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It has been about a month since Eruvian quietly launched in Beta and we've had lots and lots of exciting things take place. Be assured there's plenty more in the works, some we can't yet discuss, but at the center of it all are our users.

You guys are what make Eruvian tick, and even more important than the growth of our numbers is developing the sense of community that's just beginning to take form. Eruvianites are scuttling off in groups to work on new settings and new content that will be revealed when the time is right. Users are offering feedback in the form of ratings and reviews like never before. And volunteers like gamerprinter and Queenfange have stepped up to help with site design and newsletter content respectively (whoohoo!).

This newsletter is intended to support the development of our community. For those who are occasional visitors to the site, this newsletter is intended to be your surgical tool for finding the best and most usable content, the most insightful ways to use Eruvian, and as a means of keeping you informed as to the happenings on the site. Of course, your feedback is critical to improving both the newsletter and the site, so please drop me a line with any input...and I hope you enjoy this first issue of The Erudite Eruvianite!

The design of a realistic, rich town, city, or other settlement which captures the PCs' attention requires a fair amount of thought ahead of time. However, this process need not be tedious; to the contrary, it can be one of the most rewarding aspects of GMing. While below I attempt to present the process in a structured order, I often skip around in my city creation, choosing one or two things I'd like to incorporate and building the rest around that. What is presented below is just a foundation, as it would be impossible to address all city details in a single article.

Based on what I would like the town's purpose to be, I choose the basics - size, primary race(s), and location. In most regions of the world, I try to make at least one city that could serve as a sort of home base for the adventurers. For such cities, I make the population large city or metropolis sized and in a central location easily accessible from most of the surrounding lands. This also logically makes sense - easy access to trade routes will allow a settlement to flourish.

However, no city will survive without a viable means of supporting itself. A few cities can survive simply through the sheer volume of trade, but even so, they need a source of fresh water and a constant input of food, fuel, building materials, and everyday tools from the surrounding lands. Detail on production, imports, and exports is certainly not necessary, but really adds to the verisimilitude. A basic asset or two that explains the settlement's survival, though, is vital. The default farming town is quite simple to explain, but a city inside a swamp or at the top of an icy mountain requires either a plentiful source of food other than grain (which in a fantastic setting could even be the surrounding monsters) or else a valuable resource they can trade for food. An underground dwarf city, to give a simple example, might trade iron ore, steel, and high-quality weapons for grain and beef with its farming human neighbors.

Government is the next factor to address, as resources and environment can factor heavily into its style and influence all else about the city that follows. A trading city suggests a merchant oligarchy or an outright plutocracy. A strong middle class thanks to a demand for skilled workers suggests a less authoritarian government and more freedom. Still, it's perfectly reasonable to make an arbitrary decision on government and then tie back other factors to justify it, as one can do with nearly any aspect of the city.

Read the rest of this article and share your thoughts at Eruvian.com....

Yep, you read it right...thanks to our friends at Dundjinni all registered Eruvian.com users will receive 10% off all Dundjinni products - including art packs - for the next two weeks! To activate the discount, enter "eruvian" in the Discount Code field during checkout. Oh, and feel free to forward this deal on...!

(BTW, I just used the code myself to buy Dundjinni - I plan on trying it out and submitting some maps in the not-too-distant future. Sadly, I'm not eligible to win the prize in the upcoming Dundjinni mapmaking contest, but those interested in doing so should get their hands on a copy of Dundjinni ASAP! - Eru)

Did you know that Eruvian allows two files for every map? One file, called the Map Image File, is a snapshot of the map for display on the website. This image file should probably be a JPG or PNG file - my preference is PNG - and should be no more than 600 pixels wide. In any case, the file should be kept small enough so that it isn't a burden for users to download - most maps currently on the site are 75K or less.

The other type of file is the actual source file for the map, the file that is used for viewing detail as well as for printing. In most cases this will be the source file from the mapmaking software - Dundjinni, Campaign Cartographer, Fractal Mapper, Inkscape, etc. However, it may also simply be a larger version of the image file, a very large, very detailed JPG or PNG. In any case it should be high-enough resolution that useable printouts can be made, that all text can be clearly read, and that all symbols can be clearly made out. At the same time care should be taken that the file size doesn't become so large that it is burdensome for users to download (or for its creator to upload!).

Dundjinni is sponsoring a soon-to-be announced mapmaking contest on Eruvian.com. As someone who has opted in to receive the Eruvian newsletter, you're getting the inside scoop before it goes to press.

While final terms have yet to be posted, here's what you can expect:

• A prize (to be revealed in the announcement) will be given to the author of the best map submitted to Eruvian.com made using only Dundjinni and its base art (no art packs or other software may be used).
• Submissions must be part of the creation of a locale, or any other component, in any setting or the Repository, which must be published - and thus visible to the world - before October 31st, 2007.
• Judging will be performed by the Eruvian team, but all community ratings and reviews of the maps will definitely be read and considered.
• In the event that an unexpectedly large number of submissions are received, additional prizes may be offered at the sole discretion of Dundjinni and Eruvian.com. Numerous early submissions will likely help this possibility become a reality, so don't wait until the last minute!

So, if you've used Dundjinni before, dust off your best maps and submit them to Eruvian.com. Or, if you're new to Dundjinni, be sure to take advantage of the 10% Off for Eruvianites deal that is available for the next two weeks. Many thanks to our friends at Dundjinni for sponsoring this contest!

by Jürgen Hubert

Urbis is a new fantasy setting currently being developed for the d20 System. There are few new rules you have to learn to use this setting; indeed, great care was being taken to add as few new rules to the Core Rules as possible to make entry easier. Where Urbis differs from other d20 fantasy settings is not in the rules, but in the scope of the setting.

Urbis is Urban Fantasy

As the name implies, cities are central to Urbis. Gone are the quaint market towns of other fantasy worlds - these belong to an earlier, feudal age. Instead, the world is divided into a multitude of city-states with populations ranging into hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people! While there are plenty of wilderness and frontiers left in the world, these are not the main focus of this setting. There are plenty of things to do in the cities, from hunting monsters in the sewers, getting caught up in struggles between crime families, fighting for social justice for the downtrodden masses, to high-stakes games of diplomacy and intrigues between the rich and powerful of the cities.

Urbis is a Magical Industrial World

While most d20 fantasy worlds draw their inspiration from the Feudal Age or Renaissance of our world - or even earlier periods - Urbis is heavily inspired by the time of the European Industrial revolution - the time when cities came into their own. On the one hand, it was a time of wonder - of scientific and technological prowess, and it seemed that there was nothing that humanity couldn't do. On the other hand, it also saw the rise of the urban poor - of masses of desperate people huddled together in ramshackle apartments who had not only to work themselves to near-death, but also had to send their underage children to the same factories to keep their families from starvation.

The Nexus Towers, the iconic image of Urbis, represent both of these extremes. On the one hand, they promise near-limitless magical energies to those who control them, and thus make the vast cities with all their splendor and magics possible. On the other hand, they drag upon the very life of all those who live nearby, thus also becoming the Satanic Mills that many people imagined the early factories in our world to be.

Urbis is Realistic High Fantasy

At first glance, this seems to be a contradiction in terms. After all, "realism" and "fantasy" do not often come together. What this means in the context of Urbis is that for all the magical trappings of the setting there is an inherent logic to it. Fireball and other spells have radically altered the face of the battlefield. No longer is a battle fought with tight infantry formations that just ask to be killed by area-effect spells. Instead small groups of warriors try to sneak into enemy territory so that they can take out key installations or people before the other side notices. Raise dead has a real effect on the social structure of the setting - the rich and powerful are unlikely to die permanently of anything except old age. And all those monsters that look like they couldn't have possibly evolved in an Earth-like environment... well, they didn't. Most of them were brought to this world from other planets.

To sum it up, nothing in here exists in isolation from the rest of the setting. Everything affects the rest of society in some big or small way, or at least has the potential to do so - if the player characters bring it to light.

Urbis needs Heroes

While the cities seem calm and civilized on the surface, below it are intrigue, social unrest, and hidden wars that could turn into open bloodshed at any moment. As the cities grow ever larger and the differences between rich and poor more pronounced, some sort of radical transformation or even outright revolution becomes more and more likely.

Something has got to give. The only question is: In what direction will you push it?