Story / concept / setting idea
After spending my morning reading over the collaboration threads, and being a -punk fantasy writer, I thought I'd give a setting idea instead of a style idea. We need to start somewhere, yes?
High Hope, the skyport city.
The city of High Hope is, literally, a bridge.
It was built as a skyport, a bridge between two mountains, with lots of air space so that airships could dock. Most of the city depends on transport, trade, and tourism. Problem being, High Hope has difficulty expanding. New buildings have moved to the mountain tops around them, to rickety out-structures on the edges of the bridge, and even below their bridge. And visitors to High Hope often rest a day from their travels, then take the steam tram elsewhere.
They can survive. Some thrive. Some don't.
Below the bridge is a steep valley, where a river runs between the mountains. A pompous man, an old intellectual thief and mechanist by the name of Mister Gennyson, has become quite wealthy by way of installing pipes to the valley and pumping up water, then returning the (dubiously treated) sewage downriver. There is a labyrinth of pipes above and below the city of High Hope, supplying water everywhere. For a fee, of course.
There are very good districts in town, and a very small park, space being valuable as it is. There are bad sections as well. The High Hope water factory is in the center of the city, and you can find it by tracing the major water lines. There are several very nice hotels. The pious can find two churches, depending on their faith, the angelic church being the larger.
On the grubbier side of town, the houses use shutters instead of glass pane windows, and the establishments get more dubious. The Crooked Cabernet is on this side of the town, and has three subsections inside the building. The first part is a sticky bar with homemade moonshine, made in the back room in an old chipped bathtub, a brick supporting a broken clawed foot. The second part is a girly show with overdone makeup and dark lighting. The back is an opium den, sparsely furnished-- mostly musty pillows and cloth hung on the walls in a cheap imitation of luxury.
How's that for a start? Anyone want to add their own ideas to that setting?
High Hope, the skyport city.
The city of High Hope is, literally, a bridge.
It was built as a skyport, a bridge between two mountains, with lots of air space so that airships could dock. Most of the city depends on transport, trade, and tourism. Problem being, High Hope has difficulty expanding. New buildings have moved to the mountain tops around them, to rickety out-structures on the edges of the bridge, and even below their bridge. And visitors to High Hope often rest a day from their travels, then take the steam tram elsewhere.
They can survive. Some thrive. Some don't.
Below the bridge is a steep valley, where a river runs between the mountains. A pompous man, an old intellectual thief and mechanist by the name of Mister Gennyson, has become quite wealthy by way of installing pipes to the valley and pumping up water, then returning the (dubiously treated) sewage downriver. There is a labyrinth of pipes above and below the city of High Hope, supplying water everywhere. For a fee, of course.
There are very good districts in town, and a very small park, space being valuable as it is. There are bad sections as well. The High Hope water factory is in the center of the city, and you can find it by tracing the major water lines. There are several very nice hotels. The pious can find two churches, depending on their faith, the angelic church being the larger.
On the grubbier side of town, the houses use shutters instead of glass pane windows, and the establishments get more dubious. The Crooked Cabernet is on this side of the town, and has three subsections inside the building. The first part is a sticky bar with homemade moonshine, made in the back room in an old chipped bathtub, a brick supporting a broken clawed foot. The second part is a girly show with overdone makeup and dark lighting. The back is an opium den, sparsely furnished-- mostly musty pillows and cloth hung on the walls in a cheap imitation of luxury.
How's that for a start? Anyone want to add their own ideas to that setting?