The City of Mudun

Real life is still a bit hectic with a new addition to the family. I've only just made it back to the gaming table after hiatus of two and a half months. (There's a good write-up of our session here.) Hopefully, I'll get in more game time and more blog time. I've been asked to do some more posts that describe my world of Kimatarthi and lay off the mechanics for a bit. ...ok, so it was my lovely (but non-gaming) wife who made the request, but I thought it a wise suggestion anyhow. Hey - I have at least one regular reader!

The City of Mudun

Like most cities, Mudun was destroyed in the Goblin War. Anyone who didn’t flee met an unspeakably brutal end. The city was sacked, and only a vacant, crumbling shell was left. It remained like that for several decades until an exodus known as the Great Rebuilding. The overcrowding, disease, and poor quality of life in Markaz eventually began to create agitation and instability in the city. Desperate, the rulers organized a military campaign to retake Mudun and reestablish a human presence east of the Lowlands. It was the last great Bakdunis campaign against the goblins. After clearing the city and the surrounding area, thousands of civilians were sent to reestablish Mudun.

The original city sat on either side of a river, but the goblin threat is still very real and Mudun is a frontier town. To bolster the defenses, the rebuilt Mudun exists only to the  north of the river, and all but one bridge connecting the banks were destroyed. On the south side of the river is the scarred and crumbling ruins of the old civilization… and the vast majority of the region’s wealth.

Mudun was chosen as the first city to rebuild because of its proximity to arable land, pastures, and mineral resources. Yet the sheer number of goblins continues to make access to these resources perilous. Each day just before dawn the Bridge Gate is opened, and people flood across to do their work in goblin territory. Each evening at dusk the gate is locked again. It makes work life difficult, but it is the only way to preserve the city from the ever-present goblin danger, as those unfortunate souls who are occasionally stranded on the wrong side of the river would attest if only they could be found.

Non-post: OA Event Charts

I'm a big fan of Jeff's Gameblog, and not just because he has coined "gameblog" as one word. That alone is awesome. But knowing the analytical effort he puts into each of his blog posts, I'm sure this was a calculated decision. This is worthy of a shout out and a cookie - so, Jeff, if we ever meet, I need to know your preference.

But today he posted something very cool that I want to rip for future use, so I'm linking to it here. It's the old Yearly and Monthly Events charts from the original Oriental Adventures.

Like all little geeks, I used to crawl through old rules books, and charts like these would inevitably capture my imagination. Having given this a quick look over, I see numerous opportunities for plot hooks, particularly in medieval urban settings.

So--even if this is a non-post, because I still have no time to myself--look for some version of these events to be introduced into Markaz and the other cities of Kimatarthi.

Markaz

More than likely, the campaign will center on the city of Markaz, the bustling urban heart of Kimatarthi. Centuries ago, the city burgeoned into an important trading hub, since it straddles a gap in Great Rift. As the easiest intersection between the east and west, Markaz served as the departure and arrival point for caravans making the long trek between Bryss and the cities and towns of the east. This central location turned it into a wealthy and populous metropolis where anything and everything was available for the right price.

The city’s position makes it naturally defensible, but over the years, the gap was further fortified – in order to dominate the trade routes as much as to defend the city. The road up from the eastern lowlands climbs from the Black River to the city walls. To the north, the old fortress of Markaz sits atop looming cliffs, looking down over the busy markets of the valley. The city sprawls south, rising into wealthier neighborhoods before descending once again into poor, dilapidated slums and the Empty Quarters.

Markaz was the stronghold that withstood the goblin onslaught. As the invading horde rolled across the land, the survivors poured north, seeking shelter beyond the gap. Refugees arrived by the thousands. Though the goblins did briefly breach the city walls, human kind rallied and drove them back. Today, many years after that fateful battle, Markaz remains a melting pot of all the families, tribes, and peoples of old Kimatarthi.

Although the general population of the city is a motley mix of humanity, the old elite of Markaz still runs the show. The city is governed by the Bakdunis family, who dominate the politics, trade, and many other aspects of life in Markaz. Obviously, not everyone is happy with the current arrangement, yet the Bakdunis are able to maintain control with through savvy politics, dirty tricks, and occasional brute force.

Also, I recently picked up the Vornheim kit by Zak S. and I really dig a lot of his ideas. His book offers a ton of tricks and tables and whatnot that I’ll probably use to facilitate adventures in Markaz. While my city has a totally different feel—it’s much more ‘brown mud walls’ than ‘towering grey stone,’ among other things—his approach is universally applicable and everything is easily tweaked. It also offers plenty of material to riff off of. I’m looking forward to taking it for a drive someday.

The Cities

There are only three cities in the land of Kimatarthi: Markaz, Mudun, and Bryss. This emptiness is one of the first features I decided upon when creating the land. I liked the idea of civilization concentrated in only a few remote places, the land in between being hostile if not unlivable. Of course, then I had to decide why civilization hadn’t expanded beyond these spaces…

For me part of the creation process is this reverse engineering of history. I find an interesting concept and then figure out how that could have come about. This is when I settled on the idea that Kimatarthi wasn’t always like this – it is a post-apocalyptic world. In fact, these three cities represent the aftermath of the Goblin Wars that wiped out cities and towns by the dozens.  Each of these remaining cities represents a different aspect of that old civilization. (Though I was never really aware of that literary quality until just this minute.)

Markaz was the site of a final battle between humans and goblins. Refugees from all across the land sought refuge behind its walls, and in one final effort mankind was able to resist the goblin tide. Broken, the goblin armies slowly began to scatter and retreat. But these refuges had nowhere to return, so Markaz became a melting pot of the remnants of the earlier era. Here society, economy, culture, and politics are being born anew. This renewal is far from hopeful, however. The city remains a broken mess. It is a wretched hive wherein life is poor, nasty, brutish, and short (it is far too overcrowded to be solitary, though).

One could say that Mudun is the city for the hopeful—or the foolish. Some time after the goblin war, bands of people were willing (perhaps eager) to leave the dregs of Markaz behind. They set out across the valley and rebuilt a city on the ruins of a former trade hub. The location was chosen because the north-eastern plateau is fertile ground, compared to the rocky pass where Markaz sits. Nestled along a river at the foot of the mountains, Mudun is definitely a frontier town. The nearby region allows for agricultural development, but the city itself must be continuously fortified against regular goblin attacks.

Finally, the remote city of Bryss in some ways represents what Kimatarthi once was. Bryss has always been isolated from the rest of the world. It is the only city that has ever existed west of the Great Rift, a massive and impassible escarpment that runs nearly the entire length of the world. Although it is far to the south, the only passage to the west is far in the north at Markaz. Travelers then have to make their way through the desert that dominates the western part of the world before finding a gap that leads back up into the valley of Bryss. This isolation has resulted in cultural differences, but also spared the population from the horrors of the goblin invasion. No doubt, these factors combined generate a bit of resentment between the populations of the east and the west. However, the world needs the good Bryss produces, just as they need the markets.