Random Tables, Titles and Tools Guide

A look at pdf and book titles for Fantasy Cities on Drive Thru RPG, with sections for solo and underworld

[Image created from Medieval Fantasy City Generator]

Disclaimer: Rand Roll is an affiliate for DriveThru RPG and DM's Guild.

Starting Points

Fantasy Cities can look quite different, from typical King's Landing in Game of Thrones to the towers of Minas Tirith, to the sprawl of Ravnica on an entire world. From the spires of the island of Tar Valon to the ever-shifting fashions of Ankh-Morpork.

For some adventurers the city is a place to relax, resupply and network. To others it is the heart of their adventures. Temple politics, gang wars, dangers in the sewers, disappearances in the slums, fires in the noble quarter and whispers in the backstreets...

For a non-random title with information about cities there is City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities from Skirmisher Publishing (240 pages and not cheap).

Also of interest will be the Random Tools Guide for Fantasy Cities. Finally for more PDF titles try Random Table Titles for Fantasy.

Aug 2025: Added Trade, Tools and Maps sections; Oct 2024: Added sewers section. Mar 2024: Added sections for solo titles and underworld.

Major Titles

Some PDFs are much larger and comprehensive.

Spectacular Settlements is 482 pages of settlements from Nord Games, including tables, guidelines and pre-built settlements in a hurry
For tables of city sites and scenes, Philip Reed Games has Fantasy City Sites and Scenes. Plus the sequel Fantasy City Sites and Scenes II
GM's Miscellany: Urban Dressing (System Neutral) from Raging Swan Press brings together lists to fill out urban areas from smaller titles. It is part of a how category of many Urban Dressing titles and has a sequel in GM's Miscellany: Urban Dressing II.
For a detailed guide (with tables) to creating cities and towns, Lucky Dice Games has Town Tables - The Game Master's Town Builder Handbook.
From Skirmisher Publishing is the hefty City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities, with sections on communities and chapters on places for craftsman, entertainment, professional, tradesmen, mercantile, service, scholarly, religious, governmental and underworld

Solo Titles

Titles suitable for solo play in fantasy cities

Inkwell Ideas has a series of sidequest decks and one covers Political and Urban Fantasy, with 55 card versions in digital or physical cards versions. They've also published the image based Encounter Builder: City Scenes and DungeonMorphs: Cities, Ruins and Villages.
For a deck of detailed hooks and adventure ideas, Philip Reed Games has Deck of Rumors: D100 City Hooks. And they are also available in table form as 1d100 City Hooks, Fantasy RPG Encounter Ideas.
A deck of Concept Cards - Urban Locations from Artemis Games has 56 cards with ideas and four sections with numerical ratings
For a smaller scale WyldFurr has the Dark Mansion Map Cards, 20 square map tiles for mansions in a city (probably haunted)

Free and Pay What You Want Options

If you like free pdfs and random tables then there are some options. And where you find one you might find more...

Start off with a name from Pink Dice Bag Publishing with 100 Town and City Names in style of UK and UK cities.
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.
Dicegeeks has a few free d100 lists including 100 Items found in a Fantasy Warehouse and Random Search Chart d100 - Fantasy Office.
For creating a trader of weird magic in a marketplace Gorgzu Games has The Transient Bazaar, a PWYW title.
For Buildings maps, Handiwork Games has pay-what-you-want Jon Hodgson Maps - Buildings Pack 1, a pdf of regular and VTT building maps

Underworld and Crime Titles

For titles of crime, cults and the city underworld try...

True Mask Games has Dark Cities - 100+ Scenarios for Urban Adventures, with many encounters and detailed ideas. "a collection of political intrigues, murder mysteries, criminal undertakings, the plans of secret cults, supernatural powers"
The Book of Random Tables: Fantasy Heists from dicegeeks has d20 and d100 tables of items, NPCs, safe houses and other heist-related topics.
Atelier Clandestin has the Book of Thieves, many tables for criminal endeavours. It also has a Criminal Organization Generator
Skirmisher Publishing helps with black markets and crime boss headquarters with 100 Oddities for a Thieves' Guild.
From Lore Wise Games there is 1d100 Plus Underworld Events.
For intrigue Azukail Games has 100 Secret Societies. Plus 100 Cults to Encounter and 100 Gangs for Your Urban Campaigns are from

Sewers

Under many a city are the sewers, places of filth, ruins and outcasts...

From Crane Castles Publishing is A Collection of Fantastic Fantasy Sewer Random Tables, with 104 pages of sewers content.
From Black Scrolls Games is Sewer Map Tiles, with 24 tiles to populate your city (or pick at random) for adventures under the city.
Sewer Encounters - 1 Page Tables from Chaos Gen (me!) has encounters, npcs, locations and hazards.
From Ennead Games is Urban Feature Volume 1 - Sewers, containing 20+ pages of tables for creating and populating sewers. Including atmosphere, fauna, flora, hazards and a mapping system.

Shops, Merchants and Trade

From LoreSmyth is Remarkable Shops and Their Wares , including dozens of random tables as well as pre-built shops and magic items.
Grinning Skull Studios has 100 Strange Shops with short descriptions of 100 business entries.
There's 1-Page Tables: Market Encounters from Chaos Gen (me)

Other Titles

Things that don't fit in the other categories.

From Black Scrolls Games is City Modular Map-Tiles, with 78 tiles to populate your city (or pick at random).
Castle Oldskull - City State Encounters from Kent David Kelly has many pages of tables for city encounters, day and night, including monsters and npcs sections
Campaign Builder: Cities and Towns from Kobold Press is a large tome, with two chapters that are specific to D&D 5E
For more city maps, Handiwork Games offers Backstreet Tiles - Plain and Jon Hodgson Maps - Ruins Pack 1.
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.
Grinning Skull Studios has the long titled 100 City Encounters & Adventure Hooks for all fantasy RPGs with 100 detailed encounters and sidequests. There is also 100 Places in Town for all fantasy RPGs.

Tools

Draelesh - A town situated right on the barrier to the ethereal plane. The townsfolk live alongside spirits like neighbors and see them much in the same way common folk see stray cats. Many of them also have an understanding of divination and history not seen outside of universities due to their extensive experience with spirits.

From the 100 Unique Towns/Village at DnD Speak.

Over at OMGM is a City Generator with all the necessary details but not an overload of it. There are history events, hooks and numbers of buildings. It is accompanied by an Inn Generator and Shop Generator for more options. All of the tools have a settings section above the title.

Another City Generator is at Dungeon Masters Vault with a small map and masses of information, including job postings, people, locales, events and culture.

On github Praxxian has a Fantasy City Generator with detailed lists of peoples, businesses and inventories.

For all of your Town needs you can go to Eigengrau's Essential Establishment Generator which creates buildings, npcs, plothooks and far more around a single City. Everything is linked and editable.

For several cities at once Donjon has a Town and Cities generator with filters for culture, size and race.

City Details

the Potion Shop at Magical Gurll
For sections of the city Fantasy Name Generators has a City District Name generator such as "Craimp Cross" and "Venict Hill". It also has City Descriptions, House Descriptions and Monument Descriptions.
For groups of people Chaotic Shiny has a Crowd Generator with entries such as "The tanned, flirty man who is carrying a strange staff." and "The overweight, exuberant woman who is wearing an odd symbol". While you're there check out Medieval City for more details, the Bazaar Generator for market stalls and the Holiday Generator for spontaneous festivals.
At Dungeon Masters Vault you can hear Rumors around town
I've got City Rumours and Plot Hooks over at Chaos Gen. As well as City Street Events and Urban Encounters for D&D 5E.
For streets Kassoon has a City Street Generator with a text description and encounter.
For stranger shops springhole.net has a Magic Store and Shop Generator.
To give visual inspiration, Inkwell Ideas has Encounter Builder: City Scenes with 100 images to inspire.
Or for pickpockets, hobbit riddles and mundane loot try items in an NPC's pockets at Dnd Speak. Along with 100 Non-Combat Urban Encounters, 100 City Campaign Quest Hooks and 100 Thieves' Guild Quests.

City Maps

The most well known map tool is Watabou's Medieval Fantasy City Generator which makes beautiful maps (like the one from the cover).

Another map generator is Donjon's Fantasy Town Generator which creates settlement maps of any size with a few details and npcs.

One of the most complete tools is Fantasy Town Generator which creates a map with neighbourhoods but also all of the citizens, and where each one is at any time of day!

For smaller scale maps Kassoon has House Maps with plans.

Finishing Up

This will get updated in the future, but leave a comment with other titles if you have one to share.

If you liked these there are Generators at Chaos Gen and a monthly random tools Newsletter. Or find us on the Rand Roll Discord or an instagram of Random Tables.

Random Tables, Titles and Tools Guide - Fantasy Cities