The Visitor's Good-Time Guide to Ripplegate, being a Door-By-Door Gazetteer of its Good Citizens, their Homes, Businesses and Distractions therein; Together with Sundry Warnings for the Unwary, a Word on Local Custom, and Notes towards their Safe Return; Compiled with Great Diligence and No Small Peril.
A Gazetteer
A gazetteer should be huge. You should feel like you know the place, its people, its ways, but in your bones, not in your head. Understanding a place (even a fictional one) is not achieved with facts and numbers, it's from living in it.
From Melsonian Arts Council and Daniel Sell, publishers and writer of Troika!, comes a brand new setting for running urban adventures, fleshing out a party home area, and pillaging for weird NPCs and locations.
From Melsonian Arts Council and Daniel Sell, publishers and writer of Troika!, comes a brand new setting for running urban adventures, fleshing out a party home area, and pillaging for weird NPCs and locations.
Built for Play
Built from years of active campaign play, A Bit O' Troika gives you everything you need to bring your city to life. A book which exhaustively populates a city map in the same way one might populate a dungeon; every street and building has things going on, people living or working there, and the possibility of the players interacting with them.
Inside the book are just shy of 500 keyed locations, as many NPCs, along with street encounters, an arson whodunnit, one neglected standing army, and a minor corridor of the Goblin Labyrinth.
Local Flavour
The borough of Ripplegate is a typical¹ slice of Troika, with busy streets, crowded buildings, opinionated citizens, and more shopkeepers than you can shake a stick at. All of which have been exhaustively captured in this shockingly robust resource for those curious about the City of Troika and it's citizens. Locations are concisely statted for the mechanics of Troika covering Skill, Stamina, Luck and Armour along with teachable skills, and a descriptive vignette, all slight enough for off-the-cuff use with wandering players and meaty enough for the GM to weave into a whole adventure at their leisure if anything sticks.
Some typical locations:
Some typical locations:
Putti's Buns
Myste Road #1
Residents: Fridolin Salvius, apocalypse priest (Read Entrails) 9/14/3/0
A venerable baker's famous for its devotional currant buns. Each is toasted with the Putti, a bisected circular branding iron of contested provenance, and spread inside with butter and thick black jam. Pilgrims used to buy armfuls of them on their way to the Tower of Sabaoth to be hurled at the walls, jam side out, as high and as permanently as possible. Some pilgrims, unaware of the state of the Tower, still brave the daily queue which regularly reaches all the way to the Box Market during lunch hours. In stark contrast to the jolly baking staff, Fridolin, keeper of the Putti, is an eternally singed, dour man who takes his duties seriously while quietly hoping to be the last to uphold them.
Onwards! Die! Die!
Behind Blanket Road
Residents: Yohan Manor, vociferous lancemaker (Spell: Ember, Lancemaking) 6/12/1/4
Named after a quote from the famous war hero and martyr St Sir Ormon, this lance makers yard serves as a gathering space for rowdy jousters and monarchists. Yohan, master lance maker and aspiring revolutionary, lords over the place like a Duke (he would never presume kingship), handing down proclamations on jousting fashion and commentary on the results of the latest tournaments. He wears full tournament armour at all times, both to intimidate customers and to hide his cacogenic form.
Ugly Granny Medicine
Ripple Road #1
Residents: Gertrude Tenenan, early morning drysalter (Spell: Exchange Shape) 5/17/2/1(clothes stuffed with newspapers) - Weird Ina, late night herbalist (Spell: Tongue Twister) 3/15/2/1(clothes stuffed with newspapers) - Adam Chapel, nervous chemist (Spell: Presence) 8/9/1/0
Jars of powders, unguents, pickles and balms fill high, tight corridors of shelves that never lead to a counter at which to buy them. Adam Chapel, the chemist, though clearly heard rattling glass and shuffling papers one aisle over, remains unseen and always one step ahead of you as though afraid of being caught. Consulting him about an ailment can be done by talking as though to oneself, wondering aloud at the unfairness of your condition and how you would be able to go home and rest if only someone could ease your immediate and clearly listed symptoms. Shortly the correct medicine along with a receipt will appear in a paper bag poking out of a shelf around the next corner. Anyone leaving without paying will receive a visit from a couple of unusually large alcades soon after.
Anti-Canon
So you've run Troika for a decade and are worried we'll overwrite your campaign canon? Worry not! Troika is infinite, all versions of itself absolutely exist somewhere within its borders. A Bit O' Troika is huge, dense, specific and peculiar, meaning your game will be enriched rather than contradicted.