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OK, I'm still workshopping the slogan; but that's why I'm here!
My players are headed to Parsool once they're done dealing with the Clockwork God, and while I think I have a handle on my A-plot, I'm gonna need plenty of flavor-text. So I'd like to take a look at what's been published about the city. Always a nice place to start.
I've got the French map of the city; once I push the legend through Google Translate I hope to have some good ideas of where to set scenes. Are there any published adventures, or other resources, that give useful info about the city? I might even be willing to shell out a few bucks...
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I'm not aware of any published material on Parsool, although I'm not up to date with the French adventures, so there may be something there - I wouldn't know.
I thought Parsool was an interesting location and did set a game there in my Lemurian campaign. In Simon's write up of the city in the core book I picked up the bit about high taxation and worked up a situation based on people's hate of paying tax causing the rise of a big smuggling gang supplying goods cheaper than the heavily taxed goods in the markets and shops.
Where did they get the duty free items from? The pirates that are attacking the merchant ships of Parsool, of course. Which is why the King is raising ever higher taxes, to pay for warships. The PCs got involved by visiting a cartographer in Parsool, during which a smuggler was murdered in the cartographer's shop. Or at least they should have got involved, but as players do they quickly sidestepped the GMs carefully laid plans and ignored the smugglers and the pirates and just sprung the cartographer from jail and got out of Dodge pronto (they needed the cartographer's knowledge to find the lost city of Mlor).
So we weren't in Parsool long, and the PCs could never return, but I worked up a good amount of detail about the city. I stressed the constant screech of gulls, and the birds voiding their bowls in flight of anyone unlucky enough to be below. The stinnk of fish guts at the fisherman's dock; the rowdy dockside taverns (where a lot of the smugglers business took place); Back from the docks there are the usual trades - chandlers, ropeworks, boat builders, shipyards, merchant warehouses and offices - as well as government bonded warehouses. The further back you get back from the docks, the nicer the taverns and houses. Obviously there was the mansions of the rich and famous, the palace, and the King's navy dock.
I drew a rough map, but I think its all gone now.
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Nice! Thanks. High taxes... hmmm. Throw that into the stewpot and see what happens.
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So, I googled Ancient World Naval Powers. Of course, the Phoenicians showed up, but apparently Carthage was the major naval power of its time. Carthage sounds more interesting, I must say. I might have to do some research. Good thing I still have more than a month!