The march of empire

I've mentioned before that the setting of ATWC is loosely pegged to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which for the peoples of Central Asia were an era of imperial encroachment. Equipped with new gunpowder weaponry and a greatly improved logistical base, the Eurasian empires of the early modern period - Romanov Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Safavid Persia, Mughal India, and Qing China - were able to project force into the steppe, mountains, deserts, and taiga much more successfully than their predecessors. By the time the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 was signed, many once-impassible regions such as Azerbaijan, Sibera, Mongolia, and Afghanistan had been more-or-less carved up between them.

In ATWC, this hasn't happened yet. The steppe and taiga khanates still enjoy an uneasy independence, but every observer of current affairs can tell that change is on its way. Travel down the Great Road and you'll find foreigners everywhere: some southerners and some easterners and some westerners, but all carrying splendid-looking documents from far-off imperial courts and flanked by serious-looking men wearing strange military uniforms and carrying guns. They are always on the move, these foreigners. They study local languages. They map and survey and observe and inquire. They preach new religions, or disturbingly unfamiliar interpretations of old ones. They hold secret meetings with local princes that go on long into the night. Their horsemanship is comically terrible by steppe standards, and they possess a knack for starving to death in deserts that the locals find quite astounding, but despite these failings they carry themselves with a strange confidence. They seem convinced that the future belongs to them.

For the Tsar!

Wherever you go in the steppe khanates, or in the oasis kingdoms of the Great Road, you can bet that agents of foreign empires are there too. (They haven't made it very far into the taiga yet, but they're working on it.) Roll on the tables below to find out what they're up to.

Who is here? (Roll 1d8)

1. Merchant-adventurers, scouting out the region's goods and markets on behalf of some far-off trade consortium, watched with loathing by local traders who have operated in this area for centuries. 
2. Missionaries for some foreign faith, armed with official letters from a distant emperor, scornfully surveying the local temples.
3. Negotiators come to arrange a treaty between a nearby ruler and some distant imperial state, speaking the local language very badly and looking extremely pleased with themselves.
4. Explorers on horseback accompanied by local bearers, making notes and checking compasses, steadily filling in the blank areas on their maps.
5. Scholars affiliated with a far-off university, surveying local customs and monuments and nodding sagely to themselves. 
6. 'Archaeologists and antiquaries' (read: grave-robbers with fancy licenses), poking around in the ruins outside of town and casually asking where exactly your ancestors are buried.
7. Military advisers decked out with the very latest in modern firearms technology, offering to help the local rulers modernise their pitifully outdated cannons and fortifications in exchange for a little quid pro quo.
8. Roll again, but they're actually spies from a completely different foreign empire, here in disguise to watch over the activities of their rivals as part of some complicated game of international intrigue. 

For the Sultan!

Who leads them? (Roll 1d8)

1. Bright-eyed true believer who genuinely believes that absorption into the greater imperial polity is the best thing that could possibly happen to a benighted backwater like this one.
2. Dead-eyed veteran of the imperial war machine, whose utterly impersonal brutality makes even the most savage khans shiver.
3. Long-term field agent who went native years ago, and now identifies more with the khanate they're posted to than the distant empire they supposedly serve.
4. Embarrassing failure from a minor imperial house, sent out to the back of beyond with strict orders not to return home until they've actually accomplished something.
5. Disgraced courtier who knows full well that they've been sent out here as a punishment, and resents it bitterly.
6. Bookish academic convinced that their years of study in the archives have allowed them to understand the region much better than the people who actually live there.
7. Enterprising merchant who sees the whole region as a series of mouth-watering opportunities for economic exploitation. 
8. A member of a local ethnic group with a painstakingly acquired imperial education, who has carved out a precarious place for themselves as an intermediary between their country and the empire while feeling painfully out of place in both. 

For the Shah!

What is their true objective? (Roll 1d12)

1. To lay the groundwork for the conquest and annexation of the region by the empire they serve.
2. To change the region's culture and religion in ways that will align it with the empire.
3. To gain revenge on the descendants of the nomad warlords who terrorised their empire generations ago. 
4. To suppress the bandits and raiders based in the region, who are disrupting the empire's overland trade.
5. To gain access to the natural resources of the region and exploit them for everything they're worth. 
6. To turn the local rulers against their imperial rivals, who are also active in the region.
7. To establish new trade routes and markets for the empire's merchants and manufacturers. 
8. To bring down the local regime and replace it with one more amenable to their empire's interests.
9. To establish a military alliance with the local rulers, in the hope of securing troops to fight in some distant imperial warzone. 
10. To loot all the valuable books, treasure and antiquities they can get their hands on, on behalf of some far-off imperial archive or museum. 
11. To establish covert diplomatic ties with the Wicked City. (All the empires insist loudly that they would never bargain with a state so obviously impious, but many of them do so anyway, albeit in secret. Empires always have uses for another delivery of cut-price muskets and clockwork soldiers!)
12. Roll again, but the second roll is just a cover story: they're actually part of a rebel faction within the empire, secretly gathering allies and resources for a planned uprising. (Yes, if you also rolled an 8 on the first table, this means they're actually spies posing as rebels posing as something else. Welcome to the Great Game!)

For the Shahenshah!

How much backing do they have? (Roll 1d8)

(All imperial representatives travel with fancy letters declaring that anyone impeding their mission will face the wrath of the entire empire, but ink is cheap and armies are expensive. If push comes to shove, will anyone back home really care?)

1. Less than zero. This mission has been deliberately set up to fail, as a deniable way of getting rid of someone inconvenient. No matter what happens to it, the empire will do nothing to intervene.
2. Zero. This mission is essentially a punishment assignment for people who've made the wrong enemies. No-one in power will care if they don't make it home alive.
3. Minimal. This mission is a gamble by some minor minister or provincial governor, who would very much like it to succeed but doesn't really have the resources to properly support it. Minor levels of military and/or financial reinforcement will be sent if they are in truly desperate need.
4. Local. No-one really cares about this mission back in their distant imperial capital, but one local faction (roll 1d4 - 1 = religious group, 2 = ethnic group, 3 = political faction, 4 = merchant consortium) would like to see it succeed for private reasons of their own, and is willing to commit substantial resources to bring this about.
5. Financial. This mission is being financed by someone with extremely deep pockets, and carries letters of credit that allow them to call upon staggering amounts of money on demand. 
6. Military. This mission is being backed by someone with a lot of soldiers at their disposal, who is perfectly willing to send a whole lot of men to their deaths if it will help ensure the mission's success.
7. Covert. Although only minimally supported by its notional patrons, the mission is actually being backed by another imperial power, for nefarious reasons of its own. They are willing to offer it substantial support, but only in indirect and deniable forms. 
8. High. This mission has the full backing of the imperial government, which regards it as a strategic priority and are willing to launch large-scale military or diplomatic reprisals against anyone impeding or threatening it.

For the Son of Heaven!

Glimpses of the Wicked City: the art of the Silk Road

Art plays a major role in how we visualise other cultures. Our view of ancient Greece is heavily shaped by all those white marble statues: we'd probably think of it very differently if their paintings had survived as well. Ancient Egypt is monumental sculptures and paintings in tombs. Medieval Europe is stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and woodcuts. Victorian Britain is pre-Raphaelite paintings and sepia-tint photographs. And so on.

For most of us, if the Silk Road looks like anything at all, it's probably a nineteenth-century Orientalist painting: something by Rosati, perhaps, or Delacroix. But while some Orientalist paintings depict their subjects with skill and sympathy, an awful lot of them are just excuses for tiresomely repetitive 'naked slave-girl' scenes, and even the ones that aren't usually emphasise the qualities of the 'Orient' that their painters went out looking for: sex, passion, luxury, exoticism, and violence. They give little sense of how these people understood their own world, as people with their own lives to lead, rather than as part of the backdrop to someone else's adventure tourism - and besides, for my purposes, their period is out by roughly two hundred years.

Rosati, 'A Game of Backgammon'. If you want the slave-girl paintings you can google them yourself.

Probably the greatest representative art tradition to emerge from late medieval / early modern Central Asia was Timurid painting, especially in the form developed by the miniaturists of Herat in Afghanistan. It's a style which combined Persian and Chinese elements to depict blue-and-gold worlds of staggering beauty, which really have to be seen to be believed. (Online reproductions do them no justice at all.) Here are some examples from the reigns of the Timurid and Safavid shahs:

Now, Timurid art is wonderful - but it's very much a product of the earlier part of the early modern period, and its fascination with the sages and heroes of the past means that it tends to look back earlier still. For a sense of what Asiatic Islamic civilisation looked and felt like once modernity started to take hold - and of what life in the Silk Road kingdoms might have looked like if they hadn't been in terminal decline by the late 1600s - I look instead to seventeenth-century Ottoman and Safavid miniature paintings, especially the Rålamb Costume Book (1650s) and the works of Reza Abbasi (1565 - 1635) and Abdulcelil Levni (?-1732). Here are some figures from the Rålamb Costume Book:

These last two are executioners. The first one carries an impaling stake. The second carries a garotting cord.

Here are some by Abbasi:

And here are some by Levni:

Janissaries at a banquet. There's always one guy who can't keep his hat on...

I love the expression on this one. 'It says olive prices are down again. Fuck.'

The other visual source I keep coming back to is the sixteenth-century Tyrkervaerk of Melchior Lorck. Like the nineteenth-century Orientalists, Lorck's engravings show the Ottoman dominions through European eyes, but his perspective is completely different from theirs. The Orientalists painted from a position of assumed cultural superiority, safe in the knowledge that while the Islamic world might be excitingly dangerous to the individual traveller, it no longer posed any meaningful threat to European dominance. But Lorck's drawings of the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent reflect the strength and terror of the Ottoman Empire at its height, when it was an aggressively expansionistic imperial power which had demonstrated itself to be entirely capable of kicking the shit out of the forces of European Christendom. Here are some examples:

Lorck's Tyrkervaerk engravings are an important part of the way in which I imagine the Wicked City itself: a world dominated by strong, cruel, violent men and the weary, hollow-eyed despots who command them, full of militaristic pomp and spectacle, strong lines, sharp angles, and plumed soldiers marching through the streets in splendid uniforms while veiled figures with downcast eyes scurry into corners to avoid them.

The world of the Rålamb Costume Book is the world of the oasis kingdoms beyond, all bright colours and gorgeous fabrics and matter-of-fact violence. The world of Levni and Abbasi is the world of the rich and powerful, the merchant princes of the Great Road: a world of strong coffee and extravagant fashions, elegant youths in perfumed gardens, falconers and dancing girls, and people who really, really don't want to talk to you about exactly where all their custom-made guns and fancy clockwork machinery is coming from.

And outside that, in the steppes and the deserts and the mountains, is the blue-and-gold world of the miniaturists of Herat: a world of flowers and water, rocks and monsters, vast and strange and old and dangerous and very, very beautiful.

The taiga looks like Evenki folk art and Gennady Pavlishin illustrations.

I guess the gods and spirits of the steppe look like figures from Mongolian thangkas?

Fuck, this post is long enough already. I'm just going to hit 'publish' and have done with it.

Merchant houses of the Wicked City

Even in its decayed state, the Wicked City remains a major centre of trade in six commodities: clockwork technology, medicines and opiates, coal, guns, metalwork, and slaves. No foreign merchant likes visiting the place any more - although some of them guiltily look forward to it, as a chance to indulge in various horrible vices which the rest of the world has quite rightly forbidden - but as long as the prices stay competitive, then what are they supposed to do? Business is business, after all - and if they don't take advantage of the economic opportunities that the city offers, then their competitors certainly will.

And so the caravans continue to trek through the desert to visit the Wicked City, even though they assure the kings and holy men of their far-off homelands that they will give the place as wide a berth as possible on their long, long journey across the Great Road. They bring wine and grain, dye and coffee, cloth and silk and carpets; and they leave with bundles of guns and bales of opium and files of jerkily-marching clockwork soldiers, which they sell in distant marketplaces in order to enable the perpetuation of old and ruinous wars. When they return home again, who is to say which part of the money in their purses came from this trade, rather than from any other? The face of the Wicked King, after all, has never been stamped on any coin...

This trade is overseen (and largely controlled) by the merchant houses of the Wicked City. Before the city's decline, they were great merchant consortia, who traded across the length of the Great Road and returned with wealth to rival that of kings; and while their stature has shrunken along with that of their city, what they have lost in size and reach they have more than made up for in greed and guile. Their dilapidated mansions fill the streets around the Grand Bazaar, their rooms piled high with mouldering curios imported by their adventurous ancestors: stuffed animals from distant jungles, relics from far-off ruins, and books written in languages that no-one has spoken for a thousand years. Legendary treasures are rumoured to lie rusting in their hidden vaults, guarded by devious traps and unsleeping clockwork sentinels. Maps of half-mythical foreign kingdoms are pinned, sagging, to their stained and crumbling walls. And amidst all this decayed splendour their scions sit looking out at their soot-stained courtyards, their fingers heavy with antique rings, sipping strong coffee and clicking the beads of their abaci, calculating the profits of their trade. They know their city is corrupt, and that they live amongst evil and violence and squalor, but still - one must balance one's books, must one not?

There are dozens of such merchant houses in the Wicked City - far too many for it to be worth detailing them all individually. To generate one, use the following tables:

Primary Business (roll 1d12)

1. Exporting coal. (Will have strong connections with the city's mines.)
2. Exporting metalwork. (Will have strong connections with the city's foundries.)
3. Exporting clockwork technology. (50% chance of being Brass Folk; if they're not, they will have very good contacts in the Brass Folk community.)
4. Exporting medicines and opiates. (50% chance of being Serpent Folk; if they're not, they will have very good contacts in the Serpent Folk community.)
5. Exporting guns.
6. Importing and exporting slaves.
7. Importing silk and textiles.
8. Importing wine.
9. Importing grain.
10. Importing coffee.
11. Importing horses.
12. Importing gold, silver, and jewels.

Their mansion is... (roll 1d6)

1. Built around a single large courtyard, once bright with flowers and water, now blackened with smoke and soot.
2. Built around a series of smaller courtyards, each one opening onto the next.
3. Built like a small fort, with thick, heavy walls and narrow windows ideal for firing muskets out of.
4. A large building surrounded by lavish gardens, which are in turn surrounded by a high wall to keep the people of the city out.
5. A sprawling building containing a confusing labyrinth of rooms, connected to one another apparently at random by corridors, balconies, and staircases.
6. Built around a large central tower, in imitation of the spires of the Cobweb.

Their mansion contains... (roll 1d20 1d3 times)

1. Networks of concealed rooms and secret passages.
2. Hidden treasure vaults that even the current family don't know how to find.
3. Ingenious clockwork traps installed at strategic points to immobilise and/or kill intruders.
4. Vast networks of half-collapsed storage basements, which ultimately connect to the Maze.
5. A set of rooms which no-one goes into because everyone believes it to be haunted.
6. A staff of ancient, creaking clockwork servitors, who wordlessly serve the family in place of human servants. 
7. An exceptional menagerie of exotic animals, some of them extremely rare and dangerous.
8. An exceptional menagerie of clockwork animals, some of them extremely rare and dangerous.
9. An extraordinary collection of art from a far-off nation, collected by one of the current family's ancestors.
10. A secret room containing a miserable-looking peri in an iron cage.
11. Extensive alchemical laboratories, in which one of the the current family's ancestors sought the secret of eternal life. (1 in 6 chance that she sort-of-succeeded and is still down there, her withered body connected by dozens of metal tubes to the cumbersome alchemical apparatus which maintains it in a semblance of life.)
12. Marvellous fountains and water gardens, full of exotic fish.
13. A collection of fossilised dinosaur bones from the Cold Desert, including 1d6 complete skeletons.
14. 1d3 ravenous Storm Worms imprisoned in a hidden pit. 
15. 1d4 technically-not-quite-dead elder members of the family, their brains preserved within clockwork bodies so that they can continue to act as advisers for its business affairs.
16. An extensive collection of antique weapons and armour, drawn from many cultures.
17. Maps of a far country long believed to be entirely mythical, which the current family swear that their ancestors actually visited.
18. A small but impeccably-equipped observatory at the top of a high tower, complete with high-quality telescopes from the distant Sunset City.
19. A great library of poetical and philosophical works, written in many languages.
20. A large collection of notes, plans, and charts written by one of the previous heads of the house, relating to a never-completed expedition to investigate (and, if possible, seize and carry back) the Bronze Gods of the Frog Men.

The current head of the family is... (roll 1d12)

1. A ruthless social climber who aspires to their own tower in the Cobweb.
2. A loyal scion who dreams of restoring their family to its former glory, and is working steadily to turn that dream into a reality.
3. A scholar and a mystic, much given to abstruse philosophising while under the influence of opium.
4. Secretly a member of the Red Brotherhood, covertly channelling wealth towards resisting the wickedness of the city's government.
5. A once-ruthless merchant grown old and fearful, who now spends money lavishly on religious donations and holy relics in the hope of averting the wrath of heaven.
6. A decadent wastrel who squanders the wealth of their family in hedonistic self-indulgence.
7. A depraved cultist who worships the Wicked King in secret, and regularly purchases slaves for ritual sacrifice in a hidden shrine beneath their mansion.
8. An impractical dreamer, helplessly watching the fortunes of their family decline and longing for the better days of the past. 
9. A once-dutiful individual made reckless by desperation; they know that their family faces ruin within a few years unless some radical change occurs, and will do anything to save it.
10. Sick at heart of the cruelty of the Wicked City, and secretly planning to emigrate to somewhere less horrible while taking as much of their family and fortune with them as possible. 
11. A fearless merchant-adventurer, who has travelled through many lands and suffered many hardships, and boasts that they have seen all the wonders of the earth.  
12. A sleepless stimulant-addict, hooked on coffee and liquid brightness, who roams their mansion by night shaking and twitching, watching fearfully for some nameless threat to come creeping in from the darkness outside...

Oasis kingdoms of the Great Road

Most of the land through which the Great Road passes is extremely barren, and as such its route is determined by a continuous compromise between two absolutes: distance and water supply. No-one setting out on the arduous months-long journey from east to west, or vice versa, wants to make it any longer than it has to be: and for such travellers, the ideal route for the Road to take would be as close to a straight line as the intervening terrain permits. In practise, however, that hypothetical straight line would take you through some of the most arid regions in the world, so dry that horses and men alike would perish of dehydration if they attempted to follow it; and so the Road is forced to twist and turn, threading the oases together like beads on a string. Each oasis forms a natural choke point through which all merchants and travellers must pass, generating opportunities for toll-taking and extortion: and the larger and more isolated an oasis, the greater the potential wealth that can be extracted from the traders and caravans passing through. If he can take and hold such a location for just a few years at a stretch, even the pettiest of bandit chieftains can draw off so much gold that he will swiftly swell into a king.

These, then, are the Oasis Kingdoms: small states whose economies are based on serving and taxing the east-west traffic that passes through them. In theory, these tiny kingdoms have the power to hold mighty empires to ransom by choking off their trade; but in practise their rulers generally recognise that their prosperity depends upon the Great Road remaining a reliable artery of commerce, and limit their tolls to the merely extortionate rather than the outright prohibitive. Cut off from the outside world by hundreds of miles of desert, they are mostly left to their own devices by the distant empires whose caravans they tax, their direct conquest usually regarded as being more trouble than it's worth. (It's been tried. They usually regain their independence, de facto if not de jure, within a century at most.) But their small size and limited agricultural base means that their kings must depend upon hired mercenaries for protection, and even the strongest of them could not possibly stand up to a serious punitive expedition from one of the great empires of the east, south, or west - a fact which generally keeps the petty tyrants who rule them from getting too greedy, at least when high-status travellers and the scions of great merchant houses are concerned.

Given that a group of PCs could easily pass through a dozen or more oasis kingdoms in the course of a long enough journey down the Great Road, there's little point in trying to enumerate them all separately. Instead, the outline of a given kingdom can be generated using the following tables.

How big is the oasis? (roll 1d6)

1. Tiny. This 'kingdom' would be little more than a village if it wasn't for its strategic position.
2. Small. The kingdom consists of a single small city surrounded by a meagre amount of agricultural land. Much of its food is imported.  
3. Moderate. The kingdom consists of a single city surrounded by relatively fertile land. It is (just) self-sufficient in terms of food and basic goods, but for wealth and luxury goods it is entirely dependent upon the Great Road. 
4. Large. The kingdom consists of a large city and a few smaller towns, set in a substantial quantity of carefully irrigated farmland. Even without the Great Road, it could probably function as a petty kingdom in its own right.
5. Very large. The kingdom has multiple cities, and is a centre for trade and manufactures. Caravans would probably visit it to buy and sell in its markets even if they weren't forced to by the local geography.
6. Huge. The kingdom is actually a substantial polity with many towns and cities, containing a hundred miles or more of the Great Road within its borders. 

(NB: the traits of these cities, as opposed to the kingdom as a whole, can be generated using the tables here, replacing the 'government' section with the more detailed information below.)

How much of a chokepoint is it? (Roll 1d4)

1. There are other oases that trade could pass through; this one's just the most convenient. The kingdom's rulers are forced to keep their tolls moderate, knowing that traders will simply adopt an alternative route if the taxes get too high.
2. There's another oasis that trade could conceivably pass through, but it's either much further away or cut off by very rough terrain. The kingdom's rulers keep their tolls high, knowing that only the very desperate (or the very poor) would undertake the much harder journey involved in circumventing it.
3. There's another oasis not too far away, but it's currently inaccessible to trade due to some external factor (war, pestilence, monsters, bandit infestations, etc). The kingdom knows that this situation can't last forever, and has jacked up its tolls to well above normal levels to try to cash in on it while it lasts. The merchant houses are very interesting in resolving this problem by any means necessary, and the local government is just as interested in ensuring that their efforts to do so come to nothing. 
4. This is the only oasis for miles and miles and miles. The kingdom imposes eye-watering tolls on traders, its greed restrained only by the knowledge that if it pushes its luck too far, one day it'll find an army rather than a caravan waiting outside its gates...

Who enforces the law? (roll 1d8)

1. Steppe warriors hired from a distant khanate. Devastating horse archers. Fiercely proud of their traditions. They and the local population regard one another with mutual contempt.
2. An order of warrior monks based in a nearby monastery, run by the dominant local religion. Willing to serve the local ruler for as long as his laws favour and enrich their faith.
3. Desert bandits gone legit, bought off by the local ruler in exchange for a cut of his profits. Old habits die hard, and they still engage in occasional bouts of looting and extortion when they think they can get away with it.
4. Slave soldiers purchased in distant markets and marched off to fight for their new owners. Discipline is enforced through ruthless punishments and the promise of freedom and promotion for those who distinguish themselves. 
5. A rabble of sell-swords from a dozen nations, with nothing in common except their willingness to fight for anyone who pays them. Discipline is poor, and brawls between regiments of different ethnicities are commonplace. 
6. A highly professional company of foreign mercenaries, who know that their ability to command top rates from their employers depends upon their reputation for ruthless discipline. They live in their own barracks complex and keep themselves aloof from the local population.
7. A detachment of soldiers from a far-off empire, sent to 'assist' the local government in protecting the flow of trade. They have mostly 'gone native' and married local women, and would probably side with the locals against the empire if it came right down to it.
8. A detachment of soldiers from a far-off empire, sent to 'assist' the local government in protecting the flow of trade. Their true loyalty is still to the empire, and they would overthrow the local government overnight if their distant emperor ordered them to do so.

How easy is it to dodge the tolls? (roll 1d6)

1. Easy. The government is lax and their tax-gathering system is corrupt and inefficient. Any plan that isn't totally stupid will probably work.
2. Moderately easy. The tax-gatherers are diligent, but have no real loyalty to the government and will wave through just about anything for a big enough bribe.
3. Variable. The tax-gatherers are loyal and efficient, but they're almost all recruited from one specific religious or ethnic group and are willing to look the other way for the 'right' kind of people.
4. Variable. The tax-gatherers are loyal and efficient, but they've been heavily infiltrated by some other organisation (roll 1d3: 1 = criminal mafia, 2 = religious cult, 3 = political conspiracy), who will see to it that you don't need to pay tolls provided you can do a little favour for them in exchange...
5. Hard. The tax-gatherers are well-organised and highly-motivated. Unless you have friends in high places, you'll need to pay a small fortune in bribes to get them to look the other way.
6. Very hard. The ruler's secret police keep the local tax-gatherers in a state of perpetual paranoid terror, making them very difficult to persuade or bribe. Hide your most valuable goods inside your least valuable goods and hope for the best...

Who rules it? (Roll 1d12)

1. A bandit chief made good, trying his best to come across as more than the common brigand that he until recently was and failing pretty miserably. His children are getting expensive educations and view him as a total embarrassment. This kingdom would be a great place to sell something very expensive and very, very tasteless.
2. A dynastic king, who is only moderately cruel or greedy by the (admittedly low) standards of the oasis kingdoms.
3. A dynastic king, who is actually a wise and enlightened man, beloved by the people for his willingness to spend his tax revenue on great public works rather than pointless self-indulgence. 
4. A dynastic king with a well-earned reputation for insane paranoia and arbitrary acts of tyranny. Everyone hates him, but his mercenary soldiers will continue to enforce his edicts as long as they keep getting paid. Perhaps if someone could make them a better offer...?
5. An elderly dynastic king with many wives and many, many children, who constantly plot and scheme against each other as to who will take the throne when the old man finally dies. A skilled spy or assassin could make a quick fortune here. 
6. In theory, a dynastic king. In practise, a merchant consortium to whom he is so deeply in debt that he is little more than a puppet in their hands. (The fact that they pay the wages of his mercenaries doesn't help.) Their traders get very favourable treatment from the local courts and tax collectors, much to the fury of their rivals.
7. In theory, a dynastic king. In practise, the religious organisation of which he is a desperately devout adherent. These days his palace looks more like a temple, and he never makes a major decision without consulting his 'spiritual advisers' first. The kingdom's other religious communities are getting increasingly nervous about the situation, and fear that it's only a matter of time before they're forced to choose between conversion and exile. 
8. In theory, a dynastic king. In practise, his vizier, who makes all the real decisions while the king wastes his days cavorting with concubines and going on hunting expeditions. Fortunately for the kingdom, the vizier is a harsh but fair man who has the kingdom's best interests at heart.
9. In theory, a dynastic king. In practise, his vizier, who makes all the real decisions while the king wastes his days cavorting with concubines and going on hunting expeditions. Unfortunately for the kingdom, the vizier is a greedy and selfish man who cares only for his own enrichment.
10. A governor appointed by the distant empire which notionally rules this place, whose assignment here was essentially a punishment disguised as a promotion. He cannot stand being stuck out in the middle of the desert and is absolutely desperate to find a way back into the good graces of the far-off imperial court. A shocking proportion of his budget is wasted on importing luxury goods from his far-off homeland.
11. A governor appointed by the distant empire which notionally rules this place, who has woken up to the fact that he's far too distant from the centres of power for his superiors to exercise any meaningful control over his actions, and mostly acts like the petty tyrant that he effectively is. Vaguely planning to declare independence and found a new dynasty as soon as the time is right.
12. A khan from the great steppe, whose horsemen conquered the place years back. He's still very uncomfortable in his palace, and yearns for his yurt and the open steppe. The people still haven't come to terms with being conquered by people they consider barbarians, but if his rule endures for another few decades then his descendants will probably become a local dynasty much like any other. 

Religions of the Great Road

As I've mentioned before, one of the things that interests me about Central Asia is the diversity of its religious traditions. Judiasm and Christianity came into the region from the west, Zoroastrianism and Islam from the south, and Buddhism from the east, and all five of these religions interacted in various different ways with the Tengriist and shamanic practises indigenous to the area, giving rise to regional variants such as Tibetan Bon, Khazar Judiasm, and Nestorian Christianity. The extremely mobile nature of missionary groups and nomad communities mean that you end up with situations like nomad communities in south-west Russia professing spiritual allegiance to the Tibetan Dalai Lama (Kalmyk Buddhism), or Zoroastrian sects which were persecuted into near-oblivion in their native Iran going on to become the state religion of distant empires in the far-off Tarim Basin (Uyghur Manicheanism).

I think that trying to represent any of these directly in a non-historical D&D game would be a terrible idea; but the basic concept that this is a region where faiths from far-off empires compete and intermingle and develop into forms which would probably seem very strange to their distant (or extinct) religious authorities is one that I think has a lot of potential. Here, then, are a handy set of tables for determining the religious beliefs of any random traveller or community your PCs might happen to encounter along the length of the Great Road:

What is the religion called? (roll 1d20 on each table)

1. The Path...
2. The Way...
3. The Church...
4. The Temple...
5. The Fellowship...
6. The Adherents...
7. The Doctrine...
8. The People...
9. The Children...
10. The Disciples...
11. The Followers...
12. The Students...
13. The Order...
14. The Brotherhood...
15. The Acolytes...
16. The Apostles...
17. The Seekers...
18. The Upholders...
19. The Defenders...
20. The Soldiers...

1. ...of Holy Righteousness.
2. ...of the Seven Sages.
3. ...of the Great Revelation.
4. ...of the Divine Law.
5. ...of Heavenly Light.
6. ...of the Word of God.
7. ...of the Ultimate Truth.
8. ...of the Eightfold Glories.
9. ...of the Supreme Prophet.
10. ...of the Universal King / Queen.
11. ...of the Sun and Moon.
12. ...of the Fourteen Stars.
13. ...of Enlightenment.
14. ...of Eternity.
15. ...of the Transcendent Lord / Lady.
16. ...of the Infinite Emperor / Empress.
17. ...of the Master / Mistress of Heaven.
18. ...of the Secret Treasures of Holiness.
19. ...of the Sacred Masters.
20. ...of the Ancient Code. 

(NB: faiths whose name share the same 'of'' component are probably offshoots of the same religion, albeit possibly very distantly related ones. You have no idea how much the Children of Holy Righteousness and the Disciples of Holy Righteousness hate each other...)

Where did this religion come from originally? (roll 1d3)

1. The distant east.
2. The distant west.
3. The distant south. 

How is this religion regarded in its far-off homeland? (roll 1d6)

1. It's the state religion, and you occasionally get encouraging letters from your distant religious authorities, praising you for keeping the true faith alive in foreign lands.
2. It's a heretical variant of the state religion, and you occasionally get visited by disapproving missionaries telling you that your doctrines are riddled with errors and you should really adopt the official theological line.
3. It's a variant of the state religion which, while not strictly heretical, would seem deeply odd and unfamiliar to the official religious authorities. You occasionally get visited by missionaries who try to convert you to a religion that you already believe in, which is embarrassing for everyone involved. 
4. It's a minority sect, marginal and grudgingly tolerated. The trade networks that communities like yours have established along the Great Road play an important part in keeping the religion alive.
5. It's been outlawed, and only lives on in hiding. Religious refugees sometimes arrive in your community seeking shelter, bringing with them horrific tales of persecution. 
6. It was persecuted into oblivion and is now extinct in its homeland, living on only in communities like yours. 

What does this religion worship? (roll 1d8)

1. One god or goddess (equal chance of each). All other 'gods' are false.
2. One god or goddess (equal chance of each). Other gods are probably real too, we just don't worship them.
3. One god or goddess (equal chance of each) served by a whole host of lesser divinities, who may or may not actually just be the personified aspects of the godhead. (It's complicated.)
4. A dualistic religion with two divinities, both of which are revered equally as king or queen of one half of reality.
5. A dualistic religion with two divinities, of whom one is revered and worshipped, and the other is reviled and (when necessary) placated.
6. A full-blown polytheism which recognises dozens or hundreds of divinities.
7. A remote and abstract godhead who is best contacted through prayers directed to the deified saints and prophets of the past. 
8. In theory, it doesn't really 'worship' anything: it just conveys the moral, mystical, and philosophical teachings of its founders. In practise, most of its followers worship its founders as though they were divinities.

What are this religion's core beliefs? (roll 1d20 1d4 times)

1. That all the world's problems are due to the failure of the people to follow the Divine Law.
2. That this world is a place in which we are spiritually and morally tested, to determine our fitness for heaven.
3. That if only the Reign of the Faithful could be instituted everywhere, then everything would be perfect!
4. That we are being justly punished for the sins of our ancestors.
5. That we just have to keep the faith until the prophecies are fulfilled. 
6. That the material world is an illusion, and we must learn to transcend it.
7. That we will be rewarded with wealth and power and empire if we obey the will of heaven,
8. That this world is ruled by the powers of evil, and we must keep ourselves as pure and separate from its wickedness as possible.
9. That worldly pleasures are sinful and asceticism is the path to holiness.
10. That we must be kind to the unfortunate.
11. That we must punish the sinful.
12. That only those who follow our specific creed can possibly be saved.
13. That all sin really comes from ignorance.
14. That sin weighs down the soul, keeping it trapped within material reality.
15. That we must destroy the enemies of our faith by any means necessary.
16. That the correct performance of the sacred rituals and liturgies is of the utmost importance.
17. That we must behave with scrupulous fairness and justice in all matters.
18. That we must respect the social order, which represents the will of heaven.
19. That we should treat all people as equals, regardless of social divisions.
20. That the End of Days is upon us, and we must prepare ourselves for the final battle of good and evil! 

What are this religion's social institutions? (roll 1d20 1d4 times)

1. Every faithful household maintains a small family shrine within its dwelling-place.
2. The faith's most devout members are encouraged to become monks or nuns, who lead lives of celibate asceticism.
3. The faith maintains a complex ritual calendar, which the faithful are expected to observe exactly.
4. The faith is built around the teachings contained in its holy book, and the faithful are expected to memorise as much of it as possible.
5. Due to the syncretic fusion of its teachings with the shamanic traditions of the area, the faith is actually mostly concerned with the management of troublesome spirits.
6. Devout followers of the faith are encouraged to undertake pilgrimages to sacred sites in its distant homeland whenever possible.
7. The faith prizes education, and its members often become doctors, lawyers, or scholars.
8. The faith prizes military achievements, and its members are famous warriors.
9. The faith practises ancestor worship, and requires its members to show proper reverence to the spirits and graves of their ancestors.
10. The faith places a strong emphasis on the practise of silent meditation. Its holiest ceremonies are very quiet and very serious.
11. The faith places a strong emphasis on the practise of ecstatic prayer. Its holiest ceremonies are loud and exuberant affairs, full of people singing, dancing, falling into trances, and speaking in tongues.
12. The faith has exacting ritual purity requirements, which its followers are expected to observe scrupulously (although many of them don't). 
13. The religious life of the faith is built around a handful of large temple-monasteries, where all religious and ceremonial activities are concentrated.
14. The faith is radically decentralised, with small community congregations gathered in local shrines serving as the main centres of religious life.
15. The faith places a strong emphasis on the importance of public charity, and its wealthier members are expected to make ostentatious displays of generosity.
16. The faith features a strong cult of the saints, with prayers believed to be much more efficacious if they are uttered within shrines in which holy men and women are buried.
17. The faith strongly encourages its followers to fatalistically resign themselves to the will of heaven. 
18. The faith strongly encourages its followers to actively strive to make the world a better and holier place.
19. The faith includes strong elements of folk magic, with the faithful encouraged to wear charms and talismans for good luck and to utter hymns and incantations to protect themselves from evil.
20. The faith includes a strong esoteric element; its teachings are revealed to the faithful step by step as they rise through the levels of initiation, and are never supposed to be shared with outsiders at all. 

(NB: If a religion is regarded as heretical in its distant homeland, it's usually because it has the same social institutions but differs in one or more core beliefs. If it's regarded as orthodox but odd, it's usually because it has the same core beliefs but differs in one or more social institutions!)

d100 Strange Encounters on the Silk Road - an homage to Elfmaids and Octopi

if this was actually written by Chris Tamm it would have been better

just imagine its all in white text on a black background

writing these is much harder than it looks

d100 Strange Encounters on the Silk Road

1. Mercenaries looking for work or opportunities for casual robbery
2. Bounty hunters asking passers-by if they've seen a wanted criminal
3. Merchants with pack mules carrying boring cargo to conceal illegal contraband goods within
4. Merchant with 2d6 guards one of them is a wanted criminal on the run from bounty hunters
5. Merchant with 3d6 guards one of them is an evil spirit in disguise
6. Missionaries preaching strange new faith to anyone who will listen
7. Missionaries escorting wonder-working relic to newly-established temple
8. Inquisitor travelling with squad of enforcers to purge heretical opinions which have sprung up among new converts in the region
9. Two groups of rival missionaries arguing about religion, debate will soon erupt into open violence, bystanders making bets on outcome
10. Warband of steppe nomads looting anything valuable
11. Military unit en route to deliver reprisals against nearby nomads for recent raids
12. Mercenary band trying to recruit more manpower for latest war against the steppe nomads
13. Local guide offers to reveal a 'shortcut' - actually working with local bandits
14. Bandit gang waiting to ambush passing caravans
15. Bandit gang attacks under cover of magical darkness
16. Bandit gang actually evil spirits in disguise
17. Bandit gang actually mad cultists looking for sacrifices
18. Bandit gang actually cannibal clan looking for dinner
19. 1d6 prisoners just escaped from bandit gang, weak and starving, bandits are chasing them and will arrive after 1d4 hours
20. Evil spirit pretending to be wandering holy man, tries to lead people astray with false teachings
21. Wandering philosopher teaches wisdom when not totally drunk
22. Wandering martial artists seek to test their skills in combat
23. Wandering martial arts master seeks further enlightenment
24. 1d6 Taoist alchemists looking for secret of immortality
25. High-status courtesan en route to distant city with guards, servants, eunuchs
26. Troupe of dancers (equal chance of girls or boys) on their way to perform at a religious festival
27. Weird creepy mystic asks unsettling questions, talks to human skull
28. Scary ascetics demand that you renounce the pleasures of the flesh
29. Travelling musicians and acrobats put on spectacular performances to provide cover for thieves working the audience
30. Merchant trying to transport cargo of fresh exotic fruit to nearby despot before it goes off, running out of time and getting frantic
31. Soldiers working for local despot shaking down travellers in the name of 'collecting tolls'
32. Rival holy men compete with one another to perform ascetic feats, won't stop until somebody gives up or dies
33. Travelling menagerie of exotic animals - not all of them have yet been properly tamed
34. Foreign magician travelling in search of arcane wisdom with guards, slaves, apprentices, views everyone else with contempt
35. Travelling merchants actually spies for distant foreign power
36. Travelling merchants actually creepy cultists on their way to unholy hidden temple
37. Travelling merchants actually ghosts of merchants murdered by bandits, true nature only revealed after dark
38. Travelling gamblers looking for easy marks
39. Group of escaped slaves on epic journey back to their distant homeland, constantly looking over their shoulders
40. Astronomer on his way to far-off observatory from which he hopes to observe upcoming eclipse, hopefully gaining cosmic powers in the process
41. Explorers en route to lost city
42. Treasure hunters returning from lost city, covered in injuries, selling ancient treasures at knock-down prices, 50% chance that anything they sell bears some kind of horrible curse
43. Travelling scholar actually immortal being recently released from lost city by incautious treasure hunters, seeking to learn about the world as a prelude to rebuilding its lost empire
44. High-status noblewoman being escorted by guards and slaves for arranged marriage to a far-off prince, she is rebellious and will run off if given a chance
45. Band of grizzled war veterans heading home at last, carrying the cremated remains of their dead comrades
46. Band of grizzled war veterans too damaged to return to civilian life now looking for a new war to fight in
47. Traveller from distant land taking notes and drawing maps, keeps talking about how he's going to write a book about his travels and it will make him rich and famous
48. Holy warriors searching for hidden temple of evil powers hoping to destroy it
49. Foreign scholars seeking knowledge, will pay huge sums for valuable books and literary works
50. Band of adventurers with weird captive monster in cage looking for someone to sell it to
51. Drug dealers selling strange and potent opiates
52. Master weaponsmith en route to distant city to forge a ceremonial sword for its king
53. Messenger carrying message of vital importance riding as fast as possible, accompanied by 1d10 horses which he is systematically riding to death one at a time in his haste to get his message to its destination
54. Diplomats travelling to a far-off kingdom in the hope of settling a trade dispute
55. Diplomats travelling to a far-off kingdom in the hope of preventing a war
56. Diplomats travelling to a far-off kingdom in the hope of finding allies for a war their country is already engaged in
57. Diplomats travelling to a far-off kingdom, carrying flattering portraits of their king in the hope of arranging an advantageous royal marriage
58. Diplomats travelling to a far-off kingdom to discuss boring treaty, actually have secret orders to try to start a war by insulting everyone
59. Exiled conspirators fleeing failed coup in far-off city
60. Criminals on the run from the law
61. Lawmen from nearby city in pursuit of criminals, desperate to catch them before they cross the border into another kingdom
62. Bored aristocratic hedonist looking for new pleasures to excite him
63. Travelling exorcist offers to remove curses and drive out evil spirits for the right price
64. Pilgrims travelling to distant shrine
65. Pilgrims actually bandits in disguise
66. Pilgrims actually disguised warriors from a rival sect, plan to murder everyone at the shrine as soon as they arrive
67. Pilgrims actually benevolent spirits, will bless those who give them alms and treat them kindly
68. Travelling healer on their way to heal a sick princess whose father has offered a fortune to anyone who can save her
69. Travelling healer actually master poisoner, looking for freelance work
70. Political radicals with dangerous ideas talk wildly about revolution to anyone who will listen
71. Travelling musician actually badass hero travelling incognito, will butcher anyone who harms the innocent while she is nearby
72. Team of engineers lead slaves dragging prototype war machine en route for battlefield testing in a distant warzone
73. Ragged prophet rants about coming doom
74. Band of refugees fleeing religious persecution, carrying their most sacred scriptures and relics with them
75. Band of refugees fleeing war in nearby kingdom, carts heaped high with all their earthly possessions
76. Wandering poet looking for inspiration
77. Seller of curios offers strange treasures for sale, some of them even do what she says they do
78. Travelling fortune teller offers to foretell your fate
79. Dispossessed nobleman makes fantastical promises of wealth and power to anyone who will join him in a suicidal attempt to retake his home city from the unstoppable steppe warlord who has conquered it
80. Man possessed by demons yells obscene gibberish, everyone avoids him
81. Would-be revolutionaries travelling to distant city where they will try to assassinate the reigning king
82. Travelling merchants wearing full-face veils, actually weird inhuman creatures from the deep desert bearing a freakish cargo
83. Travelling merchants bearing cargo of glassware, very valuable and very fragile, freak out if anyone even looks like they might bump into anything
84. Servants of foreign wizard en route to distant city where they hope to buy certain rare components he needs for his arcane rituals
85. Funerary procession bearing the corpse of a foreign dignitary home so that he can be buried in his family tomb complex, where they will then commit suicide so that they can continue to serve him in the afterlife
86. Hero riding enchanted fire-breathing horse, no-one else can ride it
87. Steppe shaman on vision quest communing with the spirits of the land and wind
88. Unscrupulous slavers travelling with human cargo, not above snatching travellers if they think they're unlikely to be missed
89. Wonder-working artificer on mechanical steed, surrounded by a singing cloud of mechanical songbirds
90. Repentant ex-bandit offers to accompany travellers and protect them from the dangers of the road as penance for his past sins
91. Young man seeking to accomplish deeds of valour in order to impress his beloved
92. Young lovers on the run, vengeful parents are 1d6 days behind them but gaining steadily
93. Invisible spirits persecute travellers and make life miserable for everyone
94. Group of steppe nomads en route to major tournament where they will display their skills in wrestling, archery, and horsemanship
95. Bloodthirsty ghosts try to lure travellers off the path and kill them in the same place where they were killed
96. Bankrupted merchant has invested everything in one last cargo, totally reckless, willing to take any kind of risk provided it offers a slim chance of turning a profit
97. Travelling students en route to distant university where they hope to study with a famous scholar, offer impromptu classes to other travellers in order to cover their expenses
98. Travelling architect with plans for a temple that came to them in a dream, going from city to city looking for a king rich and/or mad enough to commission them to actually build it
99. Holy man travelling with mostly-repentant cannibal giant whom he has converted, giant is sincere in his desire to swear off the eating of human flesh but still has occasional relapses
100. Wandering band of weird inhuman creatures, sad and homeless, talk longingly of the glory days of their now-forgotten pre-human civilisation and ask people to pray for them

Ruins of the Great Road

The length of the Great Road is dotted with cities, but it is also littered with ruins. The road itself is vastly older, and more resilient, than the kingdoms through which it runs. Nations rise and nations fall: but the hunger of the east for the goods of the west, and of the west for the goods of the east, is a constant which transcends the vagaries and contingencies of history.

Anyone who travels for any length of time along the Great Road will soon get used to the sight of ruins: fallen towers, abandoned temples, shattered fortresses, long-neglected monuments, cities choked with the desert sands. The traders use them as landmarks by which to calculate their progress. Most of the ones closest to the Great Road itself are harmless, picked clean long ago by generations of treasure-seekers; but the further one goes from the beaten track the less likely this is to be the case, and that fallen observatory on a hill ten miles south of the road may have been left virtually untouched since the day of its abandonment. Brave and/or foolhardy young men who travel with the caravans of the Great Road, tiring of the endless monotony of the journey, sometimes decide to enliven their trips by doing a little treasure-hunting and ruin-delving on the side. Sometimes they come back rich. Sometimes they don't come back at all.

They are, in other words, an easy excuse to add a bit of small-scale dungeon-crawling to an overland adventure. With the aid of these tables, it should be possible to throw together a vaguely plausible-seeming ruin in a matter of minutes!

What Was This Place Originally? (Roll 1d10)

1. Market Town
2. Manufacturing Town
3. Caravanserai
4. Watchtower
5. Small Fort
6. Large Castle
7. Temple
8. Monastery 
9. Observatory
10. Necropolis

What Happened To It? (Roll 1d12)

1. Plundered by steppe nomads, its population killed, enslaved, or fled.
2. The wells dried up, and it became uninhabitable.
3. Wrecked by a major earthquake and the fires that followed it, survivors left rather than trying to rebuild.
4. Abandoned due to constant raiding from desert-dwelling bandits.
5. Fell under an ancient curse.
6. Abandoned during severe famine, survivors never returned.
7. Orders came from far-off imperial capital that it was to be abandoned, no reason given.
8. Plague killed almost everyone, survivors fled into the wilderness.
9. Destroyed in the fighting between two rival kingdoms.
10. Inhabitants joined new religious cult and abandoned the homes and shrines of their ancestors.
11. No-one knows: inhabitants just seem to have vanished overnight.
12. Inhabitants rounded up by slavers and dragged off in chains to be sold in the Wicked City.

What Lives There Now? (Roll 1d12)

1. Ghosts.
2. Vagrants and scavengers.
3. Lepers.
4. A small colony of Blighted individuals.
5. Bandits.
6. Skull-Wearers
7. Pig-men.
8. A nest of Brass-Snout Rats.
9. A degenerate clan led by a Dahakan.
10. Malfunctioning clockwork robots.
11. Gigantic serpents.
12. A band of Brigands of the Noonday Dark.

Notable Environmental Features (Roll 1d12)

1. Infested with clockroaches.
2. Partially flooded.
3. Seriously structurally unsound.
4. 50% of nearby water sources are impure and poisonous.
5. Full of wild songbirds.
6. Covered with ancient graffiti.
7. Littered with ancient machinery, rusted and dangerous.
8. Protected by hidden traps.
9. Overgrown with spectacular wildflowers.
10. Half-buried by the desert sands.
11. Voices can be heard singing or whispering in ancient tongues, but the rooms they seem to come from always turn out to be empty.
12. Home to a nest of cute furry animals, easily trapped for use as pets or snacks. 

What Treasures Does It Hold? (Roll 1d20)

1. A hidden cache of lapis lazuli jewellery.
2. Ancient clockwork machinery, too damaged to be repaired but still valuable as spare parts.
3. Cute little clockwork automata, repairable with a bit of work.
4. A horde of silver coins from many different kingdoms.
5. A mostly-functional suit of Steam Knight armour.
6. Ancient manuscripts, worth a small fortune to scholars.
7. Ornate, man-sized bronze statues, beautiful but not easily portable.
8. Religious relics, potentially valuable if sold to the right sect.
9. A well-padded crate containing glassware from the distant Sunset City.
10. An assortment of ancient potions in sealed vials. What do they do? Only one way to find out!
11. A book of abstruse alchemical formulae written by some long-dead disciple of the Sage of Gold.
12. A beautiful pair of jewelled, bladed fans, for which any Jewelled Fan Dancer or Murder Harlot would pay handsomely.
13. A three-legged Bronze Horse.
14. A golden icon of the Scarab Queen. Her worshippers would probably like to get it back.
15. A crate full of raw opium.
16. Beautiful but broken ceramics from the far east, potentially repairable with the aid of a steady hand and a lot of patience.
17. An old musket whose butt is made from fantastically-carved ivory.
18. A jewelled pocket-watch.
19. The carefully-preserved heads of 1d6 Brass Men, whose brains would reactivate if only someone were to wind them up.
20. Roll again, except the treasure in question is haunted and/or cursed.

Cities of the Great Road

Khan's palace, Kokand, Uzbekistan.

There are dozens of cities strung out along the four-thousand-mile length of the Great Road, and most of them really don't need to be developed in any detail because they exist as places to be passed through: their economies are built around the fact that, every year, thousands of people flow through them on the way to somewhere else. The expectation of their inhabitants and rulers is that each party of travellers will stumble in through the gates exhausted from some epic journey; that they will sleep for a couple of days, buy or sell their goods in the marketplace, spend a day or so sight-seeing, and then leave, perhaps to return the following year heading back in the opposite direction. As a result, they tend to be show-piece cities: each of them has a great marketplace, a street of inns and hostelries for travellers to sleep in, a few really impressive architectural set-pieces (palaces, temples, grand squares), and that's about it. People who stay in them for months or years instead of days or weeks are likely to run out of things to do pretty damn fast; but at least there's always a steady flow of interesting strangers staggering in through the gates...

The consequence of this is that the deep character of each city is usually going to be fairly irrelevant: what counts is the way it bursts upon the eye of the new arrival, because that's what the PCs are likely to be. I've thus assembled a set of simple random tables, which should allow a GM to throw together a given City of the Road in a couple of minutes. Of course, there will be more to the city that this: but the tables will reveal how the city is likely to appear to the casual visitor, which is all that the PCs will ever be for most of them.

Overall Character (roll 1d8)

1. Gleaming and prosperous
2. Gloomy and oppressive
3. Tumbledown and ruinous
4. Stunningly beautiful
5. Sensual and seductive
6. Bustling and cosmopolitan
7. A shadow of its former glory
8. Sinister and cruel

A Great Centre For Trade in... (roll 1d20)

1. Printed books
2. Porcelain
3. Fur
4. Opium and other drugs
5. Clockwork marvels
6. Weapons and Armour
7. Wine
8. Carpets
9. Silk
10. Spices
11. Tea
12. Coffee
13. Horses
14. Slaves
15. Textiles
16. Glassware
17. Gold
18. Silver
19. Jewels
20. Guns.

Minaret in Khiva, Uzbekistan.

Biggest Tourist Attraction (roll 1d10)

1. The spectacular palace of the city's ruler(s).
2. An ancient temple to a now-forgotten god, repurposed to serve the city's current religion(s).
3. A sacred relic, believed to have healing properties, which the sick and the faithful undertake great pilgrimages in order to visit.
4. The city's vast fortifications, built to protect it in some bygone age of colossal violence.
5. A great library, which holds many unique manuscripts.
6. An famous guild of ingenious clockworkers, full of mechanical marvels.
7. An ancient university, where many famous sages once taught and debated.
8. A great and beautiful shrine to the god(s) of the city.
9. The lush and flower-filled water gardens, a famous meeting place for lovers.
10. The rusting remains of an ancient God Soldier, whose giant metal body has been converted into an oddly-shaped but extremely secure fort. 

Government (roll 1d6)

1. Ruled by a local monarchy.
2. A local governor rules the city on behalf of some distant imperial capital.
3. Oligarchy.
4. Theocracy.
5. Brutal despotism.
6. Conquered 1d6 generations ago by a nomadic warlord from the steppes, whose family are currently in the process of being assimilated into the aristocracy. (The less time ago it was, the more of their nomad culture they retain.)

Zoroastrian fire temple, Azerbaijan.

Religion (roll 1d8)

1. A variety of local gods, unheard-of elsewhere.
2. A major world religion, whose religious centre is located in some distant empire.
3. A once-great religion, driven to near-extinction elsewhere by persecution, which still endures in this city as the state religion.
4. A heretical version of a major world religion, which in its original homeland was long ago persecuted into oblivion.
5. A cosmopolitan mixture of different faith groups, each worshipping their own gods.
6. An unique syncretic fusion of several major world religions, which would probably be regarded as heretical by the religious authorities of all of them. 
7. The ancestor-heroes and nature-spirits of the steppe tribes who conquered the place 1d6 generations ago.
8. The Way of Solar Righteousness.

Unique Feature (roll 1d20)

1. Bubbling with barely-controlled civic tensions. (If these are not somehow controlled or suppressed, a revolution or civil war will break out in 1d10 years time.) 
2. Plagued by highly-organised gangs of thieves.
3. Weird ruins just outside town are said to be haunted.
4. Home to a large population of serpent folk.
5. Major centre for airship construction.
6. Protected by a giant clockwork lion, although this is only wound up for battles and parades.
7. Site of an important school of Jewelled Fan Dancers. Murder Harlots will be run out of town.
8. Ghetto of Blighted outside town.
9. Has a huge ceremonial necropolis. The wealthy and powerful compete to built themselves the most extravagant graves in the most fashionable areas of the cemetery. 
10. Famous for its spectacular public festivals, held at the spring and autumn equinoxes. 
11. Famous for its doctors.
12. Famous for its poets.
13. Famous for its artists.
14. Famous for the rudeness of the people.
15. Famous for the beauty of its women.
16. Famous for the beauty of its men.
17. Famous for the unhealthiness of its climate.
18. Famous for the quality of its cheese.
19. Prone to earthquakes.
20. Government has been infiltrated on all levels by spies loyal to the Wicked City.