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Half-Brew Bet Kalamar Generation

Bet Kalamar is the largest city in Kalamar and is also the capital. I do not know of any maps of it or much about the content. I think the main city of the game is intended to vary between gaming groups. From the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting book, I know that Bet Kalamar has "300,000+" people in it, which is probably too large to plan a penned-down map with NPC's and streets to explore over a couple sessions. This page has some city details to generate only the parts the PC's are currently living in, visiting, or investigating, as basically a random encounter table. This way the GM can hope to manage time practically while running adventures in an enormous city.

The main structure I decided for Bet Kalamar is that it is split into 30 wards, which each have 10,000 people living in them. Their names are mostly from a random-color chart in the Hackmaster 5 GMG. Besides the 30 wards there should be a big palace-fortress "neighborhood" for the emperor. Here is just what I think should be in every ward.

(30 wards)

• each has 10000 people living in it; 100+ houses
• ~10 lawful taverns
• ~10 guilds
• ~10 temples
• ~10 markets
• ~10 nobles' homes
• ~10 rich person mansions
• 1 watch house
• 1 infantry or cavalry garrison
• 1 prison
• 3 graveyards
• plumbing or midden-traffic
• rag & bone collectors, and garbage dump
• 1 "other culture" neighborhood

Definitions and details

Lawful taverns

Taverns where patrons' safety is not purposefully compromised by the neglect or malice of the owner. Countless "minor" taverns exist which are overcrowded, filthy, run by stabber/scammer hybrids, burning down within 2 years, etc.

Guilds

Trade organizations which you can decide whether or not restrict sale of goods in Bet Kalamar. The professions can be determined by the table below. The guild can teach people how to be various crafters, hunters, mercenaries, laborers, drivers & drovers. You could also give guilds to merchants and bankers, and to philosophers, astrologers, and zoologists. There could be a pre-established adventurer guild, but your players might want their characters to be the first people to ever start one.

Temples

You can make your temple be any size from a literal milkshake stand to a monastery full of high-priests.

Markets

Besides stores selling a specific kind of good there should be flea-market trading stall setups, indoor or outdoor, where normal illiterate people can buy necessities (not having access to refrigeration). There can also be merchants who sell supplies for artists and artisans, tonics and folk remedies, and freaks selling creepy knives and things pulled out of old mansions.

Nobles' homes

I think a 'noble' would be someone with real or perceived wealth, and some kind of political power, with real or perceived popularity, and varying degrees of validity and material backing. In Bet Kalamar, I think these could be successful or rich merchants (any kind, which can include slavers), dukes' relatives, or a rare priest, sage, or army officer. There could be an underworldly thief or pirate noble but it should be rare or a secret, or they've retired, generally something only a player's party would learn.

Rich person mansions

Similar to nobles except they're foreigners, nouveau-riche, too honest to be a noble, a possible wizard, or for other some reason not due very much respect from the current dominant faction of kalamarans. But they are wealthy. You can differentiate between "nobles" and "just rich people" to a level of detail that suits you.

Watch house

A prominent fortified building where the guards safely confer intelligence, maintain equipment, receive orders, and possibly rest. Citizens can go here for help. There may be lawyers and detectives here.

Garrison

A walled complex with facilities for maintaining arms and men-at-arms and sometimes their horseys.

Prison

Hackmaster features a lot of crooks getting whipped, hanged, or pilloried. I think in a big city it'd be cool to also have a big gaol, where felons are held in a donjon. I think Bet Kalamar should have like 30 of them.

Graveyards

I guess there should be about 3 per ward. You can vary them and add a bit of character by assigning a religion & culture ("only for hobgoblins who follow the mule"), state of maintenance, and varying the number interred.

Houses

Little houses where people can have dinner and go to bedtime.

Plumbing or midden-traffic

A given ward will either have a sewer and indoor plumbing, or it will have middens that get carted to dumps by street sweepers. Pick whichever plumbing situation is coolest or fits your plans as a GM. There could be open culverts and burst pipes.

Ragmen

There are street sweepers who would probably be despised by anyone obsessed with status. They might moonlight as executioners or tanners. They can sell dubious bones to artisans as a "cheap ivory".

"Other culture" neighborhood

A neighborhood of foreign humans or demihumans. If you don't want to pick a culture or ancestry you can roll for an npc race from the chapter about npc details in the gmg. If the people are Kalamaran, they can be from a Young Kingdom, or it's a community of academics, hobos, part-time-lackeys, or thieves.

A couple of these details can be generated using tables included in hackmaster books. Most have to be adapted from real world floor plans, or a published module, and some you have to just come up with.

If you need a feature of "architectural uniqueness", you can roll a weapon/armor decoration or art object from the GMG, and make the decoration part of the statuary, plumbing, corbelling, walls, roofs, or what have you, and just make up a reason why it looks like that if asked.

I think outside the city would be like a thousand farms. Most of them, especially farms growing a single cash crop, would aggregate their goods and traffic into small towns.

Ward names

• Leaden
• Milch
• Gray
• Yellow
• Gold
• Chartreuse
• Green
• Amber
• Orange
• Red
• Wine
• Maroon
• Bronze
• Russet
• Brown
• Puce
• Purple
• Cerulean
• Blue
• Ebony
• Silver
• Brass
• Thatch
• Pitch
• Silk
• Sandy
• Fig
• Pearl
• Roan
• Ochre

Random Guild Table

the "x ward y guild"

If you don't want to pick a guild profession, roll d100. On 01-49, roll on the GMG profession table. Any weird result that doesn't fit into a guild (crossbow loader, noble, latrine jockey etc) means the hall is a casino, is abandoned, or is full of clowns and playwrights.

On a roll of 50-100 use this other table.

1. lawyers
2. linguists
3. mercenaries
4. hunters
5. fishers
6. porters and barge haulers
7. drivers and drovers
8. philosophers and critics
9. zoologists
10. astrologers
11. merchants
12. bankers, lenders, money exchangers
13. historians, librarians, and bards
14. pathologists
15. embroiderers
16. ragmen
17. bonecarvers
18. tinkers
19. framers
20. alchemists

Temples / Graveyards

If you want a random faith I made a die roll table. As far as I know every faith is supposed to be represented in Bet Kalamar.

Some of the temples can be outdoor parks, a spot under a single tree, or a site of a long-ago murder. It is also cool when they are a humongous stone church.

TODO

• I'd like there to be like a "budget" of what buildings can fit into a ward, constrained by limits of space, materials, or cost in silver. But maybe it isn't worth worrying about.
• A village/hinterland generator if that's worth doing.
• Tolis island