“The half-socialist Wild West”
“The Found City” is simultaneously one of the newest AND oldest cities in Terra Trema. It sits at the entrance of the New Lands, at the end of brand-new Barbara’s Bay - what was once Barbara’s Shoals, before the world changed. The city’s builders are absent and mostly unknown; their mystery is yet to be unraveled. In the mean-time: wow, free houses!
The city’s Finders (a family from the nearby Barbara Cost) established order out of this part of the New Frontier. They found thousands of homes, well-built and well-preserved but with no occupants and few loose items of any kind. The Finders decided that nothing in the city was anyone’s property; anyone could claim a home or a shop and live there, but they would have to contribute to the “new” city’s operation as long as they did. The city was soon flooded by thousands of explorers, serfs, wanderers, chronically homeless, and anyone else seeking a comfortable, safe place to live or a home-base for adventure. Each of them was allowed a home, so long as a fee (in gold or labor) was paid to the Foundling Home Authority.
The Foundling Home Authority is barely five years old, and it is the only government to speak of in this free-wheeling city. And it truly is a city now, if an awkward one. Most of the homes, taverns and shops are full-up, and there’s even new construction just outside the city wall. (The Private district, for folks who want to own their own place and not be beholden to the city’s “government” in any way. Most of these buildings are ramshackle affairs, though there are a few mansions among them.)
Aside from the superfluous new construction, the city is remarkably well-made. Adjacent buildings adopt different architectural styles and designs, and appear to stand alone, but all were constructed as part of a seamless whole. Many cities have unofficial “roof streets”, but in Foundling the roofs have official paths across and through them; hidden from the ground by facades, awnings, thatching and chimneys – but well-lit, at least when the lamps are on. (And the lamps are increasingly all on, as the Home Authority uses its increasing funds to import whale oil and firestone.) These roof-streets also support the city’s spring-fed aqueducts, though they have a curious feature: the ducts aren’t open to the air, but enclosed in solid metal-and-stone pipe; a surprisingly expensive and modern system, especially considering that it serves the whole city. Pulleys in each home open valves in the great pipes, letting in fresh, naturally fizzy springwater. (Cold, of course, though the water pours – by default – directly into metal basins that can be heated by fires.) The city’s deep, grid-like sewers flow into a creek that filters through extensive gravel beds and compost pits deep under the hill before finally exiting into the bay, surprisingly clean and fresh-smelling. The grid of sewer tunnels is meant to be accessible; the wide tunnels are floored with glossy tiling and lined with fancy torches, though these are still left unlit in most areas. Parts of the sewers contain more strange pipes; some pipes allow fresh water directly to the sewers (for reasons unknown), some pipes channel wastewater to the sewers in places where it doesn’t have a direct path down, and others serve entirely unknown functions.
The city looks curiously like an enormous version of a Barbara’s Coast village; the Barbara Cost) architectural style and layout is mimicked here on a grand scale. Homes have circular windows, arched doors, scaled siding, and intricate fins, crowns, and spines on the rooftops, as if to mimic fish and sea monsters. Each structure has its own personality, but shares the same general pattern – and each structure is technically part of a seamless whole. Though the buildings look like grand-scale versions of old Barbara’s Coast homes, it’s not just their size and connectedness that sets them apart from the structures of the small villages. They are surprisingly sturdy, held together with seemingly-invincible metal nails (the village homes use wooden pegs), and almost completely fireproof despite being – apparently – made mostly of wood. Well, except for their bases and basements, which are made of molded stone; perhaps an advanced form of concrete.
The city’s “main street” (West and East Spiral Street) adopts a double-spiral pattern, spiraling out from the East Foci, then curving back and spiraling in toward The West Foci. Roads radiating from the foci intersect Spiral Street perpendicularly, forming a sinuous grid-like pattern. The West Foci is a large open market (it is near the main gate and tall watchtower), while the East Foci is the site of the spiraling Elders Hut. The city walls form a perfect oval. This is identical in style - but far beyond the scale - of the small Barbara’s Coast villages.
The Elders Hut is neither home to elders (rather, it houses the Foundling Home Authority) nor is it a hut; it is a tall spiral tower with a hut-like parapet at its top. Its name derives from the simple Elders Huts at the foci of the small villages of the Barbara’s Coast, which also use a single or double spiral pattern on a much smaller scale. Villages would show their importance by raising their Elders Huts far off the ground – sometimes even twenty feet! The hut-shaped parapet of Foundling’s “Elders Hut” tower is a full three hundred feet off the ground. Not a Terra Trema height record, but still very respectable. The narrow watchtower by the main (East) gate is almost as tall. Both towers, and the large buildings circling the East (market) Foci, are made entirely of a mysteriously sturdy type of sculpted stone.
Foundling has no slums or red light district per se. Its construction is highly organized, and there are no small homes or shanties in the found part of the city. (There are many three and four story buildings that contain dozens of homes – but even these “partment” homes are reasonably spacious and insulated from each other.) However, it could be said that the entire city is a bit of a slum, despite its impeccable planning and egalitarian construction. The inhabitants are wild and generally poor; many ran away from destitute lives on the promise of free housing. (Technically not free, but the fees are low and can be paid in labor.) The city still doesn’t have clear organization in terms of which districts do what; some people run shops out of what should probably be living spaces, and some people have set up homes in what are obviously large shops surrounding the Market Foci. The Home Authority is trying to impose order, and is having some success on the zoning front. Maintaining order more generally, and tackling crime specifically, has been much more of a challenge. The Home Authority (and its leaders, the First Finders) simply doesn’t have the resources, bodies, or authority to enforce much of anything outside of housing – and barely even that. The First Finders can mete out justice by rounding up a posse, but leashed and partly-organized vigilante justice is the only sort of justice that currently exists in the city. The First Finders are impotent to punish crimes that don’t produce a passionate response in the Finder citizenry; for example, they can’t gather a posse to punish someone for public urination, since everyone that might otherwise join a posse is too busy – for example – urinating in public. Luckily, most of Foundling’s new citizens are on-board with the One Law: no part of the city can be owned, by anybody. If somebody tries to buy or sell a building or rights to a building, that gets shut down right quick.
The exception to all this is the Private District (or just “the Privates”) outside the city wall, mostly clustered around the East Gate. There’s no law in the Privates; people build what they want, buy what they want, sell what they want, do what they want. The Home Authority tries to intervene if there’s a fire or a riot or a sniper here, but otherwise anything goes in the Privates. The Privates have an awkward mix of folk, most all of them bad. On the one hand are the chronically hopeless and dependently-independent; people who can’t or won’t contribute the modest fee (of gold or labor) to the Home Authority, but prefer to lean their ramshackle “homesteads” against the city rather than claiming a piece of the frontier - generally because they rely on begging and/or are afraid of getting eaten by bears. On the other hand are the indignant rich, who build walled-off fortress-manors and are infuriated that they can’t own pieces of Foundling. They constantly foment against the Home Authority, seeking ways to undermine it and control the city’s property, but the Finders inside the city walls are generally on to their schemes. Insiders worry that the Hopeless Poor and the Indignant Rich might band together and cause serious trouble, but so far all that’s happened in the Privates is general ruckus and disorganized lawlessness.
Finders Heritage: Extremely mixed and entirely recent; the city was mysteriously empty (yet in perfect condition) just six years back. The First Finders, and most of the immigrants from the first few months, were from the fringes of Barbara’s Coast (from the villages that weren’t disappeared when the New Lands appeared.) There are a handful of goblins - a people once thought extinct - who have emigrated here from unexplored points north.
Population: 1 (25x). Foundling’s population has exploded; now it’s not just a full-fledged city, but also considered a keystone city. The city’s homes are 80% full; they’ll probably reach capacity next Summer, at which point the Home Authority’s system becomes unsustainable. (Most of the fee is up-front.) Much of the population is transient; the city is used as a home-base more than a home. (Many of the Finders are here to explore the New Frontier, and a good 30% of the city’s people will be outside the city at any given time.) For this reason, and because the Privates are so disorganized and scattered, it’s difficult to estimate Foundling’s population.
Cultural Influence: 4. Foundling (and the New Frontier in general) has captured the imagination for more reasons than one. References to it have popped up in cultural media all over Terra Trema. But little of this actually comes from Foundling itself; it’s not as if Foundling is a cultural powerhouse in its own right. Even the stories that come from here are typically from travelers who write about their visit after they return home.
Some of the songs and art of the former Barbara’s Coast have gained popularity – or at least, shown up on Terra Trema’s “cultural radar”. Before now, Barbara’s Coast was a remote backwater given little to no consideration by outsiders. Some poems and inscriptions of a distinctly Barbara’s Coast style appear on plaques here and there throughout the city. But despite being constructed in a Barbara’s Coast style, and located near where the former Barbara’s Coast used to be, Foundling’s culture isn’t really Barbara’s Coast culture.
Economic Influence: 6. Lots of exotic new goods are pouring into Terra Trema from the frontier, and lots of rich folk want tours. There’s plenty of work to be had in the country, and there’s even treasure coming back; adventurers say there are temples and ruins to the north full of too much treasure to carry – but guarded by savage beasts thought long extinct.
Military Influence: 1. Finders are notoriously difficult to organize. They don’t even organize around a common identity; many of them are loyal to wherever it is they came from, or (more commonly) only ever to themselves. The only reason this score isn’t a zero is because individual Finders tend to be more hardy and powerful than the sort you find elsewhere, in more civilized lands. The city of Foundling will never conquer anything, but a powerful party of adventurers based in the city might.
Defense: 11. The wide, avenue-topped, lamp-lit walls of Foundling don’t look like much – and they’re only three stories tall. But so far they’ve proven utterly invincible. Some crazy fool decided to fire a siege-grade ballistae at the wall; its shaft exploded into fragments, and its metal head crumpled and ricocheted. This only ever happens when ballistae are fired at finely-crafted steel-plated stone, but the walls of Foundling are much thinner, and made of some unknown material.
The city wall doesn’t have much in the way of weaponry, but it has strange swiveling pedestals every eighty feet or so that would be perfect locations for turrets of some kind. A few small scorpions and baby catapults are positioned on the Northeaster section of the wall, that overlooks most of the Privates, just in case the folk there try anything stupid. It’s mostly a symbolic gesture.
Though the largely ungoverned Finders can’t be rallied like a traditional army, they are proud of their newfound home and will defend it passionately… when they’re actually in the city. Much of the population of Foundling is transient.
Foreign powers may seek to invade Foundling in the near future, to claim the bountiful resources of the New Frontier. But in the mean-time it would appear that they have not made any overt moves to do so. It’s quite likely that many foreign agents with sinister agendas (e.g., “overthrow the Home Authority”) are operating in the city, since Foundling’s “government” doesn’t exactly have a spy-hunting agency. (Or any agency, really.)
Foundling Cultural Stats: (Note: this is just an average; Foundling is very diverse.)
Government: An agreed-on (if not directly elected) Housing Council keeps order. (The Foundling Housing Authority, led by the First Finders.) Talk of establishing a formal democracy; currently only bare-bones government.
Most Common Criminal Acts: Claim jumping, burglary, banditry, overly aggressive public urination, dealing out vigilante justice without giving fair warning, massacring demihumans without cause, reckless adventuring.
Justice: Minimal. Cooperation with foreign bounty hunters, expulsion from city, vigilantism.
Climate: temperate average (technically in a subtropical climate band but at the foothills of high mountains)
Nights: Very nice, efficient lamps - but due to a limited supply of firestone and whale oil, only some districts are lit.
Food: diverse - but the wild citrus in the hills features prominently. (Free anti-scurvy medicine!)
Clothing: exceptionally diverse; multicultural mix.
Festivals & Holidays: Nothing official; people celebrate whatever they celebrated in their home city. The First Finders are trying to popularize a "Finders' Day" - so far, it's just an excuse to stay up late and drink - but so are most holidays, so whatever.
City Appearance & Architecture: sophisticated, organized, intricate architecture. Each building has a unique look - yet they're all connected and most have roughly the same floor-plan and amenities. (WHO BUILT THESE?) The city is arranged as a twin spiral pseudo-grid with a very tall tower at one of the two foci.
Common Sounds & Smells: An incredible, sophisticated sanitation system eliminates all odors from waste produced indoors... but public urniation is so common that many neighborhoods smell like pee anyway. The general ambiance is "frat party".
Governance Building, Iconic Structures & Landmarks: The "Elder's Hut"/Spiral Tower (Headquarters of the Foundling Housing Authority and dwelling of the First Finders), Quester's Tavern, Maysam's Memorial, Fila's Pier, the Taps (spring + aqueducts), The Sentinel, the New Temple (Temple of Pelor under construction), Maxis Mint Manor, the New Tower.
Districts, Sectors, Zones, Regions, Wards, and other big places: The Canal Docks, the Outer Harbor (south of the city), the Wallway, the West Spiral (council spiral), the West Foci (centered on the Spiral Tower) the East Spiral (Market Spiral), the East Foci (centered on the Market), the Privates (outside the wall, mostly to the northeast; newly built), the Roofway, the Ducts, the Understreams, the Gate Court, the Lost Faces (a row of monuments with the text scratched away and the faces chiseled off).
Produces, Exports: formerly unknown information, artifacts, herbs, magics from the frontier, fish, ice wine, wild citrus, wool
Demands, Imports: manufactured goods and weapons of all kinds, whale oil, firestone (coal), steel
Satellite Cities & Towns: No “towns” per se, but some tiny villages, and a lot of homesteads. Spantown is a ways away, but similar to Foundling in that it is a “found city” (well, a much smaller “found town”, on a bridge, with significant recent construction).
Highly optional game-related or story-related material:
Important People: The First Finders, Maxis Mint, miscellaneous high-level adventurers passing through to ADVENTURE!
Plot Hooks:
Maxis Mint is a big jerk and you should burn down his mansion. Totally. It's not unethical or anything, he has it coming. Yep.
-xxxx