City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities

Who This Appeals To

Game Masters, storytellers, and worldbuilders who want a comprehensive, system-agnostic reference for creating rich, believable urban environments. Compatible with virtually any ancient, medieval, Renaissance, or fantasy RPG setting — from D&D to OSR to homebrew.

Features

• 240 fully-illustrated pages organized into 15 sections
• 100+ pieces of custom art in a unified style
• Covers communities of all sizes: thorps, hamlets, villages, towns, and cities
• 10 specific location categories: Craftsman, Entertainment, Professional, Tradesman, Mercantile, Service, Scholarly, Religious, Governmental, and Underworld Places
• Descriptions of 85 distinct location types, each with 2–3 Adventure Hooks
• Appendices on Guilds (with random generation tables) and creating Inns & Taverns
• Topics include urban lighting, law and order, defenseworks, and city disasters (flood, fire, war, pestilence)
• Preface by co-author Michael O. Varhola discussing the book's development and Gary Gygax's influence

What You'll Experience

City Builder transforms the often-daunting task of urban worldbuilding into a structured, inspiring process. Whether you're sketching a tiny hamlet or designing a sprawling metropolis, this sourcebook gives you the frameworks, tables, and hooks to make every community feel alive and full of story potential — without being tied to any single game system.

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