Sorry guys I'm on the road right now, so I'll be out for a few more days. I've got a word notebook doc with everything broken into its proper sections. I'm not sure what I'll do with it when I'm done.
Psuedo, I'll get to you question when I get home next week.

You might find the default setting of Encounter Critical interesting.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;274841Good to see you're back mate.

Here's a set of questions to riff on:

Why would I want to set a campaign or an adventure in the Haunted Woods, as opposed to anywhere else on Metal Earth? What distinguishes it from the rest of Metal Earth, and what makes it a particularly interesting location to adventure in?

(Hooray for spring break!)
The remnant  of the city Shade located underneath the wood provides the GM with an instant dungeon local, no matter where the characters are in the wood. PCs can find an entrance virtually anywhere, or if things are slow and you need to crank things up- they can fall in through a hole, or fissure (possibly during an earthquake). The city itself is, from an exploration POV, essentially limitless. Isolated sections may or may not be cut off from the rest, or linked via teleportation pools. Other sections may provide living space for horrible monsters/undead/giant insects/robots/hidden colonies of warworms or goblins or whatever. The city is loaded with loot, but the woods and the ruins themselves are so dangerous that few people are willing to venture into them. Hazards in the forest and the city are more likely to be natural stuff like, bad weather (which is only semi natural in the ME, really) rockfalls, giant ant swarms, earthquakes, forest fires (stampeding owlbears suck). However, given the forest also is inhabitated by many intelligent creatures (and is a favorite refuge of fugitives) you could have the full range of unnatural hazards too. Also the woods crawls with the undead. The Circle council of Ssaur pays a small premium for zombie heads- a good way for a group of new adventures to earn a rep and a little coin, too.
Furthermore, the City of Ux (located on the tip of the Dragon's Foot has been silent for at least fifty years; due to the Mur, a seaward approach is virtually impossible, but the powers that be in both Ssaur and Shards are eager to know what is happening there. a party of PCs capable of making the dangerous overland trek could well name their own price. Information is the most valuable sort of treasure in the ME.

Jesus, ~1300 views? Who the fuck is reading this? Don't you guys know there's free porn on the internet? Free! Porn!

Ssaur is one of the oldest extant cities on Xurk (the north continent) It is, and has always been the main home of the Shae. the city is divided into four districts, and can only be entered from the outside from the eastern most district, The Horn. Movement between districts is highly regulated. Only Shae, Speartooth, and Grod (see post #2) are allowed to venture outside of the Horn. Humans, Beastkin and War Apes are not allowed into the city at all except for in very special circumstances. The island upon which the city is built is generally very hilly; altitude increases sharply as one moves to the west; Stairs are as common as streets in the two lower most districts. streets and stairs are absent from The Arbors and the High city both- these districts are restricted to higher caste Shae and their servants (mostly lower caste Shae). Teleportation is the main method of conveyance in these areas.

Details:
Population: 25k
20% Shae
10% Speartooth
10% Grod
10% Leafeater
40% Minotaur
10% other


Sumptuary Laws: non Shae are prohibited from living in round structures, owning magic/tech items, anything green (or made from jade), using wheeled carts, congregating in groups of twelve or more and eating Hron (see below) meat. Religion is not completely outlawed, but it is generally frowned upon by most of the city's residents from high to low- as is common all over the ME.

Districts:
The Horn
The lowermost area of the city is rundown and extremely over crowded. It contains both entrances to the cities  Agricultural caverns (referred to as the Greenshaft), and most of the residents are employed in food production. Hron (similar to mantee, but domesticated) are raised in pools located on the lowermost levels of the Greenshaft. Crime is rife here, and injustice is the norm. A huge Tyrannical Minotaur named Braxis manages the Greenshaft for his Shae masters, and subsequently rules the Horn itself.
The streets of the horn are barely more than muddy alleys winding between closely packed ramshackle building of wood. The stink is so bad the locals have given it a name: The Waft. characters who hole up in the horn for any length of time will carry the smell of it (one part bovine, one part rancid vegetable, three parts rotten fish, four parts unknown) for 3-8 days (1d6+2). Furthermore characters who have been there for over a week, will have to make perception (or equivalent) to even know that they smell that bad. entering other districts of the city smelling of the waft is against the law and will lead to a Level One reprimand (see below). entering the Haunted wood stinking of the Waft is the equivalent to offering a dinner invitation to every hungry predator within several leagues.

Market Town: Market Town is where most of the city's business takes place. Higher class. Artisans and merchants (Mostly Grod and low caste Shae) live here. The granite cobbled streets are patrolled by squads of Shae guards (try outrunning a group of guards that can perform a synchronized teleport). Market Town is an exponentially more pleasant place than the Horn. Indoor pluming is the norms and there are several (racially segregated) public baths. That said, it is far, far easier to get arrested in Market Town. The Circle (the city's ruling oligarchy) has a much firmer grip on Market Town than it foes on the Horn, and their wishes are largely carried out by the Speartooth Guard commander and high judge, Korid Firescale. However there is a thriving black market in Hron meat (especially the bacon-like Glisglis), magic/tech items and green lingerie.
There is a working Teleportation pool in a disused temple. It leads to similar pool in Shards. Some trade is carried out between the two cities utilizing the pool, but the tariff is so high that many merchants prefer the risks of using one of the thrce yearly caravans to convey their goods.

The Arbors: The Arbors is a lovely wooded residential area filled with circular clusters of Shae roundhouses. Magically Tame animals and monsters roam at will- and enforce the peace. Shae belonging to the highest seven castes (there are 24 total) live here. There are roughly thirty families total. The members of the so called "Overcaste" are selected from these families- this designation is usually based on Magical ability. Entering the Arbors without special permission will result in an instant Level three punishment.

The High City: Similar in many ways to the Arbors, The high city is the home of the Overcaste, or the Circle, the city's ruling elite. Members of this "non-caste" and their immediate families are considered to have transcended caste distinction. They display their unconcern for such things by eschewing green and living in elaborate rectilinear houses, some of which even have scandalous and decadent features such as stairs and windows. Members of the Circle are almost all powerful Magic users of one sort or another.
A huge Ziggarut juts above all the other structures in the High City. It is rumored to be older than the city itself. No one, not even members of the Circle ever talks about it.

The Law: The Horn is ruled by the law of the jungle, but in the other sections of the city it is really easy to get arrested; guard captains are authorized to pronounce sentence on the spot, and the punishments are harsh to say the least. These punishments come in three varieties:

Level 1: (social impropriety censure). If you talk to loud, smell bad, commit an act of rudeness against a Shae (or sometimes a speartooth) or are found in Market Town when you shouldn't be there you receive a level one punishment. This consists of 10 lashes, six months of penal servitude in the Greenshaft (usually involving the most dangerous work, and branding with a fool's mark (on the ass).
Level 2: (petty theft, murder of a non-Shae, unauthorized possession of contraband) Same as above, except it's a year in the Greenshaft, the brand goes on the accused's forehead, and the criminal is expelled into the wilderness at the close of the sentence, forbidden to return to Ssaur.
Level 3: (Grand theft, public drunkeness, murder or assault of a Shae or any of their agents, wearing green in public) Simply put they drop you down into the so called bottomless pit on the Isle of Solitude. No one has ever returned, so they don't bother with branding or flogging.

MORE!

Lots more.

Anyway, I may not be a bad ass artist, but I can do some stuff if you like..may be lame, but just ask

Consider yourself asked . And as poorly as i draw; you won't find me knocking anyone else's work.
And I will do more- a little every day this week, but after that it will likely to be May before I can work on it again.
Thanks for showing an interest.
And sorry, to you, and everyone else that is reading it, not being able to make the time to work on it more often.

E-mail  me some descriptions (silverlion at gmail.com merge as logic would dictate) I'll do what I can. I'm vastly better at still poses of people, robots, and the like. (Guns I can do too..for the most part.) Nowhere brilliant or anything but stuff like this:

Awesome, let me think about it for a couple of days.

Quote from: Aos;289541(Hooray for spring break!)
The remnant  of the city Shade located underneath the wood provides the GM with an instant dungeon local, no matter where the characters are in the wood. PCs can find an entrance virtually anywhere, or if things are slow and you need to crank things up- they can fall in through a hole, or fissure (possibly during an earthquake). The city itself is, from an exploration POV, essentially limitless. Isolated sections may or may not be cut off from the rest, or linked via teleportation pools. Other sections may provide living space for horrible monsters/undead/giant insects/robots/hidden colonies of warworms or goblins or whatever. The city is loaded with loot, but the woods and the ruins themselves are so dangerous that few people are willing to venture into them. Hazards in the forest and the city are more likely to be natural stuff like, bad weather (which is only semi natural in the ME, really) rockfalls, giant ant swarms, earthquakes, forest fires (stampeding owlbears suck). However, given the forest also is inhabitated by many intelligent creatures (and is a favorite refuge of fugitives) you could have the full range of unnatural hazards too. Also the woods crawls with the undead. The Circle council of Ssaur pays a small premium for zombie heads- a good way for a group of new adventures to earn a rep and a little coin, too.
Furthermore, the City of Ux (located on the tip of the Dragon's Foot has been silent for at least fifty years; due to the Mur, a seaward approach is virtually impossible, but the powers that be in both Ssaur and Shards are eager to know what is happening there. a party of PCs capable of making the dangerous overland trek could well name their own price. Information is the most valuable sort of treasure in the ME.

So it's a big dungeon that the PCs can either go adventure in, or travel through, and there's all sorts of way to get them into the dungeon even if they don't want to go in?

Handy.

Keep it up mate.