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However, I have not had the time or energy to actually do it properly, so you're getting a different thing this year. A thing I call

Hot World Summer 2: Hot World, Summer in the City

In which I use the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, along with various other resources, to generate a single community. This might not seem like much compared to a whole world, but…

I'm going to name every character living there.

There's something I don't have a table for, so I need the help of all the woodland critters out there! We'll be referencing the first of our supplemental materials, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3rd Edition).

This'll be a quick one so vote soon to have your voice heard!

The gracious woodland critters voted for a city-state as the realm of this project, and I'm not going to cheat them out of it by randomly rolling some nearby smaller community. So rather than rolling, I'm going to set the size of the town to Large City.

This gives us a population range of 12,001-25,000, and the precise number will be important later. So let's generate it randomly. That's a range of 13,000, so we're just going to roll d13000+12001 on anydice and be done with it. The result is an adult population of 18,965, which is pretty bad but could've been worse. There is a GP limit of 40,000 gp, indicating that that's the most expensive an item you can hope to purchase here. By multiplying half of that with 10% of the population, we also learn the city's purchase limit, indicating how much cash is available in the city, and how much stuff is actually available to purchase, a result of 37,940,000 gp, which is a lot.

Next, we determine our community's power center. Or rather, power centers, as cities will have more than one. We roll a d20 for power center type, adding a +5 for this being a large city, giving us 13, 6, and 13, which indicates three conventional power centers. We also roll for a 5% chance to have a monstrous power center in addition, but disappointingly we're stuck with the three. Then we roll alignments for each. The first is lawful good, the second chaotic good, and the third chaotic evil. So we can assume none of these get along particularly well.

Next we roll for community authorities. The captain of the guard will, by random roll, be the highest-level fighter in the community. There will be 189 full-time guards, plus 948 militia who can be called to action in an emergency.

Then, we'll roll for the highest-level locals of each class, or rather the three highest-level locals, with a +9 modifier to each roll. These characters will in turn generate lower-level characters. I wont' go into the particulars of each roll or the formula for generating lower-level ones, you can look that up in the Dungeon Master's Guide (3rd Edition) if you want, but let it be noted that. Here goes.

A 15th-level adept

A 14th-level adept

An 11th-level adept

Four 7th-level adepts

Two 5th-level adepts

Eight 3rd-level adepts

Four 2nd-level adepts

Ninety-one 1st-level adepts

A 13th-level aristocrat

An 11th-level aristocrat

A 10th-level aristocrat

Two 6th-level aristocrats

Four 5th-level aristocrats

Four 3rd-level aristocrats

Eight 2nd-level aristocrats

Ninety-two 1st-level aristocrats

Three 11th-level barbarians

Six 5th-level barbarians

Twelve 2nd-level barbarians

Twenty-four 1st-level barbarians

One 15th-level bard

One 13th-level bard

One 10th-level bard

Two 7th-level bards

Two 6th-level bards

Two 5th-level bards

Eight 3rd-level bards

Four 2nd-level bards

Twenty-four 1st-level bards

One 14th-level cleric

One 13th-level cleric

One 10th-level cleric

Two 7th-level clerics

Two 6th-level clerics

Two 5th-level clerics

Eight 3rd-level clerics

Four 2nd-level clerics

Twenty-four 1st-level clerics

One 20th-level commoner

One 19th-level commoner

One 18th-level commoner

Two 10th-level commoners

Four 9th-level commoners

Four 5th-level commoners

Eight 4th-level commoners

Twenty-four 2nd-level commoners

Sixteen thousand six hundred and fifty-three 1st-level commoners

One 14th-level druid

One 11th-level druid

One 10th-level druid

Two 7th-level druids

Four 5th-level druids

Four 3rd-level druids

Eight 2nd-level druids

Twenty-four 1st-level druids

One 18th-level expert

One 17th-level expert

One 16th-level expert

Two 9th-level experts

Four 8th-level experts

Twelve 4th-level experts

Twenty-four 2nd-level experts

Five hundred and forty-nine 1st-level experts

One 16th-level fighter

One 14th-level fighter

One 11th-level fighter

Two 8th-level fighters

Two 7th-level fighters

Two 5th-level fighters

Four 4th-level fighters

Four 3rd-level fighters

Twelve 2nd-level fighters

Thirty-two 1st-level fighters

Two 12th-level monks

One 10th-level monk

Four 6th-level monks

Two 5th-level monks

Eight 3rd-level monks

Four 2nd-level monks

Twenty-four 1st-level monks

One 12th-level paladin

Two 11th-level paladins

Two 6th-level paladins

Four 5th-level paladins

Four 3rd-level paladins

Eight 2nd-level paladins

Twenty-four 1st-level paladins

Two 12th-level rangers

One 10th-level ranger

Four 6th-level rangers

Two 5th-level rangers

Eight 3rd-level rangers

Four 2nd-level rangers

Twenty-four 1st-level rangers

Two 11th-level rogues

One 10th-level rogue

Six 5th-level rogues

Twelve 2nd-level rogues

Twenty-four 1st-level rogues

One 12th-level sorcerer

Two 10th-level sorcerers

Two 6th-level sorcerers

Four 5th-level sorcerers

Four 3rd-level sorcerers

Eight 2nd-lelve sorcerers

Twenty-four 1st-level sorcerers

Two 14th-level warriors

One 13th-level warrior

Four 7th-level warriors

Two 6th-level warriors

Twelve 3rd-level warriors

Nine hundred and fifteen 1st-level warriors

One 13th-level wizard

One 11th-level wizard

One 10th-level wizard

Two 6th-level wizards

Four 5th-level wizards

Four 3rd-level wizards

Eight 2nd-level wizards

Twenty-four 1st-level wizards

I'm going to set the racial demographics to mixed, unfortunately there's not really a random way to determine this. This gives us 14,982 humans, 1,707 halflings, 948 elves, 569 dwarves, 379 gnomes, 190 half-elves, and 190 half-orcs.

While I work on the districts of our fair city using another one of my supplemental materials the web enhancement "Building a City" for the v.3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, let's get some quicker stuff out of the way. We'll be examining the three power centers, their relative strength, and the prevailing alignments of the city. And for that we will use another supplemental source, the article "Towns With and Without Pity" from Dragon Magazine #295.

As previously established, our three power centers are LG conventional, CG conventional, and CE conventional. To figure out the relative power each one holds, we'll roll 2d10 for each, total all the rolls, and then figure out the percentage each holds. The result is as follows:

LG conventional 2 (8%) CG conventional 15 (60%) CE conventional 8 (32%)

Then we roll to see which of the power bases are due to popularity and which due to coercion, adjusting each roll based on alignment.

LG conventional 8% popular CG convenational 60% popular CE conventional 32% coerced

I had to discard my original rolls because none of them were popular powers, and the system doesn't account for that. But we mark the alignments of the two popular power centers on a chart, and then also mark the alignment that falls orthogonally between them. So the most common alignments among the populace are lawful good, neutral good, and chaotic good. Our fair city-state is a goodly realm for sure.

Now let's actually get into some detail rather than just numbers. What does all this mean?

The prince of the city-state has died, leaving behind several heirs. The eldest among them has inherited the throne, but two younger siblings also vie for power! The populace is split on who they support, the different political factions named after the city's emblem, the serpent, and a colour. The Blue Serpents support Princess Alysan (LG female human Ari13), but her hold is tenuous. Most of the populace count themselves as Green Serpents and stand with Duchess Brianna (CG female human Ari11), who promises social reform in the city. And while actual support for the Red Serpents of Duchess Candella (CE female human Ari10) is minimal, they've used strong arm tactics to build up a power base.

As work continues on the districts (it's pretty tedious work), let's take a peek at another supplemental book, the v.3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide II.

We'll be determining the Law Rank of the city-state. It is here that I'm reminded of how much the designers kept forgetting that cities had multiple power centers, because you're just supposed to adjust certain rolls based on "the local power center." So I have two choices: the legitimate ruler or the most powerful one. I'll go with the latter option, as Duchess Brianna's influence affects the city's institutions despite her not being the actual ruler.

Law Rank starts at 0. We add 2 for Brianna being Good, and subtract 3 for her being Chaotic. So we're at -1.

Then we roll for how long the power in the city has had peaceful transitions of power (a streak likely to end soon). On a d12 roll we learn that there has been one violent overthrow in the last 50 years (did the precious prince wrest power from a tyrant?), reducing the rank by one. Law Rank -2.

A d10 roll tells us that the city has a legal code but it is less than a hundred years old. Law Rank -1.

The law is enforced with moderate strength. Law Rank 0.

There is hardly any corruption among officials, which doesn't change the Law Rank.

One last roll tells us that social standing always matters in the court of law (no wonder the people are behind Brianna's reforms!). This gives us a final Law Rank of -2.

Also, have you seen anybody do any cool magic yet?

Let's put it this way, I don't see all that many repeat customers of the adventuring variety at the inn. And unfortunately that extends to foolhardy local youths who seek employment of such nature.

As for magic, it's considered bad manners to just fling spells around in town, but Gzalbadyrhh the Magician, who has taken me on as a student, has shown me a few neat spells. He cast fly on me which was pretty scary, but fun!

You know how in anime when someone gets sent to another world, they get some sort of busted power-up? Well mine is that I have my rulebooks with me. And let me just take a look at page 13 of my Player’s Handbook here…

“Assassin, Elven: yes”

A reminder that sell-buy dates or best-used-by dates are not the same as expiration dates.

The website puts a link to the USDA site which links to foodsafety dot gov who really wants you to use the app, but you can bypass it.

Also a link to the Canadian government's advisory on best-before dates.

💛💜🖤 Our airtime in life is so shamefully brief, why limit yourself to a single channel? 🧡💛💙