In a high magic setting can one just go buy any magic item you want? In a low magic setting, with any “magic” items one can buy can be mere forgeries, or lies. Perhaps only with Nystul’s magic Aura on them? Or not magic at all? Granted, a high magic setting could have the same issue.

If a current low magic campaign, but the fallen city was high magic, what kinds of items will be found here, and where will they most likely be found, and how will the party discover them?

Will potions, scrolls, and spell books survive the ravages of time? Perhaps surviving books are one of the many librams and tomes suggested in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Scrolls might be found it airtight and resilient scroll cases, or perhaps magical scroll cases to specifically protect scrolls. Potions could be in special bottles, or one might find a bad of holding or a portable hole with its original contents. Or such things found could be the remains of past adventurers seeking riches and glory.

Will a fallen city be fallen partly because of some dread magic item? Will this be an item they know the big bad is seeking, and seek to find it first?

What monuments, statues, and tombs exist for heroes, conquerors, rulers, gods, and deeds? For a fallen city how many of these are damaged and in ruin? Does it matter how they were damaged? Fire might only blacken them or also cause them to crack, or crumble. Earthquakes might only topple them, or make them unsteady.

Is a fallen city being re-occupied and any old stone being used as building materials, as happened to the Coliseum in Rome and to the pyramids in Egypt?

Can the players read the languages or interpret the images or scenes on monuments? For example, on Crete were discovered the Linear A and Linear B writing systems. Linear B proved to be an early form of Greek, but Linear A has yet to be deciphered.

Is there a decree or dedication written in multiple languages, like the Rosetta Stone, that might enable the right sage or character to decipher it without needing magic?

Obelisks, spires, stellae, arches, stones, are all examples. The stone can be worked or unworked. The worked stone can be roughly worked, smoothed, or polished.

Stones can have letters, symbols, or images that are carved in relief or engraved. Stone for monuments can be of a different type than other buildings, or the same type but of a different color; for example, black or white marble, or marble for monuments, and granite for mundane construction. Paints and dyes could be used to color or highlight certain parts, or add an extra flair.

Some monuments may have been damaged intentionally, such as when a successor ruler obliterates the name of a hated or maligned predecessor, or if a once hailed hero has fallen from grace.

Stone can be soft, medium, or hard.

Soft stone examples are chalk, soapstone, pumic, and tufa. They can be worked by almost anything, and chalk can be worked by fingernails.

Medium stone examples are marble and many limestones. Tufa, mentioned above is a type of limestone.

Hard stone examples are granite and basalt. They are difficult to carve with even iron and steel tools and tend to be used for building processes that don’t require much shaping, but there are exampled of granite monuments.

There are also other kinds of stone that might be used for other purposes, like stone tools made from flint or obsidian, a volcanic glass. Decorative items and inlays in stone can be made from any other type of stone, or even gems.

Some ideas for tables are assembled below.

Hardness

1. Soft
2. Medium
3. Hard

Finish

1. None
2. Rough Cut
3. Fine Cut – still has tool marks.
4. Smooth – Tool marks removed.
5. Polished – Smooth and perhaps shiny.

Carving

1. None
2. Relief
3. Engraved

What is the Carving?

1. Letters – Alphabetic with or without vowels/Heiroglyphs & other Ideograms/Other – see Writing Systems
   1. How many different languages?
2. Symbols (Other than those in the writing system. For example, arrows to show direction, the writing system would use North, left, up, etc.)
3. Animal Images
4. Divine Images
5. Human Images
6. Demi-Human Images
7. Humanoid Images
8. Monster Images
9. Combinations of the above.

Color Source/Decoration

1. Natural from the stone.
2. Painting
3. Dyeing
4. Inlays of other stones or gems.

 Construction Quality

1. Rough/Loosely Piled
2. Rough with mortar (Mortar can be mud, clay, cement, concrete, or various mixtures to help hold the stones in place.)
3. Passable (Good enough to get the job done but not pretty or neat. With or without mortar. If no mortar, could be roughly fitted stone.)
4. Good (Most craftsmen are capable of this level of craftsmanship.)
5. Master Quality (It is evident that a master mason had a personal hand in the work and direction of the work.)
6. Dwarf Quality (Depending on your take, dwarves might just be better than other races at stone work and their average work is better than other races.)
7. Master Dwarf Quality (An experienced and practiced dwarf stone mason, whose specialty is stone work.)
8. Other (Divine guided/inspired, magical assistance, etc.)

Each table can be further complicated by including magic.

Magic

1. Writing (Explosive runes, moon runes, etc.)
2. Images (One or more of the images comes to life and steps out of the carving.)
3. Construction (Wall of Stone or Mud to Rock used to create the stone, an enchantment on the stone other than writing or animated images.)

A large city requires materials to build it. Where are the quarries for stone for building, decoration, statues, and monuments? Ancient monuments and cities used materials hauled from 50 or more miles away.

Quarries would not be too far away, unless there is a nearby river and stone is transported by barge. Or if a really high magic or technology civilization, or lots of laborers to use without much safety concern, large stones could be moved long distances with relative ease. Quarries might be flooded with appropriate nastiness within. Unused, or unclaimed blocks might still sit there, like we have found in ancient quarries around the world. In my campaign, I have an NPC, Trebor, who is an artist who does odd jobs to bring in enough to support his family, and is away for a few days here and there scouting and collecting materials for making paints and dies, clay for pottery, and stone for carving. The players agreed to help his wife by going to find him, when he was gone longer than usual. They found him beset by a small group of kobolds taunting him.

Wood, bamboo, and other materials would require a somewhat accessible supply within a reasonable travelling distance. A once large forest could be not so large if a city has a lot of wooden structures, or has built a lot of ships. What is the relation of the town to the nearest druids? England was widely deforested in the age of sail, thus the tall pines and other abundant trees of North America were invaluable to maintaining Great Britain’s navy and supremacy of the seas. The loss of a ship when there is no forest to make replacements would be devastating. A forest may not be available because it has been cut down without a replacement strategy, or the available forest is inaccessible for many practical reasons: distance, physical barriers (mountains, raging rivers, canyons, deserts, etc.), unfriendly neighbors whether other kingdoms or hordes of various humanoids and monsters.

If bamboo is the scaffolding and building material of choice, it is fast growing, and some species advance rapidly. The rapidly advancing species would easily take over a city, so such a city would be overgrown, barring new tenants keeping it clear, or some magical or monstrous effect.

For an abandoned city, a forest might recover. Would a novice druid, or perhaps a more ranking druid be sent to restore such a forest?

What are the trade routes to and from the materials used for bracing, scaffolding, cranes, etc? Trade routes for building materials might be totally different, at least further away from the city than closer in.

In March of 2014, I had an article on Resources and Their Source. All the materials used to build a city come from somewhere. Can the city make it all or harvest all the stone, wood, and other needed materials within a few miles of the town, or must they seek far and wide for some things?

As I have mentioned in prior articles, Lost Kingdom has an interesting article on Building Materials.

In a big city, it is easy to get lost in the narrow streets and alleys in the middle of the tall walls and buildings.

If there are no rangers or druids, then you need a means for tracking, getting lost in the city, and getting unlost.

In a living city, one can always ask for directions, and hope the one asked is honest and not looking for rubes.

In a collapsed city, who does one ask for directions, the horde of undead, the ogre under the bridge, the evil wizard in charge?

In a collapsed city, the streets may not be so narrow with buildings now leveled. Ruble would choke the streets, and in a thousand years, the accumulation of dust and debris would bury lower floors, if not whole buildings. Just look to archaeology in the Middle East. Or jungles would overgrow them like Mayan cities, or those in southeast Asia.

Finding a fallen city could be a chore in and of itself. If it is buried by accumulation of dirt, debris, and vegetation, the now buried city could be the dungeon. Perhaps it has been excavated in such a way that it is dungeon-like? Wide streets of mostly standing walls and buildings. Perhaps an excavation has found the palace that leads down to lower levels. Those who dare, or have the skill, can seek to dig tunnels to other buildings, or try their luck to sink test holes. In this way, an ancient city is exactly like a dungeon.

So finding a lost city requires luck, knowledge, and all the tropes of such an adventure. Getting lost in a buried city like this is the same as getting lost in a dungeon. Make a wrong turn, or a bad map, and then what does it take to get back?

For a living city, or a fallen one that is not yet buried by the accumulated debris of time, if there are no special markings, or no easy way to get one’s bearings with a landmark, getting lost is a real possibility. In a living city, one can always ask for directions, and pay the price, and/or take the consequences. But in a fallen city, the only ones to ask for directions might be the orcs who want to eat your head. Gary Gygax only details becoming lost in a wilderness setting in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and OSRIC and other Retro-Clones do the same. Becoming lost in a city or dungeon is handled much the same way. Without a guide, a map, or other ways to mark one’s path, it could be easy to get lost.

Standard precautions, such as chalk, string, a trail of something, or mapping would be the best way to avoid becoming lost.

Getting lost in an ancient city would depend on several factors. If there is a big open area, like a boulevard, parade ground, or leveled buildings, it might be easy to pick a bearing and generally get where you want to go. However, towering city walls and tall buildings with narrow alleys could be dark on overcast days or in the early morning or late evening. Streets that all look alike with lots of twists and turns where it is easy to lose track of the number of streets and turns one took, especially when being chased.

One could use a similar formula for getting lost in the wilderness. If following a river or stream, or major road with a fairly straight course would make it hard to get lost. Get away from any form of guidance, and getting lost becomes a possibility. Once out of sight of such features, the number of turns taken, or twists and switchbacks in the road, and getting lost becomes more likely.

This is something that I would handle in game play with what makes the most sense at the time.

If someone did develop mechanic for this, it would need to be simple and consistent, and not slow down game play. I don’t think a mechanic is needed for this, as the characters are in a limited area. I would proceed as in a dungeon. You have an intersection, straight ahead, left, right, or back? What do you do? You can’t get a mechanic simpler than that.

Who is in charge here? Is it the capital of the kingdom or empire? If so, where is the palace? If not the capital city, where is the palace of the governor, satrap, or prince?

Is authority held by the head of state, or are they merely a figurehead?

Is the real authority known, or a power behind the throne?

How might this look to adventurers exploring a fallen city?

Is the fallen city the capital of an empire or kingdom, or one of it’s many cities? If not the capital, who is in charge?

For an empire, it can have many different looks.

• A client king, like the Romans used. They appointed kings over their territory who owed their throne and their power to Rome. The most well-known example is King Herod of Judea, from the Bible.
• A governor/satrap/viceroy/or other appointed official. (This may not start out as hereditary, but become so over time.)
• A prince of a cadet (junior line) of the royal family.
• A prince (noble title, not of the royal family)
• An Archduke/Duke or other noble.
• A cleric (Perhaps the main temple of the city is of the predominate religion that is favored by the Empire/Kingdom.)
• A magic-user (Certain cities may be located in area where knowledge of magic is essential. Or it may just be a tradition that happened, and has no real requirement beyond tradition.)
• One need only look to Gary Gygax’s list of government types, in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, to see other possibilities.

If there is a power behind the throne, who is it?

• The Guild Master of the Thieve’s Guild
• An even more shadowy Guild Master of the Assassin’s Guild
• Plot complication – The Thieve’s Guild’s master is secretly also the master of the Assassin’s Guild.
• A powerful member of a prominent family.
• A group of members of the most prominent families.
• The head of the merchants’ or crafts’ guilds, or a group of the heads of each such guild.
• A group of very rich, powerful, and successful adventurers.
• A magical creature, that can shape shift to hide it’s true nature. (This could be a dragon, or any variety of several creatures. It will have other means to exert power without revealing it’s true self. A magic using dragon could present themselves as a wizard, for example.)
• A demonic creature, if of a chaotic bent, it may not care if the ruler knows their origin.
• A doppleganger who has replaced the ruler. (Is this a doppleganger acting alone or with or for someone else?)

How is the ruler determined? 

• Hereditary (There may still be a ceremony of a secular or religious nature, or travelling to swear loyalty to the Emperor/King, etc. to make it official.)
• Appointment by the Emperor/King
• Appointment by regional ruler
• Election by regional nobles from a set eligible group.
• Election by the guilds of the city.
• Election by the people. (This could be limited to very specific groups who are eligible to vote, as we have seen in our own history of voting.)
  • For example, only land holders, soldiers, merchants, members of a certain social class or group of families.
    • Certain families could include those whose ancestor(s) fought in a significant battle, or who founded the original settlement, or through tradition have a power that originally belonged to all, etc.