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Many medieval cities had populations of over 100,000, some even hit 1 million. However, almost every fantasy rpg city i've seen is pretty damn small. Sigil, from Planescape, is the only one I know that even tries to appear gigantic. I'm looking to run a campaign in the capitol of a large empire, but the city supplements I have aren't even close to big enough to work.

You have the campaign already? Or you will come up with one once you find a capitol city?

I have a basic idea of what I want to do.

Quote from: danbuter;937159Many medieval cities had populations of over 100,000, some even hit 1 million. However, almost every fantasy rpg city i've seen is pretty damn small. Sigil, from Planescape, is the only one I know that even tries to appear gigantic. I'm looking to run a campaign in the capitol of a large empire, but the city supplements I have aren't even close to big enough to work.

Medieval cities didnt have to contend with a wilderness thats literally jam packed with monsters that can and will wipe them out of given a chance. Monsters that can literally crawl up from beneath the earth without warning or amass huge armies on a regular basis in ways no real world threat ever could short of plagues.

As for sizable cities. Specularum from BX and BEXMI is one of my personal favourites. Initially it had a population of 5000 within and another 5000 in the surrounding area. But was later bumped up to a population of 50k.

But for a really sprawling city Id suggest getting Flying Buffalo's "Citybook" series. This details a huge sprawl of a city and its various sections.

Theres also the Lankhmar set. Ive never seen it but some speak well of it.

Waterdeep was the first one to come to mind. Different sources put the population between ~135k and 2m [link (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Waterdeep)].

We've used it as a city in home brew campaigns before.

Off the top of my head:
Waterdeep
Judges' Guild City State of the Invincible Overlord
Judges' Guild City State of the World Emperor
Ptolus
0one's Great City

There's Middenheim: City of White Wolf and Marienburg: Sold Down the River (though this one is extra - rare) for WFRP. Both are pretty decent. THere's also an old but epic fan project of Bergsburg


http://www.snotling.org/bergsburg/v2/index.html

Quote from: Omega;937185There's also the Lankhmar set. I've never seen it but some speak well of it.

Yeah, AD&D's Lankhmar: City of Adventure came to mind. I recall it having a nice, full-color map but it's been 25 years since I've owned it and don't remember much else about it.

Otherwise, perhaps Thieves' World's city of Santuary would work. The Chaosium boxed set version, or the Green Ronin D&D 3.5 version. I recall it being a fairly large fantasy city.

Quote from: Rincewind1;937227...THere's also an old but epic fan project of Bergsburg


http://www.snotling.org/bergsburg/v2/index.html

Bergsberg looks cool but not very high population.

Seems to me the reason may have something to do with wanting to provide an attractive map which shows some details and lists important characters or shops, but 100,000+ cities are a lot of work to detail like that. A lot of work. A lot.

Doing some quick estimation looking at the map of Waterdeep (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Waterdeep) for example, looks big but I'm thinking even the low-end population number looks high for the number of buildings shown.

Yep. Also, Waterdeep is very Lawful and has "good" rulers. CSIO isn't nearly large enough.

Honestly, what would be perfect is if someone had made a good map of Constantinople back when it was the capitol of the Byzantium Empire. There are some maps of it, but they are all really small and not helpful.

Quote from: danbuter;937301Yep. Also, Waterdeep is very Lawful and has "good" rulers. CSIO isn't nearly large enough.

Honestly, what would be perfect is if someone had made a good map of Constantinople back when it was the capitol of the Byzantium Empire. There are some maps of it, but they are all really small and not helpful.

First thing I would do is take screen shots from Google Maps, and then start drawing over it with Campaign Cartographer after getting a rough idea of where the borders used to be. In fact you could do that with many European towns and cities. I think Moorcock's city of Mirenberg is based on Prague.

I just received my hard copy of the new Bard's Gate from Frog God Games today. It lists the population of the city as 125,000. Ptolus mentioned above is a pretty large fantasy city. If you're just looking for a map and not gaming stats or plot hooks, then you can probably find a usable map at this website:

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html

Has lots of historical maps. For example, one of Istanbul from the 1500's:

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/turkey/istanbul/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_51_b.jpg

Coranan and Chembly are two of the larger cities detailed in Harn. There is also Tashal, Thay, Cherafir, Aleath, and Shiran. Tashal has a lot of detailed fan supplements on lythia.com.

The problem with most fantasy city maps is that fantasy city artists don't seem to have an idea of what cities with that many people might look like, at least not in "realistic" detail.

And as said above, that's A LOT of work.

Quote from: Spellslinging Sellsword;937367http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html

Has lots of historical maps. For example, one of Istanbul from the 1500's:

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/turkey/istanbul/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_51_b.jpg

Really cool!

Probably more abstract than the OP wants, but really great.

You could try the Tekumel site. If memory serves, there are a few city maps which can  downloaded for free. I believe Fasiltum is there and Tumissa, both of which are large cities.

Shemek.

Quote from: danbuter;937301Honestly, what would be perfect is if someone had made a good map of Constantinople back when it was the capitol of the Byzantium Empire. There are some maps of it, but they are all really small and not helpful.

Loz and Pete from TDM occasionally drop by here. If you butter them up real good, they might be inclined to drop some previews.
This is of course completely unrelated to me wanting info on how Mythic Contantinople is coming along.

Quote from: baragei;937382Loz and Pete from TDM occasionally drop by here. If you butter them up real good, they might be inclined to drop some previews.
This is of course completely unrelated to me wanting info on how Mythic Contantinople is coming along.

I didn't even know that was in the works. I'm definitely interested!

Calimport for Forgotten Realms. Supposed to be 2 mil+ city. Gives advice on how to abstract the city into large districts.

Thyatis for Mystara. Capital of 1 mil+ pseudo Rome, IIRC. Alphasia might have had a few cities above 100k, though I forget.

Golden City of Huzuz, City of Delights, of Al-Qadim. around 800k, IIRC.

Shoon, ruined megapolis and now mythal horror on Tethyr-Calimshan border, Land of Intrigue, FR. Includes large ruin map inside.

Dhaztanar, capital of Semphar Caliphate, The Horde. forget pop, but has huge city map inside.

Nexal, Maztica. Before its apocalypse was home to hundreds of thousands (and many large periphery cities along the lake edge). Box set has maps of ruined Nexal, but not too hard to alt history fix.

(Land of Intrigue, The Horde, and Maztica pdfs were once free on WotC, but that was years ago. If you downloaded them back in the day, though, worth a look back.)

Quote from: darthfozzywig;937369The problem with most fantasy city maps is that fantasy city artists don't seem to have an idea of what cities with that many people might look like, at least not in "realistic" detail.

And as said above, that's A LOT of work.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to lay out the major streets and districts and only develop the places that are needed. There's little point in drawing every little building in a neighbourhood if no one goes there.

Quote from: Opaopajr;937633Thyatis for Mystara. Capital of 1 mil+ pseudo Rome, IIRC. Alphasia might have had a few cities above 100k, though I forget.

Specularum in Karameikos has a population of around 64000. Not as big as the OP wanted, but it probably wouldn't be too hard to adapt it. Maybe add a few new neighbourhoods/districts outside the walls or just tell the players that there are 100k people there and don't say anything more unless players start calling you on it. :D

Quote from: danbuter;937159Many medieval cities had populations of over 100,000, some even hit 1 million.

Outside of China that's just not true.   It was called the Dark ages in Europe for that among other reasons.  If you need a fairly realistic map of what such a city would look like get one of Rome at it's height but remember Rome survived on slave labor (a good 30%+ of the population) and massive grain imports from Northern Africa.

Maybe in Europe, having Paris at 80,000 pop was hard. But the rest of the world, it was not as hard as you think. Go pick up a National Geographic about the year 1000 AD (CE). They did a healthy survey of many cities over 100,000 during that time, from SE Asia, Mesopotamia, Cahokia, Chaco, Central Andes, MesoAmerica, India, Ceylon, North Africa, Nigeria (huge clusters of tightly packed Ibo & Yoruba 30k villages under 5 miles apart), etc.

Such notions expositing Europe's standards of that time to the rest of the world are simply false. Period.

That's interesting and does invalidate "outside of China...", though the original post in this topic:

Quote from: danbuter;937159Many medieval cities had populations of over 100,000, some even hit 1 million. ...

Seems to mean medieval Europe.

Quote from: Skarg;938033That's interesting and does invalidate "outside of China...", though the original post in this topic:


Seems to mean medieval Europe.

Even in Europe, places like Cordoba and Palermo got quite large in the middle ages (maybe not 1 million but well over 100,000).

I bought the maps of The Lands of Ice and Fire.  Excellent maps of both King's Landing and Braavos.  The only drawback and it's a huge one is that maps are folded, not rolled; thus will wear out quickly.  So, I am going have them put in a picture frame someday.

Quote from: Prairie Dragon;938041I bought the maps of The Lands of Ice and Fire.  Excellent maps of both King's Landing and Braavos.  The only drawback and it's a huge one is that maps are folded, not rolled; thus will wear out quickly.  So, I am going have them put in a picture frame someday.

I'm thinking of taking them and getting them scanned in at 1200dpi or something insane like that. :D

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;938034Even in Europe, places like Cordoba and Palermo got quite large in the middle ages (maybe not 1 million but well over 100,000).

Like how much over 100k?  Just get an idea of what you mean.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;938170Like how much over 100k?  Just get an idea of what you mean.

I think Córdoba had 400,000 or more at one point. Estimate ranges seem to vary a lot though. Palermo was something like 300,000.

Outside the West, I seem to recall reading somewhere that three cities hit the 1M population mark by 1492: Tenochtitlán, Constantinople and Angkor Wat (IIRC). I'll look it up but if anyone cares to confirm or refute...

Quote from: The Butcher;938229Outside the West, I seem to recall reading somewhere that three cities hit the 1M population mark by 1492: Tenochtitlán, Constantinople and Angkor Wat (IIRC). I'll look it up but if anyone cares to confirm or refute...

Tenochtitlan? Highly unlikely that it came even close to that. Quarter mil or less. Angkor, I am doubtful as well, although I don't really know. Constantinople, you may be approaching that zone by the 15th century, although a million? seems a stretch to me.

As interesting as historical argument from non-historians without sources can be...I think this is a bit of a pedantic rabbit hole to fall down, and for this site, brother that's saying something.

Danbuter asked for a Supplement, more specifically, A MAP of an old city that big.

Ancient CornHoliStan could have had a Capital of 13 billion people of different races, cultures, and creeds, who cares, there is no MAP.

Land of Intrigue - Shoon.
The Horde - Dhaztanar.
Maztica - Nexal.

All three once-free pdfs have big ass city/ruin maps (as in several page fold out) that I am sure of off the top of my head.

Quote from: CRKrueger;938299As interesting as historical argument from non-historians without sources can be...I think this is a bit of a pedantic rabbit hole to fall down, and for this site, brother that's saying something.

I literally laughed out loud.

Quote from: CRKrueger;938299Ancient CornHoliStan could have had a Capital of 13 billion people of different races, cultures, and creeds, who cares, there is no MAP.

Also no teepee for their bungholios, I reckon.

They use bidets, you cultural oppressor! :mad:
:D

Quote from: CRKrueger;938299As interesting as historical argument from non-historians without sources can be...I think this is a bit of a pedantic rabbit hole to fall down, and for this site, brother that's saying something.

Danbuter asked for a Supplement, more specifically, A MAP of an old city that big.

Ancient CornHoliStan could have had a Capital of 13 billion people of different races, cultures, and creeds, who cares, there is no MAP.

Um, but Cordoba, Istanbul, Angkor Wat etc do have maps. For Cordoba and Istanbul there are even old maps at various periods, which could be useful.

Haven (Gamelords) had over 100K, IRC.

TSR's Lankhmar might be.

Pornstar Zak's Vornheim has no map, but it turns the city into a process, which ultimately may give you more gaming value. Some details just don't matter.

Quote from: danbuter;937159Many medieval cities had populations of over 100,000, some even hit 1 million. However, almost every fantasy rpg city i've seen is pretty damn small. Sigil, from Planescape, is the only one I know that even tries to appear gigantic. I'm looking to run a campaign in the capitol of a large empire, but the city supplements I have aren't even close to big enough to work.

It isn't necessarily published, but this is one of the best fantasy cities I've seen spelt out online: http://www.snotling.org/bergsburg/v2/

It was a massive collaboration project between a handful of Warhammer Fantasy fans to create Bergsburg, a living city.

Quote from: The Butcher;938306Also no teepee for their bungholios, I reckon.

Quote from: Opaopajr;938320They use bidets, you cultural oppressor! :mad:
:D

Nah, they used rags on a stick like in Spartacus. ;)

Quote from: Skarg;938358Um, but Cordoba, Istanbul, Angkor Wat etc do have maps. For Cordoba and Istanbul there are even old maps at various periods, which could be useful.

Which people linked to where? :D

Don't get me wrong, I'm a pedantic, thread-crappin', thread-jackin' sonofabitch and damn proud of it, but maybe we can contain our Full.Rainman to posts that aren't specifically asking for gameable content.

Think of it as theRPGsite's New Year's Resolution. :D

Edit: Ok, a compromise, argue about the largest city circa 4000BC all you want, but this thread has just instituted a MAP TAX!

Spoiler

(https://www.cartographersguild.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12816&d=1240940388)
Original Link to Cartographer's Guild (https://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php?r=153-Featured-Map-The-City-of-Castran-by-Zong)

Here's another one of Ancient Rome from the 1800's.

Spoiler

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VgkTk7D6Sg/VUZqyov31iI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/adH_B7utaBQ/s1600/Roma_Plan.jpg)
Original Link (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VgkTk7D6Sg/VUZqyov31iI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/adH_B7utaBQ/s1600/Roma_Plan.jpg)

Id point out too the 5e Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. But all the city maps are nigh useless as they give no indicators of scale, population or much else.

The Neverwinter map is at least noted for locations. But is still semi-useless.

(http://images.bigcartel.com/product_images/170052367/Neverwinter_R_72dpi.jpg?auto=format&fit=max&w=900)

And Waterdeep city map is this big black blot. Its darker than the image below implies.

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/44/79/51/4479515ecdc7126b83239ceb5fb98467.jpg)

A few big cities, appropriate for D&D-esque games:

Bard'a Gate
The Blight
Bluffside
Yggsburgh
Lankhmar

I only have two of these (the last two). My sense is that the main problem with most such projects is they end up going in similar, sort of bland directions. Lankhmar is an exception; it is a pretty cool, well developed setting (at least, as published for 2E). The Blight looks like an exception, but I've held off buying it because it is pitched as an adventure path, which makes me want to scratch out my eyes and drink draino.

Quote from: Omega;938453Id point out too the 5e Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. But all the city maps are nigh useless as they give no indicators of scale, population or much else.

The Neverwinter map is at least noted for locations. But is still semi-useless.

(http://images.bigcartel.com/product_images/170052367/Neverwinter_R_72dpi.jpg?auto=format&fit=max&w=900)

And Waterdeep city map is this big black blot. Its darker than the image below implies.

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/44/79/51/4479515ecdc7126b83239ceb5fb98467.jpg)

This is some kind of new trend - publishing maps for big gaming settings that look sort of authentic and detailed from a distance, but when you really look at them carefully you realize they are completely pointless as game materials. I recently bought Erebor for The One Ring, and it is an underground version of this phenomenon. Someone went to the effort to draft a pretty interesting looking base map, and then presented it in a way that made it virtually illegible and impossible to even sort out which road crosses which, and gave basically no detailed information on locations. Trash.

Quote from: CRKrueger;938399...
Which people linked to where? :D

Don't get me wrong, I'm a pedantic, thread-crappin', thread-jackin' sonofabitch and damn proud of it, but maybe we can contain our Full.Rainman to posts that aren't specifically asking for gameable content.

Think of it as theRPGsite's New Year's Resolution. :D

Edit: Ok, a compromise, argue about the largest city circa 4000BC all you want, but this thread has just instituted a MAP TAX!
...

Here's another one of Ancient Rome from the 1800's.

Spoiler

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VgkTk7D6Sg/VUZqyov31iI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/adH_B7utaBQ/s1600/Roma_Plan.jpg)
Original Link (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VgkTk7D6Sg/VUZqyov31iI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/adH_B7utaBQ/s1600/Roma_Plan.jpg)

Ok. I'm always in favor or more maps! Your 1800's Rome map is interesting in what it does and doesn't show. Here's one from 1500's Rome which shows different details (one would think that the Vatican area was flattened between the maps), but even though it shows individual buildings, I think (based on what is actually still in Rome currently (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rome,+Italy/@41.8994156,12.4614528,15.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x132f6196f9928ebb:0xb90f770693656e38!8m2!3d41.9027835!4d12.4963655) )they are largely abstractions, at least leaving out many other buildings: ( high res version here (http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/italy/rome/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_45_b.jpg) )

Spoiler

(http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/italy/rome/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_45_b.jpg)

As for the blob/look-good fantasy maps, they could be used as maps for players, while the GM uses the "real" map (which he then has to make, though he could fill in details as needed... maybe).

As rabid a prep-happy map-lover as I am, I have to say that mapping entire cities, even relatively small medieval cities, in detail can be a massive task that can be pretty unreasonable to take on as a need, cool as they are to have. I have often had cities with no map or schematic maps, until/unless there's a call for more detail.

I think mapping a big city in detail is a bit like creating a megadungeon or a really detailed sandbox campaign play area. All of these are projects that seem almost impossible and not terribly interesting if you imagine creating them, soup to nuts, before starting play. The right approach in all three instances is to start small and local, and build outward as the campaign evolves. You could play for weeks and weeks in a small neighborhood of a town, just as you could spend that much time mucking around in the first level of a big dungeon.

Quote from: Zirunel;938296Tenochtitlan? Highly unlikely that it came even close to that. Quarter mil or less. Angkor, I am doubtful as well, although I don't really know. Constantinople, you may be approaching that zone by the 15th century, although a million? seems a stretch to me.

Constantinople may have had a population over 1 million by a certain point in its history, but the late 15th century would not have been it.  The population was far more wiped out by the Turkish conquest than previously believed. It was repopulated, of course, by Ottomans when it was Istanbul, but that would have been later. Not sure when, post-15thC it would have hit one million.

Man, violating a Content Tax, you guys suck.

This city looks like it can have a pretty dense population:

Spoiler

(http://img05.deviantart.net/7283/i/2015/020/8/7/northgate___city_map_by_levodoom-d8871wi.png)
Original Link (http://levodoom.deviantart.com/art/Northgate-City-Map-497495394)

Quote from: CRKrueger;940014Man, violating a Content Tax, you guys suck.

This city looks like it can have a pretty dense population:

Spoiler

(http://img05.deviantart.net/7283/i/2015/020/8/7/northgate___city_map_by_levodoom-d8871wi.png)
Original Link (http://levodoom.deviantart.com/art/Northgate-City-Map-497495394)

Pop 58,000. I don't know if that is large enough to satisfy the OP but nice map. And it does look pretty populous.



Here is another in the same pop range (50,000-100,000). Alyssa Faden's map of Katalal, a large town on Tekumel, done for Jeff Dee's Bethorm game.

http://jeffdee.deviantart.com/art/Katalal-Map-491623456

Tekumel is a world of large towns and cities.

Quote from: RPGPundit;939944Constantinople may have had a population over 1 million by a certain point in its history, but the late 15th century would not have been it.  The population was far more wiped out by the Turkish conquest than previously believed. It was repopulated, of course, by Ottomans when it was Istanbul, but that would have been later. Not sure when, post-15thC it would have hit one million.

It was down to the low tens of thousands by the time of the fall of the city in 1453. The Ottomans appeared to rebuild it back to 500,000 and then it took off when modern sanitation and water supply were installed in the late 19th century.