How to Build a Settlement
Today we're going to go in depth into how to build homebrew settlements to help them feel real and believable. A lot of these factors will be interdependent here so I bounce round until I finalise the settlement.
I usually start by asking the meta question of: What does this place need for my story?
This will usually be an item or a person that the party has been sent out to find. From here that item or person will have a location. I.E. The adventurers have been sent to find Brother Maynard at the Church of the Web. So our settlement will need a church and Brother Maynard!
The settlements function is very important, it's the reason these people congregated together. This will often be centred around a natural resource: a mine/farm/travel route between two major cities. If it is the centre of a farming community then the town needs a cooper for making barrels and a wainwright for making carts to transport goods, a farrier for shoeing horses etc.
Next up I would decide the look of the settlement so we need to think about the size of the place, its age and its style of architecture. Here I would also decide on how planned the place is, is it built with a specific vision in mind or is it a more organic? Is this a Hamlet, village, town or city? Size dictates the social aspects of the settlement along with its food and water requirements.
Social hierarchies are created by a number of factors: the age of the place, the size and it's function. Older places tend to have rigid social circles akin to the Victorian era of the United Kingdom or pre-revolution France. A small group of rich people with a larger poor worker class below them that operates a mine or gathers another natural resource. This structure can lead to segregated areas for rich and poor people. A trading settlement will have a large middle class that buys and sells and tends to look more like Venice, Amsterdam or Istanbul. This structure tends to have a much more even distribution of people as money comes from hard work not family ties.
We briefly touched on the function of a place but this dictates many thing in game. If we take the example of a trading city, we extrapolate that there will be a lot of money in the local system. This draws specialist artisans and fashion to the area as they will have a better living. This can lead to a lowering prices for mundane items as they are so abundant and also finer, more ornate items going on sale. I have played around with this so there are different prices across the city for a rapier depending on how fancy it looks! Music, art and theatre also thrive with status and disposable income. With money come crime and larger settlements will have a higher chance of having a fence or even thieves guild.
Government and law and order become stronger and more important the larger a settlement becomes. This can have consequences on how a group of adventurers will settle their business inside the settlement as a fight could attract the attention of the city guard leading to arrest, fines or imprisonment. Using social influence could be a better tool for beating one's enemies than the tip of a sword.
Other things to consider are which race built the settlement and which races live there. Cooling tensions between the Gnomes and the Dwarves in a city could be a fun plot hook to play with especially if you have a Gnome or Dwarf in the party as they could become an outcast.
Which religions are practiced or catered for here can offer flavour and festivals if you wanted to have some down time. Chauntea the Goddess of agriculture has a shrine in a place that depends on the harvest, Azuth would have a temple in a wizarding school etc.
Lastly draw out the settlement but leave some building unaccounted for. Drawing everything out and knowing what every building contains is a fool's errand; you want some room for improvisation and the ability to say yes to your players if they come up with something you didn't consider.
Anything you have found useful please comment in the section below.
May you roll well!
