I inherited a city campaign which gets an annual outing. The underlying system was originally AD&D 2nd Edition with all characters fixed at enough exp to make a cleric 11th level. When I run I use the TORG mechanics because I find the D&D mechanics too limiting. The campaign city was defined to be mostly human population but ruled by the elves. These elves were defined to be extremely racist - one of the few laws was that there was no such thing as a half-elf. The laws were also very pro-sylvan creatures, and very down on orcs and undead (except banshes who had to be have their onuses abated). At the center of the city was a great golden dome, the purpose of which has never been revealed, but it was sacred to the city's patron god Auriculous, and defended by an order of paladins (in their usual style). The city was defined to be coastal with a fair sized harbour, and food was carted in from outlying farms. The principle industry was defined to be textile based, but apart from this skewing prices in the local markets this detail never came into play. All PCs were in the city watch, to be precise a squad called Maverick V (V as in five). They were the awkward ones who wanted to be in the watch, but the watch didn't want them. Having been too successful they could not be dismissed, but they were always passed the impossible or unpleasant cases in the hope they would either bungle enough to be dismissed or otherwise give up and leave. The exception to this was the dear little old lady who kept dropping by the watch-house with cakes for the boys in blue. Delicious cakes which nobody ever wanted to eat - perhaps becasue the icing was a bit odd - like the skull shaped one with the red eyes and neatly piped black bats round the edge. And of course the fact that she tended to turn up riding a broom with a far too intelligent cat siting on the end was insufficient evidence to convict her of being a witch. There was a large dwarven settlement under the city. The watch's remit was defined to cease at 15 feet below ground level. The cases they had to solve were mainly modern crime stories in a fantasy setting. Thus the crimes and the detection methods were very fantasy, but the society was modern. Scenarios I have run include: 1) Two cleptomainic topless women (strangely their hair was sufficently long and thick enough to keep the adventure rating at a certificate 12 level) who both look like an NPC member of Maverick V trotting round the docklands helping themselves to anything pretty. Turns out they were both mermaids who had fallen for the same sea captain and had come on shore with the intention of taking him back home. Of course on the sea-bed they have no concept of shops and such: you see something pretty you just take it and wear it. And the reason they looked just like the member of Maverick V? Well she hadn't got round to telling anyone she was a mermaid too, but she was on detached duty from her temple - she had a secondary objective to stop the city folk poluting the sea. The first batch of PCs I ran this scenario for also negotiated a treaty with the merfolk laying down that mermaids within city limits would depend on more than very long hair for covering the upper torso. Of course every mermaid had the right to sun herself on the rocks outside the city limits and if sailors got distracted from their duties and wrecked themselves that was their problem! 2) Maverick V were called in to assist the Elves in Black put down an evil temple. The EiB of course used very strange magic bows and went about in instantly forgetable black carriages, but by the end of the scenario the PCs had forgotten all about them and it was simply defined that they had been "acting on information received". Odd things waiting to be investigated are the sudden uprooting of all the trees in a local park and a brewery which keeps taking deliveries but never sells any beer. I think the merfolk are going to lodge a complaint about the strange icky stuff the brewery are dumping in the sea. Rgds, Michael. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
