For March posting daily with random tools, tables and titles for Fantasy Cities at rpg_generators subreddit (list of posts). Building on previous Generator Months.
If you like what I'm doing come join my Patreon.
[Cover from OMGM on Day 3]
Day 1 - Fantasy City Generators at Donjon
For March I'm posting daily with random tools, tables & titles for Fantasy Cities.
Starting day 1 strong with generators of donjon
- Towns and Cities gives descriptions of several towns at once, with populations, unique features, leadership and atmosphere details. With filters for size and culture.
- For a City or Town (or other settlement) with a map, Fantasy Town Generator gives you that and also basic information & npcs (below the map). It has options for terrain, topography and real-world cultures.
- The Random Inn Generator is useful for populating places to drink and sleep in a city.
- There are Random Encounters in Town with all sorts of trouble waiting.
- The Fantasy Name Generator has an option for human town names. Other cultures listed also has options for "Town Names" (in addition to male and female names)
- For something unusual, try the Traction Cities, mobile cities inspired by the Mortal Engines books.
- Castles to guard the cities, inside or nearby.
- Finally there are Carousing Events (for D&D 5e but look flexible)
Day 2 - City Generator at OMGM
The City Generator at OMGM has options for Population, Type (village / town / city etc), Altitude, Temperature and Humidity
It creates a settlement with info on history, wealth, populace, government, fortifications, location. Plus historical events, hooks and a breakdown of buildings (nine orchards in my small city!)
Enough information to use in a game but not an overwhelming amount! It can be downloaded as a pdf or in markdown.
Day 3 - D100 Tables for Cities at DnD Speak
Powered by lists created at r/d100 DND Speak has many fantasy and sci-fi d100 tables. Ones for city include...
- 100 Unique Towns / Villages with lots of inspiration for unique settlements
- 100 City Campaign Quest Hooks and 100 Thieves' Guild Quests for last-minute adventures
- 100 Interesting Background Events for a Major City to keep the city life going on around the characters
- 100 Non-Combat Urban Encounters to meet in the streets
- A Tavern Generator, combining other d100 tables
Day 4 - Watabou's Medieval Fantasy City Generator
The Medieval Fantasy City Generator by Watabou is the best known city map generator.
What advice do you have for using the tool?
What projects and adventures have you used it for?
Day 5 - Generators for City Streets
These are generators to bring life to the streets of a fantasy city
- At Kassoon there is a City Street Generator, giving a text description . Filters for road (poor/rich/any) and settlement size
- At Chaos Gen (mine) is People in a Crowd, such as "An insecure cleric with a prominent nose who is talking to a street vendor". Inspired by the Crowd Generator at Chaotic Shiny
- Inkwell Ideas has images with Encounter Builder: City Scenes.
- From Never Engine there is a pay-what-you-want pdf Encounter Generator - for Rough Urban areas. And another for Safe Urban Encounters
- Fantasy Name Generators has Street Names, House Descriptions and Landmarks.
- If combat is a concern, Chartopia has Tactical Elements for Street Encounters (from Maze Rats)
- Where there are crowds, there are pickpockets, so Dnd Speak has 100 Items in an NPC's Pockets, as well as Noncombat Urban Encounters.
Day 6 - Fantasy City Tiles - Dave's Mapper
For a different style of fantasy city map Dave's Mapper gives a Tile-Based City Map.
By default there's a mix of artists, but select less for less styles on a map (I double click on an artist on laptop to just have one)
Increase the grid size, rotate tiles, swap out tiles or export the map!
Day 7 - Eigengrau's Generator
different city generator, Eigengrau''s Generator creates a town/city which can then be expanded with more random NPCs, shops, inns, factions, quests that are interrelated and all editable.
There's also a whole lot of customisation including (new-looking) attributes slider (such as amount of magic, amount of wealth etc) and demographics.
There's also a toolbox of separate generators, using the ones integrated into the site.
Day 8 - City Generators of Kassoon
Several tools from Kassoon for fantasy cities
- A House Map Generator with a few settings and building types such as shop or mansion
- A City Street Generator with a text description and encounter
- A Town Map Generator with a nice map, but the options are paid features.
- A Town Generator which includes buildings and npcs.
Day 9 - 7Tools Settlement Generator with Interactive Map
At 7Tools is a Settlement Generator with a filter for size, including Town, City and Metropolis.
It's got information about government, imports, exports, factions and buildings.
Then there's a map with wards/areas, and each building can be selected, and the details filled out (from within the generator)
Day 10 - Free and Pay-what-you-want City PDFs
A few random titles you can get for free from drivethrurpg
- Pink Dice Bag Publishing has 100 Town and City Names in style of UK and UK cities.
- The Town and City Builder from James Embry is 65+ pages of advice and tables for building all sizes of settlements, split into districts with extra tables for names and encounters. Has a price but currently showing as free.
- Never Engine has two highly rated PWYW Encounter Generators, Urban (Rough) and Urban (Safe). As well as an Area/ Building and Room Generator and pwyw 300 Mundane Items and Objects.
- For creating a trader of weird magic in a marketplace Gorgzu Games has The Transient Bazaar, a PWYW title.
- Dicegeeks has a few free d100 lists including 100 Items found in a Fantasy Warehouse and Random Search Chart d100 - Fantasy Office.
Day 11 - Solo Roleplaying in Fantasy Cities
For tools (such as decks of cards) good for solo rpgs in fantasy city environments we have...
- Sidequest Decks: Political and Urban Fantasy from Inkwell Ideas, a deck (or pdf) of 50+ cards, each with an adventure outline and map. There are also decks for Coastal Towns and Frontier Towns
- Urban Locations - Concept Cards, a set of pdf/deck of cards with urban challenges and situations.
- Eigengrau's Generator is useful for solo, as the generated parts of the town are linked together
- Tricube Tales: Solo Rules has a free version which includes pages of tables for Urban Adventures, Crimes & Mysteries and Social Interaction
- Deck of Rumours: D100 City Hooks form Philip Reed Games has 100 cards, each with a rumour / plot hook
- The Quiet Year is a map game for a year of peace for a post-apocalyptic community, but could be adapted for a fantasy version (or leave a comment if you know of a fantasy version)
Day 12 - Tavern Generators
Taverns and Inns are part of fantasy cities, so we have...
- Here Be Taverns has the titular Taverns tool, most notably including a floorplan alongside menu, characters and rumours, with further details available.
- The quirky Tavern Generator at DND Speak, with a description, unusual patons, rumours and meals.
- The Copper Sanctum's Not Another Tavern Generator, with several filters, descriptions of the place, bartender, clientele and accommodation, plus a very detailed menu of drinks and food.
- For inn floorplans, Inkwell Ideas has a Random Inn Floorplan Generator with many options to choose from
- donjon's Random Inn and Tavern Generator, with filters for poor/common/good and townsfolk/adventurers. Location, description, menu, patrons and rumours.
- Role Generator has a Random Tavern and Inn Generator, including the basics, detailed customers, and an event.
Day 13 - Fantasy Town Generator
Fantasy Town Generator is a mapping tool with many options for creating cities. Look under "All settings" in the Create New Settlement page.
The created settlement has each building detailed, in labelled districts. Selecting a building will show you who lives there, their details, and who is there at a particular time of day! You can add and edit people and also generate events. One of mine was "Wana (a Lanternmaker), who has a crush on Serlert (chamber maid), gives a gift to her".
If you wanted to run a simulationist campaign for tabletop or solo, this might be tool to use!
Day 14 - Thieves and Thieves Guilds
In many fantasy cities there is a thieves guild of one type or another.
For random tools there is
- d100 lists at DnD Speak with 100 Thieves' Guild Quests, 100 Magic Items for a Rogue, 100 Items in an NPC's Pockets, 100 Items for Sale in a Fantasy Black Market and an article for Building a Thieves Guild with a few tables.
- At Chartopia there's Fantasy Thieves, Rogues and Ruffians plus Locations and Fronts for a Thieves' Guild (both sourced from r/d100 as part of a gens challenge)
- Scoundrel NPCs from donjon
- At Fantasy Name Generators there are Bandit Names, Gang Names, Ninjas/Assassins and Mobster Names
- For paid PDFs there's a Criminal Organization Generator from Atelier Clandestin and 100 Oddities for a Thieves Guild from Skirmisher Publishing
Day 15 - Houses of the City
Sometimes you just want the details of a house, big or small.
- Watabou has a ProcGen Mansion with the option of a floorplan (near bottom of settings list)
- Fantasy Name Generators has a House Description Generator
- Kassoon has House Maps with plans and furniture
- A random table at Rand Roll for Residential Occupants (bottom one)
- Springhole has a Random House Generator with text description that's not fantasy specific
Day 16 - Spectacular Settlements PDF
At the other end of the scale from the Free/pay-what-you-want titles of Day 10, is (paid pdf) Spectacular Settlements from Nord Games.
It has 482 pages, with a mix of advice, random tables and pre-made settlements covering trading posts, villages, towns, cities, capitals and fortresses.
Day 17 - Shops and Markets
Whether for atmosphere, simulationist games, or games where characters enjoy shopping, there are tools for shops in fantasy ciites
- OGMG has a Shop Generator with items (using 5e D&D) and filters for type, wealth and location
- At Roll For Fantasy there is a Random Shop Generator which details the shopkeeper and inventory. There is a wide variety of stores, from "General Store" to "Poisons" and "Leatherwear"
- There is a system-neutral Potion Shop from Magical Gurrl
- Role Generator has a DnD Shop Generator
- Donjon has magic shops, for AD&D, d20, 5E D&D and Pathfinder 1E
- DnD Speak has 100 Items for Sale in a Fantasy Black Market
- From LoreSmyth is the (paid pdf/book) Remarkable Shops and Their Wares with premade shops and generation tables.
- For vendors Atelier Clandestin has 100 Low Fantasy Merchants ($1)
Day 18 - Into the Sewers
The sewers are part of many urban adventures and campaigns. Outcasts, rat creatures and secret tunnels lurk there.
- At Lizard Man Diaries is a Fantasy Sewer Generator using several random tables
- Sewers Encounters and Sewers Hazards & NPCs at Rand Roll (me)
- Raging Swan Press has the free One-Pager: Sewer pdf with a few d4 tables.
- Sewer Map Tiles (paid) from Black Scroll Games
- 104 pages of Fantastic Fantasy Sewer Random Tables (paid pdf) from Crane Castles Publishing
Day 19 - Random City Map Generator from Inkwell Ideas
An older style of Random City Map Generator is available at Inkwell Ideas, with rivers and coasts. You can set population densities for East/West/South sections and how if are connected.
Day 20 - City Encounters Generators and Tables
For encounters all over the city there's
- 650 Fantasy City Encounter Seeds and Hooks, a free pdf from Roleplaying Tips Publishing
- Random Encounters in Town from donjon
- From Never Engine there is a pay-what-you-want pdf Encounter Generator - for Rough Urban areas. And another for Safe Urban Encounters
- Port, Cemetery and Tavern encounters at Rand Roll with links to other city environments
- Philip Reed Games has (paid) D100 City Hooks, Fantasy RPG Encounter Ideas, each a few sentences long
Day 21 - Urban Dressing from Raging Swan Press
The folks at Raging Swan Press produce many paid pdfs, and have a whole section on Urban Dressing, with over 200 titles showing (versions for system-neutral, D&D 5e, OSR, Pathfinder).
The one I'll mention is GM's Miscellany: Urban Dressing (System Neutral), with 178 pages of tables for creating urban environments.
Day 22 - Fantasy City Generators of Chartopia
Chartopia is a collection of various charts and generators. For fantasy cities there's
- Maze Rats: The City, a collection of charts (city themes, city events, buildings, factions) from Maze Rats
- A collated chart of Town Encounters from several other sources, included in a Towns Collection of several charts.
- Charts for Fantasy City/Town Names, 60 Non-Combat Fantasy Encounters (originally from r/d100), City Hazards,
- And the ever-useful Random NPC Complaints, such as " a loved-one's children plans to steal their property if they die, they reveal" and " complaining about: Population Boom"
- A basic details Fantasy Town Generator (name, architecture, leadership, townsfolk, notable locations)
- 650 Fantasy City Encounters Seeds & Plots (originally from John Four)
