I was just wondering what the cities and the towns of the modern planes would be like. I mean, how would they be different from one another (from plane to plane I mean). And how would the burgs in the "old" Planescape setting might have changed?
Also, what examples of new and orginal cities might you guys like to make up (think of it as "create-your-own-city").
Thoughts, anyone?
Good topic to start, Terra. Depending on interest, I'll add it to the Thread of Threads.
As for cities and towns on the Planes:
-There's obviously Sigil, which has its own thread already.
-Gate-towns. Depending on the direction we choose, they can either be the "Suburbs of Sigil" or stand-alone cities in their own right. Heck, they can even be both!
-There are three major burgs on the Inner Planes: the City of Brass, the City of Glass, and the Great Dismal Delve. There was also going to be a City of Clouds, but Lucasfilms sued 
-On Baator, the layer of Dis is just one big hell-tropolis.
Joking or not, Lucasfilms wouldn't have a case. Using the same name falls under the Reasonable Use clause, a little known snippet of the law that prevents large companies from suing for reasonable references to their copyrighted material.
Just giving a heads up in case you actually were considering something like that.
Joking or not, Lucasfilms wouldn't have a case. Using the same name falls under the Reasonable Use clause, a little known snippet of the law that prevents large companies from suing for reasonable references to their copyrighted material.
Just giving a heads up in case you actually were considering something like that.
Thanks, but I think Planewalker's content area has a few locations in the Plane of Air that I think I'll adapt instead (ones with cooler sounding names, btw).
I agree. Can anyone come up with any interesting names?
BTW what would the other settlements, in not only the core elemental planes but the other inner planes, be like?
The City of Brass: I would like to go with a middle-eastern theme here. I don't want it to be like an Iraqi combat zone, though-rather, the danger here is lurking just below the surface. Kinda like Beirut before the hit the fan in the late 70s/mid 80s. An alternative could be turn-of-the-century Istambul (especially as portrayed in Pulp liturature). Just replace the Turks with Efreeti and voila!.
I'll think about the others.
Edit: The Djinni burg in the Plane of Air is called the Citadel of Ice and Steel.
I actually like the concept of Djinni politics always being on the edge of some big shakeup. Lots of nationalism, constant minor rebellions, occasional major rebellions... not exactly always a warzone, but enough of one that it would remind you of one.
Actually, the City of Brass is controlled by the Efreeti. Lots of intrigue, but violence is not encouraged because it's Bad for Business.
Ulden, I refer to ALL of the elementals as Djinni. It's easier for me to remember.
Ah, okay.
...clueless berk
They are Genies. The Djinni are the air Genies. Efreeti are fire Genies. Dao are earth Genies, and the Marid are water Genies. It ain't that hard to remember.
'Ey, It's easier to remember one class of Genie than to remember ALL of them. I want to find the other types, I look in a rulebook. I don't currently have access to a rulebook, so I simplify.
It could, perhaps, be less confusing if you used 'genie' for the generic group of them, as that's the term that already applies, and is in fact almost the term you're using.
Gotcha.
More on-topic, one of the things I would like to see is planar metropoli that AREN'T well known from PSCS for D&D. A few new ones, that might have sprung up in intervening years, or perhaps 'suburbs' of the big cities. Not all planars/petitioners are likely to live in the heart of the big cities, many, if not most would live a little bit outside of them. If we can imagine Sigil as a planar New York, then what I'm wanting is perhaps a planar Conneticut or New Jersey. Maybe even a Rhode Island or Massachusetts.
I was seeing the Gate Towns filling this role. That may be too predictable, and of course I'm always open to alternatives. Basically, what ever burg is on the other side of Sigil's Highway-Portals and Mass-Transit portals become the Cage's suburbs.
And no, the burgs in question are not other big-name cities like Dis. Her Serenity wouldn't do something so unbalancing.
I didn't figure places like Dis would qualify for "Sigil's suburbs" status. Even the Gate Towns are probably a bit too urban in some regards, they'd probably have grown a lot in the intervening centuries, especially with the availability of rapid transit such as cars/planes. However, I could see small towns around the Gate Towns occupying such a role.
I agree. It would only be natural that the gate-towns would become "Gate-Cities".
That makes sense because they sink into their home plane and have to be rebuilt every now and then
I almost see gatetowns as towns set on the highway they have alot of buisness but once you leave that there's very little to see.
I think that the Outlands need to be the focus of our next project.
If anyone is wondering what settlements in the Plane of Air would be like, then have a look at the new CGI show Skyland. It mainly focues on two siblings who are trying to overthrow the tyranical government of Skyland, the Sphere. Basically the plot is set in the future, where for some weird reason, Earth has broken into a million pices, or blocs, and orbits a core, hence giving to the name of Skyland. Life goes on for humans, however, as most blocs are suitible for sustaining life on them, like floating islands.
Just as a suggestion, is there any way we can destroy Union? 
Erased from History(tm). Never existed.
I like the non-EPIC concept of Union - a demiplane merchant city controlled by the mercane. It even kinda makes sense, because the mercane refuse to enter Sigil (or maybe they can't?). But as presented in the Ridiculous Level Handbook, it's poorly-thought out and ill-designed. So I see no objections to just cutting it free.
non-epic good,Epic=bad
union should be another astral trading post abliet a huge trading post but trading post nontheless.
bump.
If we keep the idea of the Elemental Express, and I do really like that concept, many if not all of the stations would have developed small little shopping areas where people could get little knick-knacks, really expensive crap food, and there would maybe even be some kind of police force like Urban Transit Cops. I imagine over time these little spots would begin to function as a kind of gate town. Call them Station Towns. Or Railstops. Maybe give some of them a kind of Planar Wild West feel.
I think there should be one of these for each elemental or quasi-elemental or para-elemental plane. The only planes without Elemental Express stops should be the Positive and Negative energy planes, because as I remember it, the Express doesn't go there.
Elemental - Water, Earth, Air, Fire
Para-Elemental - Ooze, Ice, Smoke, Magma
Quasi-Elemental - Mineral, Dust, Radiance, Ash, Lightning, Vacuum, Steam, Salt
Railstop Marinos:
Location: Elemental Plane of Water
The crystal tunnel that houses the Elemental Express as it travels through the Plane of Water opens up into a large crystal sphere as the train hisses to a stop at Railstop Marinos. Marinos began life as a simple station stop along the Express' route, but is now a small town largely constructed out of crystal of varying colors and opacities and the occasional piece of shipwreck or other waterlogged debris. There are some souvenir shops selling T-Shirts, Keychains, and Air Globes with a scale model of the Railstop inside it. The center of town has a large pool of water that leads out to the water outside the sphere. The water is kept level by keeping the air pressure constant. For this reason, many people's ears pop when they exit the train here. The air is warm and moist and smells salty and fishy all the time.
Railstop Marinos has a number of hotels and other amenities for travelers. The most famous of these hotels is called The Voyager and is made from what appears to be a human vessel called a submarine. The front half is inside the crystal sphere and houses the dining hall and the front office, as well as the owner's quarters, and the rear section sticks out into the deep blue sea and houses the 8 rooms that are available for rent. Nobody is quite sure how the vessel got there, nor how it retains a watertight seal, and the owner of the place, a water genasi named Rashad Doobloa, keeps that trade secret to himself
Railstop Dynamo:
Location: Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning
This Railstop is a giant Faraday Cage made of copper tubing on the outside, with brass and stainless steel on the inside. The inner layers have rubber floors and plastic walls. The lightning outside arcs towards the Railstop at all times, so the intense electric buzz and near continuous thunder make this an unusual environment for all but the most hardened Elemental Express travelers.
Not many people ever stay here, as the location does not lend itself to restful sleep. However, it has become a popular hangout for physicists and other engineers and tinkerers of various stripes who wish to perform experiments requiring enormous amounts of electricity. As there is no night and day here, only a near constant flashing blue and white strobe effect, most of these scientists lose track of the time and often stay awake for many days at a time. They require large amounts of coffee and other caffeinated beverages, and some of the best coffee in all the planes can be found here.
The most famous restaurant and bar here is called Jakob's Ladder. It never closes, and serves as many varieties of coffee and soda as it does beer and liquor. The food is reasonably good, in the $$ to $$$ range. The owner is a 54 year old human male named Jakob Pollister. It is rumored that he hasn't slept in 10 years, and seeing him will make you believe it. His eyes are sunken in, his skin has a sickly yellowish hue. Many travelers just passing through assume he is some kind of intelligent undead, though he is in fact alive. The basement of Jakob's Ladder has a vast and complicated lab where many different kinds of experiments are conducted by some of the Railstop's most brilliant and demented scientists.
Railstop Fortuna
Location: Quasi-Elemental Plane of Mineral
In the Plane of Mineral the Elemental Express winds around giant mountains of rose quartz, purple amethyst, as well as vast white lakes of salt and seas of limestone. It eventually pulls up to a small wooden village built around the station stop here. The population here is made up of a large number of dwarves, including a high representation of the Urdunnir Dwarves. There is also a sizable population of humans who came here seeking a fortune.
All around the town are large working mines. Some of them find building materials such as iron ore, as well as heavy granite and other building stones. The Urdunnir Dwarves have quite a lucrative business running here as they can Stone Shape at will. Further out from that are the gold, silver, emerald, diamond, and other precious stone mines. Some of these are still in operation, but many have been abandoned as their owners found no precious stones or anything of value in the ground below their purchase. Some of the mines are said to be haunted by the ghosts of miners, as well as a large number elementals, para-elementals, and oozes and jellies that feed off the stone.
There is a road that leads out of town. It has many names, though residents of the town simply call it The Road. It is nearly 1000 miles long and leads to a vast maximum security prison where violent criminals work in chain gangs and spend the remainder of their lives working either in the mines or along the road itself. The name of the prison is Terminus. Occasionally prisoners break free. But once out of the prison walls they find themselves so far from civilization or shelter or food they either crawl back to the prison to survive, die of thirst in a jungle of crystal, or something or someone lurking out there gets them. Sometimes late at night the prison guards listen to the screams of an escapee to pass the time. Sometimes the Express is used to transport a prisoner into town, where a large, heavily armored bus waits for them. When this happens a crowd usually gathers at the station to gawk at them.
Some miners tell stories of venturing too far away from town and seeing terrible giant flying lizards that appeared to me made out of the very stone or crystal itself.
There are a number of small hotels, casinos, taverns, and brothels in town. Most businesses here prefer to be paid in gems, silver or gold, and the station itself has a money-changer in it that accepts most varieties of paper money from the different planes and cities across them.
Maelstrom
The Capital City of the Githyanki within the Astral.
The metropolis of Maelstrom lies within The Malestrom, the great astral storm that has been raging since Ragnorok. The city itself is a free port and military base combined, with one of the most famous slave markets across the multiverse. The only way to enter the city is to navigate the Maelstrom, as its wild energies prevent any sort of magical transportation into the city and it is only the Githyanki that know how to navigate The Maelstrom well enough to make regular journeys to and form the city and guide other ships into their docks. It is for this reason that the city has endured so long, as her enemies can not reach her without taking huge casualties.
Along with the slave markets, other wares are also sold, mostly of military nature, as are services of assassination and bounty hunting. The city also functions as a huge military base, from which the Githyanki launch their astral fleets.
Kal
13/6
Edit: Changed the title from Planar cities to Towns and Cities of Urban Planescape.