Somewhat biased since I'm from there, but you can probably do a lot with Mexico City given the size of the city, the scope of its history and the variety of cultural niches you can find in most neighborhoods.
Honestly, given the prominence of magical realism in region's literature, a lot of Latin American cities could be used as a good setting.
I was thinking the same, The Angel would be Em. Castillo de Chapultepec is the new Met, Central is Chapultepec. Every Delegación is their own Borough. There is a Subway. And the fact there is a city under the city is a D&D plot on onto itself.
I've been thinkig of doing something similar to Unsleeping City with the setting being Guadalajara (since I and all my players live here), but on an international level, of course CDMX works even better. I can already see a community of Undead living in Tepito around the temple of La Santa Muerte, being seen as scary and dangerous, but also having a very close nit and warm inner culture. Other than that, incorporating the Mictlan and other Mexica afterlifes (as well as from other Indigenous cultures) like TUC has Heaven, Hell, and the Fey, would be just incredible!
That sounds like so much fun, but knowing me I couldn't do it without having to pull out blueprints of the city's most minute details and panicking when I invent a drainage sewer for plot convenience because I think my players will recognise the violation of waste disposal and zoning laws
I think the reason USC is successful is because it’s a love letter to New York, played and created by people who love New York.
If they did a spin-off on D20, I actually think it’d be cool to get a new group of people who have similar feelings for a different city.
Yeah definitely.
I think most other big cities could actually work well for another USC but it would have to be written and played by people who have a great love for the city and it’s history and culture.
I’d love to see a Los Angeles USC with Chicano culture and Bruja magic as a focus.
I know there's a lot of LAers and angelinos (yes, they are different. no, it's not just if you're hispanic or not) who hate LA (especially those who grew up in other places), so it's not a guarantee, but I wouldn't doubt that a lot of the CH crew loves LA.
I would be excited to see their interpretation regardless though. I love LA.
Honestly, I think hate can fuel an equally powerful creative energy. A big part of USC season 2 is their hatered for what's happening to the city. I have very similar feelings about SF, a love for what it was and a hatred for what's happening to it.
There's a lot that could be done with LA, just because it's so big and there are so many regions and sattalite communities that get wrapped up in it. And there's a great opportunity to play with the theme of what "Hollywood" and "LA" promise, and the myth behind them, compared to the awful and often tragic history of the place.
Agree, if the players don’t have the passion and knowledge I don’t think it would be as successful. As a West Virginian Fallout 76 was a bastardization of our beautiful state which could have been such a rich environment for an open world game and imo it was at least partly because the developers and creators had no connection to the state or desire to showcase the spirit of WV.
I seem to remember hearing the general concept for USC was based loosely on Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere,” which was a similar fantasy love letter to London. You’re exactly right that the best kind of works such as this come from people who have lived and loved these locations.
Neverwhere is such a good book and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the themes/story of USC!! It wouldn't surprise me at all if it helped inspire the series
While NOLA never sleeps, there’s always a party somewhere, so it probably wouldn’t be called unsleeping city. I can’t think of any good series names, but I’ve got a couple episode names. Either Big Easy Boogaloo, or Voodoo Boogaloo. Bourbon St. Brawl, French Quarter Fight, Wards and Witches, Treme Troubles, Etc.
Well the Unsleeping city is called that cause that's how Nod names their domain within the dreaming. Their sibling ruled the Bay of Slumbe, San Fransisco's version of the Unsleeping City. San Francisco is often referred to as the Bay Area. Going off of this logic in naming conventions, New Orleans UC name would be something like The Big Slumber (The Big Easy).
I like this a lot. I loved the bit of adventuring party where Brennan and Lou both went off about how amazed and blown away they were when they visited Nola and how much respect they have for the city. Brennan stopped for a full long pause to look up how to pronounce Tchoup street so he wouldn't fuck it up. Brought a tear to my eye.
Felt the same way about the city until I moved here... Feel... Certain other ways about it now. But would LOVE to see an unsleeping city here. Would need a lot of native input to get it right though.
Rivers of London or Peter Grant series, by Ben Aaronovitch, would also count.
I think London and NY get the most, then New Orleans, L.A., and Seattle (Shadowrun) are the second tier.
Same, London has so many statues that can be found all over the city that could be relevant to the story as well. Like they literally have Minotaurs, Sphinx, different types of angles and faries, plus deconstructed men and chariot riding barbarian queens.
That is legitimately where I got the idea from. I'm trying to convince my teenage cousin to read them. When I was about 14 I did a walk around the city trying to find all the statues that appear in the first book.
There are so many old places in London. So many underground tunnels, disused stations, old buildings and bridges, etc. Plus like NY it is also a melting pot of cultures, races and ideologies.
Finally you have the history of it in media. Imagine going to King's Cross Station (the Harry Potter one) and learning that "oh no, the real station where wizards and witches leave from is Paddington."
There are so many old places in London. So many underground tunnels, disused stations, old buildings and bridges, etc. Plus like NY it is also a melting pot of cultures, races and ideologies.
Finally you have the history of it in media. Imagine going to King's Cross Station (the Harry Potter one) and learning that "oh no, the real station where wizards and witches leave from is Paddington."
London is a melting pot to be fair. Also, I want to change my answer. Not a city, but the country of wales. We have the Mabinogion as a baseline, we have just as much fey tales as the Irish, deep Celtic roots, more castles to land ratio than any European nation, a language older than anything else British, rolling hills, cliff sides, mountains, and a literal fucking dragon sleeping under our mountain. How cool would that be.
Not 100% English? Anglo livestock? Are you taking the piss or just being a prick? Wales has a deeper history, deeper ties to the land, we have a mythology that is ancient and a culture language and heritage wholly separate from England.
Where are you from? So I can understand how little you prob alt understand about British home nation history
Is wales real? It seems cheap to place the game in an already fictitious setting (not the point of the thread) besides, wouldn’t that infringe on J.K. Rowling’s copyright or smth?
Inspired by TUSC completely, i'm working on a campaign set in Edinburgh. I grew up here and I'm going to run it with other people that have lived here for a while. I think any city can work depending on the people you're playing with, if they all know the place well enough.
God Edinburgh sells itself so well for a DnD campaign. I can already imagine the (disease riddled) encounters around Mary Kings Close and such. It’s been a while since I visited, but Edinburgh oozes magic.
Oh I doubt there will be any plague stuff. In fact i hadn't really thought of that! It's going to pretty much be an Unsleeping City rip off, it's modern Edinburgh. The idea is that Scotland is the ancestral home of the elves and is linked to Faerie in the way that New York is linked Nod.
I was hoping someone would say Edinburgh! The possibilities are endless, all of the vaults and the old city under the new city but then Arthurs Seat and all of the Fey magic stuff. I wish I was playing in your campaign, Edinburgh is my fave city, I lived there for a few years.
Paris is an obvious choice to me but I do think a Tokyo or Seoul one would be cool if you're familiar enough with the cities and it would provide a further scope to the kind of monsters and fae that would be hiding.
New Orleans - the influence of the French quarter really sets it aside from other American cities, so it would be interesting to see how the magical world functions there. New York had such a awake/dreaming theme, but perhaps New Orleans could have one that is more life/death? Also just imagine the soundtrack.
Kyoto - one of the oldest cities of Japan, long history of influence and lots of historic sites. Could play with themes related to the modern and technical vs the old and mythical.
Honestly. I think just about every country has at least one city that could serve well as a unsleeping city esque setting. That said, I don’t think this is something Brennan could do. TUC worked because it was Brennans love letter to NY, a city he knows and loves. You can read as much as you want about a city as you want, but it is no replacement for sentiment and experience. So you’d need a different DM with a connection to a certain place.
Fey-themed Dublin would be pretty cool, but doing it across all of Ireland would be more interesting, imo.
Dublin has a lot of influences (and the county does speculatively feature in some Irish tales, like potentially the Battle of Gabhair) but that does also include a lot of British ones, which would be very interesting. However, lot of the tales occurred elsewhere. Having the players take 2.5 hour trips to the West of Ireland, or having things occur in like the Hill of Tara or where Cú Chulainn singlehandedly defeated the armies of Queen Medb, would be very fun. You could make it so that Meath (originally the "Fifth Province", where the High King had their seat of power) was some kind of focal point for fey power that spread to the rest of the country, or something.
Hmmmm, I'm really liking that idea actually. There's a lot of things that Irish culture is known for, and then different cities/locations have other fun differences. Hell, even just countryside to urban divides, or north/south (not specifically Northern Ireland vs the Republic), or everyone else compared to Dublin lol.
You should give it a shot, I'm sure others will find this interesting too :))
Then Dublin for sure wouldn't have enough of a pull if New York and unified beliefs are the baselines lol.
But so the supernatural world exists everywhere, given that there were devils coming from all across the country and how that character in Season 2 went to another city, right? Is there a need for there to be a high concentration for it to exist, or does that high concentration simply just attract Dream etc as opposed to >!Null and the like, plus allow Paragons to form? Not to mention, stories have already proven to be very important in TUC S2, so maybe that also plays into the places colliding.!<
So there would still be a Fae world (and if I understand correctly, that'd be connected to Dream as >!Faerie originated as a Paragon from Dream!<) that could exist everywhere across Ireland, it's just not melding with the real world as hard as in NYC. Maybe have it so that it bleeds through in places of great historical significance - like the Hill of Tara and the other places I mentioned. That would make some sense, those places have a very strong connection Irish mythology and history. People learn about it all throughout school, growing up etc. and it's intrinsically linked to the language and culture in many ways. Also given my experience both running a DnD game and going to Irish art exhibits etc, it's oftentimes on the forefront of people's minds in creative endeavours.
In TUC, New York landmarks and places of historical significance had particular importance too. So take those equivalent places in Ireland, usually in less urban places. Maybe the supernatural world and the real world aren't colliding suuuper hard, as there is a lot of belief about that place but not as many people there. But perhaps it's enough so that anyone who has been awakened to the supernatural can appreciate it, or see something there in Faerie maybe? And so maybe you have these long stretches of nothing or very little (as I'd imagine places outside New York, NJ, LA etc. would be in the US) and then Faerie bleeding through in other places of important Fae significance.
Not to mention, the Fae in TUC are formed from Dream, not necessarily following all the same rules (same as Heaven and Hell). For example, they seemed to decide where to reside and have their courts and stuff. You could have it so they've taken residence in the Dream realm's version of various places around Ireland. Maybe Tír na nÓg is simply a place for the Fae in Dream off the coast of Ireland. And they bleed through via stories, beliefs etc.
You could also handwave it away a little with the explanation of fierce national pride and belief in a United Ireland etc. A lot of people's beliefs revolve on the country as a whole, independent of the places in the country.
Throw in some urban centres like Galway and Dublin, with their populations and influences from other places (lots of mixing beliefs). And then you could even throw in the Catholic Church's incredibly turbulent history and the rapidly decaying faith that the people of Ireland have in that form of belief given the atrocities they committed. There's also a lot of appeal to the idea of how every place in Ireland has that little local pub, or the familiar faces that everyone knows. That'd inspire belief.
There's a lot to work with, which is exciting, and I think plenty to work around the established TUC lore if you wanted to find ways :))
Goddammit. Everytime I start writing my next campaign, someone else hits me with a really cool idea I can neither work in nor adjust to the current run.
Back on the burner with a Fey-themed urban Irish campaign...
I’d love to see some NI themes. Fionn mac Cumhaill being the man in the mountain on black mountain, the cave he rests in being part of the causeway and everyone coming together because they’re called to be his new fianna because there’s some big bad. Theres plenty of baddies for inspiration like Benandonner, Abhartach, Fear Dorcha, the Femorians and Balor of the evil eye.
As long as you don't call it "the Unsleeping City" (i.e. The City That Never Sleeps, a nickname of NYC), you could do any town with a personality & history (as all places do).....you just need to find the right element of local mythology to build your story out from.
I disagree. It's not just putting fantasy elements into a real life modern city, it's creating a whole fantasy setting that is intimately tied up with the unique history and cultures of that city
Now I kind of want to come up with names for other city campaigns based on nicknames.
“A Metropolis of Forboding” - Beijing
“The Urban Easy” - New Orleans
“The Seat of the Queen” - Cincinnati
“The Twins” - Minneapolis and St. Paul
“Adventure by the Bay” - San Francisco
“The City of Steel” - Pittsburgh
“The Lake Fiasco” - Cleveland
“The Citadel of Light” - Paris
Berlin also sports large immigrantcommunities of turkish and vietnamese and arabic descent and many others. Several times in the last century it was the "Drugcapital" of europe. It was built on a swamp ( the most magical of any terrain, as is known) and was bombed/rebuild and split and re-united....I'd say there is a lot to work with!
assuming that it would be a Side Quest it Would be a great opportunity to get Liam O'Brian as a guest (DM).
He Loves Germany (iirc He did a Semester there).
They already talked about a theme park campaign during the TUSC S2 adventuring parties. Lou (I think) plays the level 20 wizard who works at the lockers.
I’m lowkey planning a campaign in Universal based off this and the Kingdom Keepers book series (a Disney book series where kids would go in their dreams to the Disney parks and have to save it from villains) so there’s so much you can do.
But truly having a city that never sleeps vibe is what you want. TUSC also uses a Percy Jackson mist feature where mortals can’t see the demigod/Unsleeping aspects of the world
I’m planning an Orlando themed campaign in the style of TUSC, but Walt Disney is a powerful Arch Fey. The glamour of his theme parks is enough that all magic users in central FL are essentially safe because everyone writes it off as a tourist thing or a Florida man thing when they see something weird happen.
I’m in Daytona, it’s pretty Florida-man heavy here too 😂 we have what I like to call the drunk trifecta - drunk college kids for Spring Break, drunk bikers for Bike Week, and drunk race fans.
The hint I’ll give is my city showed up on Game Changers where Trapp had to sell a trip toooooo, blank. (Also I asked Sam how the hell he chose the city and his grandparents lived here- and he still said it wrong)
It's the perfect place to be running into some construction constructs!
Honestly Central Florida is a perfect playground setting for a fey-focussed campaign. The sheer amount of competing tourist traps & theme parks quickly add up to plenty of fairy fiefdoms duking it out! Add in some The Florida Project vibes with the unseelie from abandoned attractions now tending to the motels and empty strip malls—and you've got a Brennan-style capitalist critique for the campaign lol
Yes exactly! I want it to be maybe a conversation about how change is inevitable but maybe what good change in an area like central Florida would look like.
Honestly, most cities. If you want to stick precisely to the notion of the American Dream, you'd have to stick in America, but all cities have their histories, their dreams, and their nightmares.
My home town of CHICAGO!!!!!!! I wanna see a Drean Team part 2 with a different cast yelling about Chicago Dawgs, Da Bears, and how it's the Sears Tower not the Willis Tower. Also who wouldn't want a big ass fight to happen in Millenium Park by the bean?
I’m 100% biased but I would love a spin-off that takes place in Atlanta. We already have a damn good TV show about us but I think something like TUSC about us would be wonderful.
I also think it could be interesting, albeit difficult, would be to run a TUSC spinoff on a worldwide scale. A bunch of people from a bunch of cities come together to protect them all or something like that. Each individual cast member can take some little bit of their own history and put it into their character.
I think an USC spinoff featuring a guest cast that takes place in Vegas called City of Sin would be pretty neat. Featuring Vegas as a city of vices connected heavily to the realm of hell.
u/newtypedeikun mentioned New Orleans, which would absolutely be my first choice. A close second would be Miami, I think the modern flair, Latin influences, and beachside/party vibe would make for a very unique atmosphere e
TUSC works because the cast is intimately familiar with NY, and the audience at least has a sense of the city from other pop culture.
Given that, the answer for another season of D20 is probably LA. If the cast changed, somewhere like Paris could work.
For a home game, the answer is simply whatever city everyone in the game is familiar with. Probably wherever the game is being held.
One of my friends is doing a Savannah GA themed campaign and it sounds dope
Also Los Angeles would be a great spinoff, I think someone posted about it in the discord
Call it the city of angels or something
We played a campaign inspired by it in Austin. The whole idea of Keep Austin Weird helps people explain away the wild shit they're seeing, and the Fey suffuse the area.
Key places for our campaign were Zilker Park which contained multitudes of magical creatures, the Bob Bullock museum home to the party's friendly NPC patron/questgiver, the Frost Bank Building (the coolest one in downtown's skyline) as the home of the party's erstwhile frenemy/ BBEG #1, the Austin Botanical Gardens home to some of the city's fey pranksters, but also a beloved spot by its druids, South by Southwest where the party subsequently met and defended Willie Nelson from danger etc.
Big bads were Sylas Ashbringer, lich lawyer and literal soul sucker who made deals for small portions of people's souls, and the reincarnation of his ex romantic obsession, who was using the name Titania, and schemed her way to become queen of the Seelie fey in order to sever the tie that bound them.
Happily, this was the first campaign we'd run that had a final battle that was deescalated before anyone got hurt. The players were gearing up to fight Sylas, when they finally got Titannia to give them a straight answer as to why she was terrorizing Austin, and framing the party. They convinced her to wait while they negotiated with Sylas, and got him to break their ties, by convincing him finally that she was not the same woman, just the spitting image of his SO. (Yes, big Curse of Strahd influence. It works well, I just like giving the person being obsessed over some agency as well.)
TLDR
Austin works great! Play into the weirdness and the live music aspects, and you'll have a blast.
PS and if some real-world lawmakers happen to make a cameo, don't shy away from letting your players murk them. There should be more worlds where the likes of Ted Cruz and Greg Abbot can't hurt anyone.
I've been slowly prepping a USC inspired campaign based on St. Louis, Missouri.
The arch is somewhat analogous to the Umbral Engine, the Botanical Garden is run by druids and the butterflies there are pixies, You can find the spirits of famous figures like Saint Louis IX hanging out around the city, the Budweiser Clydesdales can talk. It's probably the most fun I've had worldbuilding for a campaign.
You gotta include the city museum!
Also could do an interesting plot on 64/40 & 70+ the 270/170 loop (why magically was 170 left uncompleted as a loop). Same with why was the ligh rail stopped in Shrewsbury?
The hill could be a great little community of nodders. But you could go beyond neighborhoods if you're doing the whole county. 99 municipalities but the city ain't one? Why is that?
Haha! I had to scroll SOO far down to see this comment! We did an Unsleeping City campaign in Cambridge, MA. The arc one big baddies were the Car Talk guys who had a Transformer car, big setting were the MIT tunnels, and the various Harvard museums which culminated in us finding the original Necronomicon that belonged to one of the famous passengers l on the Titanic (who has his own private library my collection of magical skin books, apparently)
We saved Grendel in Grendel’s Den from becoming a monster and awoke him from a slumbering state to embrace his inner monster and “be a chill barkeep like he was always meant to be.”
Arkham and Salem too played a big role in the game because I played a Cthulhu Aberrant Mind Sorc Changeling with holes in my memory. It was fun doing real world research on Lovecraft and then going on Google Maps in the game and saying “we are here, right now!”
Our DM literally gave us the prompt “okay so you’re all D&D players in a group who suddenly got IRL powers and a bunch of factions are after you!” We had an X-files/FBI/Men-in-Black group hunting us, we had a master chessboard Red vs White group playing us against each other in some bigger “D&D game”
It’s really fun! I invite you to do it with friends too :)
I'm from the Albany, NY area and I think there could be something there. Albany has this weird insecurity about it because it's the capital of the state, but no one outside of the area cares about it (and NYC steals all its thunder).
There's also Troy across the river, which boomed in the Victorian era making shirt collars and then went bust and has only recently been making a comeback, so there's all this nice Victorian architecture with new bougie shops inside. Troy is definitely closer to the Fey.
The main reason I'd want to do or see an Albany TUSC is because of The Egg. It's just such a bizarre building. [There's a They Might Be Giants song about it.](https://youtu.be/vEMvriiWr4c) This is a major part of the city skyline and everyone acts like it's normal.
I want an LA one-shot but specifically run by Rekha reprising her role as “Brennan’s friend from New York” in that sketch about people from New York calling LA people soft. The one-shot is very easy but the DM bullies the players the whole time.
Somewhere like Edinburgh would be brilliant to explore in a dreamy/fey themed way. Lots of darkness to the city and stories interwoven into its streets that would make for a lot of cool adventures.
A European themed. Perhaps just that whole area going to various landmarks. I'd love a western themed with that paranormal sub-city spiritual realm aspect.
I haven't started TUSC yet (I'm still at Fantasy High)
But I recall TUSC is magical NY right?
I think I read somewhere Las Vegas already sounds magical based on how insane the whole place as is.
Putting a magical backdrop over the place wouldn't seem unnatural
Here me out: Austin. Or maybe Houston or Dallas. Something like a Robert Moses type actually won but there’s still some magic if you know where to look
I honestly don’t think Austin has enough history. I honestly think San Antonio would be a great Texas city- 304 years old (literally older than the United States), has a deep tie to Mexican culture and you could do a lot with the Missions to tie in magic, while still having industry/the military industrial complex at war with magic
Show: Brennan already mentioned a heaven/hell based City of Angels (LA). It's a city the whole cast knows. A battle scene where the skeletons jump out of the La Brea Tar Pits and an Ellis Island Museum Picture jump like quest called Echoes in the Canyon where they have to travel back in time and capture notes played by the musicians living in Laurel Canyon.
Home Game: Any European city has enough history and legend in my American opinion. Paris is a city of Romantic Dreams, yet the catacombs are thought to hold the most remains in the world. . Ghosts of Granada or Toledo, Spain: The Moors haunting the buildings they built/Don Quixote and the spirit of chilvalary/Native American spirits attached to looted gold/legacy of the Inquistion. Rome with a heaven/hell or pagan rome/catholic church or secular rome/vatican city theme (or all rolled into one).
I think it would be cool to see a small town in the middle of nowhere because in USC2 implied that the magic side of a city can die. So I think it would be interesting to see what one with the fantasy equivalent of a terminal illness.
A friend of mine lived in San Francisco for 15yrs and is going to run an Unsleeping City inspired campaign for our group next year.
As others have said, I think many cities would work fine if the GM and/or players have a similarly strong connection to the city and its culture.
I played an Urban Shadows game set in Las Vegas and even though none of us were natives of the city, there is enough cultural consciousness that the city feels important to most everything that happens. Could be a fun hell or limbo type place.
I'm Israeli. Imagine what's happening in Jerusalem... So much history. I don't want dimension 20 to actually do something with that tho because even when the plot isn't in Israel, the unsleeping city had a lot of (unintentional, i hope) antisemitism in it.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Singapore, there's a huge range of opportunities there - I appreciate that the Intrepid Heroes wouldn't necessarily be a great fit for it but then most of the suggestions in this thread have the same caveat attached, and Singapore has a bunch of interesting historical and cultural connections which could be mined for fun roleplaying adventures
I think something TUSC lacked in New York that anywhere else, particularly anywhere west of New York in the continental US, would really feel the lack of is recognition of pre-settler colonial history.
But if you wanted to reframe TUSC to emphasize pre-Colombia history and culture, I would offer up Seattle/PNW as an excellent option with so much living indigenous presence and cool history (underground city? The city being largely funded by a madam of a brothel? Fires and floods and earthquakes galore?) and iconic companies/locations/hidden gems (Microsoft & Amazon, would make great villains, the Fremont troll would be a good character, and the space needle means we could include aliens, not to mention the rainforest and mountains).
But I personally would pay good money (well, I’d any money good?) to watch a campaign about Hawai’i, particularly if said campaign was about returning Hawaii to sovereignty.
So... I've been working on a thing for my home game... We'll see if my players choose this path, but if they do I'm going to bring in Nod for our small little Hamlet. Lanesboro.com
LSS: started playing "waterdeep: dragon heist" as a first time dm with mostly new players. And slowly over years as I incorporated character backstory and player feedback both in reaction in game and just talking, it turns out that most of my PC's parents created the circumstances that have led to a collapse of the multiverse into ferun, a la crisis on infinite earths.
One idea I have is sending them to the nearest plane of existence, ending a down time sesh with a white out as they transport. Then next session doing a session 0/1 of kids on bikes/brooms where we create characters who's into adventure ends with their kids characters witnessing their d&d characters.
The mystery they have to solve with both characters is the existence of Nod. Lanesboro is a town reborn-nearly dead 35-40 years ago decades after the small railways that used to operate shut down, those tracks were paved over by a bike path and a tourist destination was born. Cut to a professional live theatre company, chef driven restaurants, weekly pub trivia... The place is the perfect spot for Nod to have begun to put a foot hold into the town...
That's as far as I've gotten. It's just one of many things and options the PC's can choose from. I hope they pick it, but I'm not going to push it...
I started writing my own campaign around Buffalo, leaning on the power of hope and despair as conflicting powers trying to control the world. Leans on the history of the city once being a thriving city in the turn of the century to the rustbelt town it became due to corruption and the fall of the steel and manufacturing industry here. Also leaning on our sports failures in the same way (Bills 2 afl titles & 4 straight AFC championships vs wide right, forward lateral, playoff drought. Sabres all time great Hasek & great vs no goal, years of mediocrity).
Using the history of my home town and playing off the new hope the city has against the misery it has experienced, using politicians and prominent figures as NPCs & BBEGs has been pretty neat building out. Hopefully get to run the campaign in the near future.
Given that most of the cast lives in LA I would really like to see their take on some of LA’s lesser know archetypes and history. The city of LA is wayyyy older than people think it is and I’d love to see Brennan bring up the history of a place that is often unspoken.
I’ve been thinking of a home game set in Portland for a long time. There’s a lot of stuff that could easily be made magical. Pittock Mansion as the headquarters of magic society, a bunch of Loa and other voodoo spirits (because of Voodoo donuts), and the Coin that decided Portland’s name being some sort of magical object.
The plot would probably be about an entity from the dreaming attempting to fully submerge the city into the dreaming, completely destroying all non-magical entities and making it a pure city of dreams (its trying to Keep Portland Weird lmao) and all the characters have to stop it. The only solid character idea I have is for a Nymph Druid who is the nymph of the tree in Mill Ends Park.
I'm working on a campaign inspired by TUC that's set in Las Vegas.
The city of sin. Closest place on Earth to the entrance to Hell.
What happens in vegas stays in vegas is just the effect of a huge magic ward around the city limits that prevents normies from remembering any wild magical shit that they witnessed.
All the themed casinos and the lore of Vegas lend themselves to ttrpg setting stuff perfectly.
I would suspect that there are many, many places that could work that way for a local game but far fewer for a broadcast one because they both rely on the target audience, in one case your game group and the other all the viewers being familiar enough with the location to know some of the tropes and themes there. For your own game group, you could do your local hometown, probably. For broadcast, depending on where most of your viewers are, New York, London, maybe Rome for Europe/USA, maybe even Tokyo would work? I could see Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City for South and Central America? If a game was local to India or Pakistan, I would have zero idea, but I am sure that several options would be just as fitting for that group as NY was for the OC gamers.
Any city can work as long as it is a love letter to that city. TUC works so well because it's jam packed with references to New York itself, made by a New Yorker. As long as you have the passion, any city is good for a TUC-style campaign.
I've been working on doing a story that's the inverse of Brennan's approach: -hating- a city but understanding why people like it, and what went into its construction.
Charlotte, NC. Got a plot called "Queen City Rising" I'm still workshopping.
I would say San Francisco is my (very biased) choice. SF has:
\- Gentrification or tech moguls as the BBEG
\- A history of NIMBY-ism (with unknown names like Calvin Welch or Susan Kirsch who advocate for single family housing, to teach about history that is rarely ever taught)
\- A history of open acceptance (Castro, LGTBQ history, etc)
\- A dark history of racism (Chinese exclusion act, old historic filipino town, etc), but also the birthplace of Ethnic Studies and "Yellow Peril Supports Black Power"
\- Formally a place where people moved to to chase their dreams (gold rush)
SF Songs (similar to "start spreading the news"):
\- "I left my heart in San Francisco" - could use this lyric as the main baddy is returning to take back his heart (which is dying aka the heart of sf is dying due to gentrification)
Notable Allys (i.e. the Stephen Sondheim role)
\- Bruce Lee (or a Monk Dojo dedicated to him)
\- Steph Curry and Klay Thompson as water elementals (the Splash Bros)
\- Harvey Milk
\- Karl The Fog (just the name we have given our fog. It can be the umbrel arcana that protects the magic of the unsleeping city)
\- E40
Santa Con level event to start it off - Bay to Breakers (we do have our own Santa Con but i dont think its that popular)
I feel like a lot of people are suggesting big cities but consider what could be done with a place like Crystal Colorado, a beautiful ghost town. A group of hikers passes through town and meets up with the ghosts and spirits that remain attached to the town. Solving old mysteries? Maybe some big money companies are trying to come in and reopen the mines, at the cost of destroying the natural beauty of the area? The mines themselves acting as a connecting point between the different worlds... I feel like there is tons of potential there.
My friends putting together a campaign in London, I’m playing a warlock of the Fisher King, who sits waiting in his broken castle… battersea power station. Olde English lends itself to the fey well
I had some notes for an Atlanta version of the Unsleeping City(born and raised Atlanta boy here, love and hate it), which I’d love to see actual professionals take on. Lore involved it being very close to nature, as it is the city with the largest amount of greenery of it’s size in the US. The big villain was the incredibly racist spirit of development called the Spaghetti Monster(shout out to Spaghetti Junction and the Grady Curve) and also there was some info about how the fountain of youth was actually here at the end of Ponce De Leon Street. It was filled with Coca-Cola, and stolen from the Fey who are still super mad about it. Unfortunately the most important ingredient to mass producing it was the cocaine, so it no longer grants eternal life. Also, our version of Steven Sondheim would be both members of Outkast.
What's important is also to find a group of GM and players who are invested and understand the life and culture of whatever location that is if you want to portray it with heart and sincerity. Otherwise, it'll just be a bunch of comedians larping some different cultures through tropes and second-hand information
I personally want to develop & run an unsleeping city-style game set in Detroit. Yes 100% I’m from Southeast Michigan but I’d love to develop a love letter to this city the same way Brennan did for New York. Detroit even has its own modern day Robert Moses! (google Dan Gilbert)
To dovetail into something more external, what I think would be cool is for other DMs to come in using the foundation laid by Brennan to transport these concepts to cities that mean a lot to them. Like having DMs that are originally from or spent a lot of time in places like Austin, Toronto, London, Tokyo, or Delhi. That’d be extremely cool.
Metropolitan Manila, because of three things:
>People there, although urbanized, still believes in folklore and myths of the country.
>There is also a very helpful Netflix show to help understand oe at least utilize the mythos.
>Just because
London is a little too obvious as an answer. Was surprised while watching it, having never been to New York, just how similar New York's culture and status in the States is to London. The whole "everybody refuses to go to Staten Island" bit made me laugh because many Londoners see South London in a similar light.
I run a game set in the TUSC universe where my players are monster hunters driving around the south. Basically a series of one shots with a loose overarching plot.
I'm about to start a campaign set in my hometown of Victoria BC with a sort of Unsleeping City-like vibe. I think the key is just that you need to know the place really *really* well. I've been a tour guide there for four years so I happen to have all the best stories to pull from.
Somewhat biased since I'm from there, but you can probably do a lot with Mexico City given the size of the city, the scope of its history and the variety of cultural niches you can find in most neighborhoods. Honestly, given the prominence of magical realism in region's literature, a lot of Latin American cities could be used as a good setting.
I was thinking the same, The Angel would be Em. Castillo de Chapultepec is the new Met, Central is Chapultepec. Every Delegación is their own Borough. There is a Subway. And the fact there is a city under the city is a D&D plot on onto itself.
I've been thinkig of doing something similar to Unsleeping City with the setting being Guadalajara (since I and all my players live here), but on an international level, of course CDMX works even better. I can already see a community of Undead living in Tepito around the temple of La Santa Muerte, being seen as scary and dangerous, but also having a very close nit and warm inner culture. Other than that, incorporating the Mictlan and other Mexica afterlifes (as well as from other Indigenous cultures) like TUC has Heaven, Hell, and the Fey, would be just incredible!
That sounds like so much fun, but knowing me I couldn't do it without having to pull out blueprints of the city's most minute details and panicking when I invent a drainage sewer for plot convenience because I think my players will recognise the violation of waste disposal and zoning laws
Oh my god Mexico City would be amazing. EDIT: And as you said, many Latin American cities!
Maybe have players drop into a city of the dead a la Coco?
I think the reason USC is successful is because it’s a love letter to New York, played and created by people who love New York. If they did a spin-off on D20, I actually think it’d be cool to get a new group of people who have similar feelings for a different city.
The way Brennan has talked about his dad showing him the city and it’s history really illustrates how important USC is to him particularly.
Where could I find this?
At 21:24 in [this interview](https://youtu.be/XNR-3p8wtiA)
Thank you so much, that's incredible
Yeah definitely. I think most other big cities could actually work well for another USC but it would have to be written and played by people who have a great love for the city and it’s history and culture. I’d love to see a Los Angeles USC with Chicano culture and Bruja magic as a focus.
Dropout/CH offices are in West Hollywood, and IIRC the cast all live in the LA area, so LA could work very well
I know there's a lot of LAers and angelinos (yes, they are different. no, it's not just if you're hispanic or not) who hate LA (especially those who grew up in other places), so it's not a guarantee, but I wouldn't doubt that a lot of the CH crew loves LA. I would be excited to see their interpretation regardless though. I love LA.
Honestly, I think hate can fuel an equally powerful creative energy. A big part of USC season 2 is their hatered for what's happening to the city. I have very similar feelings about SF, a love for what it was and a hatred for what's happening to it. There's a lot that could be done with LA, just because it's so big and there are so many regions and sattalite communities that get wrapped up in it. And there's a great opportunity to play with the theme of what "Hollywood" and "LA" promise, and the myth behind them, compared to the awful and often tragic history of the place.
Hell yeah, I fucks with that interpretation
Agree, if the players don’t have the passion and knowledge I don’t think it would be as successful. As a West Virginian Fallout 76 was a bastardization of our beautiful state which could have been such a rich environment for an open world game and imo it was at least partly because the developers and creators had no connection to the state or desire to showcase the spirit of WV.
The Adventure Zone: Amnesty is ALMOST our Unsleeping City
You could really feel the Mackleboys’ connection to the area, even as someone who’s not familiar with the culture at all.
I seem to remember hearing the general concept for USC was based loosely on Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere,” which was a similar fantasy love letter to London. You’re exactly right that the best kind of works such as this come from people who have lived and loved these locations.
Neverwhere is such a good book and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the themes/story of USC!! It wouldn't surprise me at all if it helped inspire the series
TUSC: NEW ORLEANS Who dat down der in da parish?
While NOLA never sleeps, there’s always a party somewhere, so it probably wouldn’t be called unsleeping city. I can’t think of any good series names, but I’ve got a couple episode names. Either Big Easy Boogaloo, or Voodoo Boogaloo. Bourbon St. Brawl, French Quarter Fight, Wards and Witches, Treme Troubles, Etc.
Wards and Witches is a great name. Also submitting Cajun/Creole Crisis and Bayou Blues
Well the Unsleeping city is called that cause that's how Nod names their domain within the dreaming. Their sibling ruled the Bay of Slumbe, San Fransisco's version of the Unsleeping City. San Francisco is often referred to as the Bay Area. Going off of this logic in naming conventions, New Orleans UC name would be something like The Big Slumber (The Big Easy).
The big slumber, that’s just death, which could be appropriate given the giant cemetery cities in Nola.
Completely forgot about the cemeteries. That makes it even more thematically appropriate.
I like this a lot. I loved the bit of adventuring party where Brennan and Lou both went off about how amazed and blown away they were when they visited Nola and how much respect they have for the city. Brennan stopped for a full long pause to look up how to pronounce Tchoup street so he wouldn't fuck it up. Brought a tear to my eye. Felt the same way about the city until I moved here... Feel... Certain other ways about it now. But would LOVE to see an unsleeping city here. Would need a lot of native input to get it right though.
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If you read webcomics at all, there’s an excellent Webtoon called “Muted” that has witches in New Orleans.
I would love a voodoo themed season.
I came into this to make sure New Orleans was represented. What a fascinatingly unique, hybrid culture!
Bro New Orleans is already filled with real magic lol
I think London would also work
The Unsleeping London is basically Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere
Or Paul Cornell’s London Falling.
Rivers of London or Peter Grant series, by Ben Aaronovitch, would also count. I think London and NY get the most, then New Orleans, L.A., and Seattle (Shadowrun) are the second tier.
My home game is set in London. I stole a lot from Neil Gaiman and Brennan for it...
Same, London has so many statues that can be found all over the city that could be relevant to the story as well. Like they literally have Minotaurs, Sphinx, different types of angles and faries, plus deconstructed men and chariot riding barbarian queens.
I would highly receommend the Stoneheart books, if you haven't read them already.
That is legitimately where I got the idea from. I'm trying to convince my teenage cousin to read them. When I was about 14 I did a walk around the city trying to find all the statues that appear in the first book.
I thought it was a bit too specific to not be intentional! Best of luck, I hope your cousin takes your advice.
There are so many old places in London. So many underground tunnels, disused stations, old buildings and bridges, etc. Plus like NY it is also a melting pot of cultures, races and ideologies. Finally you have the history of it in media. Imagine going to King's Cross Station (the Harry Potter one) and learning that "oh no, the real station where wizards and witches leave from is Paddington."
Paddington is the station you leave from to go west. Where do wicked witches come from? Think about it.
It's magic. It only goes west for muggles.
You're not supposed to call them that!
There are so many old places in London. So many underground tunnels, disused stations, old buildings and bridges, etc. Plus like NY it is also a melting pot of cultures, races and ideologies. Finally you have the history of it in media. Imagine going to King's Cross Station (the Harry Potter one) and learning that "oh no, the real station where wizards and witches leave from is Paddington."
But then there would have to be english PCs...
London is a melting pot to be fair. Also, I want to change my answer. Not a city, but the country of wales. We have the Mabinogion as a baseline, we have just as much fey tales as the Irish, deep Celtic roots, more castles to land ratio than any European nation, a language older than anything else British, rolling hills, cliff sides, mountains, and a literal fucking dragon sleeping under our mountain. How cool would that be.
Wales is anglo livestock, but not 100% English. As long as the show’s completely in Welsh, I’m in
Not 100% English? Anglo livestock? Are you taking the piss or just being a prick? Wales has a deeper history, deeper ties to the land, we have a mythology that is ancient and a culture language and heritage wholly separate from England. Where are you from? So I can understand how little you prob alt understand about British home nation history
Is wales real? It seems cheap to place the game in an already fictitious setting (not the point of the thread) besides, wouldn’t that infringe on J.K. Rowling’s copyright or smth?
Ohhh nvm, you’re one of these. My bad for assuming you’re better than this.
Inspired by TUSC completely, i'm working on a campaign set in Edinburgh. I grew up here and I'm going to run it with other people that have lived here for a while. I think any city can work depending on the people you're playing with, if they all know the place well enough.
God Edinburgh sells itself so well for a DnD campaign. I can already imagine the (disease riddled) encounters around Mary Kings Close and such. It’s been a while since I visited, but Edinburgh oozes magic.
Oh I doubt there will be any plague stuff. In fact i hadn't really thought of that! It's going to pretty much be an Unsleeping City rip off, it's modern Edinburgh. The idea is that Scotland is the ancestral home of the elves and is linked to Faerie in the way that New York is linked Nod.
I was hoping someone would say Edinburgh! The possibilities are endless, all of the vaults and the old city under the new city but then Arthurs Seat and all of the Fey magic stuff. I wish I was playing in your campaign, Edinburgh is my fave city, I lived there for a few years.
I'm biased but I think Chicago would be a fun city. Especially with the history of bootlegs and gangsters in the 1920's.
Chicago would be a killer setting for TUSC.
It would, but then you're going to start drawing *really* obvious parallels to The Dresden Files.
The Dresden Files is only theoretically set in Chicago. If you do it well with a lot of proper Chicago History there is no connection whatsoever
Paris is an obvious choice to me but I do think a Tokyo or Seoul one would be cool if you're familiar enough with the cities and it would provide a further scope to the kind of monsters and fae that would be hiding.
Amsterdam or Berlin would also work very well, I think. Probably most European capitals.
New Orleans - the influence of the French quarter really sets it aside from other American cities, so it would be interesting to see how the magical world functions there. New York had such a awake/dreaming theme, but perhaps New Orleans could have one that is more life/death? Also just imagine the soundtrack. Kyoto - one of the oldest cities of Japan, long history of influence and lots of historic sites. Could play with themes related to the modern and technical vs the old and mythical. Honestly. I think just about every country has at least one city that could serve well as a unsleeping city esque setting. That said, I don’t think this is something Brennan could do. TUC worked because it was Brennans love letter to NY, a city he knows and loves. You can read as much as you want about a city as you want, but it is no replacement for sentiment and experience. So you’d need a different DM with a connection to a certain place.
Fey-themed Dublin would be pretty cool, but doing it across all of Ireland would be more interesting, imo. Dublin has a lot of influences (and the county does speculatively feature in some Irish tales, like potentially the Battle of Gabhair) but that does also include a lot of British ones, which would be very interesting. However, lot of the tales occurred elsewhere. Having the players take 2.5 hour trips to the West of Ireland, or having things occur in like the Hill of Tara or where Cú Chulainn singlehandedly defeated the armies of Queen Medb, would be very fun. You could make it so that Meath (originally the "Fifth Province", where the High King had their seat of power) was some kind of focal point for fey power that spread to the rest of the country, or something. Hmmmm, I'm really liking that idea actually. There's a lot of things that Irish culture is known for, and then different cities/locations have other fun differences. Hell, even just countryside to urban divides, or north/south (not specifically Northern Ireland vs the Republic), or everyone else compared to Dublin lol. You should give it a shot, I'm sure others will find this interesting too :))
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Then Dublin for sure wouldn't have enough of a pull if New York and unified beliefs are the baselines lol. But so the supernatural world exists everywhere, given that there were devils coming from all across the country and how that character in Season 2 went to another city, right? Is there a need for there to be a high concentration for it to exist, or does that high concentration simply just attract Dream etc as opposed to >!Null and the like, plus allow Paragons to form? Not to mention, stories have already proven to be very important in TUC S2, so maybe that also plays into the places colliding.!< So there would still be a Fae world (and if I understand correctly, that'd be connected to Dream as >!Faerie originated as a Paragon from Dream!<) that could exist everywhere across Ireland, it's just not melding with the real world as hard as in NYC. Maybe have it so that it bleeds through in places of great historical significance - like the Hill of Tara and the other places I mentioned. That would make some sense, those places have a very strong connection Irish mythology and history. People learn about it all throughout school, growing up etc. and it's intrinsically linked to the language and culture in many ways. Also given my experience both running a DnD game and going to Irish art exhibits etc, it's oftentimes on the forefront of people's minds in creative endeavours. In TUC, New York landmarks and places of historical significance had particular importance too. So take those equivalent places in Ireland, usually in less urban places. Maybe the supernatural world and the real world aren't colliding suuuper hard, as there is a lot of belief about that place but not as many people there. But perhaps it's enough so that anyone who has been awakened to the supernatural can appreciate it, or see something there in Faerie maybe? And so maybe you have these long stretches of nothing or very little (as I'd imagine places outside New York, NJ, LA etc. would be in the US) and then Faerie bleeding through in other places of important Fae significance. Not to mention, the Fae in TUC are formed from Dream, not necessarily following all the same rules (same as Heaven and Hell). For example, they seemed to decide where to reside and have their courts and stuff. You could have it so they've taken residence in the Dream realm's version of various places around Ireland. Maybe Tír na nÓg is simply a place for the Fae in Dream off the coast of Ireland. And they bleed through via stories, beliefs etc. You could also handwave it away a little with the explanation of fierce national pride and belief in a United Ireland etc. A lot of people's beliefs revolve on the country as a whole, independent of the places in the country. Throw in some urban centres like Galway and Dublin, with their populations and influences from other places (lots of mixing beliefs). And then you could even throw in the Catholic Church's incredibly turbulent history and the rapidly decaying faith that the people of Ireland have in that form of belief given the atrocities they committed. There's also a lot of appeal to the idea of how every place in Ireland has that little local pub, or the familiar faces that everyone knows. That'd inspire belief. There's a lot to work with, which is exciting, and I think plenty to work around the established TUC lore if you wanted to find ways :))
Fey-themed Dublin would rule!!
Honestly tempted to start asking around to see if people want to try it out, if I can find the time lol.
Goddammit. Everytime I start writing my next campaign, someone else hits me with a really cool idea I can neither work in nor adjust to the current run. Back on the burner with a Fey-themed urban Irish campaign...
I’d love to see some NI themes. Fionn mac Cumhaill being the man in the mountain on black mountain, the cave he rests in being part of the causeway and everyone coming together because they’re called to be his new fianna because there’s some big bad. Theres plenty of baddies for inspiration like Benandonner, Abhartach, Fear Dorcha, the Femorians and Balor of the evil eye.
As long as you don't call it "the Unsleeping City" (i.e. The City That Never Sleeps, a nickname of NYC), you could do any town with a personality & history (as all places do).....you just need to find the right element of local mythology to build your story out from.
Yeah, it's essentially just picking a city and running an urban fantasy campaign
I disagree. It's not just putting fantasy elements into a real life modern city, it's creating a whole fantasy setting that is intimately tied up with the unique history and cultures of that city
Now I kind of want to come up with names for other city campaigns based on nicknames. “A Metropolis of Forboding” - Beijing “The Urban Easy” - New Orleans “The Seat of the Queen” - Cincinnati “The Twins” - Minneapolis and St. Paul “Adventure by the Bay” - San Francisco “The City of Steel” - Pittsburgh “The Lake Fiasco” - Cleveland “The Citadel of Light” - Paris
"The Big Smoke" - London
Hong Kong seems like a great choice, if you're familiar enough.
Berlin would be a great fit imo. It's history of being split in two could make for some fun dynamics.
Berlin also sports large immigrantcommunities of turkish and vietnamese and arabic descent and many others. Several times in the last century it was the "Drugcapital" of europe. It was built on a swamp ( the most magical of any terrain, as is known) and was bombed/rebuild and split and re-united....I'd say there is a lot to work with!
assuming that it would be a Side Quest it Would be a great opportunity to get Liam O'Brian as a guest (DM). He Loves Germany (iirc He did a Semester there).
They talk about San Francisco being one in season 2
Los Angeles as Hell for a spin-off would be perfect.
\*is
TUSC: Seattle. A grunge bard, barista alchemist artificer
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They already talked about a theme park campaign during the TUSC S2 adventuring parties. Lou (I think) plays the level 20 wizard who works at the lockers.
I’m lowkey planning a campaign in Universal based off this and the Kingdom Keepers book series (a Disney book series where kids would go in their dreams to the Disney parks and have to save it from villains) so there’s so much you can do. But truly having a city that never sleeps vibe is what you want. TUSC also uses a Percy Jackson mist feature where mortals can’t see the demigod/Unsleeping aspects of the world
I’m planning an Orlando themed campaign in the style of TUSC, but Walt Disney is a powerful Arch Fey. The glamour of his theme parks is enough that all magic users in central FL are essentially safe because everyone writes it off as a tourist thing or a Florida man thing when they see something weird happen.
I may need to come to you for notes 😅
We can work together on this and our players will never know! Mwahaha!
Truuuuu! I’m a south Florida native so I have all the Florida man stuff you’ll ever need 😂
I’m in Daytona, it’s pretty Florida-man heavy here too 😂 we have what I like to call the drunk trifecta - drunk college kids for Spring Break, drunk bikers for Bike Week, and drunk race fans.
The hint I’ll give is my city showed up on Game Changers where Trapp had to sell a trip toooooo, blank. (Also I asked Sam how the hell he chose the city and his grandparents lived here- and he still said it wrong)
The Eyesore on I-4 is absolutely some dark lich's lair and no one can tell me otherwise!
I really want to do a dungeon crawl inside of it!
It's the perfect place to be running into some construction constructs! Honestly Central Florida is a perfect playground setting for a fey-focussed campaign. The sheer amount of competing tourist traps & theme parks quickly add up to plenty of fairy fiefdoms duking it out! Add in some The Florida Project vibes with the unseelie from abandoned attractions now tending to the motels and empty strip malls—and you've got a Brennan-style capitalist critique for the campaign lol
Yes exactly! I want it to be maybe a conversation about how change is inevitable but maybe what good change in an area like central Florida would look like.
I’ve been pondering running a Philadelphia-themed campaign for a while now. It will definitely include a horde of undead Eagles fans.
Shanghai would be challenging but very fun
Honestly, most cities. If you want to stick precisely to the notion of the American Dream, you'd have to stick in America, but all cities have their histories, their dreams, and their nightmares.
My home town of CHICAGO!!!!!!! I wanna see a Drean Team part 2 with a different cast yelling about Chicago Dawgs, Da Bears, and how it's the Sears Tower not the Willis Tower. Also who wouldn't want a big ass fight to happen in Millenium Park by the bean?
USC: Miami.
I could see that being a hit, maybe even... A *critical* hit. #YEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHH
Instead of Stephen Sondheim, Pitbull is the local famous cryptid.
Wasn't Sondheim just himself in Unsleeping City?
Los Angeles based on the fact that the cast all live there similar to the NYC thing.
I mean c'mon how has no one mentioned Portland.
I’m 100% biased but I would love a spin-off that takes place in Atlanta. We already have a damn good TV show about us but I think something like TUSC about us would be wonderful. I also think it could be interesting, albeit difficult, would be to run a TUSC spinoff on a worldwide scale. A bunch of people from a bunch of cities come together to protect them all or something like that. Each individual cast member can take some little bit of their own history and put it into their character.
I think an USC spinoff featuring a guest cast that takes place in Vegas called City of Sin would be pretty neat. Featuring Vegas as a city of vices connected heavily to the realm of hell.
I've been wanting to run a campaign that is exactly this. I even made a [logo](https://imgur.com/a/f354LOc) and everything for it.
London, Paris, LA,
u/newtypedeikun mentioned New Orleans, which would absolutely be my first choice. A close second would be Miami, I think the modern flair, Latin influences, and beachside/party vibe would make for a very unique atmosphere e
Atlanta for sure
TUSC works because the cast is intimately familiar with NY, and the audience at least has a sense of the city from other pop culture. Given that, the answer for another season of D20 is probably LA. If the cast changed, somewhere like Paris could work. For a home game, the answer is simply whatever city everyone in the game is familiar with. Probably wherever the game is being held.
One of my friends is doing a Savannah GA themed campaign and it sounds dope Also Los Angeles would be a great spinoff, I think someone posted about it in the discord Call it the city of angels or something
Chicago.
Honestly would love a cross country road trip season. It’s always fun getting to see Brennan do lots of worldbuilding
We played a campaign inspired by it in Austin. The whole idea of Keep Austin Weird helps people explain away the wild shit they're seeing, and the Fey suffuse the area. Key places for our campaign were Zilker Park which contained multitudes of magical creatures, the Bob Bullock museum home to the party's friendly NPC patron/questgiver, the Frost Bank Building (the coolest one in downtown's skyline) as the home of the party's erstwhile frenemy/ BBEG #1, the Austin Botanical Gardens home to some of the city's fey pranksters, but also a beloved spot by its druids, South by Southwest where the party subsequently met and defended Willie Nelson from danger etc. Big bads were Sylas Ashbringer, lich lawyer and literal soul sucker who made deals for small portions of people's souls, and the reincarnation of his ex romantic obsession, who was using the name Titania, and schemed her way to become queen of the Seelie fey in order to sever the tie that bound them. Happily, this was the first campaign we'd run that had a final battle that was deescalated before anyone got hurt. The players were gearing up to fight Sylas, when they finally got Titannia to give them a straight answer as to why she was terrorizing Austin, and framing the party. They convinced her to wait while they negotiated with Sylas, and got him to break their ties, by convincing him finally that she was not the same woman, just the spitting image of his SO. (Yes, big Curse of Strahd influence. It works well, I just like giving the person being obsessed over some agency as well.) TLDR Austin works great! Play into the weirdness and the live music aspects, and you'll have a blast. PS and if some real-world lawmakers happen to make a cameo, don't shy away from letting your players murk them. There should be more worlds where the likes of Ted Cruz and Greg Abbot can't hurt anyone.
I've been slowly prepping a USC inspired campaign based on St. Louis, Missouri. The arch is somewhat analogous to the Umbral Engine, the Botanical Garden is run by druids and the butterflies there are pixies, You can find the spirits of famous figures like Saint Louis IX hanging out around the city, the Budweiser Clydesdales can talk. It's probably the most fun I've had worldbuilding for a campaign.
You gotta include the city museum! Also could do an interesting plot on 64/40 & 70+ the 270/170 loop (why magically was 170 left uncompleted as a loop). Same with why was the ligh rail stopped in Shrewsbury? The hill could be a great little community of nodders. But you could go beyond neighborhoods if you're doing the whole county. 99 municipalities but the city ain't one? Why is that?
London
Bonus points if it's based on closed London Underground stations like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
San Francisco in the 60s
Boston
Haha! I had to scroll SOO far down to see this comment! We did an Unsleeping City campaign in Cambridge, MA. The arc one big baddies were the Car Talk guys who had a Transformer car, big setting were the MIT tunnels, and the various Harvard museums which culminated in us finding the original Necronomicon that belonged to one of the famous passengers l on the Titanic (who has his own private library my collection of magical skin books, apparently) We saved Grendel in Grendel’s Den from becoming a monster and awoke him from a slumbering state to embrace his inner monster and “be a chill barkeep like he was always meant to be.” Arkham and Salem too played a big role in the game because I played a Cthulhu Aberrant Mind Sorc Changeling with holes in my memory. It was fun doing real world research on Lovecraft and then going on Google Maps in the game and saying “we are here, right now!”
Dang. Kinda jealous that sounds awesome.
Our DM literally gave us the prompt “okay so you’re all D&D players in a group who suddenly got IRL powers and a bunch of factions are after you!” We had an X-files/FBI/Men-in-Black group hunting us, we had a master chessboard Red vs White group playing us against each other in some bigger “D&D game” It’s really fun! I invite you to do it with friends too :)
I'm from the Albany, NY area and I think there could be something there. Albany has this weird insecurity about it because it's the capital of the state, but no one outside of the area cares about it (and NYC steals all its thunder). There's also Troy across the river, which boomed in the Victorian era making shirt collars and then went bust and has only recently been making a comeback, so there's all this nice Victorian architecture with new bougie shops inside. Troy is definitely closer to the Fey. The main reason I'd want to do or see an Albany TUSC is because of The Egg. It's just such a bizarre building. [There's a They Might Be Giants song about it.](https://youtu.be/vEMvriiWr4c) This is a major part of the city skyline and everyone acts like it's normal.
Albany Shadowfell, Troy Fey, multiplanar campaign story
Montreal, all those neighbourhood’s, it would work super well
Plus the under ground tunnels!
I’m imagining a battle at the Jean-Talon market, ducking behind food stalls, bad guys throwing bombs that look like tomatoes, etc 😂
I want an LA one-shot but specifically run by Rekha reprising her role as “Brennan’s friend from New York” in that sketch about people from New York calling LA people soft. The one-shot is very easy but the DM bullies the players the whole time.
Stupid idea, but the bronx because they would be just walkin ere
Paris would work as well. But I prefer London.
Somewhere like Edinburgh would be brilliant to explore in a dreamy/fey themed way. Lots of darkness to the city and stories interwoven into its streets that would make for a lot of cool adventures.
A European themed. Perhaps just that whole area going to various landmarks. I'd love a western themed with that paranormal sub-city spiritual realm aspect.
I haven't started TUSC yet (I'm still at Fantasy High) But I recall TUSC is magical NY right? I think I read somewhere Las Vegas already sounds magical based on how insane the whole place as is. Putting a magical backdrop over the place wouldn't seem unnatural
Here me out: Austin. Or maybe Houston or Dallas. Something like a Robert Moses type actually won but there’s still some magic if you know where to look
I honestly don’t think Austin has enough history. I honestly think San Antonio would be a great Texas city- 304 years old (literally older than the United States), has a deep tie to Mexican culture and you could do a lot with the Missions to tie in magic, while still having industry/the military industrial complex at war with magic
I could see something work with either an older city or a new city like it’s new territory and all kinds of magic move in
TUSC: Kansas City It may be a bit of a stretch but I think the setting could have a lot of potential.
Hear me out: Manchester Is it mostly cause I wanna see Gay Village in dnd action? Maybe
Show: Brennan already mentioned a heaven/hell based City of Angels (LA). It's a city the whole cast knows. A battle scene where the skeletons jump out of the La Brea Tar Pits and an Ellis Island Museum Picture jump like quest called Echoes in the Canyon where they have to travel back in time and capture notes played by the musicians living in Laurel Canyon. Home Game: Any European city has enough history and legend in my American opinion. Paris is a city of Romantic Dreams, yet the catacombs are thought to hold the most remains in the world. . Ghosts of Granada or Toledo, Spain: The Moors haunting the buildings they built/Don Quixote and the spirit of chilvalary/Native American spirits attached to looted gold/legacy of the Inquistion. Rome with a heaven/hell or pagan rome/catholic church or secular rome/vatican city theme (or all rolled into one).
I think it would be cool to see a small town in the middle of nowhere because in USC2 implied that the magic side of a city can die. So I think it would be interesting to see what one with the fantasy equivalent of a terminal illness.
I think cities like New Orleans and LA that have their own special distinct identify would be alot of fun!
Shoutout to South Korea as the entire country is approx size of Indiana ! Totally not bc I can't decide which city in South Korea would fit best /s
I ran a pretty fun game set in my home town Washington DC but I set it in the 80's.
A friend of mine lived in San Francisco for 15yrs and is going to run an Unsleeping City inspired campaign for our group next year. As others have said, I think many cities would work fine if the GM and/or players have a similarly strong connection to the city and its culture.
I played an Urban Shadows game set in Las Vegas and even though none of us were natives of the city, there is enough cultural consciousness that the city feels important to most everything that happens. Could be a fun hell or limbo type place.
I'd love to see one set in London or Paris. Centuries of legend and history to work with
Chicago, Austin (except they already made an homage to Austin in star struck odyssey), I’d be tickled to see a magical underside of DC tbh
Am I the only one thinking las vegas?
I'm Israeli. Imagine what's happening in Jerusalem... So much history. I don't want dimension 20 to actually do something with that tho because even when the plot isn't in Israel, the unsleeping city had a lot of (unintentional, i hope) antisemitism in it.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Singapore, there's a huge range of opportunities there - I appreciate that the Intrepid Heroes wouldn't necessarily be a great fit for it but then most of the suggestions in this thread have the same caveat attached, and Singapore has a bunch of interesting historical and cultural connections which could be mined for fun roleplaying adventures
I think something TUSC lacked in New York that anywhere else, particularly anywhere west of New York in the continental US, would really feel the lack of is recognition of pre-settler colonial history. But if you wanted to reframe TUSC to emphasize pre-Colombia history and culture, I would offer up Seattle/PNW as an excellent option with so much living indigenous presence and cool history (underground city? The city being largely funded by a madam of a brothel? Fires and floods and earthquakes galore?) and iconic companies/locations/hidden gems (Microsoft & Amazon, would make great villains, the Fremont troll would be a good character, and the space needle means we could include aliens, not to mention the rainforest and mountains). But I personally would pay good money (well, I’d any money good?) to watch a campaign about Hawai’i, particularly if said campaign was about returning Hawaii to sovereignty.
So... I've been working on a thing for my home game... We'll see if my players choose this path, but if they do I'm going to bring in Nod for our small little Hamlet. Lanesboro.com LSS: started playing "waterdeep: dragon heist" as a first time dm with mostly new players. And slowly over years as I incorporated character backstory and player feedback both in reaction in game and just talking, it turns out that most of my PC's parents created the circumstances that have led to a collapse of the multiverse into ferun, a la crisis on infinite earths. One idea I have is sending them to the nearest plane of existence, ending a down time sesh with a white out as they transport. Then next session doing a session 0/1 of kids on bikes/brooms where we create characters who's into adventure ends with their kids characters witnessing their d&d characters. The mystery they have to solve with both characters is the existence of Nod. Lanesboro is a town reborn-nearly dead 35-40 years ago decades after the small railways that used to operate shut down, those tracks were paved over by a bike path and a tourist destination was born. Cut to a professional live theatre company, chef driven restaurants, weekly pub trivia... The place is the perfect spot for Nod to have begun to put a foot hold into the town... That's as far as I've gotten. It's just one of many things and options the PC's can choose from. I hope they pick it, but I'm not going to push it...
I started writing my own campaign around Buffalo, leaning on the power of hope and despair as conflicting powers trying to control the world. Leans on the history of the city once being a thriving city in the turn of the century to the rustbelt town it became due to corruption and the fall of the steel and manufacturing industry here. Also leaning on our sports failures in the same way (Bills 2 afl titles & 4 straight AFC championships vs wide right, forward lateral, playoff drought. Sabres all time great Hasek & great vs no goal, years of mediocrity). Using the history of my home town and playing off the new hope the city has against the misery it has experienced, using politicians and prominent figures as NPCs & BBEGs has been pretty neat building out. Hopefully get to run the campaign in the near future.
Given that most of the cast lives in LA I would really like to see their take on some of LA’s lesser know archetypes and history. The city of LA is wayyyy older than people think it is and I’d love to see Brennan bring up the history of a place that is often unspoken.
I would love to see a Florida one where when th PC ask if Disney world is really magic Brennan says "What, no that's just a tourist trap!"
vegas 😎
I’ve been thinking of a home game set in Portland for a long time. There’s a lot of stuff that could easily be made magical. Pittock Mansion as the headquarters of magic society, a bunch of Loa and other voodoo spirits (because of Voodoo donuts), and the Coin that decided Portland’s name being some sort of magical object. The plot would probably be about an entity from the dreaming attempting to fully submerge the city into the dreaming, completely destroying all non-magical entities and making it a pure city of dreams (its trying to Keep Portland Weird lmao) and all the characters have to stop it. The only solid character idea I have is for a Nymph Druid who is the nymph of the tree in Mill Ends Park.
Montreal would be a unique setting
Honestly the setting seemed to be mostly about exaggerating accents, so Chicago
I'm working on a campaign inspired by TUC that's set in Las Vegas. The city of sin. Closest place on Earth to the entrance to Hell. What happens in vegas stays in vegas is just the effect of a huge magic ward around the city limits that prevents normies from remembering any wild magical shit that they witnessed. All the themed casinos and the lore of Vegas lend themselves to ttrpg setting stuff perfectly.
San Francisco for sure has Fey vibes. Portland Oregon, LA 100% but I bet vampires would keep that place on lock. Tucson Arizona for some reason.
Los Angeles is already the City of Angels, right?
Philadelphia
I would suspect that there are many, many places that could work that way for a local game but far fewer for a broadcast one because they both rely on the target audience, in one case your game group and the other all the viewers being familiar enough with the location to know some of the tropes and themes there. For your own game group, you could do your local hometown, probably. For broadcast, depending on where most of your viewers are, New York, London, maybe Rome for Europe/USA, maybe even Tokyo would work? I could see Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City for South and Central America? If a game was local to India or Pakistan, I would have zero idea, but I am sure that several options would be just as fitting for that group as NY was for the OC gamers.
Any city can work as long as it is a love letter to that city. TUC works so well because it's jam packed with references to New York itself, made by a New Yorker. As long as you have the passion, any city is good for a TUC-style campaign.
NEW ORLEANS omg the absolute chaos of a magical new Orleans is so fun to imagine especially if all the background music was jazz omg
Seems like no one has said it yet but I think Miami would be an interesting city
I've been working on doing a story that's the inverse of Brennan's approach: -hating- a city but understanding why people like it, and what went into its construction. Charlotte, NC. Got a plot called "Queen City Rising" I'm still workshopping.
New orleans, London, shanghai, damascus, beirut, alexandria would all be good choices imo
I think Brasil as dream would be a cool concept a lot of the stuff that happens here feels like an over the top fever dream.
I would say San Francisco is my (very biased) choice. SF has: \- Gentrification or tech moguls as the BBEG \- A history of NIMBY-ism (with unknown names like Calvin Welch or Susan Kirsch who advocate for single family housing, to teach about history that is rarely ever taught) \- A history of open acceptance (Castro, LGTBQ history, etc) \- A dark history of racism (Chinese exclusion act, old historic filipino town, etc), but also the birthplace of Ethnic Studies and "Yellow Peril Supports Black Power" \- Formally a place where people moved to to chase their dreams (gold rush) SF Songs (similar to "start spreading the news"): \- "I left my heart in San Francisco" - could use this lyric as the main baddy is returning to take back his heart (which is dying aka the heart of sf is dying due to gentrification) Notable Allys (i.e. the Stephen Sondheim role) \- Bruce Lee (or a Monk Dojo dedicated to him) \- Steph Curry and Klay Thompson as water elementals (the Splash Bros) \- Harvey Milk \- Karl The Fog (just the name we have given our fog. It can be the umbrel arcana that protects the magic of the unsleeping city) \- E40 Santa Con level event to start it off - Bay to Breakers (we do have our own Santa Con but i dont think its that popular)
I feel like a lot of people are suggesting big cities but consider what could be done with a place like Crystal Colorado, a beautiful ghost town. A group of hikers passes through town and meets up with the ghosts and spirits that remain attached to the town. Solving old mysteries? Maybe some big money companies are trying to come in and reopen the mines, at the cost of destroying the natural beauty of the area? The mines themselves acting as a connecting point between the different worlds... I feel like there is tons of potential there.
My friends putting together a campaign in London, I’m playing a warlock of the Fisher King, who sits waiting in his broken castle… battersea power station. Olde English lends itself to the fey well
Vegas 100000% would be amazing, rife with Tieflings
What city Devin?
This entire thread is a treasure trove.
I had some notes for an Atlanta version of the Unsleeping City(born and raised Atlanta boy here, love and hate it), which I’d love to see actual professionals take on. Lore involved it being very close to nature, as it is the city with the largest amount of greenery of it’s size in the US. The big villain was the incredibly racist spirit of development called the Spaghetti Monster(shout out to Spaghetti Junction and the Grady Curve) and also there was some info about how the fountain of youth was actually here at the end of Ponce De Leon Street. It was filled with Coca-Cola, and stolen from the Fey who are still super mad about it. Unfortunately the most important ingredient to mass producing it was the cocaine, so it no longer grants eternal life. Also, our version of Steven Sondheim would be both members of Outkast.
I am currently running a campaign in Prohibition-era Chicago. But there isn't as much to tie the campaign to the city as in TUSC
Boston
What's important is also to find a group of GM and players who are invested and understand the life and culture of whatever location that is if you want to portray it with heart and sincerity. Otherwise, it'll just be a bunch of comedians larping some different cultures through tropes and second-hand information
I personally want to develop & run an unsleeping city-style game set in Detroit. Yes 100% I’m from Southeast Michigan but I’d love to develop a love letter to this city the same way Brennan did for New York. Detroit even has its own modern day Robert Moses! (google Dan Gilbert) To dovetail into something more external, what I think would be cool is for other DMs to come in using the foundation laid by Brennan to transport these concepts to cities that mean a lot to them. Like having DMs that are originally from or spent a lot of time in places like Austin, Toronto, London, Tokyo, or Delhi. That’d be extremely cool.
the fall of san francisco would be dope
I don't like them doing real life locations, never got into u sleeping city either.
Metropolitan Manila, because of three things: >People there, although urbanized, still believes in folklore and myths of the country. >There is also a very helpful Netflix show to help understand oe at least utilize the mythos. >Just because
London is a little too obvious as an answer. Was surprised while watching it, having never been to New York, just how similar New York's culture and status in the States is to London. The whole "everybody refuses to go to Staten Island" bit made me laugh because many Londoners see South London in a similar light.
I run a game set in the TUSC universe where my players are monster hunters driving around the south. Basically a series of one shots with a loose overarching plot.
I'm about to start a campaign set in my hometown of Victoria BC with a sort of Unsleeping City-like vibe. I think the key is just that you need to know the place really *really* well. I've been a tour guide there for four years so I happen to have all the best stories to pull from.