Build-a-Town: A Collaborative Project

Let's build a miniature community! You can help populate it. It'll only take a few minutes of your time.

Here's a look at our town in its infant stages:



In the center of our town is a fountain. The town is mostly bare otherwise, the lone exception being a small house on the outskirts of town. In this house lives an elderly gentleman named Harris. He's a retired adventurer and likes to tell anyone willing to listen about his glory days of dragon-slaying. He goes to bed early and rises with the sun each day. Sadly, his wilder years have left him homebound and he needs help getting fresh groceries every week. But right now, he doesn't have neighbors, and even if he did, there's nowhere to buy food.

This is where you come in. We need to populate the town, and at least one person per household needs a job (except our man Harris, who is retired).

Here are some things to consider:
- Where does your villager live, and who lives with him/her?
- What is the villager's daily routine like? Where is he or she likely to be at any given hour of any given day? Feel free to make him/her complicated and spontaneous (maybe she likes going for walks in the park or gazing at the fountain).
- Who are his/her friends? Who does he/she not get along with?
- What does he/she like to talk about?

You don't have to answer all of these. At the very least, though, you should give your villager(s) a name, somewhere to live, and an occupation.

To participate, post a paragraph about each person in your household, then edit the town image with any new buildings or features you've added.

What's the point? Besides this being an interesting exercise, I'd eventually like to put our creation into a game file. Perhaps at some point in the future we can use that game file as the basis for a contest. For now, though, let's just make a little world that's interesting for the player to explore.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Across the creek, an elderly woman named Muriel lives in a trailer. She used to dance for the troops during the war, and was quite the looker. She has photos of her glory days spattered all over the walls, and her kitchen is in disarray. Muriel hates everyone but her cats, which she currently has 11 of. There are cat gravestones all around her trailer. Although she hates everyone, she's quite attentive as to what's going on (she fears whippersnappers coming to get her) so she's a valued member of the community. Some say she was actually a spy during the war; who knows? She knows everything about the town.

She spends most days reading knitting magazines and reminiscing. Sometimes she walks in to town to listen to gossip or harass Harris, who she picked on in middle school.

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My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com

Tales linger among the duplex next to the fountain. The gangster known as Debo McIntyre lives in the western apartment and keeps to himself mostly. Townies mutter rumors about him. Some believe that he forced the former resident out of bed one night and ushered him to the river where he threw him in and watched him drift out to sea, and then took over his life and home the next morning. Others think that he simply bought the home from the former resident and wished not to discuss the transaction with neighbors. But regardless which tale is true, one thing people can agree on: Debo McIntyre is a strange man. He loves to fish, but instead of fishing along the riverbank with the rest of the town, he fishes from the town fountain. Some believe he fishes here because of the bad memory he had from tossing his predecessor into the river and didn't want to remind himself of his evil act. Others think he's trying to make a statement, though no one knows what that statement might be. Most residents choose not to confront him on the matter, partly out of fear, but mostly because they like to gossip about him and really don't want to know the truth.

As far as anyone knows, he has no friends. Or pets. Or a reason to live. But he does fish in that fountain a lot.

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Place Obligatory Signature Here

An big black dragon, named Annihilator, lives in a cave to the south east of the fountain. He has a mountain of gold coins ( which is the main currency of the town ) and basically acts as the town's bank. Though, not many people ask him for loans, since the last person that did missed a payment and got eaten alive. He rarely leavs his caves, and pays some of the towns folk to do varies chores ( like bring him fish, or cats, whatever ) in exchange for a small amount of his gold.

A goblin also lives in the cave and acts as a servant for the dragon. It never speaks, and is often seen delivering dragon sized notes to random villagers, hunting for food, or disposing of the dragon's "leavings". No one knows it's name ( the dragon just calls it goblin ), and it wears only a loin cloth.

On the outskirts of town, is a forest, called the Great Wood, that the townspeople must travel through to reach other towns and cities. Elder people have made up ghost stories to scare children away from the forest. The most popular one is the one regarding the Horned Ghoul, who grabs naughty children who disobey their parents and forces them to dig a tunnel towards the underworld. On the edge of this forest, a man and his son live here. Thomas and Hank. Thomas's wife didn't make it through one of the harsh winters and caught a terrible disease. Thomas is a bit bitter and depressed by the loss of his wife, and his son does his best to keep him in high spirits. As much as Hank wants to help his father, he wants to know for himself, what types of adventure lie past the forest and into the outside world.

The town is filling in nicely, but so far, everyone is unemployed! (Except the dragon, sort of.) RMZ, perhaps you should give Thomas somewhere to work.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

For now, I declare they all work for the dragon, as borderline slaves.

Rueben arrived in this village with nothing but a well-fashioned sense of opportunity.
He immediately found himself in the presence of a well-crafted brick house. (There might have been a resident present at the time, but that failed to matter once Rueben declared the house to be his).

Stepping into his back yard, Rueben discovered a field of wheat and also claimed that for himself. (Growing more wheat than he can eat on his own, he has stocked a massive load of breads from season's past into his basement.)

Rueben then scouted through the village, and upon seeing the foul effects of time on some fellow villagers, realized what the village needed: a graveyard.
And so, he generously refashioned half of his farm land to wait for the deceased.
As of present, nobody has actually been buried.
The single tombstone remains only as a demonstration, etched with various prices and fees for burial.

Today, Rueben spends his time expanding his basement (when he is not baking bread).

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♪♪♪ Du du duuuu ♪♪♪

Good point! Thomas is a master carpenter, and has made Hank his apprentice. Ever since his wife died, he hasn't been able to make anything worth while though. Maybe someday he will get his passion back.

Ursula owns a pig farm. She thought that setting up shop right next to a hungry dragon with a mount of gold would be a good business plan, but it turns out Mr. Annihilator doesn't like pork, so she ekes by on selling her pigs to the other human villagers. She wishes she had started a cat farm instead, but already has too much invested to change her whole operation now.

Mrs. Sparkles lives close to the fountain, where she bathes her cat Muffinpuss. She's full of vim and vigor, and is a regular contributor to the town newspaper, The Daily Light, which she is also the only contributor to, and which no one reads. She's a little overweight, but good-natured about it, and is always willing to share the cakes she bakes with everyone. She makes a living by going to the mountain pass near the town, and robbing and killing travelers. On Saturdays, she takes the day off, and uses the blood of her victims to write love letters to Reuben, along with tips on different kinds of bread to bake, which she keeps sending even though he ignores them. Her house is incredibly tacky, and full of slightly misshapen statues of nude males, which she sculpts herself. All the statues are covered with a pink homemade towel, to protect the modesty of any visitors, which are very rare. Sometimes she sends the corpses of her victims to Annilator, but mostly she sacrfices them on a pyre in her basement, so her chimney just keeps puff puff puffing away.

charles opertonic, one feared across many planes known under the alias "Docter R" now prays for forgiveness everyday to the god he once vowed to destroy what he created. He worked his way up the evil food chain by assasinating heros by pretending to be "part of the team". there are monuments of such heros in his graveyard, as killing them later on becomes his greatest regret after befriending the majority of them. He digs all the graves himself, and has a special spot reserved for himself - Far from his friends and loved ones.

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Blip.

It's been a couple of days since our last new face. Feel free to add another villager if you feel so inclined.



At the center of town, Tom runs a bar and inn. The few travelers that find their way into the town can find lodging here, but mostly his establishment serves as a social hub for those villagers that don't mind being social. Tom's wife Carol operates the inn half of the business during the morning, and when the bar opens up, Tom serves as barkeep while his daughter Lyla works as barmaid. Lyla is easily one of the more beautiful of the town's girls, and her flirtatious attitude has earned her as many overly generous tips as jealous scowls. She has yet to show particular interest in any one gentleman, however.

Lyla and Carol can sometimes be seen around town when they're not on their shifts, but Tom spends most of his time indoors. Due to the nature of their occupations, the family is generally on good terms with most of the town.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

How do I post an image? I'll type out the idea now, and edit the pic in.

EDIT:


Abido and his business partner-turned-wife Velmaera own a factory on the eastern border of the town where they do all sorts of metal work, but specialize in silverware and jewelry. Velmaera is the real head of the business who runs things fairly, and although her employees may dislike the labor, they cannot complain about either their treatment or their wages. She seems to be an astute business-woman who also has a talent for art, as she designs most of the silverware and jewelry. The silverware in particular is known for both its craftsmanship and its beauty.

Abido is a metalsmith whose heart lies in crafting weaponry, but the demand is low and he trains and works with the employees following his wife's instructions and specifications. For the factory he wishes to install a coal furnace instead of the wood-burning furnaces used currently because he hates bothering Thomas and Hank for wood. He feels certain that there must be plenty of coal in Annihilator's bank, but he is too afraid to ask about it.

The couple have a private annexation on the east side of the factory where they live modestly, and Abido has a private smithy there. It is suspected that the couple is actually fabulously rich because they do receive many orders to make exotic jewelry, but none of the employees ever see where it gets sent or for what price. The wife disappears on "business trips" on occasion, which people suspect are actually vacations and she may even own another house somewhere else. Abido does not go on these trips and stays behind to keep an eye on the factory.

During working hours the couple stay close to the factory, but at other times if Velmaera is home she can be seen about town with Abido. If she is away, Abido typically keeps to himself in his private smithy. Abido mistrusts Muriel, who he (correctly) assumes hates him. She complains that the factory is dirtying the lower reaches of the river (which it is), but Abido rarely has the will to debate with her.

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I am Srime

Stick the url inside [img] tags. You can use a service like imageshack to host your image if you don't have webspace.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks