Wednesday 26 April 2017

Route Mapping Bastion

The exact geography of Bastion’s streets is less important than the route between key points. As such, Bastion is best mapped like a Rail Network.

ROUTES
Draw two or more circuits or lines denoting different Transport Routes, ensuring they cross over. These can be walkways, tramways, canals, boulevards, or others. Give each circuit at least one branch that leads to a dead-end.

Plan a Complication that comes with using each Route.

NODES
Dot a node at each point where routes cross, each corner, and each dead-end. Name each node after a Feature such as a significant building, park, or monument. List a couple of additional locations found around each Feature. More facilities can be added as you or the players need them, so flavour is more important here.

BACK ROUTES
If the group want to get between two nodes by a different route, there is always a dark alleyway or inconvenient short-cut. The same applies for attempts to explore further than your map currently extends.

NAVIGATION
Nobody has a city map of Bastion, but smaller sections of the city often have maps or signs to help citizens get their bearings. As such, you can show players the map you have prepared, but only reveal the details through their own investigation.

PLACING THE TREASURE
Treasures found in Bastion are either:
  • Lost in an abandoned or dangerous Borough.
  • Owned by somebody powerful, and held securely.
  • Left in plain sight by somebody unaware of what they possess.


THE CABLE CAR
  • When it's running, it's deadly fast and costs 1s per person for any complete journey.
  • Grants a great view of the streets below.
  • It breaks down all the time so every time you make a journey, one of you makes a CHA Save. On a fail, it breaks down halfway between the first two nodes, and you have to climb down a ladder into the middle of nowhere. 
THE CANAL
  • The Oil-Dumo-Scrap route is always very congested, moving at a crawl.
  • The open waters of the north-west quarter of the loop are scenic but swarming with mugging-parties.
  • There are free boats, but they're slow and awful. Fancy private boats charge 10s per journey, increasing if you look fancy or desperate. 
FOOD WELL
  • Primarily a water well, but also a courtyard surrounded by eateries.
  • Restaurants will buy exotic ingredients for a good price.
  • Some meet here to socialise, but it's a known criminal hotspot too.
GLASS TOWER
  • The top floor has a Day Spa frequented by Bastion's elite.
  • When the wind is high, panes of glass often fall down onto passers-by.
  • The surroundings are quite desolate, but builders are working on new projects.
MIRE
  • Rows of shops that never seem to have any customers.
  • They only sell worthless things and give awful tattoos.
  • Has a swampy park overrun with lizards.
ELEPHANT HOUSE
  • A museum of elephants through time.
  • In the dockyards around here, elephants are still used out of tradition as beasts of burden.
  • The housing around here is cheap, because of the elephant smell, so very popular with students, who know a back-alley route to their university.
DUMP
  • Here rubbish is dumped from massive cable-cars above.
  • The canal goes underground to the processing plant.
  • There is a huge workhouse here, housing thousands of workers with no better prospects.
GLORY LANE
  • There was a crushing sports defeat here years ago, so a stadium lies abandoned in mourning.
  • The locals here are rough, and mentioning The Defeat is punishable by specific beatings, depending on the circumstances.
  • There's a collectibles market here, buying and selling useless but interesting things.
OIL QUARTER
  • Fancy upmarket housing, with tasteful faux-graffiti on the walls.
  • Boutique shops selling hair oil, tonics, and soap.
  • Has an open air theatre known for political opera. 
SCRAP MARKET
  • A market selling things salvaged from the Dump, staffed entirely by Mock Animals due to some bylaw.
  • Mockeries give each other a generous discount and try to rip-off humans.
  • The scrap is kept extremely neat, and the mockeries harshly punish litering the spotless streets around here.
ROTTEN PALACE
  • An aristocratic hall turned into day-out for the whole family, with slides and overpriced cake.
  • The grounds are well-kept, with forests and lakes that almost make you forget you're in the city, until you come across squatters in tents.
  • The Library Wing is still owned by the a member of the aristocratic family, carrying out lonely study.

1 comment:

  1. You should add the rule for the "Middle of Nowhere" if the cablecar breaks down.

    ReplyDelete