Dungeon23 (Hometown23): Alkastra City Map

 Map of Alkastra

 

This map is released under the terms of the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Area Keys

Gate Quarter (Entries 1-7)

River Quarter (Entries 8-14)

Citadel Quarter (Entries 15-21)

Outskirts (Entries 22-28)

Movement on the Map

Movement on the city map can be done in the same manner as dungeon exploration.  However, due to the city's cramped nature and winding, narrow streets, parties move at half speed.  Encounters occur as normal for dungeon exploration, and hourly rests can entail people-watching, enjoying street food ("you don't know how long it's been there!",) or ducking into a tavern for a drink.

Link: Alkastra Encounter Tables (Forthcoming)

Link: Alkastra Rumor Tables

 

Commentary

 

The Murder-Hobo Dungeon

I am definitely in agreement with some voices in the OSR that say the home base should be essentially the Chaotic dungeon, where the proverbial murder-hobos can get up to all sorts of shenanigans and trash the GM's carefully-constructed setting.

However, this tends to work better in the smaller scale, with Gary Gygax's Keep on the Borderlands and The Village of Hommlet being the seminal examples of this.  In deciding for Alkastra to be a larger settlement, and with only 28 entries to fill, I had to abandon that idea.  Yes, I am more than familiar with the City State of the Invincible Overlord, but again, I had a mere 28 entries to work with, and so I asked myself: "Am I Bob Bledsaw?"  The answer was "No."

The Invincible Overlord himself.  RIP

.

 

Instead, I decided to err on devising interesting characters, adventure hooks and situations, and (hopefully) fun encounter tables, while also answering the important 20 Questions of a campaign setting.

Is Alkastra a City or a Town?!

Well, its both.  I don't mean to be coy, but I couldn't decide and it shows in the entries.  Technically, it has been both throughout its checkered history.  I finally settled on a small city of about 13,000 souls, similar to 14th-century York.  (In fact, I can neither confirm nor deny that if you squint and turn the map of Alkastra just right, you might see a bit of medieval York.)  That number grows or diminishes depending on the season. 

To better visualize the city, think of the stone structures and ruins as a mix of Roman Britain and Moorish Spain, with wooden and thatch buildings varying from the Viking and Anglo-Saxon periods of England's history; if they had all somehow existed together on the shores of the Mississippi, that is.  There is also inspiration from the Expert Set's town of Threshold, and The Temple of Elemental Evil's seedy town of Nulb in the form of the Downs shantytown.

Return of the Robots!

You will no doubt notice that I began playing with AI art via NightCafe.  Like ChatGPT, the results seem to be 20% amazing, 80% trash and/or the stuff of nightmares (though it worked for the Laughing Man. Hah!)

I realize there are ethical issues involved with using AI art, and I hope the dear reader will forgive a humble hobby blogger that wishes to add color to their otherwise drab blog.