That sounds fairly awesome.

>It is madness...

Wait for it.

Rather Lothavor's Legacy.

...so, how do I kill the city?

>>4670822
>>4670773

Also, obligatory.

>>4670827
Since the city binds the souls of its inhabitants, it could be assumed killing the city kills everyone living inside it as well.

As for how to do it, no idea

>>4670773
There's a new game out called Summerland. Check it out.

>>4670846
You kill the city by killing it's inhabitants.
Might be a bit hard the other way around.

>>4670846

Well, given enough time, I will find a way.

Cool story bro; no srsly, I really like the idea.

>>4670827
I don't know really. Haven't gotten that far yet. Off the top of my head, I'd say you'd probably have to make it stop being a city anymore. So, demolish the buildings, scatter/kill the people (doing this will of course drive the city mad, and by extension, all of its inhabitants) until it no longer can be considered a city by anyone, not even itself.

>>4670846

By killing the soul of the city, every inhabitant in that city goes mad with tremendous loss, as their souls for the first time aretruly alone.

>>4670939

I like that. Killing a city is easy then.

Also, you might want to look at the mod for Morrowind called Lothavor's Legacy, as I mentioned. That was an island with a connection to the Warp, with a Greater Daemon of Sheogorath on it. Once you were on the island, you felt "right". And the farther away you got from the island, you felt things from sadness to a distance-affected health drain.

Yes, I killed the Greater Daemon, and the island blew up.

>>4670939
This actually reminds me of something I had planned. A faction of terrorists/freedom fighters looking for a way to release the grip the city has on their souls. I like the idea, but I'm still thinking about what their methods could be. Vandalism and forcibly relocating/killing people would do the trick, but the city would surely retaliate. Of course, this opens up the possibility of a faction of terrorists driven to the brink of desperation by the city itself, who then proceed to go all-out batshit insane as the city tries to stop its beloved children from hurting it the only way it knows how.

In fact, to ramp up the creepiness, maybe the city can "appear" to the ones it has driven mad. It has brought their souls closer to its own, so it can speak to them in a fashion. The inmates of the asylum are rocked to sleep by the soothing voice of the city, who watches over them to get rid of the guilt of having put them there in the first place, while any vandals or other people trying to break up the community slowly begin to notice a stern figure telling them to stop their nonsense as they slip into madness.

>Essentially, it's a steampunk world where living in the city confines you to it. You see, the land has a soul, just like people do. And it has emotions. It loves every single one of its inhabitants dearly, and it imprints itself upon their souls. When they try to leave, it hurts the city terribly. And so it tries to get them to return, at first by gently nudging them, but it gets more and more violent until it eventually claws at their very souls, desperately trying to drag them back into its embrace. And so, leaving the city is nearly impossible for those who were born there, or even those who have settled down there long enough to be called inhabitants. Instead, they expand the reaches of their cities in the hope that making their prisons larger will allow them to feel free.

So it's a Shalebridge Cradle ripoff?

>>4670773
Sounds like a pretty sweet twist on DRYH.

I'm stealing this idea, so hard.

I love you OP.

>>4671016
This also leads to the direct effect of having a "living" city with a desire to protect its community from excessive harm. The city itself would put a stop to any attempts at organized crime if said crime affected the inhabitants in such a way that they would want to leave and cause people to avoid it. Hence, any major crime rings are either going mad, consist of outsiders who only venture into town occasionally, or would be aimed toward crimes that wouldn't hurt the city of the inhabitants in a fashion that would cause it to discipline them. Money laundering, illegal gambling and the sort would be okay, as it is part of life in the city, after all, whereas forcing people to pay protection money or systematically driving people from their homes would cause the city to act.

This means that the city still has a strong support among the majority of its inhabitants. After all, it does help protect them, and it only wants what is best for them. Besides, why would they want to leave it in the first place? This is where everything happens, this is where the jobs are, this is where civilization is at.

>>4671092
What? I don't think I've heard of that one. If it's already been done, I would love to read up on it, since I could probably steal a few ideas.

>>4670773

>the land has a soul

See Zeitgeist from D&D 3.5 Cityscape.

>>4671092
>Hurf durf everything is a ripoff! I only play completely original settings where everything is unique!

Huh, so kind of like a less openly malevolent Silent Hill?

>>4671153
what about the possibility of corrupt cities?

It could be fun is the city took some more drastic measures if sufficiently threatened. Say, your city is Paris, and terrorists have gotten their hands on a doomsday machine to wipe out the entire city. What does Paris do?

Notre Dame Cathedral awakens, tears itself off the ground and rips apart the machine, part by part. All while the its famed organ is playing hymns.

And watch the HELL out for the Pyramids and Sphinx if you go anywhere near Cairo with malign intent.

>>4670827
build a mall a couple of days travel away. Offer High paying jobs and other incentives to move to other cities.
clear the slums under an urban renewal package.
Get a law enacted to reduce "overcrowding"
Deportation is the sentance for nearly every crime
open up a frontier / new colony and get a gold rush going
raise an army to fight a distant enemy.
Anything that would make people move away from their lives.

Of course the city might have something to say about that.

>>4671383
Oh fuck yes the statue of liberty.

>>4671292
Kind of. It wouldn't really be a horror setting, but more of an adventure setting where settling down has its disadvantages. The city loves everyone in it, and it doesn't want them to leave, both because it feels such a connection with them and because it actually hurts it. Compare it to one of your fingers trying to leave your body. You'd make sure that didn't happen, even if it meant being a little forceful.

Not the greatest analogy, I know, but it demonstrates kind of what I had in mind.

>>4671413
The Wall of China. 6,400 km-long dragon. A mobile city by itself.

I was actually intending to do something like Super Robot Wars with architecture instead of, well, robots, though it was way beyond my skill.

>>4670846
Gas, earthquake, sink into the ocean, chemical spills...

>>4671468
srw with cities? sort of already done
http://wildstormresource.wetpaint.com/page/Jack+Hawksmoor+(bio)?t=anon.
1) The aliens turned out to be human beings from the future, (who used Jack as a tool to fight a doomsday weapon from the future that appeared in the 1970s: a gestalt being that was the entire city of Kansas City from the 70th century. Hawksmoor defeated the being by merging with -- and transforming -- the city of Tokyo into a being, destroying it.)

Of course, the reason the cities were allowed to grow so large in the first place was simple. Once it became common knowledge that living in a sizable community would root you permanently to the spot, those who were still free had a difficult choice to make, one with only three solutions.

They could refuse to settle down, living the rest of their lives as modern nomads.

They could live in a small village somewhere and hope that its grip on them would be weaker.

Or they could simply move to the city, where they could live amongst other people and live out the rest of their lives in comfort, even if that comfort came with a price.

>>4671617
I was thinking more along the lines of "St. Peter's Basilica awakens as a dreadnought, powered and piloted personally by Peter himself, capable of transforming between Real (Old St. Peter's) and Super (rebuilt basilica) versions, Leaning Tower of Pisa reveals itself to be a giant artillery piece with eight cannons (seven anti-air named after the tower's seven bells, eighth one is the main tower itself), Taj Mahal walks on its spindly legs to latch into oppenents and drain energy via the mouth formed from its central dome" and so on.

Final boss of the Real route is the Wall of China as a giant stone dragon. Final boss of the Super route is LHC.

>>4671689
once the hold cities had on people was discovered parents who could afford to would take "sabbaticals" to tiny communites Risking madness and death to ensure their children would be able to live, travel and trade without major problems

>>4671721

>Final boss of the Super route is LHC.

This idea reminds me of the opening monologue of "the spirit"

traveling can drive you mad, trying walking across the country on your tippy toes.

reminds me of Blame! in a way

What if you got Shale Bridge Cradle on the city's ass?

If it forgets about you, would you be free of it?

>>4670773
>>After hearing about how people in the 1860's believed that traveling aboard a train could make you go insane, I formed an idea for a campaign where traveling actually could drive you mad.

Lul, puns

>>4673879
>>4674706
This is why people love daytime /tg/.