Settlements

for us world builders arguably the most important thing to flesh out below the heroes are where people live because the current state of a settlement is the result of all the history that predated it and now we get to tell a story inside of it for Dungeon Master's I have a little statement to make if you follow this guide for every settlement that you make your brain will die because all the information I'm about to give you is completely unnecessary for the village you're running all you need are the places that the party is actually going to go as a general rule of thumb for short visit settlements all you need is a place for them to stay a place for them to pray and a place to shop if the settlement is big enough don't expect exploration from players with a goal already in place for a home town or quest centric areas it's best to add personality to each of the above locations an inn and a tavern have a family that runs them other guests and sometimes a form of entertainment for adventurers they'll try to get involved in things like fight pits or bard songs a temple should have a priest and usually its own current issues like false teachings or poor funding I'll be describing the types of shops that might exist in certain settlements later in the video check out my NPC video to populate these locations but for myself and people like me I don't care at all about making the process easier for myself I want to make a damn City from the ground up not a quick backdrop with two buildings a hot elf barkeep and a cardboard general goods shop even if that's all I need so let's get started the one and only thing that sparks a settlement of any size is this a resource if you've ever played civilization you probably walked around some before finding a good resource to exploit the two most common resources our food and minerals examples include huge tracts of land a surplus of flora and fauna a cave full of iron ore and of course rivers all settlements need a source of water nearby just below that would be goods we don't usually use at home on a daily basis like lumber or spices not to say that this is the only thing that a settlement has but it's something they can collect in abundance that can eventually be an exported good so let's move on to you can debate the accuracy of a settlement hierarchy but I'll base this video on my own research and the book itself the first and the smallest is a hamlet this isn't in the DMS guide because there is next to no reason for an adventurer to ever visit one this is a group of generally less than a hundred people who work just enough resources to survive until tomorrow basically imagine your first week in Minecraft when you were seven all you wanted were dirt walls to protect yourself and some food to eat it's unlikely these guys have any goods to offer they don't have a church because that's a textbook trait of Hamlet's for some reason and no shelter for an outsider to stay in if you want to tie a hamlet to the story the best they can provide is information and maybe a hot meal and trade for labor they either haven't been around long or have a tight family mentality and want to keep it that way in either case you won't see a hamlet on a map now let's double the size of the residency and add some stability to create a village during that growth quite a few things happened first they started cultivating food instead of relying on the local flora fauna patterns they either have a small number of farms or animal husbandry this is enough food to provide for the village itself with a possible surplus to trade with outsiders such as merchants second they gained a government to keep the excess of people in check this is usually a single noble family that owns the village and is responsible for its upkeep government believe it or not is where things get tricky further down the line I'll talk about cities but villages don't always evolved from Hamlet's oftentimes they're commissioned by a city or town to collect valuable resources they could be formed by a pilgrimage of foreigners a conquered and integrated tribe or purchased from a noble and redesigned to fit a city's needs in situations where a village is owned by a city the city could provide food for the villagers so they can work mainly on minerals or other local goods regardless of who's in charge they need protection stations throughout the village there is a massive misconception about town guards but here's a couple of bullet points most are volunteers and not all of them are well trained to do more than attack or detain someone each settlement handles log differently and each individual does the same there is no realistic guard to person ratio and the number heavily depends on the type of natives but my personal preference is roughly one official guard to every 50 people in addition to those improvements they also built a church we all need something to believe in and the world is a place that holds too many unseen secrets to stay faithless this doesn't mean the villages religion makes any sense at all because history is more than overflowing with human sacrifice and ideological warfare so let's run through what all that actually means if the heroes walk into a village they'll find anywhere from a hundred to a thousand people working the land for shelter this place will likely have some where merchants are welcome to stay while they're trading for religion there is either a temple or a network of shrines to make offerings or to pray to for shops they'll likely have a small shop with general Goods relating to the villages own needs so they likely won't include weapons or armor there's likely also going to be a traveling merchant passing through with a few unique items for sale for order there is one guy in charge most of the time he doesn't even live here however he's got someone who does all the paperwork and that guy lives in a nice home where he collects taxes and writes letters just below that you've got a decent population of guards to keep the village in check for locals we have farmers religious workers and craftsmen who are just skilled enough to get the job done a lot of crafts fall by the wayside but they're still working 9 to 5 jobs people like cobblers leather workers butchers bakers candlestick makers potters rat catchers foresters and quite a few more will walk by the adventures without ever saying a word now imagine if you will that a village had close to 3,000 citizens and more spices than they know what to do with what's going to happen then is people here about a surplus of a rare good and come running in from far and wide to trade or to reign this is what we call a town let's go through the changes first the excessive trade towns either pop up on major trade routes between cities or the rarity of what they export makes trade routes pop up around them as a result of this the town has to compensate for a surplus of foreigners and merchants this is where the business of taverns and inns explodes towns receive a wide variety of basic goods like large stocks of salted meats grain lumber and metal ingots this doesn't mean jack to adventurers but it's the underground lifeblood of every settlement there's a reason companies like Cisco or Home Depot have an army of delivery trucks running 24/7 and just like us most adventurers won't really acknowledge a traveling merchant unless they have personal goods second craftsmen are allowed more freedom to perfect their craft most towns of some form of guild system were specialists take on apprentices and have more authority local and well-known artisans or craftsmen take up the mantle of overseeing most trade in the town third you have too many people running around to keep a loose law system in addition to the noble and they're appointed overseer the town adds a bit of a republic to the system and elects their own council of overseers sometimes this group melds pretty heavily with the local church or the guild system and to keep the streets in check we have more guards more rules and better training lastly when merchants spread so does the church larger temples are built different religions are represented and drama plays out in the triad of the three systems when the God's will isn't heated when the law is ignored and when goods get stolen our set of in town factions starts throwing blame at each other so let's take a walk through the town in the outskirts we have massive amounts of resources being collected split up by roads that lead inside somewhere just beyond or maybe in a city nearby lives the noble that owns this land further in we find housing for merchants a medley of Inns and taverns to keep travelers entertained somewhere nearby is the trade center world owned and run by guild members maybe they deal directly with merchants or maybe they open up the streets for travellers to sell their goods freely here you'll find all the basic goods or services you might need the number of specialists doubles when compared to a village and the cobbling business always does really well certain towns may also offer higher Ling's slaves or a red light district scattered about or various temples teeming with devout clerics and a surprisingly small amount of human sacrifice somewhere near the center of town tucked behind a mountain of residences and a barred gate is City Hall this is where the council collects taxes and rights laws and somewhat more prominent in a town than a village are of course the guards everyone's favorite type of NPC to deal with they won't be everywhere but they'll likely be near the heroes points of interest you'll find them buzzing around trade centers taverns and swarming around city hall like fruit flies if you tightly pack three to eight towns together you'll get a city these are the settlements that have had a lot of time to grow and a lot of luck in terms of both location and resources these colossal monuments of human progress are the hearts of kingdoms and offer the widest variety of experiences for a traveler the most definitive trait of cities are layers everything exists in layers here in the center of the city is where the old town used to be every expansion adds a new layer a new defensive wall is built and the city shifts as a whole a long-lived city viewed from above might look like a cut tree trunk with rings to show its age and districts that represent the time they were built their expansive structure is uncommon due to how hard it is to hold together instead of one Noble there is a circle of lords and ladies each seat upward holding more power than the one below in order to protect the city's interest a more than healthy amount of guards are posted throughout the city the law systems here are held up by a court or another bureaucratic model prisons and barracks are in healthy supply here and the number of trained and armed forces are well above the amount required to wage war several guilds take hold and sit offering perfected trade of even the rarest goods and services the Guild's can be divided into two groups but each trader or craftsman will likely monopolize their craft traders band together and set the prices for various goods and craftsmen set the standard for what types of goods will represent their trade caravans travel from far and wide to cities and the trade district plays host to everything an adventurer could want some examples for your city and who herb shops magic component salesman trinket sellers potion shops bookstores palm studenten this list great cathedrals and other central temples become the tent poles of their religions powerful clerics and paladin's collect here to worship and pay homage to their gods lives are lived in full inside city walls and stories are written on every street corner massive housing districts play host to the working common folk and abandoned districts shelter both low-lives and seedy deals adventurers might have a reason to visit any district and deal with any number of citizens inside a city a kingdom or a nation isn't exactly a type of settlement but more so a network of towns and villages connected under one ruler any larger Kingdom has a city as its head and a single Noble in charge of all the people's future well that's all i got i know i droned on near the end and i'm sure i missed some major stuff like irrigation and some government details feel free to add some information in the comments hope I helped some then thanks for watching you

Channel: Runesmith

Views: 607,237

Rating: 4.9773378 out of 5

Keywords: Dnd, dungeons and dragons, 5e, 5th edition, tutorial, funny, comedy, tabletop, game, tabletop games, dice, role play, role playing, rpg, easy listening, meme, memes, trending, parody, satire, sketch, sketch comedy, roleplay, series, guide, dungeon master, quick, cities, towns, villages, city, town, village, hamlet, settlements, settlement, location, place, places

Id: ZxMvJV9lG3k

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2019