So I recently saw the forum had a collaboration category, and I wondered if we couldn’t make a borough together as a collaborative thing. So what I did is make a map, stretching the map making rules a bit to make it look slightly like the logo. Then I went on and rolled on spark tables for all of it.
What I now suggest is that whoever wants picks a number, a line colour, or the borough itself and tries to interpret it in such a way that it will all make some sense and we end up with a working borough.
I think it would be fun that each of the spark rolls can be interpreted and get three bullet points to its name in true EB fashion.
I’d say that, to give everyone a chance to participate, once you picked something to interpret, you wait a day at least before you pick the next one.
Anyway. Here’s the borough.
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I think it’ll be hard to make this work if we don’t start from broad strokes and then fill in details, so I’ll invent some factions.
- Murdock University (controls points 7, 8, and 10). Teaches lots of subjects but has extensive ties to military strategy and planning. Nicknamed “Murder University” by student protesters for its ties to the violent suppression of a revolutionary upsurge somewhere in Deep Country.
- Student protesters (all over the place, but probably concentrated at point 20, which I can’t help but imagine is a Woodstock-esque music festival grounds). Flock to the area for its musical traditions.
- The Paper Factory (points 1 and 2). Biggest employer for workers in the region, who tend to go to the smaller Paper University to learn their trade. The owner of the factory is fabulously wealthy (it’s a “luxury factory” because it generates luxury for him; his home is the “luxury museum” in point 9, a massive display of his wealth).
- Paper workers. Hard to generalize about. Some are fighting to organize for better wages at the factory, but others are more concerned with all the students flooding into their borough from other boroughs.
- Luxury Records (point 19). Musicians have always had a strong presence in Caulderton, and those looking to make it big hope to sign a deal with Luxury Records.
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Alright. A day has past for me I think. I’ll declare some route types.
Teal just leads to a factory, so making it a run-off waste disposal sewer seems fitting. Paper Mills use a lot of water, iirc. It also provides a possible entry to the Underground.
Orange connects a bar with music of multiple types to Luxury Records, being only reachable by the orange path. Let’s say it’s a Secret Elevator setup, leading to the most prestigious record label in town.
Green leads from Bombed Factory to Burnt Crowd, which has been suggested as a sort of Woodstock Situation, and also connects with Electric Lizard. Let’s say that these are Dirt Roads.
Red leads to the Electric Office, and thus would be perfect for some kind of Tramway.
I tink Blue, connecting to most things, might work best as a regular asphalted road.
Purple, then, leading mostly to institutions, would be perfect for public transport, like a Metro Line The loops would be possible routes that could give different encounter options along the way. I’ve been thinking wether or not I should put some alternative stops in there, but I’m so happy with an accidental nice and even 20 that I’d say possible extra stops could be discovered in play.
EDIT: I should have re-read what had been posted previously. edited to take it into account.
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12 (Dirty-Tonic) - Bill Fitz City Park, known colloquially as “Swill Pits”
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Once a mineral spring home to public baths and green spaces, the park has been overrun by the borough’s industrial boom, and now the baths with their gorgeous classical bas reliefs contain naturally effervescent brews of effluent from the overtaxed sewer system. It’s known locally as Swill.
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Swill is prized among local bohemians and musicians as a creativity lubricator, some even ascribing divine, prophetic properties to the disgusting soft drink. Drinking a bottle of Swill opens your mind and your senses, allowing you to make leaps of conjecture that seem supernatural to anyone not under the influence. You may make one minor qualifying statement about a situation that has just been presented by the conductor, and that qualification becomes true. The toxic nature of Swill sets your maximum HP to zero until you use this power, and for the hour or so after.
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An anarcho-primitivist offshoot of the paperworker’s union has set up shop in the Pits, using some of the baths as pulp vats for their handcrafts. The Pulpers occasionally hold ecstatic festivals, high to the gills on Swill, stripped nude and dancing, playing poorly tuned paper instruments that are constantly disintegrating and being rebuilt on the fly. These inevitably end in orgy, violent clashes with the Paper Mill Pinkertons, or both.
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It occurs to me that maybe a lot of people aren’t familiar with the process for creating a borough of Bastion. This video should help to clear up what it is we’re doing here: Electric Bastionland - Building a Borough - YouTube
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Expanding on this in three points.
• Very exclusive: Only reachable by appointment via two password protected elevators (12 & 13), one in a prestigious club (12), the other in an affiliated record store (13).
• Ran by Dirty Ricky, a Green, Fat, Mock-Swine, sitting in pool of fresh mud. Often call for more mud to be brought by servants.
• Used to be a coal mine, now repurposed by Dirty Ricky. If you get lost, you might end up in the Underground.
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18. The Buzzing Komodo
A gigantic, building sized mockery of a Komodo dragon. It’s neon-blue and buzzes with static electricity. It also functions as a building. While capable of moving, it hasn’t in years. The city started building around them.
• The Mouth of the Komodo: A Music Venue. The Mockery opens their mouth wide enough to form a sort of concert hall, including seats. If the music’s good, no problem. If it’s not, the mouth closes and you get swallowed.
• The Belly of the Komodo: A secret music school. The musicians swallowed are kept here and are being trained by little neon blue Mock-Komodo’s until their music is good enough. Some are in here for years. The training ritual involves all kinds of weird and dirty stuff. Mainly as punishments. Play a wrong note, mud gets flung at you. Couldn’t keep tempo, mud showers, etc.
• The Tail of the Komodo: Once a musician has been trained to full requirements, they exit from underneath the trail, now a Dirty Musician.
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14. The Crossroads Meet Market
An old inn and tavern. A melting pot of musicians, students, and the working class. The inn is always filled with folks that are stuck, not knowing what to do, not making a choice, and not going in any direction.
- An old blind man will play you at dice. He has a collection of instruments he’s won over the years.
- The barkeep only has ale and wine. A bunch of students bought the last of the spirits and oddly some old rags.
- You feel old when you leave this place. The minutes feel like hours, days feel like months.
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Thank you for all the additions already. I edited the map in the first post to show the progress made already. There still are many places to invent and have fun with!
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