available (cars, busses, streetcars).

I was kind of worried that you guys would forget the Slums... Sadly people already try to forget that things like that exist in their own town, so in a world of magic there is no possible way for Slums! Or that's at least how a friend of mine views Fantasy... I think he just watches a lot of Ghibli and nothing else. What about a Red Light District? Don't know the appropriate Midieval Term for that one. But my home city is a little bit older and back when we had City walls, things like sex-workers and I think Alcohol as well was forbidden inside the city, so before the gates started a whole new industry and later it merched and now it is part of the cities identity. Basically our modern party district. I was told it is rather known...

Bump

Ya Civ VI

The majority of cities I make are just for the party to spend half a session passing through so the vast majority of this is over kill.

"Here is the map I used" He says, not actually showing the map or linking to a PNG or something for it in the description lol

Be wary of the gnome zone.

Did I just hear you say "MIN-ass Tar-EETH"? *Dude, WTF?*

You guys made some interesting points, BUT I disagree with some of the realism points you made. Unless you are a low magic campaign/society why do that?! In my fantasy cities I prefer high magic so: No High Pollution, No Slums/Poor areas, No Crime, and No Random City Design. I would make the city in a proper Planned Grid system, have magical ways to get rid of pollution, and even the Poorer areas would be quite nice due to magic! As for the Crime thing, look at real life Singapore has some of the lowest crime rates in the entire world! So in a magical world can expand that idea even more!

😂😂😂 My man called monotheism "less religiously diverse."

Legit, I love the Dungeon Dudes and all their videos, but my stupid Neanderthal brain can't get out their pronunciation of Minas Tirith at the beginning of the video..."MINIS TIREEEEETH????"

I watched both videos and have to say that you have a giant flaw in them. You repeatedly say it is a town/city in a fantasy world, but treat magic like a side note, even so it should be a major topic. In regard of the D&D rules should every person be able to learn magic, so why wouldn't they, it's so damn practical. Like the majority of the commoners in medieval times had basic skills in writing and math, against the common believe, because it was to useful not to. Equally would every person learn at least one or two cantrips. Housewifes would learn Prestidigitation, farmers Mold Earth and guards Light, for example. Every important city would have a big Teleportation Circle for the save travel of rich merchants and nobility. There could even be a Sending network for emergencies. Those are just some examples as I'm sure the human ingenuity would find thousand other world changing uses of magic if they had it.

Hey Dungeon Dudes, you contradicted yourselves when you said that there are industrial districts after you admitted that this is a pre-industrial society.

Minas Tireeth? Good grief. Almost as bad as Matt colvilles "smowg" instead of smaug.

"might have a democratically elected government". Not at all