The Magpies – Transcript
Bonus Episode: Whitehollow Worldbuilding
Transcribed by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)
Rhi: Tonight we are going to be building out a little bit the city of Whitehollow which is another city on the continent of Akoros. It is located southwest of Duskwall, still on the coast. It is connected to Duskwall and the greater Empire by rail lines and by sea. Like Duskwall it is surrounded by lightning barriers and protected from spirits by the Spirit Wardens.
Per John Harper… I met with Sean Nittner who works at Evil Hat while I was at GenCon and I mentioned our plans for building out Whitehollow, and he was like oh, let me just text John and see what he has to say about Whitehollow. So, a day after GenCon I got an email from Sean saying that this was sort of John Harper’s two sentence blurb on Whitehollow. It was a small town of artisans that transformed into the primary staging area for the military during the Unity War. Getting your Whitehollow letter meant you were drafted. The Unity War was the war waged by the Empire on Skovlan basically to bring Skovlan under imperial rule. Skovlan was the last holdout of all of the continents, the nations. They were very resistant to joining the Empire, understandably so, because the Empire has treated them like crap.
The Unity War lasted 36 years and it ended only a few years ago. Duskwall is home to a lot of Skovlan refugees who fled the fighting, and Whitehollow previously had a really huge military presence because this is where the ships and soldiers going up to Skovlan were launched out of. That is what we know about Whitehollow. We’re gonna go through some questions and build out this city a little bit more before The Magpies go there for a visit.
So, the first question that I have on my list is a pretty basic one. What is the climate and local environment like? We kind of know what Duskwall is which is kind of constantly cold and foggy. Anybody have thoughts on what it might be like in Whitehollow?
Kim: See, I don’t know how possible this is, because there is no sun in this setting. I have to keep remembering that.
Rhi: Yeah, but I mean, you know, it’s magic. we can hand wave a fair bit.
Kim: Okay.
Rhi: What are you thinking?
Kim: I really like the idea of having this be the equivalent of some kind of beach town, have it be a little bit warmer, some places are a bit of tourist traps.
Rhi: Yeah. It is further south…
Kim: Oh, it is?
Rhi: Yeah. It’s southwest of Duskwall. It’s not super, super far south, but it is further south than Duskwall, so I could definitely see where it’s warmer, for sure.
Minna: Yeah, it’s about a third of the way down Akoros.
Rhi: Yeah. All right, so it’s a bit warmer than Duskwall. There’s beaches. I don’t know how much people still want to go swimming in the Void Sea, but there can still be beaches.
Kim: Maybe instead of the Void Sea it’s kind of like lake beaches, fresh water beaches?
Josie: Ooh.
Rhi: Ooh, so there’s inland… It’s still on the coast—
Kim: Right.
Josie: So it’s almost more like a delta, then, maybe.
Kim: Ooh.
Rhi: Oh, I like that.
Josie: Like Cairo or something.
Rhi: Yeah~
Minna: We could say maybe a river goes through those mountains that are a little bit inland from there.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah, yeah, there could absolutely be a river coming out of there. Yeah, I like that. Once you get inland a bit there are beaches on the lakes and the river. That’s cool. I like that. anything else we wanna talk about with the local environment?
Josie: I feel like there’s a general sense of humidity. Duskwall is foggy. This place is just wet.
[laughter]
Minna: The Florida of Akoros.
Rhi: Oh no.
Kim: Ohh, that’s it.
Josie: Oh God, let’s not go that far.
Minna: No, it’s not that hot. It cannot possibly be that hot.
Rhi: No, it’s not gonna get that hot, but it can be a little bit warmer. Yeah, I like that, you’re just kind of damp constantly.
Minna: Yeah.
Rhi: Anything else we wanna add on there?
Kim: I think that’s good.
Rhi: Okay, cool. Next question: What is a unique natural feature, neighborhood, or district in the city?
Josie: I have a natural feature for you.
Rhi: Yeah?
Josie: I’m thinking before the Cataclysm it was just a pretty small river and it all got splintered into all this delta nonsense which, you know, kind of messes with the sea level a bit…
Rhi: Uh-huh?
Josie: …so a reef off the coast now lies partially exposed. It’s like a big, mountainous fantasy reef to begin with. Right?
Rhi: Oh, that’s so cool.
Josie: But because it’s the Void Sea and shit is weird there’s still stuff alive out on the crags and it’s not like forest and mountain life, it’s like weird sea hybrid shit.
Rhi: Yeah, it would be like amphibious—Oh! That’s really cool!
Kim: Dope, Josie.
Josie: Woo! I may have cheated by looking ahead and thinking of this. [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah. Hey, that is fine. I’m gonna have to put this back at the beginning, but the questions that I’m asking, a couple of them are just from me thinking of basic questions that I would want but a lot of them are drawn from the town building section of Kids on Bikes and the city building section of Descent into Midnight. I just sort of looked at the lists of questions for both of those games and pulled out a lot of the questions that I liked, that felt like they were relevant for our planning here.
The next question on my list: How big is Whitehollow compared to Duskwall, both in terms of population and geography?
Minna: I believe that Whitehollow has a smaller population but it’s spread out over more space so there’s less density.
Rhi: That makes sense. I was gonna say, I feel like it’s gonna take up more geographical space just because of that delta that we’ve established.
Minna: Yeah. I think it’s a lot lower plane, like the typical height is one or maybe two story buildings, whereas I think you could get maybe a little bit higher in Duskwall.
Rhi: Yeah. Duskwall has buildings that are like… they don’t have skyscrapers yet, so they’re not gonna be able to get much above four stories.
Minna: Yeah, but two stories is tall in Whitehollow.
Josie: And then the hotel was six stories.
Rhi: Oh yeah, you’re right. Okay. Yeah, we’ve got up to six stories. They’ve got up to six floors, which is doable even before you’ve got steel framing.
Minna: Yeah.
Rhi: Which actually at this time…
Minna: They’ve gotta have steel because they have railroads.
Rhi: Well, the railroads preceded steel framing and architecture, because the first skyscrapers in Chicago were in like the 1880s? I’m getting on a tangent. Skyscrapers are still pretty new I think in Duskwall because it’s essentially Victorian era, so they wouldn’t be able to, like, really… yeah.
Minna: Sorry. [laughs] My brain is going faster than my ability to tell when people are talking. I’m just imagining that an imperial city is growing upwards and Duskwall hasn’t gotten there yet.
Rhi: Yeah. That would be super, super cool that the imperial city has legit skyscrapers. Okay, anything else we wanna say about the size of Whitehollow? I like the smaller population. I think that makes sense. Duskwall is kinda supposed to be a metropolis.
Minna: Because it was a staging area for the military, a lot, a lot of the draftees ended up coming from here, so their young male population is… not even young male, because—
Rhi: Yeah, it would be egalitarian.
Minna: Yeah. Their young population is well under…
Rhi: Decimated, yeah. So… oof.
Minna: Oof.
Rhi: Hey, it’s Blades in the Dark, this was never gonna be a cheerful place to visit.
[laughter]
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: It’s different! It’s a different place. Next question: What is the government like? I want to remind that up until recently it was probably just straight up run by the imperial military. It might still be, it might not, but yeah. Do we have thoughts about how…?
Josie: I feel like a lot of the military people who were in charge just kind of, a lot of them just retired and essentially retired from the military but kept their jobs a little bit, so it’s like a military aristocracy.
Rhi: Ooh, that’s cool.
Josie: Maybe a lot of them weren’t nobles and shit beforehand, so it’s like a burgeoning noble class rather than an established one.
Rhi: That’s cool. I like that. Do you think it would be structured similarly to Duskwall where they—So, Duskwall is run by a council of nobility, or well, there’s a lord governor and then there’s a council of nobles that advise and pass laws and things. Do we think it’s a similar council setup or more of a military hierarchy?
Kim: You know, it’s probably military.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: They still kinda follow those structures? Which I imagine causes some tension, because there’s probably people who are similarly ranked who are jockeying for who actually holds authority.
Josie: I feel like there’s still this general sense of meritocracy. Obviously not “really,” since it’s still a lot of privilege to get there, but it’s probably a lot more cutthroat within those ranks, like people trying to oust each other or prove they’re better than the other one.
Rhi: Yeah. I like that.
Josie: It’s less that there’s upward mobility but there is downward mobility. [laughs]
Rhi: [laughs] Yeah. Okay. That’s cool. Any other thoughts on how the government works? I don’t think that you all will be dealing directly with the government very much, but…
Kim: It depends on how much trouble we get in.
Josie: Yeah.
Minna: Do you think that there’s any remnants of the pre-war government? Or at least do they adopt titles that came from the old government while mostly remaining…?
Rhi: Ooh, interesting. It was originally a small town of artisans.
Minna: Oh! So it was probably run by guilds.
Josie: Oh shit.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: What if they rebranded as a guild though after the war.
Rhi: Oh, yeah…
Minna: So now they’re the guild in charge even though they’re not an artisan guild.
Rhi: I like that. The handful of artisans who remain hate it.
Minna: Ugh, hate it.
Rhi: That’s cool. I like that. All right, next question: What industry is Whitehollow best known for?
Kim: I imagine that if it’s become a military state now that it’s probably really good at making arms. There’s probably a big blacksmithing community.
Rhi: That actually would make sense. There probably was smiths and metalworkers in the city from being artisans who got strong-armed into this production.
Kim: Yes.
Minna: Oh, and they’re probably… yeah. They’re at least benefitting a lot from the continued military presence.
Rhi: Yeah… Well, I think that’s gonna be another question. How much of a military presence is there still? I feel like it could go one of two ways. Either there’s still a heavy imperial military presence in the city or after the war ended the Empire might have been like “okay, this has been very expensive, we’re pulling most people out now.” I could see it going either way.
Minna: I like that a lot, actually.
Kim: I kinda like it being in transition.
Minna: Yeah.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: It absolutely would still be in transition, but it’s a question of is it transitioning…
Minna: I think it’s transitioning away, but the people who stayed and cobbed themselves up as guild masters don’t have a lot of connection to the central HQ of the military.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: But they come from a military background, so there’s still this sense of militarism around, but the actual military isn’t there.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. I imagine that a number of people, like, when the war ended they just got piled onto the ships and brought back from Skovlan and unloaded here, and I can see where a lot of soldiers would have just been like, well, I guess I live here now.
Josie: Yep.
Rhi: You know, depending on what conditions they left from, staying in Whitehollow might have been more appealing. If you were living in desperate poverty, you know, maybe this is a chance to start over.
Minna: Do we think there’s a tourism industry here?
Rhi: My inclination is no, because I think Whitehollow still has that negative connotation from the draft.
Minna: Yeah.
Rhi: There’s still that slang of your Whitehollow letter. I was actually thinking about that as the intro to next episode where you all are on the train and the conductor’s gonna be like “Oh Whitehollow, you all enlisting?” [laughs] Or something like that. “Y’all get called up for something?” You know, I don’t think people go to Whitehollow for fun.
Minna: Yeah. Here’s the thing. I think 50 years ago it was a fashionable vacation spot.
Kim: Probably.
Minna: So there’s still remnants of that around, but it’s former glory that’s long gone now.
Rhi: Yeah. So, right now it’s still primarily a place that’s producing a lot of arms and weapons. Okay, so we have kind of the past… It used to have the tourist industry and art. Currently, or at least very recent past, producing a lot of arms and weapons. Do we think that they are sticking with that arms manufacturing or is there a push to move into something else? I can see where it would stay as being arms production given who’s in charge.
Minna: If there’s more advances being made in steel this seems like a good place for that to happen.
Kim: Ooh, yeah.
Rhi: Like in terms of…?
Minna: I mean, smith work seems to have become their main thing, I can see where innovations might happen here.
Rhi: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I’m gonna change it. Their industry now, that they’re known for, is just sort of smithing and metalworking generally. We’ve got arms, manufacturing, and steel production. [laughing] I’m so depressed about this city already.
Josie: Yeah. [laughs]
Rhi: It used to be this cool little artist commune.
Kim: We started with vacation spot and now it’s… war spot.
Rhi: Yeah, now it’s a tool of the military industrial complex.
Kim: [shouting angrily] Duskwall!
Rhi: [laughs] Well, in this case it’s not Duskwall, it’s Imperial City.
Kim: [shouting angrily] Imperialism! Ugh…
Rhi: I don’t think you all will ever make it to Imperial City, which is okay.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Yeah. This isn’t that sort of game, I don’t think.
Kim: Yeah, no. I don’t wanna meet the Emperor.
Rhi: Yeah. We’re taking a hard left and going into some high level political intrigue!
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: Next question on the list: We’ve kind of already started to talk about this a little bit, but we might come up with something else. What is Whitehollow famous for?
Minna: What is it famous for? I mean, we already know what it’s famous for in recent history, and even I guess 50 years ago. I don’t know… Maybe there’s some other, like, it has to have other history and story to it, because it’s an old place.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Minna: Having some kind of fun, big, historical legend with it would be quite interesting.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah, I like that. Let’s… Okay. What have we got so far? We’ve got this delta, the giant reef, guilds of artists… We could go ancient history, we could go pre-Cataclysm.
Kim: Ooh. Ooh!
Minna: We’re currently almost 850 years after the Cataclysm.
Rhi: Yeah, but stories are still around about it. Not a lot of stories, and they’re pretty warped by time, but… Yeah, there could have been something pre-Cataclysm or around the Cataclysm.
Kim: I like going that far back though.
Rhi: I kind of do too.
Minna: What if the reef is said to be the skeleton of some great beast that used to live there?
Rhi & Kim: Ooh…
Josie: Oh… Oh dear.
Kim: That’s my shit.
Josie: Like it’s the spine of Leviathan or whatever.
Kim: Ahh!
Minna: Something much larger than a leviathan.
Rhi: Yeah, something greater than a leviathan.
Josie: Oh yeah. No, I was talking capital L, biblical Leviathan. [laughs]
Rhi: Ah, yeah.
Minna: I think it is said to be, like, have some sort of protective nature for the city, the fact that they… Maybe they slew it and having it there is some form of protection for the city. It’s the White Wyrm.
Rhi: Ooh! Yes! I like the idea that, yeah, there’s this weird black coral and plant growth and stuff but it’s all growing on these white, bone-like structures.
Minna: Mm-hmm!
Josie: Ooh, like bleached coral.
Rhi: That’s really cool. I assume you meant wyrm spelled with a Y.
Minna: You know, I’m good with either O or Y, but I was picturing with a Y. [giggles]
Kim: Y. Y. Y!
Rhi: Yeah. So was I, yeah.
Kim: Yes!
Rhi: I do like the idea. I like it when there’s always at least some little nugget of truth to these legends. I’m wondering if there’s something about the way the reef is positioned that it does protect the city, whether or not this legend is true.
Josie: Just the fact that it’s a big, natural mound out there, I imagine flooding and tsunamis and stuff just don’t break ground on the city because it’s out there to break it.
Rhi: Yeah! That’s kind of what I was thinking.
Minna: Yes!
Rhi: I don’t live on a coast. I was like, how do coasts work? I live in the middle of the country on a vast, flat plain. I don’t know how this works, but maybe it does something. Yeah. I like that idea that it actually does protect the city from, yeah, flooding and tsunamis. Yeah, that’s cool. I like that. There’s probably a bunch of taverns and establishments in town that reference the White Wyrm in their names. [gasps] There’s a local drink! It’s like if you go to New Orleans and get a Hurricane.
Minna: Ooh.
Kim: Yeah! I like that.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: The White Wyrm, it’ll fuck you up.
Kim: White Wyrm, welcome to Whitehollow.
Rhi: Yeah, you’re gonna die. [laughs] This thing will ruin you.
Kim: What’s that evil Chicago drink?
Rhi: Ugh, Malört.
Kim: Malört, yep, yep.
Rhi: No, it’s not Malört. I refuse. I draw—
Kim: No—
Rhi: It’s not.
Kim: White Wyrm isn’t as bad as a Merlot?
Rhi: Malört.
Kim: Malört?
Rhi: I refuse to put Malört in this game.
Josie: Okay. [laughs]
Kim: Okay. Okay!
Rhi: I cannot. Even as terrible as this setting is, it is free of the scourge… Fuck. It’s like drinking paint thinner and death.
Minna: So this local drink… I just like the idea that it’s white because it has goat’s milk in it or something.
Rhi: Ooh, so like a White Russian, kinda.
Minna: Yeah, probably.
Rhi: I think it just probably has a shitload of different alcohols in it, and I feel like a bunch of bars in the city all have something called a White Wyrm on the menu and it’s all made with, like, the common thread is goat’s milk and then some vodka-like alcohol but then everybody has their own twist on it.
Josie: Uh-huh.
Rhi: This is great. I love this very much. This is cool. Okay, infamous for… I think we’ve established the draft is pretty much I think what it’s gonna be infamous for. I think there’s probably still a lot of undue resentment aimed at the town, because Whitehollow as a town, city, is not responsible for the draft but when you have a war that lasts for 36 years…
Minna: Symbols can be scapegoats.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. Economically, Whitehollow is prosperous, stagnant, floundering, something else? What do we think?
Josie: I think it’s stagnant. Would floundering be better? I feel like it’s frustrating because the draft is over, people wanna get things back to the way they were, but now all the military people there are being obstinate and trying to be their own nobility and stuff like that.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: I like the idea building on it being a transition period that maybe there’s less demand for the arms stuff and less demand for the military stuff so they’re sort of in a transition period figuring out, okay, so what is there going to be a demand for that we can do.
Rhi: Yeah. I think I’m gonna add onto this, I think that like in Duskwall there is a growing unionization effort.
Kim: Mm!
Minna: Ooh yes.
Rhi: I think it depends on who is in the union.
Josie: I feel like it makes sense that the former guilds, right, are approaching unionization?
Minna: yeah.
Rhi: [gasps] yeah~
Josie: Because it lets them prosper, and then the military’s like “nope, we’re in power, stop that.”
Rhi: Okay. Former guilds are backing the unions as like, “Well… we can work with this.”
Minna: I feel like if guilds and artisans used to be the rule before the military came in, I think that as a structure probably was at least afforded more protection for people who worked.
Rhi: Yeah, that was the whole idea of an artisan guild back in the day, if you were a member of a guild you had to pay dues and meet certain standards but also, you know, you had certain protections.
Minna: They’re drawing on that old organization that people were still left.
Rhi: Yeah, I like that. That’s cool. Yeah, okay, so it probably is then pretty similar to how Duskwall’s unionization is going where there’s a pretty strong union movement but it’s being very violently opposed by the powers that be.
Minna: I like that we’ve already got factions going.
Josie: Yep. [laughs]
Rhi: Yep. [laughs] I structured these in this way for a reason. Okay, next question: What is a unique element of the local infrastructure? Something about transportation, how trade works, emergency services. This could be kind of the police force. The police force we could also address in the notable local organizations, but… what do we think?
Minna: Hmm…
Kim: Hmm…
Rhi: Oh, I had an idea.
Kim: You do?
Minna: Ooh?
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: Ooh.
Rhi: Does anybody else have an idea? Because I don’t want to jump on people.
Kim: No. No.
Josie: I’m good.
Rhi: Okay. We established that we’ve got the city, I’m imagining that the city is kind of built around this delta. Right? There’s a lot of waterways and things. What if the central market is a floating market?
Josie: Yeah!
Kim: Yes! Like it’s Venice.
Rhi: Yeah. You’ve got all of the, you know, a lot of the merchants just have boats. The boats all just float out in this massive market and you just… I imagine there’s gangways and stuff that you can walk, but then there’s also their version of the Gondoliers that will take you around. Do we like that?
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Yeah.
Minna: I love that.
Rhi: Yeah… All right.
Minna: We need to somehow, someday bring Tangletown into Magpies, because I love that shit.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah.
Josie: What is Tangletown?
Minna: It’s a thing in Crow’s Foot. A big leviathan hunter ship sank partly in the river and now it’s just got a floating neighborhood on it.
Josie: Ha, that’s fun.
Minna: It’s also neutral ground.
Rhi: Yeah, criminals are not allowed to fight there.
Josie: Interesting.
Minna: It’s important because Crow’s Foot was, until recently, torn apart by gang war.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: Following off on this thing, there’s also just, you know, like in Duskwall a lot of bridges? I also feel like market bridges are a thing. Like in Venice there’s this bridge called the Ponte Vecchio which is a thin bridge but just straight up has shops on either side of it hanging over the water.
Rhi: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh God, I love that.
Minna: I love bridges with buildings on them.
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: That’s, yes, I love that very much.
Josie: Whereas Duskwall is very distinct in its neighborhoods and there’s not much on the bridges dividing them.
Rhi: Right. I think there are the bridge that connects the main part of Duskwall to Whitecrown, which is kind of an island out in the bay, that’s the really, really expensive neighborhood, I think that bridge does have some homes on it, I’m not 100% sure though.
Josie: Gotcha.
Rhi: All right. Anything else we wanna add to that?
Josie: I just had an idea for law enforcement. I feel like it’s pretty much the same except they’re the Graycoats, or whatever color military uniforms are.
Rhi: Ohh. Yeah-yeah, I don’t…
Josie: Oh, that’s kind of jumping onto the next question, huh?
Rhi: That’s okay. We needed to- I’m gonna treat law enforcement as a separate thing because we absolutely need to know what the law enforcement is like in the city.
Josie: Right.
Rhi: Everybody, you each will get to add something in terms of the local organizations but then we’ll also have law enforcement. I don’t know what the uniforms look like. I don’t know what the colors of the Empire are.
Kim: It would make sense to have it be like, this is a little on the nose, but have it be a royal purple dye or something like that.
Minna: I don’t know why I picture red.
Rhi: I was thinking red too. Let me look. I’m gonna do a quick search in the PDF to see if I can figure out if there’s anything about the imperial colors in here.
Minna: Right.
Rhi: But, while I’m looking that up, the next question on the list is: What is a notable local landmark? I’m thinking of this in terms of, like, because we kinda had the unique natural feature that’s something that is natural, this landmark I’m thinking is something manmade.
Minna: I was thinking about maybe a clock tower that has maybe fun clockwork in it.
Rhi: Ooh.
Kim: It has fun clockwork, and since it was made by artisans it’s very ornate. It has silver filigree around the edges and whatnot.
Minna: It’s one of those ones that has a little scene that plays out at certain times of day.
Rhi: [gasps] Ooh, yes.
Josie: Oh yay.
Kim: Ooh, yeah.
Josie: And I think maybe it has two sets of numbers on it, or some way to indicate military time now.
Rhi: Ohh… Okay.
Minna: So, the 12 hours after dawn are numbered and the 12 hours after twilight are usually named according to local custom which varies from city to city. Maybe they have the original Whitehollow names but then they also have the imperial city names which is what the military uses.
Rhi: Ooh! Yes, that’s very good. Okay. Yeah, I think that’s gonna be the version of military time. When you’re in the military you need everybody to be operating on a standard set of names for the hours. I like that.
Minna: And they need to be distinguishable.
Rhi: Yeah. God, it looks so shitty, too.
Josie: Yeah. [laughs]
Rhi: It was this beautifully, like, everything was measured and crafted and then you’ve just got these extra 12 names welded on. Ugh. I love it, that’s awful. Cool. Okay, do we wanna add anything else about this clock tower? … Where do we think it is in the city?
Minna: I was thinking it was central.
Kim: I was gonna say, it’s gotta be smackdab in the middle of it, right?
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Minna: What if it’s like the guild master’s hall where the council used to meet?
Rhi: Yeah! Okay, yeah, I was trying to think of some sort of big meeting area. Yeah. Do you think it’s part of that building? I’m also picturing there’s the guild hall and then there’s a plaza outside where the clock tower is.
Minna: Yeah, I was thinking the center of a circular plaza.
Rhi: Nice. What do we think this guild master’s hall is used for now?
Josie: Maybe that the military turned that into their HQ.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.
Minna: Yeah, it’s the garrison.
Rhi: Yep. Ugh. UGH, that sucks so bad. It’s the local garrison and I think that’s where the military leadership meets.
Minna: That was where they processed all of the draftees and shit.
Rhi: Ohh, that sucks so bad!
Minna: So you’d have people lined up and thronging this plaza.
Kim: Oof.
Rhi: Yeah. Oh, I love it. That’s so good. Okay. For this next one we’re gonna talk about: What is a notable local organization? Let’s start by talking about law enforcement and then each of you can come up with some other organization that can fall into any of the major categories that we have in Duskwall. It can be a criminal gang, they can have to do with labor or trade, they can be one of the weirder fringe groups, but let’s start with law enforcement because that is gonna be relevant. [laughs]
Kim: Unfortunately.
Rhi: Josie, you had suggested Graycoats?
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: I like it, but I want it to be gray… like, gray and red or gray and purple.
Josie: I like gray and red.
Kim: I was gonna say gray and red.
Rhi: I think the uniforms are almost indistinguishable from the standard military uniforms.
Josie: Yeah. [laughs]
Rhi: Because they would have had so many of the damn uniforms lying around after 36 years.
Josie: Right. Maybe since it’s hot and humid they’ve taken some of them in or shortened the sleeves or whatever.
Rhi: Yeah. I’m picturing a light heather gray.
Minna: Mm-hmm.
Kim: Mm, yep.
Rhi: With dark red detailing.
Kim: A heather gray with a maroon, I can see that.
Rhi: Are we thinking that they’re, you know… The Bluecoats in Duskwall are basically a gang backed by the government. How do we think the Graycoats operate?
Josie: They’re fractions of the military led by the former military people. They’re a fucking gang.
Rhi: I’m gonna latch onto something that you said, that they’re factions of the military. What if the Graycoats are not really a unified force?
Minna: Oh God.
Rhi: What if you’ve got people where it’s like I served under General so-and-so and so I’m loyal to them, and then you’ve got other members of the Graycoats who are like well I served with Captain so-and-so and I’m loyal to them.
Kim: That’s definitely what it is.
Minna: Because these are basically all rogue military people now, because they’re not part of the official structure anymore.
Josie: Oof.
Rhi: Yeah. I think everybody formally retired for the most part, I don’t think they’ve just gone completely rogue, but I think that they’re still operating in those very military structures. So yeah… I think they operate like a bunch of gangs. They actually might be less effective, because there’s a ton of infighting.
Kim: Yep. Yeah.
Minna: But they might be competing for territory like ‘gang’ gangs.
Rhi: Mm-hmm, yeah, I think so, but that means that then they probably spend as much… I think that the complaint about them is they spend as much time fighting each other as they do dealing with crime in the city.
Minna: Yeah.
Josie: God, there’s like faction politics within faction politics in this city. [laughs]
Rhi: Mm-hmm. Yup. That’s awesome. Okay, so they are probably not a super effective police force.
Josie: Right, whereas the Bluecoats are like… you don’t wanna mess with them too much, they are effective when they come after you.
Rhi: Yeah, because they are bringing down the full united force, generally speaking. There’s always little rogue elements, but for the most part they’re a solid front. Okay, so we’ve got law enforcement, now each one of you can add an additional organization.
Josie: I have a weird idea. One of the old guilds called the Delvers Guild, or if we wanna get silly, the Scuba Guild.
Rhi: [giggles]
Minna: [gasps]
Josie: I think their whole idea was to go down in the water, originally around the reef, but now in all the canals and lakes and deltas, and dig shit up essentially. Part of that is just archeological and they bring up old pottery and stuff, or they sometimes find sunken treasure, or you know little bits of R’lyeh or something like that. They just go down and bring up weird shit.
Rhi: That is awesome.
Josie: And the reason they’re still going is the military for the most part doesn’t give a shit about them because they’re just kinda doing their own thing.
Rhi: That’s really cool. I like that very much.
Josie: They’re not overtly a cult, but if there is a guild that is a cult it’s probably this one.
Rhi: [laughs] Possibly a cult. Yeah, I can absolutely see where 100 years ago somebody in this group found some powerful statue of an ancient god that they low-key all worship at. That’s really cool! I love that a lot.
Kim: They’re probably also really interested in that legend of the wyrm. They probably are trying to find that as well.
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah. They probably have the best maps of the reef mountain.
Kim: Oh, Blaire is gonna be so-the-fuck into this.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: God, that’s cool. Okay.
Kim (as Blaire): Please, can we play with the cultists, please? Please-please-please? Can we play with the Divers Guild?
[laughter]
Rhi: That’s very cool. I like Delvers Guild. That’s cool. Okay, Kim or Minna? Let’s get some more groups in here.
Kim: Josie took my occult weird thing so now I gotta…
Josie: Heh-heh-heh.
Rhi: We can always have more than one weird occult thing happening here.
Kim: Ohh. Hmm…
Rhi: We should probably have at least one local criminal organization. Now, the criminals could also be into the occult.
Kim: That’s true.
Rhi: But, you know, you gotta figure out whose toes you’re gonna be stepping on by being here.
Minna: I have an idea. I think we’ve got the Queen of Fortune.
Rhi: Ooh.
Minna: She pretty much runs the gambling scene in the city. If you try and nose in on her turf you are in trouble.
Rhi: So all the casinos, any taverns where they have card tables…
Kim: I like that.
Josie: And I bet she’s still doing well, because if there’s one thing off-duty soldiers like to do it’s drink and gamble.
Minna: Mm-hmm!
Rhi: I think she probably made her fortune during the war. Yeah.
Kim: Yup, absolutely.
Rhi: Cool. Do we think that she is kind of a well-known public figure? There’s some criminals that, like an Al Capone type, where they just show up and be like the fuck are you gonna do to me, or do we think she’s more shrouded in mystery, like ooh, the Queen of Fortune, nobody actually knows who she is and what she looks like.
Kim: I like shrouded in mystery.
Minna: I think she’s shrouded in mystery, but if you ask around enough and she’s interested she’ll send someone out to get you, and she maybe sometimes makes deals if you need something.
Rhi: Yeah. I don’t know if you’ll meet her, but I like the idea. This war went on for about 40 years. I like the idea that she’s like in her 70s.
Minna: Mm-hmm!
Josie: [laughs] Yes.
Kim: Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Rhi: How does she feel about cheating?
Minna: Don’t get fucking caught.
Rhi: And what happens if you do get caught?
Josie: I feel like first offense you lose some teeth, second offense you lose a hand, and there is no third offense.
Rhi: Ooh… I want the third offense to be that she has some massive, I’m just picturing those fucking Everglades gators, that she just has one of those that she fucking feeds you to.
[laughing and cheering]
Kim: Yes! Yup.
Josie: Forget the three strikes thing, she just has fucking pet gators. You don’t wanna get fed to those gators.
Rhi: Yeah, but I like that it’s not that you can’t cheat, but if you cheat badly enough that you get caught you’ll get fed to the gators.
Kim: Yep. That’s very good.
Josie: Yeah.
Minna: Yes.
Rhi: Her top lieutenants have gator skin boots that are made out of the ones that get old and die.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: All right, Kim.
Kim: Yes, I have an idea now. I think we should start diving into the specifics of one of the artist guilds that’s still sticking around.
Rhi: Yeah~
Josie: Ooh.
Kim: I’m thinking either silversmiths or goldsmiths, but I don’t know how common, in a place that’s so war-ravaged, that the goldsmiths would still be around, maybe just the silversmiths.
Rhi: Yeah, I like silversmiths.
Minna: Ooh.
Kim: All right, yeah, we can just call them Silversmiths Guild.
Rhi: Well, I’m putting that down as a placeholder. If you’ve got a better name for it, by all means.
Kim: Just to keep things setting-wise, make it fun, if I had a different name I would, but I don’t right now. I’ll be open to that. Otherwise, they’re an artisans guild that deals in not only jewelry and finery and probably fine silverware and whatnot, they also contributed to the decorations on the clock, so they also do architectural silversmithing that’s decorative.
Minna: See, I just thought of something that’s a little bit further back in our history than this period, but a lot of the engravers in the Revolutionary War era in America were silversmiths.
Kim: yes! Yes, that’s true.
Minna: And they did a lot of protest art during the war, so I don’t know if that’s anything.
Kim: Minna, that’s brilliant. Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah, I like that.
Kim: No, absolutely, as artists they would be totally opposed to the war, and yeah, there’s probably some kind of Paul Revere type in there.
Minna: Ah, there’s like underground engravers and publishers and shit, mostly related to the silversmiths guild.
Kim: Yes.
Rhi: Yeah, I like the idea that they were kind of the leaders of the anti-military protests during the war.
Kim: Yes, that’s very good.
Rhi: And I think that’s why, I think a lot of the other guilds just completely fell apart during the war, but I think the fact that they had this ideological basis held them together.
Kim: I can see that a lot.
Rhi: So what are they up to now? I imagine they are not popular with the ruling government.
Josie: No.
Kim: No, they’re probably not popular, but besides just surviving I like to imagine that they’re probably helping rebuild, because there’s probably a lot of things that have fallen into disarray so they’re trying to help not only because they have the foundational skills to put things back together but also, you know, bring things back to their former glory.
Minna: I mean, if this was a big thing even before the war I imagine that Whitehollow silver with a mark from the guild is worth quite a bit.
Kim: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: Oh man, I can see during the war where they would craft stuff for these military officers that, you know… I just have this idea of silverware that they baked poison into that over the course of months, using the silverware, they just got sicker and sicker and sicker.
Kim: [gasps] yeah~!
Josie: Oh shit.
Rhi: The slowest assassination.
Kim: That’s brilliant.
Josie: Oof. Yeah, they hold power just because they’re so ubiquitous in minor ways.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. I think it’s that Whitehollow silver is well-known outside the city and within the city they’re too entwined in the city’s identity and history for the leadership to just crush them, because they know that if they do hell will break loose so they have to tolerate them.
Josie: Right.
Kim: Yep, that’s exactly it. I’m still trying to think of a name for them, and my brain just keeps going back to moon or stars. I’m trying to think of what’s silver in the natural world.
Rhi: Yeah, I mean both of those would work. We’ve got some time. You can come back to a name.
Kim: Okay.
Rhi: If you bolt upright in the middle of the night just message me. [laughs]
Kim: Okay.
Rhi: “I’ve come up with it! The perfect name!”
Kim: My brain keeps going to the Silver Spinners instead of the Silver Smiths.
Rhi: That’s cool! I like that.
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: So just the Silver Spinners is what they’re called?
Kim: Yeah, well the Silver Spinners Guild.
Rhi: Yeah, I like that. Cool, I like this a lot. This is such a- I’m so bummed we’re only spending an episode here!
Kim: Ugh!
Josie: I mean, no one’s saying we can’t do another Blades game in Whitehollow. [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah. This is so cool. Okay. The next question is another one that’s gonna be from each of you, and these will probably be a little shorter. What is a notable element of the local culture? This can be fashion, food, art — we already touched on art a little bit with the Whitehollow silver, some sort of religious thing, just one element of the local culture. It doesn’t have to be something that is well-known outside of it but just something that’s kind of uniquely Whitehollow.
Kim: So, because this is a river delta town and it has fresh water that probably has wildlife that is slightly less toxic than what lives in the Void Sea, Whitehollow is known for very good freshwater fish dishes.
Rhi: Yeah~
Kim: It’s got pretty decent… I shouldn’t say seafood because it’s not from the sea.
Rhi: Yeah, freshwater…
Kim: It’s got a good pescatarian selection.
Josie: Good old Whitehollow salmon.
Rhi: Yeah!
Kim: Yeah, salmon’s freshwater.
Rhi: Salmon, probably crawdads.
Josie: Oh yeah.
Kim: Probably really good eel, good freshwater eel.
Josie: Oh God, I bet the eels are really weird in this setting.
Rhi: Oh, they’re so fucking weird.
Kim: How weird? All right, no, that’s a tangent. I’ll put it away.
[laughter]
Rhi: Okay! Yeah. I like that. Josie or Minna, what else is something we got?
Josie: I think a lot of just quirks of custom, like their alternative to exclaiming Jesus Christ or bless you or, you know, little elements of the dress, or just weird dialect quirks are actually remnants of – and no one knows this at all, to everyone it’s just normal – are actually remnants of some forgotten god’s worship.
Rhi: Ooh~!
Josie: Only the cult of the forgotten god would know that, and obviously there’s been tons of linguistic drift and the like, but it’s just baked in there.
Rhi: I like the idea that there’s some gesture that people do that, you know how like when we’re leaving some place you just wave your hand, some gesture that’s like that of everybody’s just this is how we say farewell, but it’s actually like a corrupted version of the sign of blessing for this god.
Josie: Gotcha. I think people kind of wave in a semi-salute, like it’s your index and middle finger and then your thumb, and you just kinda wave like that.
Rhi: Okay, so rather than your whole hand it’s just the…
Kim: I can picture it.
Rhi: Yeah.
Kim: See, they call it a bubbler, because… back in the old days, back in the days of old.
[laughter]
Rhi: The ancient bubbling god did spew forth from the sea!
Kim: Yes.
Rhi: That’s cool. I like that, yeah, that there’s just this ancient forgotten god that everybody… it could even have been before the Cataclysm, that everybody worshipped this god.
Josie: Yep.
Rhi: Aw, that’s cool, I like that. All right, Minna.
Minna: I know I keep drawing on real-world war-related shit…
Rhi: Yeah, no, do it.
Minna: I just love the idea of an underground movement of war poets here.
Josie: Yeah!
Rhi: [gasps] That’s so good!
Minna: Sort of post-World War I style, because I’m super into anti-imperial bullshit happening.
Rhi: Yes! Yes! Yes!
Josie: Yes please.
Minna: I think anti-imperial intellectuals might be my little happy niche.
Kim: Well, considering.
Rhi: Was that… That group of writers was The Lost Generation, right? That’s what they were called?
Minna: I don’t know what you call them. I’m just talking about people like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, like post-World War I. I don’t know what you call that movement of poets.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s what it is, the writers who were like… Ernest Hemingway is kind of the iconic one of that, but yeah, all of those writers who were working, writing in reaction to the war.
Josie: Now I’m just thinking that there’s a burgeoning Dadaist movement within that circle. [laughs]
Kim: Yes!
Rhi: [laughs] I’m gonna say war poets and other writers. That generation is Hemingway, that’s Fitzgerald, that’s like… all of those.
Kim: Give me the Dadaism.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s cool.
Kim: Dada. Dada.
Rhi: Growing Dadaist… That’s a phrase.
Kim: Yes! Yeah.
Rhi: Dadaist-esque. Bleh.
Josie: [laughs]
Kim: Phew.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s a mouthful.
Josie: Art, am I right?
Rhi: [laughs] Is there anything, any particularly well-known poets that are starting to get some attention within the city? Anybody who’s standing out, or any other details you wanna add to this? Because I’m super into this.
Josie: I think someone published a book or pamphlet or something that got banned.
Rhi: Ooh.
Josie: Like it was just too incendiary so the military powers crushed it.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: God, it was like fucking allegorical but the least subtle allegory you’ve ever heard of, and the villain of the piece was the Immortal Emperor.
Rhi: [gasps] Oh shit!
Josie: Oh no!
Rhi: Do we think a novel?
Minna: Either that or an epic poem, I don’t know which would be more likely.
Rhi: Nope, it’s an epic poem~
[laughter]
Josie: Yeah.
Rhi: As soon as you say something’s illegal everyone’s like “uh, I need it immediately.” That’s really good. I’m not gonna write it. I’m not gonna write a poem.
Minna: [giggles]
Rhi: If any of you wanna write a poem, Godspeed, but I’m not gonna write a poem. I’m just putting that out there right now, just so that you have your expectations set.
Minna: Listen, I’m already over here with my fucking collective of semi-anti-imperial North Sea historians that have not taken on a life of their own in my brain at all. Leave me alone.
Rhi: Teehee. Very good.
Josie: Minna, you’re good.
Rhi: Yes. Last couple questions. What is a prominent natural, religious, or cultural event that is important to this city?
Minna: What if there was an exhibition day that used to be when all the journeymen showed their master works off, so it’s just a big old street festival with people showing off the cool shit they’ve made. It’s probably in the future going to evolve into almost a world fair type of thing.
Rhi: Oh yes! Yeah! That’s so cool.
Josie: Nice.
Rhi: Okay, I have questions. What is it called?
Minna: Exhibition Day? [laughs] That’s what I had already, but I don’t know.
Rhi: Okay, that’s fine. I wasn’t sure if you had a different name for it. Okay, so Exhibition Day.
Minna: I don’t have a better name right now.
Rhi: That’s fine. How was this celebrated, if it was celebrated, during the war? What did this look like during the war? Did it happen at all? Did it happen in a greatly reduced capacity?
Josie: I think it happened, but there had to be military drills or a changing of the guard component to show off weapons.
Kim: There was definitely cut funding.
Minna: Yeah.
Rhi: And I think there was a lot of pressure for the works that you showed to be supporting the war effort.
Minna: Mm-hmm.
Josie: Right.
Kim: Ugh.
Josie: We’re really getting some insight into the imperialism of the Immortal Emperor here.
Rhi: Yeah!
Josie: Because the whole deal with Duskwall is that is still kind of had an insular local identity and this is what happens when a city couldn’t maintain that entirely.
Rhi: Yeah. This is why Skovlan fought so hard, because they saw the fucking writing on the wall.
Minna: Yeah. The stupid historians living in my brain are all about that.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: Do we wanna add anything else to this?
Josie: I think it’s had a resurgence now that the war is over, and now this is the one day where those underground anti-war people can show their true colors before they go back in hiding for the rest of the year.
Rhi: I feel like there’s also been the military, after seeing people be more open about their anti-military, anti-war protesting during this event, there hasn’t been any kind of revolt or riot or attack yet, but there’s an assumption that it will happen, so I feel like the amount of military presence or Graycoat presence at this thing keeps slowly ramping up every year because they’re just like “you all are gonna try something.”
Minna: God, there’s gonna be a riot one year.
Rhi: I’m actually thinking that one year, it’s not gonna be this year when you’re there, but there’s gonna be where, because all the Graycoats are at the festival location, everything else is unguarded and they’re gonna blow up some massive military structure that was left unprotected. It’s gonna be great. I’m proud of them already. They haven’t done it yet, but I’m proud of them.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: This last question is also the last question that is asked when you’re doing city building in Descent into Midnight, and it is probably one of my favorite questions for worldbuilding. What is something small but special that most people take for granted?
Minna: [impressed exhale]
Josie: I feel like it was touched on already, and it was silverware.
Rhi: Whitehollow silverware?
Josie: Yeah. It’s not common in this time period for people to have normal ass silverware. It’s all thoroughly alloyed or just made to seem silver, right?
Kim: Right.
Josie: But here, everyone has little things made of silver. Maybe it’s just silver in general.
Rhi: I like that it’s specifically silverware because that’s very utilitarian.
Josie: Okay, and if anyone goes out of the city it’s like “what do you mean your silverware isn’t made of silver? Why is it called silverware then?”
Rhi: Yeah. “What is this crap?”
Josie: Because it’s cheap here, anyone can get it.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: There are mountains somewhat inland, so I think there’s gotta be some big silver mines in those mountains. There’s probably a smaller mining settlement there. I think that there’s probably a train line that runs between, then. Cool.
Josie: Because in Victorian era silverware was a sign of class and nobility.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s why you’re always like, you know, maids run off with the silverware because it’s literally made of silver and you melt that shit down and you’re set.
Josie: Right. [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah, that’s cool. I like that. Okay, well, I really like this city that we’ve made.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: yeah!
Rhi: That we’ve put together here. Yeah. I think this is gonna be a really—I do not know how much of this you’re gonna be able to interact with, I’m gonna do some planning over the next week and a half, but yeah. There is a lot here that you all could explore, and I think this also is gonna help me figure out where the Hand of Kotar is. [laughs] Yeah! I’m excited about this. I’m very much looking forward to the next couple episodes where you’ll be out of Duskwall for a little bit.
Minna: I’m so excited.
Rhi: I know, I am too. It’s gonna be cool. So, thank you all for helping me, well, not really helping, you all did 90% of the work on this. Thank you all for building this place!
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: It’s gonna be really cool. I’m excited about spending a little bit of time here.
Minna: I love worldbuilding. [giggles]
Rhi: Yeah, it’s so much fun.