#Septopolis 30! Thanks Khonri for organising this! In retrospect I should have done just one city (Hubris). I got to do a lot of creating for it and I think next month will be taking what I wrote, expanding upon it, and writing it up properly. It got a bit rough when I got busy but I got there!

#Septopolis 28 I drew a map of Hubris!

For both Fiumenze and Hubris and everything else, it's @hiriadunning.bsky.social! Fiumenze was created over dinner at a nice restaurant with them. Hubris was the result of Hiria showing me Jimmy Barnes in Big Enough. All brainstorming has bounced off them, plus general support and encouragement.

#Septopolis 27 Fiumenze: It's finally time for Zaffiro 'il Magnifico' de' Fisici, the dragon prince of Fiumenze. Zaffiro is a large dragon with blue scales and showy jewelry. In his human form, he's a handsome older man with olive skin and short salt-and-pepper hair and beard, richly attired. (1/8)

#Septopolis 26 So much is going on 'right now' in Fiumenze over multiple TTRPGs played there + ideas for more games in my head + ideas players have that they want to run with. The biggest thing is that Zaffiro 'il Magnifico', the dragon who's the de-facto prince of the city, wants to expand. (1/6)

#Septopolis 25 I think I've talked about a few festivals already. One I haven't mentioned is the Vendemmia in mid-autumn. It's the festival of the wine harvest. The exact date changes year to year. In the countryside, people gather to pick the grapes (1/3)

#Septopolis 24 Fiumenze's rival is Ascia, a nearby city to the south. They've been rivals over trade and control of the local area. No one ever forgets that the outnumbered Ascians famously defeated the Fiumentines in the Battle of Berardenga two hundred years ago. (1/3)

#Septopolis 23 Fiumenze: Each guild is responsible for its internal 'guild law.' Those who infringe a guild's monopoly on services, for example, will learn their lessons quickly and painfully. Intra-guild conflicts will require finesse, diplomac, negotiation and carefully applied violence. (1/x)

#Septopolis 22 Fiumenze calls itself a republic, but it's actually a plutocracy, but it's actually a tyranny. Ever since the expulsion of the aristocracy 400 years ago, the Guilds have shared rulership of the city. This is 'democratic' because in theory anyone can achieve power in the guild. (1/9)

#Septopolis 21 Fiumenze: Lots of reasons. People might come because of trade, as pilgrims passing through, to look for work, to attend the university or one of the gymnasia, or any other reason. (1/3)

#Septopolis 20 Fiumenze: The public spaces are the piazzas, one per neighbourhood. The biggest is the Piazza del Popolo, but there's lots of other ones. They're also used for public events like theatre performances, festival celebrations, sports events, executions and more. (1/x)

I finally started my first playtest for my #ttrpg A Town Called Hubris, which I've been talking about in #Septopolis! Just character creation today. We have a guitar-toting drifter of Apollo, a master thief of Hermes and a gunsmith of Hephaestus!

#septopolis 19 Fiumenze: There's lots of industries, being a city of craft guilds) but the most influential is the wool trade. There are two wool guilds: one for the production of wool, and one for turning the wool into cloth. The trade is dominated by the de' Ranieri family, who are dragons! (1/6)

#Septopolis 18 Fiumenze: I mentioned the churches in an earlier post. The next most important are the three bridges over the Sporco. From north to south they are the Ponte Auromiano (the Auromian Bridge), the Ponte di Pesce (the Fish Bridge) and the Ponte Reale (the Royal Bridge). (1/2)

#Septopolis 17 Fiumenze: It's Renaissance Florence, with beautiful white walls and orange roofs. Hubris: A mix of Ancient Greece and the Wild West. Lots of wooden buildings with nods towards Grecian architecture. The Hubreion is a proper marble temple; who knows where they got the marble from!

One day I'll catch up with #Septopolis, but in the meantime it'll just have to slip, day after day 🙃

#Septopolis 16 Fiumenze: The city was originally planned in a grid on the west bank of the River Sporco, enclosed by city walls. Since then it's grown enough to have two sets of walls and urban sprawl outside both of them, as well as villas and small villages all around. (1/6)

#Septopolis 15 Fiumenze: I did a lot about Salvationism for MythAugust, so go back through that if you want more details or ask me questions. It's Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off and added reincarnation, with a female central Jesus figure, and lots of modern corruption. (1/x)

#Septopolis 14 Fiumenze: Lots of food idea here! A common street food is ‘little lampreys’ (lampredotto) which are pieces of cow stomach boiled with herbs and wrapped in bread. Through boiling, the stomach pieces resemble the lampreys eaten by the rich, which is where it gets its name from. (1/7)

#Septopolis 13 Fiumenze: Its technology level is is roughly equivalent to late 15th century Italy. Many of the prominent innovations have not arrived yet, because we're waiting on PCs to introduce them! There's no printing press yet - it's only just been invented a few years ago. (1/13)

#Septopolis 12 Fiumentines are very religiously superstitious. That's not very unique in Tirenia though. They think of themselves as very 'working class egalitarian' because of the power of the guilds and the expulsion of the aristocracy. The working poor would disagree! (1/3)

#Septopolis 11 Nice easy one for today! People in Fiumenze speak Fiumentine, a dialect of Tirenian. (Or in our words, Florentine and Italian). Lots of people speak their own dialects instead. People in Hubris speak Greek; some people have other languages, like (Ancient) Egyptian.

#Septopolis 10 Hubris first, because it's easier. It has a small fluctuating population, overwhelmingly adult Greek men since it's a prospecting town. There's an Egyptian quarter, and the odd Mesopotamian. Most people are poor workers, but there's a mercantile class catering to the miners. (1/🧵)

#Septopolis 9 Fiumenze needed to be a name similar, but distinct from, Florence. Smush together Fiume (Italian for river) and Firenze (the Italian name) and you get Fiumenze. (1/4)

#Septopolis 8 Fiumenze was, in legend, founded by Mirabella Orosa, a legendary hero from before recorded history. She was a half-dragon adventuress who could change form. She had many adventures, before joining the great war against the Giants. She survived and lived happily ever after! (1/3)

#Septopolis 7 Fiumenze was founded around an early bridge over the Sporco River, and grew organically. But according to legend, Mirabella Orosa was fording the river here and saw a ewe giving suck to a fledgling griffin. Soothsayers said that from humble beginnings, a great city would arise. (1/2)

#septopolis 6 As rpg settings, it behooves me to have a LOT of answers to this one. Let's see what I've got in my notes, and let's get inventing as well! Pull up a chair, let's go! (1/11)

#Septopolis 5 Fiumenze is built on the road from Medilano to Auromia, on the best place to bridge the Sporco River. So lots of travellers go through there, and it's surrounded by fertile plains with lots of farms. The classic way to get a city! (1/2)

#Septopolis 4 Fiumenze is located in the fertile Tarchanian Plains. It's in a small valley ringed by hills, on the banks of the Sporco River. The Auromian Empire (gold dragons) built a bridge over the river here, so ever since all travel across the subcontinent goes through Fiumenze. (1/5)

#Septopolis 3 Fiumenze is heavily inspired by late 15th Century Florence, the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico, though it draws inspiration from earlier or later times as well, from the populist Revolt of the Ciompi to the ascension of Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici. (1/4)

What are you top 5 #TTRPG settings? (No order) 1. Tirenia (homebrew, originally D&D, Italian Renaissance inspired) 2. Arthur's Britain (Pendragon) 3. The Old World (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) 4. Rokugan (Legend of the Five Rings) 5. A galaxy far, far away (Star Wars d6)

#Septopolis 2 Fiumenze and Hubris both have the same goal: to be the home base for players in a TTRPG, with a view to potential indie publication. I always find this an interesting balancing act: you want the setting to be deep enough to inspire the GM, but not so much that it overwhelms them!

#Septopolis Day 1 I have two different settlements I'm going to talk about from TTRPGs I'm working on. I'll do them in separate posts. Fiumenze: Fantasy version of Renaissance Florence. Already well developed. Hubris: A mythic Greece / Wild West mashup town. Barely started working on it. (1/2)

#MythAugust 31 This was my first prompt panel and I loved it! :D Thanks Emily! I've been VERY slowly writing up a guide to Tirenia. When I started doing this I found that the religion section was empty! Everything was just in my head. I now feel like I can copy my answers in and it will be done!

#MythAugust 30 It really depends! Because Tirenia is a TTRPG world, the game is really driven by the players: their characters and what they personally are interested in exploring. Generally religion shows up as a political or social force. (1/3)

#MythAugust 29 Salvationism is, very obviously, extremely close to Renaissance Catholicism, just before Martin Luther. I think in TTRPGs, the more stuff you can make be familiar, the easier it is for players to get on board. In novels, I think there's more space for original world building. (1/2)

#MythAugust 28 There are lots of little prayers: before meals, before undertakings, swearing oaths, profanities, and more. Some (rich) people might even have a Book of Hours, which gives you the best prayers to use throughout the day, and also looks fantastic!

Everyone is automatically a member of the church. However, Welcoming (Accoglienza) is where newborns are formally presented to the community and the faith. Fun fact - the place where this is done in Fiumenze used to be a temple to the fairy queen Bellona, who just woke up again. Whoops! (1/5)

#MythAugust 25 There are countless holidays for Salvationism. There are so many Saints' Days that someone is having a festival somewhere every day. Most of these will be sponsored by a particular family or guild, but there's also big city-wide ones for the patron of this-or-that city. (1/4)

#MythAugust 24 All the Catholicisms - rosaries, prayers, the sign of the flames, and so on. Blessings are either protection / good luck (so general as to be undefinable) or the truest blessing, healing. It's how you can tell a true saint. Salvationism doesn't do curses.

#MythAugust 23 The Storia is the main holy text. It was gathered by Santa Pamphilia in the generation after Chiara. It's based on eyewitness accounts, and tells the life story of Chiara, with frequent speeches to explain doctrine. Like the Bible, it's considered a divinely inspired book. (1/3)

#MythAugust 22 Salvationists gather in a church in the middle of the community, which serves as the heart of the community. Once a week there's a church service, which is a chance for everyone to gather. The rest of the time it's the heart of the community social services. (1/2)

#MythAugust 21 We strive to perfect ourselves so we can become angels in Heaven. One day, everyone will have ascended, and the world will be perfect. Then Chiara will return and...? It's a bit vague. But it's s potlsitive goal rather than a scary 'the end is nigh!' thing. (1/2)

#MythAugust 20 Chiara taught us that when you die, you go to Paradiso to become an angel if you're without sin, or to Damnatio if you're beyond redemption. Otherwise they go to Purgatorio to be purified and are reborn to try again. They are essentially correct. (1/2)

1. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We're back to it after a hiatus for our new baby, so good and so funny. 2. A Town Called Hubris, do a first playtest of my Mythic Greek / Wild West mashup homebrew TTRPG. 3. Thirsty Sword Lesbians, a queer horror ballet themed game with my wife we once brainstormed.

#MythAugust 19 Because Tirenia is a TTRPG world, it's useful to have things that players understand easily. Giant setting bibles are not helpful. The seven sins are bad and the seven virtues are good. It instantly puts players in a very Catholic frame of mind. (1/2)

#MythAugust 18 This is not something I've gotten into a lot. Because Tirenia is a ttrpg world, it grows as I run new games in it, and I like to leave space for players to add their own details, not bury them under a mountain of lore. But there's a few sects, and more still to be discovered. (1/5)

#MythAugust 17 In Tirenia, the leader of the church is the High Ordinarch. They are selected amongst the Ordinarchs and serve as the voice of Chiara. Originally this would have been the most devout priest who was capable of the greatest miracles. Many have been simple monks or parish priests. (1/5)

#mythaugust Day 16 Eternal life, magic powers, blah blah blah... But just like in real life, the real reason is because it's entrenched in society and culture. It's what communities do to bring them together.

Salvationism is omnipresent throughout Tirenia. With no central government after the fall of the Auromian Empire, the Church has taken its place. There's lots of regional variation but the High Ordinarch wields immense political power. (1/2)